Season Finale — The Essential Tools
How To Be Crazy Successful Writing In Medium
In hunting, we need bows and arrows. In writing, we need MORE THAN a pen and paper.
If only pen and paper are enough for our writing endeavors. Life can be simple, but it is never simplistic. It is a complex web of events, distractions, and self-destructive procrastination attempts that would kill our ideas in our minds before they get typed by our fingers.
To be successful in writing, we have to deal with life in terms of time-crunch. We also need to have the right tools that allow us to navigate the choppy waters. This story aims to do that.
Actually, my entire series of How to Be Crazy Successful Writing in Medium is published for the sole purpose of navigating the choppy waters in this World we know as Medium.
I have attached the 1st 3 stories of the series in Related Stories from the Author below. These individual parts will lead you to the other parts of this series.
Back to the essential tools.
I will start with Grammarly.
I have written 2 stories on Grammarly previously. I will not duplicate what I have written previously in this story. Do read the 2 stories attached after this paragraph as reference.
I want to focus on the purpose of that tool, beyond its features and how-to. I see Grammarly as a Quality Assurance tool, one that guarantees me a higher rate of success in terms of publication, and a sense of relief that I have done my part to produce the best version of the story I could have.
As a businessperson, I would not want to sell food that is close to the expiry date. Readers will abandon that story halfway through, and I will lose them forever if I don’t ensure the quality of my writing. Grammarly supports my writing endeavors in the long term.
And There Is Zoom.
Zoom? Are you surprised?
This is a lesson I learned from my mentors in the consulting World. I started as an analyst producing a barrage of PowerPoint Presentations using Arial font 6. Every slide is filled with words, providing false assurance to our prospects that we know our stuff.
Actually, those words are for us. It is a protection mechanism against the lack of preparation. The least we could do is to read off the projected PowerPoint.
My mentor made a comment on my work that I will never forget. He said: -
“Aldric, your slides suck. To be clear, it has nothing to do with the content. It is your sentences. You have to test-read them after you type. Many sentences look reasonable and are absolute tongue-twisters. Prepare another version.”
Right on. And these days, we can use Zoom to do a test-read of our stories if time is kind to us.
… Followed by Headline Analyzers.
I hate to say this, but a high score from headline analyzers does not guarantee a high readership.
The Law of Effectiveness Dilution (I faked this) governs this. The first inventor earns the most. Then it attracts innovators and imitators because they want a piece of the profit pie. You can imagine that, as many people embrace the headline analyzer tool, more headers will be harmonized in terms of appearance.
This is my perspective. Use them and occasionally go on our own way to experiment. Standing apart helps differentiate and magnifies that sense of novelty.
Now We Evaluate High-Level Tools at 10,000 Feet High. I will Start With … Planning.
I am not a planning guy. Planning is boring to me.
Yet, I see the utility of a planning process specifically as a hedge against Life’s distraction. As an example, this story would not have been written today without prior planning.
One unplanned morning diarrhea chewed up my discretionary time.
Fortunately, it didn’t last. That said, the damage is done when it is measured against time. I could not have planned for such contingencies. It would have been unreasonable to forecast that. I mean, I can forecast shit breaks but not diarrhea. Make sense?
What saved me was prior-planning in terms of my blueprint to writing. I planned to write this series. Just like any project, many of the thinking was front-loaded. All I had to do today was to write.
Using the headlines of this series as an example.
I tested the headlines on the headline analyzer once, accepted the score, and kept updating as I went along.
- I started with How to Be Crazy Successful Writing In Medium. This became the skeleton subsequent headers of this series.
- I clipped the topic of the day to the skeletal header.
- If I am writing about Essentials Tools for writing, then the header for that day looked like this.
- How To Be Crazy Successful Writing In Medium (The Essential Tools).
This was my thought process.
When we forecast that we will be facing a time-crunch anytime soon, any form of planning goes a long way.
And I Will Finish With Reading and Observation.
Our inputs from Life nourishes our mind and inspires writing.
I do encounter times where I run out of juice. Those mental gears refuse to crank. Visiting the coffeehouse jumpstarts that mechanism.
Occasionally, as time permits, I will hit the books.
You will be amazed how even reading one paragraph can trigger a storm in our minds. We agree or disagree. We think it is nothing new. We think it is well written.
Once we have an opinion, our minds spit out an essay.
And That Is It … For Now!
I hope you enjoyed this piece and the entire series.
I believe in sharing what I know and how I think. There will be lots of learning lessons along my way, and I will update them as they come along.
Happy writing, and thanks for reading!
Get Started, Happy Writing, and See You Around!
Aldric
Related Stories from the Author — The Writer’s Starter Pack.
About the Author:
As a content contributor, I write my observations from daily life and my business exposure.
Because our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.
As a Consultant by training, I believe in making the complex simple.
Because simplicity adds value.
And with clarity — We grow.
Follow me for my stories on Medium!
This is more “About Me”.
