10 Brilliant Examples of How to Open Your Next Blog Post With a Bang
“The most important sentence in any article is the first one. If it doesn’t induce the reader to proceed to the second sentence, your article is dead. And if the second sentence doesn’t induce him to continue to the third sentence, it’s equally dead. Of such a progression of sentences, each tugging the reader forward until … safely hooked, a writer constructs that fateful unit: the lead.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well
With respect, I must disagree with Mr. Zinsser. We all know the most important part of an article is the title. Without a compelling title, your reader won’t get to the first sentence. After the title, however, the first few sentences are certainly the most important part.
Journalists call this critical introductory section the “lede,” and when properly executed, it’s the bridge that carries your reader from an attention-grabbing headline into the body of your blog post.
If you want to get it right, try one of these 10 clever ways to open your next blog post with a bang.
Believe This: There Are People Out There Right Now Just Waiting for You to Show Up
From The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.
Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.
It may help to think of it this way. If you were meant to cure cancer or write a symphony or crack cold fusion and you don’t do it, you not only hurt yourself, even destroy yourself. You hurt your children. You hurt me. You hurt the planet.
You shame the angels who watch over you and you spite the Almighty, who created you and only you with your unique gifts, for the sole purpose of nudging the human race one millimeter farther along its path back to God.
Creative work is not a selfish act of a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.
See also: The Art of Doing Remarkable Things (Lateral Action Interview with Steven Pressfield)
Break Through Blogger’s Block With These 10 Creative Tactics to Generate Topics for Blog
This is a guest post from Laura Bell, a freelance writer and social media activist.
You got the memo about blogging loud and clear. You know that blogging can improve traffic to your site, build lasting relationships and help convert those relationships into sales. You even know that you should consistently create new content and use that SEO stuff.
But, what on earth do you write about each day? How can you consistently come up with new material that your readers will actually want to read?
Take a breath. You are not alone. With minimal effort on your part, you are probably sitting on a gold mine of really great topics and you don’t even know it. When the ideas are running dry, try these 10 tips for generating blog topics for your small business blog.
Interview: The Writer’s Brain and Overcoming Writer’s Block With Rosanne Bane
In this episode of Bigger Life Radio, I speak with Rosanne Bane (blog | website). Rosanne is a writer and a creative coach who works with writers, entrepreneurs and other creative folks to help them overcome their resistance to being creative.
She’s also the author of the upcoming book Around the Writer’s Block: Using Brain Science to Write the Way You Want, which will be published in early 2012.
During our chat, we discuss the writer’s brain and how to overcome writer’s block, as well as some of the pitfalls that are part of living a creative life.
The interview runs a little over 54 minutes, and I hope you enjoy it.
10 Inspirational Quotes About Writing and Living the Creative Life
From Writing FAST by Jeff Bollow
“And the reason you hate writing so much is because you start analyzing your work before you’re done pouring it onto the page. Your Left-brain won’t let your Right-brain do it’s job … Your Right-brain gets the words on the page. The Left-brain makes them sing.”
From Escaping Into the Open by Elizabeth Berg:
“There are people who have never studied writing who are capable of being writers. I know this because I am an example. I was a part-time registered nurse, a wife, and a mother when I began publishing. I’d taken no classes, had no experience, no knowledge of the publishing world, no agent, no contacts … Take the risk to let all that is in you, out. Escape into the open.”
How 750Words.com Reinvigorated My Morning Pages Writing Practice
For nearly a year, I’ve been doing Morning Pages, the daily writing practice originated by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way.
Basically, your task with Morning Pages is to write 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness writing each day, first thing in the morning. If you’d like more info about the how’s and why’s of Morning Pages, download Julia’s PDF here.
Until recently, I wrote my Morning Pages longhand. You know, with pen and paper. I’d pour myself a hot cup of coffee or tea, sit down at the dining room table, and write in the early-morning silence. It was a sweet little morning ritual that I enjoyed for most of 2010.
About two months ago, my enjoyment started to fade. Mainly because the light over my dining room table casts the shadow of my hand onto the paper as I write, and it bothers my eyes. I didn’t notice the shadow initially, but lately, it’s become a huge distraction. So much so that it’s turned my sweet little morning ritual into a frustrating chore.
Fortunately, I discovered 750 Words, billed as “the online, future-ified, fun-ified translation of Morning Pages.” Why 750 words? Because in the writing world, 250 words is the standard number of words per page (multiplied by 3 pages equals 750).
12 Tips on How to Become a Faster Writer
1. Get Your Mind Right.
Much has been written about the power of your mind to inspire or dis-empower you. I won’t say much more about it here other than to say your mind can be your biggest obstacle or your greatest ally as a writer.
Holding onto thoughts like “writing is a necessary evil” or “I’m just not a writer” don’t serve you. Release those beliefs, and adopt some new ones.
My core limiting belief was “I’m not creative.” It was based on my misunderstanding of what creativity really is and the creative process. So I let it go and adopted some new beliefs. First, I now energize the belief that “writing is my path to freedom.” Second, I believe “each day, I’m becoming a better, faster writer.”
Pick some new beliefs, and write them down somewhere you’ll see them often. Choose beliefs that are empowering, inspiring and believable. It does no good to try to convince yourself of something when you know deep down you don’t believe it.
Morning Pages: 8 Lessons Learned
Today is day four of the morning pages exercise. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
1. Make Morning Pages a Priority
I almost skipped morning pages today. It wasn’t something I consciously chose to do. I just let myself get side-tracked. I started surfing around reading other peoples’ stuff, looking for inspiration, and before I knew it, an hour had passed, and I’d still not started writing.
I may have to change my morning routine, which typically looks like this. I roll out of bed and hit the bathroom. Then I grab a coffee. Next, I turn on my computer and check a few things. Then I finally sit down to write my morning pages. I think tomorrow I won’t turn on my computer until my morning pages are done.
2. Let Go of Results
When we start some new course of self-improvement, whether an exercise program, a spiritual practice or morning pages, we tend to expect immediate results. At least I do. And If I don’t see results pretty quickly, I tend to find reasons to stop doing the exercise. I decided this morning that I’d commit to doing morning pages for 30 days without any expectation of results.
3. Make Morning Pages a Special Ritual
Get clear about the reasons you’re doing this. For me, there are several reasons. First, writing is imperative to my business. Any successful online business is driven by relevant and informative content, and that starts with writing. Second, I’m doing this to become a better writer so I can write more, and touch more people with my writing.
Third, this has become a spiritual practice for me. Through this process, I’m reconnecting with myself; with my inner spirit. It’s a form of meditation. I’m reconnecting with my true self and the divine within me.
When I sit down to write, I have a hot cup of coffee or tea, and turn on Gregorian Chant Radio on Pandora. The music is soothing and relaxing and it sets a mood that reflects the special and spiritual nature of my ritual. Of course, if I don’t turn on my computer tomorrow, I’ll need to find a new source of music. Fortunately, I recorded some Gregorian chant music that I can download to my iPod.
Want to Make Writing Easier? Try Morning Pages.
As I mentioned yesterday, writing is often a chore for me. With that in mind, I’ve undertaken a new morning ritual called “morning pages.” Morning pages is a writing exercise devised by Julia Cameron and popularized in her book, The Artist’s Way.
The morning pages exercise is designed to help you recover (or discover) your creativity, and silence what Julia refers to as the Censor. The Censor is that critical inner voice that criticizes each and every word you write and makes it brutally painful for you to write anything.
“The morning pages are the primary tool of creative recovery. As blocked artists, we tend to criticize ourselves mercilessly. Even if we look like functioning artists to the world, we feel we never do enough and what we do isn’t right. We are victims of our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, the Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as the truth…The point is to stop taking the Censor as the voice of reason and learn to hear it for the blocking device that it is. Morning pages will help you to do this.”
Interestingly enough, one of my clients wrote me this morning after reading about my struggle with writing. She said: “I really did think that writing came so naturally that you had no problem putting pen to paper and the words just flowed out of you. That is a wake up call for me.” I think the same thing when I read other peoples’ writing. I think writing must be so easy and natural for them, when in reality, that’s likely not the case. It’s very possible they struggle with writing nearly as much as I do.
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