4 ways to get your writing done faster

“I’m not a writer”
“It takes me forever to get a newsletter out”
“The process is agony.” 

These are the sorts of things people confess to me, when it comes to writing about their work.

Take my client, Yvette. She’s a sharp cookie, and a natural speaker. But after one of my talks, Yvette came up to me and said, “You know how you mentioned people who hate writing? That’s me. Can’t stand it!”

This happens to me all the time. And as a lover of challenge, I say: bring. It. On.

Because in more than 6 years of helping business owners get their message out of their heads and into the world, what I’ve discovered is that “writing” isn’t what most of us think it is.

Take Yvette. When I asked her what her writing process was, she said “I talk, and my assistant takes notes. She writes it up, and then my VA edits it before it gets sent out to my list.”

“Yvette,” I said, “THAT is writing!”

“It is?”

“Yes! Any time you figure out a way to get your ideas out of your head and out where other people can see them… that is writing!”

“Huh,” she said. “I never thought of it like that.”

What I’ve found is that Yvette is in good company. There are plenty of business owners who tell themselves that writing is hard, and yet they’ve found a way that works for them.

Here are 4 common ways non-writers get their writing done:

  1. Have someone write down what you say. Like Yvette, maybe you are a talker, not a writer. People have different creative styles. One is not better than the other. If you talk your ideas out more easily than you can type them, use a team member, friend, or even a dictation software or transcriptionist. This is writing!
  2. Mind map it. If you are a spiral thinker who has a hard time getting linear – whether it’s to write a newsletter or a sales page or a video script – try engaging your visual brain first. I have my clients do a “brain dump” of all their related ideas, so they can quickly see which ones really jump out off the page. This can be done in 5-10 minutes, and saves you a lot of wasted writing time.
  3. Talk it out. I teach my clients to find a partner that they can talk through their ideas with first, before they write. This is a great strategy for content (like your newsletters and blogs) and sales messages (like promotional emails, video sales letters, and long form sales pages). You can quickly hear which angles and messages are most exciting to others, and uncover powerful messages that you may have otherwise missed.
  4. Do nothing. The Taoists have a phrase — wu wei – which pretty much means, go ahead, procrastinate. Sometimes the best thing you can do is, well, nothing. Every idea has its time, and its own gestational period before it’s ready to come into the world. While you wait, perhaps you can go for a walk, make out with someone, or wash your dishes? No, I am not kidding. Pushing is a horrible idea. Let that little wonder nugget find you.

The thing about “writing” for our businesses is that it’s unavoidable. You have a lot of writing to do! And while it’s always an option to hire someone to do the writing for you, your ability to resonate with your chosen audience almost always takes a hit. Because it’s your message. And even the best writer in the world doesn’t have the passion or the personal connection with your audience that you do.

So remember: even if you you aren’t sitting and typing at a computer, you may already be writing! Your creative process may look different than other people’s…. and that’s a good thing.

Mighty thanks to Sharon Drummond flickr photostream for the “Writer’s Block” image. 

Stella Orange is a copywriter who helps people put their work into words. For eight years, she wrote email campaigns that resulted in more than a million dollars in sales for her clients. In that time, Stella also taught popular marketing writing workshops to business owners on both sides of the Atlantic -- and a few in Australia and New Zealand. In 2017, Stella cofounded a creative and consulting shop offering a complete and slightly unorthodox line of business advising and marketing services. She continues to write copy and advise clients on customer delight, how to resonate with more sophisticated, discerning clientele in your marketing, and just who, exactly, your ideal clients are. Stella is the founder of Show Up And Write, a weekly writing group and writes a letter every two weeks or so (here’s the sign-up). She lives with the Philosopher and their two kiddos in Buffalo, New York, a fifteen-minute bike ride to the Canadian border.

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