What Do We Want Our Writing to Accomplish?

I have this friend who, every time she hears or, even more fascinating, sees the word “yawn,” she, well, yawns.  I discovered this quite by accident years ago, and have used the knowledge to play the occasional cruel trick on her ever since.  For a time I was even able to simply type the letter “Y” in an e-mail and send it to her, getting the same result.  And then there was the time I learned the word “pandiculation,” and sent it to her with a drawing of someone in the process of pandiculating, mouth agape, eyes squeezed shut…I was wickedly delighted to hear that made her yawn (and most likely pandiculate!) as well.

Obviously, not all of our readers or writing clients react so strongly or readily to everything we write.  Often we can put our words out there in the form of blog posts, articles, queries, submissions, proposals, contest entries and so forth, and not generate any response at all.  That can leave us feeling like we’re trapped in the darkness of a carnival fun house, feeling a bit nervous, fumbling our way through, wondering when we’ll see daylight again.

It helps, I think, to know what it is we want our readers or clients to feel about or do with what we’ve written once they’ve read our words.  In fact, I believe that knowing this up front, and keeping it in mind as we write, is every bit as important an aspect of writing as the story or information itself.  Knowing what reaction we want dictates everything from the words we choose to the cadence of our writing.  Do we want our readers to cry?  Buy something?  Get involved?  Do we want to frighten, inform or inspire them?  Do we want our writing to enrich their lives and, if so, exactly how do we plan to accomplish that?

Yes, effective writing is much more complex than plopping words in front of readers in the hope that they’ll behave in a certain way or take a certain type of action.   We need to know where we want them to go, and then use our writing skills to take them there.  That’s our challenge and, ultimately, that’s where we’ll find fulfillment.

Now, I’m going to let my friend know that I wrote about her today.  That should keep her yawning for the next hour or so at least (I write with a slight, evil smile).

Here’s to your writing success.

Mary Anne

Can Coaching Help Your Writing Career?

In order to succeed as a freelance writer, you need to wear many hats in order to launch, run and grow your business. Besides doing the actual writing for your clients, you most likely perform your own marketing, do your own filing, serve as a one-man or one-woman research department, act as your own project manager, save your own business receipts and maybe even do all your own accounting. Some of these hats that you wear probably don’t fit you as well as others, right?

Of course, the ideal world would be one where we could outsource all those functions that we don’t do well or find distasteful—much like why other people hire us to write for them. But for those business functions that we either keep because we can’t afford to hire someone to do them, or hang onto because we really want to do them better, there exist some pretty affordable options out there to get coaching on them from experts.

One of these options is to join what are known as monthly coaching clubs in the area of expertise where you want or need help. While many business and success coaches can and do charge some eye-popping fees for their time and programs, the ones who form clubs put coaching within our financial reach by holding sessions with and providing tools to multiple clients simultaneously, and by charging palatable monthly rates.

While the concept has grown tremendously on the internet, it’s by no means new. Weight Watchers, for example, is a type of coaching to help people learn to change their approaches to food and exercise. Toastmasters International has provided people with a place to hone their public speaking skills for nearly 90 years. On the Web, I performed a quick search and found a coaching club to manage and eliminate debt (http://www.debtfreecoachingclub.com/ ), increase productivity (http://www.theproductivitycoachingclub.com/ ), learn how to write for children (http://www.cwcoachingclub.com/ ), and even one with the intriguing name of “What You Know Is Worth More Than You Know™ Coaching Club” (http://www.whatyouknowisworthmorecoachingclub.com/ ). As you can see, these clubs pretty much run the gamut.

I personally belong to a couple coaching clubs and have found them to be worth every penny. First of all, not only do I get the opportunity to learn from and ask questions from some pretty successful people, I also get to expand my professional network with the other members in the club. You never know whose ears might perk up when they hear that there is a ghost writer in their midst! The two I belong to are:

Robert Middleton’s Action Plan Marketing Club  (click the “Marketing Programs” tab at the top of the page). Robert targets independent professionals trying to market their services both on- and off-line. Not only are his twice monthly 90-minute coaching calls worth their weight in gold, the club includes a step by step marketing tutorial, recorded interviews with other marketing experts, help with forming your own mastermind group, and a place where you can upload your professional profile so that others can find you and your services. At $29 a month, which you can cancel at anytime, I can’t imagine a better bargain.

Stephanie Frank’s Success IQ Inner Circle. While I can only make every other one of her weekly coaching calls, I still get more than my money’s worth from my membership (besides, I can always catch the call I miss afterwards because they’re all recorded). In fact, I still can’t believe she coaches every week for only $27 a month! Stephanie’s program focuses on ways to eliminate any roadblocks we place in the way of our own success, and I find her enthusiasm contagious. Besides the calls, the club contains a library of audios on topics ranging from peak performance and goal-setting to self-confidence and time management. I always walk away from the Tuesday calls feeling pumped up and motivated.

So if you find there’s an area in your life where you and your writing career can use a boost, perhaps joining a coaching club is a way that you can get the help and guidance you need within your budget.

I Am, Therefore I Write

Off and on over the years, I’ve tried.  I’ve tried to give up on the idea of writing for a living, on writing much of anything at all for anyone other than myself.  But it was like trying to turn my back on a lover whom I longingly ached for, but who wasn’t always there for me when I needed him most…yet who would suddenly come back into my life when I least expected him, and totally reclaim me.

 

“You can’t really make a living as a writer,” I grew up believing, or had someone really told me that?  “You need to get a real job.  Something dependable, reliable…something that will be there to take care of you in your old age.”  I felt torn in half, one part of me grasping for the security, stability, and the middle class lifestyle I’d been raised in, and the other half yearning for the uncertain, the exciting, and the freedom with which I imagined artists and actors, musicians and writers lived.

 

I have lived with that dichotomy all of my adult life.  Unlike Robert Frost, I took the road more travelled by, but always feeling like a bored schoolgirl gazing out the classroom window on a warm spring day, wishing I had the nerve, the courage, to play hooky, to break the rules I’d been raised to accept.

 

And yet I can smile at that life choice I made so many years ago.  For if I hadn’t travelled that beaten path, think of all the experiences I would have never had, the places I would have never seen, the people I would have never met, laughed and cried with, loved.  I took the only path I dared to take at the time, even though it never felt quite like I was going in the right direction for me, even though the shoe that I purchased never quite fit.

 

All the while, writing never abandoned me, even during those times I tried to leave it behind.  And now the internet opens new doorways and markets for me, new ways to give in to my passion for pulling words out of thin air and planting them on the page.  I write, and I love it.  How can I feel even the slightest regret about that?

 

Besides, I think with the hint of a smile, one is never too old to play hooky.  Or to continue to pursue a dream.

Here’s to your writing success.

Previous entries | Next entries