Creativity Or Bust! How Pressure Unlocks Greatness And Makes You A Better Writer
What do you do when you are given 30-minutes to write an article, a headline, edit, and find a picture which supports your topic?
Some writers dig deep into their creative psyche, churning out epic works under the time constraints of the Pomodoro Method, comprised of five steps to greatness.
If you’re interested in putting your brain to the test, here’s how the method created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s, works:
- Decide on your task to be completed.
- Set your timer for 25-minutes and work fully focused until timer dings.
- Take a 5-minute break. Repeat sequence #’s 1–3 up to four times through if you are not complete after the first round.
- After your fourth round, take a full 15-30 minute break after the break listed in #3.
The theory is that the human mind cannot focus fully on a task for longer than 30 to 33 minutes, the Pomodoro Method breaks it down into 25-minutes of work and 5-minutes of rest, ideally putting you right back into your hyper-focused state.
Some writers free write. It’s exactly as it sounds and can produce fantastic works of art. Here’s how you do it — you sit down with your pen and paper, or in front of the blank computer screen, and write.
That’s it, seriously.
The first few sentences may not mean much or they may be great; however, the theory is that your true message and authentic voice will reveal itself as you are writing.
If you’re reading this and having flashbacks to therapy sessions, moleskin journals, and fountains pens. You may just be a writer…or the victim of deep psycho-analysis.
Free writers typically choose to leave their work as is and do not edit it.
Famed email marketer and writer, Matt Furey, works like this. He puts himself into a calm state and free writes his emails and marketing pieces, rarely editing his content. He is amazing at what he does and knows how to make the sale.
Bret Easton Ellis credits his third novel, American Psycho, to a combination of the restrictions of a deadline and the freedom of freewriting. He stated that he channeled his father, writing feverishly until it was done, as well as the fact that it was rejected by his publisher, eventually being picked up by Random House in 1991.
Copywriters and Digital Marketers often take a different approach when put under pressure — repurposing content.
It’s not sexy and maybe one of the main reasons copywriters are often hissed at by other creative (and unpaid) writers. Do we sell our souls as writers working to make other people money?
Yes and no.
In a sense, if you want to be paid money for a product or service, it happens. But copywriters also value their time as money and are able to drop their ego when it comes to this one very important realization.
No one reads your shit.
At least, not 100% of it all the time. It’s ok to reuse a subject line that performs well, changing a word to fit the season, or a few paragraphs.
But where copywriters truly excel at getting work done is in killing their darlings but not deleting them. Most of us have massive swipe files we take inspiration from (borrow and always credit, never steal).
And every single paid copywriter I have ever met has a media bucket. A place where they keep all of the great lines and paragraphs they write but had to remove from an email or publication for some reason.
Applying the principles of Bruce Lee to my writing, Jeet Kune Do ruthless level editing, taking what works and using it, tossing what no longer serves me…for that specific project…and fusing it with traditional data cataloging practices for agile content management has served me well on tight deadlines.
College papers, press releases, and maniacal CEOs demanding a list of 10–20 headlines for an event banner…and he is standing there waiting…giving you 10 minutes to rock or get the hell out.
What practices do you currently have in place to help you? If you don’t have any, let me know in the comments what you need help with and I’ll write an article about it.
Maybe even in 30 minutes flat.
Today’s Stats:
Days Writing: 9/60
Today’s Word Count Goal: 500
Actual Word Count: 725
Post Time: 11:55 p.m. est
Word goal from 11/1/19–12/31/19: 75,000