How To Write Every Day: Dumping
Slowly but surely I’m figuring out how to become a better and more prolific writer. It’s important to keep motivation up and ideas flowing - it makes it easier to write everyday, both on paid jobs and work you do just for enjoyment.
The first step I’ll define as ‘dumping‘. All this is is getting all [...]
Slowly but surely I’m figuring out how to become a better and more prolific writer. It’s important to keep motivation up and ideas flowing - it makes it easier to write everyday, both on paid jobs and work you do just for enjoyment.
The first step I’ll define as ‘dumping‘. All this is is getting all your ideas, writable ones, out of your head and somewhere archived. Similar to GTD’s inbox where you continuously get everything out of your head and into something you can organize, regular dumping should develop the simple habit of writing every day.
Dumping works when you don’t filter for quality purposes. This sounds wasteful, and even narcissistic, but writing just to write does improve your skills. The habit allows you to work up your craft and develop your style.
When it’s a habit to write, it’s so much easier to write when you’re not entirely motivated or have no good ideas.
I find just starting on a random article, even with a fairly vague idea, usually turns into something worth developing. It’s the initiation that takes the most effort.
Where Do I Dump?
Like I said, dumping works best when you’re not fussed about what it’s about. When you get all the ‘unimportant’ writing out you can focus on your core work. This means you need a place, or a few places, to dump your crap.
Example 1: crrrg.com is my ‘important’ and ‘proper’ blog, something I’d point clients to. Not as important writing can be directed to my Wordpress.com blog.
It’s a fairly tenuous definition, but it allows me to get work out, without umming and ahhing over whether it’s worth posting.
Example 2: Twitter.com is the ultimate dumping station. 140 characters or less means there’s barely enough room to get an idea out - so that’s all that is: an idea dump. Even just short [really short] stories; like a haiku about my trip to the coffee shop or nice thoughts.
If you write every day, you’ll find new ideas easier to come by. By constantly writing something new, you are exercising that part of your brain and training it to develop new and better ideas more regularly.
Not Enough Time?
I hear this a lot. People telling me they don’t have enough time to blog; and I don’t get it. Not enough time? This post would have taken me barely half an hour to write - start to finish. That’s an episode of Seinfeld.
Want to write something better? Split it. Write 15 minutes today, more tomorrow and finish it in a few days. Chop and change between posts if you become bored with one idea. Keep a running list of ideas and half-posts and finish them when you feel motivated.
When you write every day, you begin to develop an understanding of how fast you can write and how much time you need to spend on paid jobs. When you write a lot, you are able to change from casual writing to work writing much easier.
Start A Blog
This isn’t the most formal of mediums; so exploit that. It’s conversational and you can update your ideas. Blogging is a great way to write more and get good feedback
I can write about dumping ideas and in a day have a bunch of great suggestions and criticisms from other writers. If I like, I can update my article to incorporate these new ideas. I don’t need to fear posting ‘incomplete’ articles because I can always build on the ideas.
Of course, the more complete and in depth your article, the more people will want to read it; but that’s why you dump into drafts and post the final product in the future!
Benefits Of Dumping Recap:
- Develops the writing habit
- Keeps your ideas fresh and constantly creative
- Develops good time management
- It’s fun! You don’t just want to write for money, do you? Let loose and just let it all out.
Tags: Blogging, Shorter, tumblr, writing
