Focus on Your Reader

Throughout your schooling you were taught one thing—that the writer is the most important part of the process.  But when you decided to start writing, expressing your ideas and thoughts, you discovered that not so many people wanted to read your work. In fact, it may have felt as if no one was interested. To make sure people are interested, you must focus on them, your readers.

Sure, the ideas you work with mostly originate with you. Many beginning writers keep journals in which to record their ideas and their musings. But no one reads your journal but you. When you write for your readers, you have to look at your writing in a whole new way.

When you record your innermost thoughts and experiences in a journal, you do it in a highly personal and uncensored manner. But often these writings are haphazard and unorganized. They make sense to you but to your readers they appear chaotic and disorganized. That’s because they were never meant to be shared with your readers.

Keeping a journal can be a healing process after a traumatic experience. It can guide you through the early stages of becoming a writer. It lets you see your mistakes and bad habits and the patterns that develop so you can correct them later on. But keeping a journal won’t improve your writing because you don’t pay attention to style and technique, two things your readers look for and want to see in whatever they read.

Learning to write for publication is somewhat difficult for the average beginner. You wrote all those compositions in school for one reason—to practice the writing skills you were taught. If you could go back and read them, you’d discover that they are probably boring and don’t speak to you at all.

So to write material worthy of publication, you must make a definite shift in how you interact with the reader. What the reader wants and needs is of the upmost importance. Your creativity will have to move from self-orientation to interaction. Whatever your motivation, you need to move from daydreaming to a purposeful way to express your thoughts and feelings so that your readers will empathize with you. When you tell a story, you must engage your readers—you must make them feel a part of it.

There are a lot of people who go through a traumatic experience. They’re either overjoyed or deeply hurt by it. For those who come through feeling a sense of euphoria, sharing that with readers may be an uplifting experience. But those who are deeply hurt only want to lash out and blame everyone. Sharing that with readers turns them off because there’s nothing in it for them. Writing a memoir can be cathartic, whether or not writing makes you feel better is secondary.

There are many reasons to write. Ask yourself why you want to write. Is your goal to entertain or inspire foster understanding or inform? To make your article or story hit home with your readers, it must first be meaningful to you. It must satisfy your own curiosity.

Not only are you a writer, but you’re also a reader. You have the opportunity to see any piece of writing from your readers’ perspective. First and foremost, you must make whatever you're saying clear. You need to transform your ideas and facts into something that better serves others. By taking your specific circumstances and tapping into universal themes, you can create a story that's more relatable to your readers. And in doing so, your story transcends yourself and becomes meaningful to others.

So before you write anything, ask yourself who will be the main audience. How old are your readers? What gender are they? What demographic group do they belong to? How educated are they?

Paying close attention to the answers to the above questions will not only make your writing better, it will also make it read. And isn’t that the goal of writing for publication in the first place?

So You Want to Write a Blog - Part 1

Blogging is all the rage today. It seems that everyone wants to write a blog. And although it’s relatively easy to get started, maintaining the momentum is the hard part.

All blogs are not create equal. Generally, they can be broken up into several categories—news, instructional, advice, opinion, promotional, journal, and general musings. Each has its own use.

You may want to write a news blog—not one that deals with national news but one that covers little known local news. Elena Santangelo’s “Norristown Diary,” a blog about her hometown in eastern Pennsylvania, is a good example. Not only is she covering news that slips past the mass media, she’s also learning a lot about her town as well. There’s a need for a blog like this—if nothing more than to raise awareness about local issues.

Instructional blogs like this one have their own niche. Blogging is a great way to share your expertise on a subject, especially if you’ve been successful with it. In this case, you need to be somewhat of an expert on the subject you tackle.

And then there are advice blogs dealing with personal finance and investments, health, food, travel, you name it. With this type of blog, you also need to have some expertise, otherwise your readers won’t take you seriously.

If you’re a person with lots of strong opinions, especially on trendy subjects like climate change and gun control, then you may want to share your opinions with your readers through a blog. In this case, you’ll need to do creditable research so that you can back up your opinions and not just rant and rave.

You can also promote yourself or your business through a blog. Promotional blogs can go a long way in social media marketing. Then can help establish you as an expert in your field, thus attracting customers to you. They can also promote your products and services.

Perhaps you travel and want to write a daily blog en route. In this way, you can take your readers along with you. This shouldn’t be a boring diary of where you went, what you did, and what you ate. Instead, it should be a lively look into the location and culture, and even the people you meet along the way. This type of blog is usually short lived, spanning only the length of the trip. It does, however, make you more observant because you’re constantly looking for good blog material.

Lastly, you may want to write a blog that can only be classified as a general musing. Usually, this sort of blog is intended for a small group of close friends or followers who may be interested in the comings and goings of your life. But even this type of blog needs to be planned out and organized. It should offer some insight into your life. It should not consist of just your daily ramblings. That will eventually drive even your closest friends away.

How often should you update your blog? The answer varies. Some bloggers update once a week while others do it every few days, and still others daily. Maintaining a daily blog can become a chore.  Except for news and journal blogs, most are updated weekly.

There are probably millions of blogs on the Internet. And there are millions of readers for those blogs. But matching your blog to even a handful of those readers can be a challenge. To do that successfully, you have to imagine your target audience. Your blog has to speak to them to get their attention. It has to offer something unique—something they can’t get elsewhere.

NEXT WEEK: Some tips for making your blog a success.

Discipline Can Be a Good Thing

Discipline is all important to becoming a successful freelance writer—self-discipline, that is. No one will scold you for doing something wrong. You have no boss. You are the boss. So the only way you’ll get anything done is to make yourself tow the line.

To get ahead, you need to control the elements that might play havoc with your work schedule. To do this, you’ll need to anticipate problems and prepare ways to counteract them so your work won't suffer. The way to do this is to recognize patterns.

Keeping a daily or weekly journal for the first year or two of your freelance venture will help you see patterns developing. By writing down your progress—both the good and the bad things—you’ll begin to notice that they form patterns. Once you recognize the patterns, you’ll be able to take measures to break your bad ones and take advantage of your good ones.

Professional writers know all too well the pattern deadlines follow. Like trucks on a superhighway, they seem to travel in packs. It doesn't matter that you've planned them to arrive at intervals. They overtake each other and you if you don't remain vigilant.

Knowing this, professional writers build tricks into their planned writing time to minimize deadline crashes. The first step in this process is to create a Work-in-Progress chart or spreadsheet. For each project, create columns with the following headings (for non-fiction): Job Name, Publication, Query Written, Query Sent, Deadline, Research Completed, First Draft Completed, Revising Completed, Manuscript Sent, Date Sent, Payment Received, Date Received. If you write fiction, just change the headings accordingly. Then check off each item as you complete it for each project.

Let’s say you have three simultaneous deadlines. To avoid wasting time, do something for each job. Perhaps for Job No. 1 you’ll begin searching the Web for information on your topic. For Job No. 2, you’ll concentrate on interviews. And for Job No. 3, a relatively easy article, you’ll begin writing the first draft.

Professional writers follow this simple rule: As soon as you have a firm assignment to produce, take the first step immediately. By doing so, you’re on your way. The other steps follow without requiring anywhere near the effort of the first. In the case of writing a book, try starting with the easiest chapter first, no matter where it is in the book, then work on the others.

Once you've recognized patterns in your own working habits, you, too, will be able to do as the pros do. For example, you might devote your early mornings to the toughest writing chores because you know this is your most creative time. If you’re at your creative peak at some other time during the day, you should adjust your work schedule accordingly. During this time, you shouldn’t allow anything or anyone to interrupt you. With the heavy-duty work out of the way, you can devote your afternoon hours to making necessary phone calls, trips to the library, online research, or bookkeeping.

Another trick to help your self-discipline is to set a timer or alarm clock as you approach your chores. Break the job, whether it's actually writing the text, revising and editing, or diving into a pile of accumulated research, into reasonable segments, then set your timer and work against it. You'll be amazed at how much you you’ll be able to accomplish with the clock ticking away.

Yet another way to keep the work flowing is to create a daily or weekly to-do list. As you complete each chore, cross it off. At the end of the day or week, you’ll be surprised at how much you’ll get done.

Or you could compare your output with that of a more successful writer. Keep track of how often his or her byline appears not just in the markets where you'd expect to find it, but elsewhere, too. Is this writer getting into a new and promising field? Perhaps it’s time for you to consider opening up new horizons for yourself?

Also consider enlisting the help of a close friend. Tell your friend about a particularly ambitious project you're thinking about starting. Explain you're really taking a chance and that you may need reminding, now and then, about how you’re doing. If you’re friend asks “How’s that book idea you told me about coming along,” you’ll have to answer honestly or feel guilty afterwards. Be sure to choose a friend that’s action oriented, otherwise you may find yourself just talking about your plans instead of carrying them out.

All writers have ways of tricking themselves into the proper mental and emotional state for high production. Some people require the wolf to be knocking at their door, others just the opposite.
How you discipline yourself to juggle your time and work load may work fine for a while, then suddenly you find what you had been doing is no longer adequate. Your bank balance will immediately register deficiencies in your methods of discipline. Once that happens you'll have to do some fast shuffling of priorities and techniques to keep from going under. Be flexible, but remember that patterns lead to other patterns. And discipline rules.