The 3-step System to Make a Writer’s Job easier
It’s a process.
Rarely does a blinking cursor scare me back into bed. Ideas are everywhere. I have notes and half-finished blog posts sitting on my desktop, messages to myself filling my inbox with the subject line “great idea for a story,” notes on the back of receipts crumbled at the bottom of my purse, and thousands of memos on my iPhone waiting for me to turn it into a publishable post.
Ideas abound if you keep your eyes open while living.
I pay attention, looking for a great story or an idea that plants a seed for a larger idea to develop.
Ideation is the first part of the process.
In Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking, she writes, speaking about her husband, “Why had he forgotten to bring note cards to dinner that night? Had he not warned me that when I forgot my own notebook that the ability to make a note when something came to mind was the difference between being able to write and not being able to write?”
Writing isn’t my side hustle. It’s my full-time job.
The more ideas I turn into coherent and useful work, the more money I earn. It is the perfect job for me because I’m naturally curious. There isn’t enough time to finish the drafts in my “idea farm” folder unless I did nothing else in life but write, which is tempting.
Once you know how to turn writing into a process, the process makes the writing part much easier. Then, you’re following steps instead of having some vague notion in your mind, I have to write today, what on earth will I write about?
When you have a backlog of ideas, you have a basket to grab from. You have something to write about. You can create an editorial calendar or be more instinctual and intuitive and write what you want to write depending on the day and your mood.
This basket of ideas I have at my disposal is why I never have writer’s block. Sure, I have days — many — when I don’t want to write, but rarely do I sit down at my computer and have nothing to write about; I have plenty to draw from stashed in a myriad of places.
As a writer, you know the writing process is much easier when you get up in the morning with an idea already percolating than it is to start with nothing.
Writing is not one thing; it is three — ideation, creation, and editing.
Focus on just one of these tasks at a time instead of all three. So then, when you sit down to write, your job as a writer is much easier.
If you think of writing as three distinct tasks: coming up with ideas, writing those ideas into drafts, and then editing the drafts into something you can share with your audience, it makes your job more manageable.
When you practice single-task focus, meaning you don’t switch from writing to editing and then back again, your output will increase. When you switch tasks, you lose power in the switching. Because we use different parts of our brains for writing, than we do for editing, staying on one task makes it easier to stay focused, increasing output.
Professional writers stick to a system or recipe that supports their daily writing habit. When adherence is low, productivity is high. When there is less friction developing a habit, like a daily writing habit, you have a better chance of staying with the habit until it is automatic.
Getting up and writing at your desk is easier than getting up, checking email, answering texts, and then writing. Take out the friction to develop the habit.
Let’s break down the process into its three parts. Do each part at different times, preferably on different days.
1.) Ideation
Rarely do I leave the house without something to write on.
We all carry smartphones; you now have a place to write down an idea, sentence, thought, a headline that you think of while out and about.
Often, if I come up with a headline I know will work, the post writes itself. I write down a lot of headlines. Always write it down; you won’t remember it. Or you won’t remember it in the exact words. So, write it down instead; the idea will be there when you sit down to write.
When the idea is already there, before you start, coming up with 1,000 words on that idea isn’t as challenging as doing all three steps in one sitting.
Apps like Evernote make this easy. It doesn’t matter what tool you use to capture your ideas. Pick a tool you’ll stick with. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for you to get your ideas down somewhere.
2) Creation
Writers who write daily have a system in place to undergird their writing goals.
For me, part of my system is writing in the morning. That’s when I’m at my best, sharpest, and most alert. I get my main task — my most important thing (writing) — accomplished in the morning.
When it is time for me to write, I’ll choose an idea from my desktop or from my notes and start writing. The idea acts as a prompt and makes it easier to write because I don’t have to come up with the idea first; the idea is already there, waiting for me. I don’t have to “just write.”
The prompt “just write” is where writer’s block happens.
3) Editing
Take editing seriously; good writing is lost or won in the editing process. It is always better to edit a story on a different day from when you wrote it. You need distance to make the editing process go more smoothly.
I don’t like editing. However, this three-step process — ideation, creation, and editing — makes the whole cycle more manageable because I can choose what I want to work on from my draft folder. I can save those that I’m tired of working on for another day. Have at least two folders sitting on your desktop — one to hold ideas and one for drafts that need to be edited. On days you edit, take from that folder.
I read it aloud for flow and structure a couple of times.
Reading your work aloud is the best way to catch small mistakes your eye skims over when reading silently. Reading aloud allows you to hear the rhythm of a piece to make sure it works from the reader’s perspective.
Read it aloud — the mistakes, and most importantly, where the story lags and stumbles will be obvious.
Editing is a game of subtraction, finding, and keeping the right details to serve the story and deleting the rest or restructuring the piece to make it more effective for the reader.
Once I’m finished, I schedule it for publication, or I will place it in a new folder named “completed” for later use.
Summary
- Ideas — collect ideas into whatever tool is easiest for you to use so that you will do it. It can be as short as a sentence or a phase. Try to get in the habit of writing down five ideas per day and then increasing to ten. You won’t use all of them. Anytime you think, “that’s a good idea,” or “that’s something I can add to that one draft,” write it down. Write it down even if you think it’s stupid. It probably isn’t, and if it is, you can just toss it.
- Creation — pick an idea from your notes and write at least 500 words on that idea as a prompt. Choose the one you’re most excited about and interested in writing for that day. Some days I want to write about one topic more than others. When you are finished with your piece, transfer it into another folder titled “editing.”
- Edit and schedule for publishing — wait a bit after writing to edit. We use a different part of our brain for editing than we do for writing. Wait until later that day, or even better, the next day. Polish it and schedule for publishing.
Once you have this three-step process down, it is easier to create a daily writing habit that you can rely on. One that isn’t dependant on whether you feel like writing or when you have something to write about. The something to write about is already there, you just need to sit down and write it, but once you’ve mastered the ideation part — which is the fun part to me — the writing and editing part is not nearly as daunting.
Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.