Tara-Nicholle Nelson · Transformation Tuesday | How to be a wonderful writer (in 9-ish steps)

NOTE: The audio of this post has a lot in it that the text does not. You might want to listen, even if you usually read. Carry on!
 
1) Write very imperfect or even very shitty rough drafts with all the thoughts you think you want to convey and the thoughts that connect each thought to the next. 
 
At this stage, your goal is not to write something good. Your goal is not even to write complete, intelligible sentences.  You’re only doing it right if you get the draft out of your head very rapidly and it’s very imperfect or even bad.
 
(hat tip: Anne Lamott)
 
2) Cut the first 30% of what you wrote. Or 40%. Give people credit for being intelligent, but don’t assume they have time to (or need to) read every single thought that led you to the real meat of what you’re writing about. 
 
3) Cut one paragraph of every 3 and one or 5 sentences from every paragraph. Give your readers credit. People are smart. And they are beings of soul and spirit. Soul and spirit seeks out resonance, so anytime you can describe the inside of their experience or provide new language for a real experience they are already having, your readers will tune in to it. 
 
4) Read the whole thing out loud and edit for conversational tone and flow.
 
5) Don’t ask for feedback from people who are not either (a) paid, professional editors or (b) prolifically publishing writers.
 
6) Hit publish just a little bit before you think it’s perfect. 
 
If it’s perfect you waited too long.
 
7) If you get an inspired idea, a Divine Download, or a golden thread… whatever you want to call it, write until you’re empty. Even if you have to stay up all night. That’s how the Divine speaks through you.
 
8) Cultivate a morning free-writing practice that invites inspired ideas, Divine Downloads and golden threads of inspiration.
 
That is all.
 
Okay, that’s probably not all, but it’s enough for now (see #6).
(9) Oh, yeah… add a story to the top of whatever you wrote. 

Head up + heart out,
 

P.S.: I’ve read dozens of books about writing, but two were formative in my own journey to being a prolific, published and radically liberated writer: Ann Lamott’s Bird by Bird on mindset, and Steven Pressfield’s Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t: Why That Is And What You Can Do About It, for strategy.

P.P.S.: With anything beautiful, impactful, blissful or profitable you ever want to create, about 20% of what you need is the right strategy. 

The other 80% is mindset.

Tara-Nicholle Kirke, MA, Esq.
The Inner Critic Coach
Founder + CEO of SoulTour

@taranicholle on FB | TW | IG | LI

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