Independence is what most of us desire when we leave the seemingly safe but claustrophobic confines of a corporate job and "go out on our own." "Woo hoo we get to do our own thing!" we exclaim, possibly in our pajamas, scrolling through really cute business card templates on Moo. Until the thud of "Oh man, we have to everything" starts to drag us down. One of the chief culprits I see among my peeps: Content Stress.
Read MoreThe Writing Habit
Well Said Wednesday: Silence Is Golden
Sometimes, despite our best planning and all good intentions, life intervenes. It's true! Even people who create content for a living sometimes succumb to content stress!
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Well Said Wednesday: Hit Send If You Dare
You are about to hit send on your monthly newsletter and you feel like you just might lose your lunch. It happens, doesn't it? That moment before you release a new ezine or click start on a Facebook live video is nerve racking. It's part of the "fear and loathing in content marketing" that most people don't talk about.
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Well Said Wednesday: A Five Thousand Word Post?
One of the great things about going on vacation is the chance to take a break for your daily habits.
On my recent visit to Australia, I loosened up my daily routine of checking email regularly, getting up at a set time, posting on a regular basis for the business. Almost all of what you saw between Feb. 7 and Feb. 26 was pre-written and pre-scheduled.
Then there are the things that "vacation me" does that "reality me" rarely manages.
Namely: averaging well over 11k steps a day according to my FitBit (boy was it surprised!), indulging in more coffee than is probably advisable (I blame Melbourne's thriving coffee culture) and shifting to more visual forms expression (even as I journaled every day.)
I was always pulling out my camera to try to capture a landscape, a color palette and play of light. Check out a few of my snapshots* here. And I spent a lot more time in museums, galleries and, this time, some caves for ancient rock art.
Exercising different creative muscles and experimenting with new forms of expression is good for the soul.
It is also good for your business writing.
It helps to crack you out of stuck patterns of thinking and writing. It may even give you a fresh crop of ideas and inspiration.
Since I've been back, I find I'm even more highly attuned to correct word choice. It's like the break helped restore my attention to detail and shades of meaning.
Maybe I'm just less distracted and worn down by endless to-dos.
Have I convinced you to plan a vacation yet? Do it for the sake of your writing!
*Five to be exact, thus the headline on this post.
Well Said Wednesday: Sting's Approach to Writer's Block
“I used to get so terrified…'what am I going to write about? I’m totally empty of ideas and inspiration.’ And then I realized after about five years of this terrible block that some of the time you have to be on ‘input.’ You just have to receive and then retransmit it and hope it comes out as something else.” -Sting
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