CreativeDetox

Kazi Dolezal — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:08:59 +0000

Guide to Freelance Writing

Eight keys to article writing

1. Writing is a process. You don’t just sit down and belt out an article, good writing requires: planning, research, rough draft, editing, and final draft. Often there will be several rough drafts required.

2. Always apply the ’so what’ factor to your article. Ask yourself why your article is interesting or important to readers. When a writer approaches an editor with a story line, for example: Girl rides bike from Sydney to Wollongong, the editor’s response is “so what”. If the girl has one arm, or is riding for charity, then you have a “so what” factor to sell.

Once you have your “so what” angle, decide what information should be included. Factors like: length, scope and focus should be decided in advance, this will save time and effort later on.

3. Show don’t tell. Articles should be descriptive, so draw on your own or the experience of others. It’s also important to obtain information from those who have a different experience or opinion to you.

4. Help your readers identify a problem, then sell your article as the solution. The best articles help readers solve problems, save time, or improve the way they do things. Don’t assume the reader shares your perception of a problem; you may have to sell them the problem before you can sell them a solution.

5. Your first draft should be informal and clear, write in a way you would speak to a friend. Keep your words simple and sentences short and to the point. Eliminate paragraphs that serve no purpose.

6. Stick to issues or problems that the reader can solve or control. Writing about an issue too large or expansive, can create anxiety in the reader.

7. Keep it real: real life stories sell, platitudes or lectures don’t. Readers are interested in something that has actually happened.

8. Readers are more interested in ‘why’ than ‘what’, so defining a problem is only the beginning and a point from which to launch your article.

Kazi Dolezal — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:47:24 +0000

Image: Theresa Thompson

Tired of dancing to someone else’s tune? It’s no secret that a website is only as good as its content. This gives writers a distinct advantage in producing money making sites. So … if you’ve been distressed because your last freelance web gig hasn’t paid the bills, it’s time to broaden your vision and eat cake too!

Turning your blog into a successful business venture is not only possible, but easy … Read more

Kazi Dolezal — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:20:26 +0000

Critically acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates discusses how a writer develops realistic characters, using examples from her novel The Gravedigger’s Daughter.

Kazi Dolezal — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 07:50:30 +0000

Image: kk+
When too much is not
enough: optimized balance

Recently a reader on Problogger posed some interesting questions on optimized publishing, in particular - how do you know when you’ve posted enough? and what’s the best strategy for generating traffic, without jeopardizing quality content?

One of the sweet things about blogging is that there are no universally correct answers to how much content is right? If you utilize your blog as an online diary, chances are, you’re not considering your audience or search engine optimization. If however, you’re aspiring to maintain problogger status two things must be factored into account before publishing a post:

• optimizing copy length and quality for search engines
• optimizing copy length and quality for reader experience

Jeopardize one, and it will be detrimental to your business. Optimization is a way of providing customer service and satisfaction, and search engines seek to provide this for the customers utilizing their search tools. We, as online publishers, must view the reader and the search engine as our customers and aim to please both!

It’s worth investing some time considering the following points before you hit the ‘publish’ button because, with write skill and blogging balance, there is no need to sacrifice optimization for either customer.

The latest general search indexing trends suggest that longer copy content is better than short, as search engines seek to index rich content. The obvious reason behind this, is the competitive business between companies like Google and Yahoo, for example. Greater depth and quality content provides them with the means to keep their search customers coming back. Like off-line publications, on-line media seeks to satisfy their customers by giving them what they want.

Google algorithms look for natural writing styles, which is generally achieved with longer word count, rather than small hyper-focused content. In fact good copy content gets as much traffic, for long tail keywords, as small meaningless hyper-focused pages. So, increasingly, search engines are pushing publishers toward well approached, lengthier content rather than short pages filled with hyper-linked text that doesn’t deliver.

Having said that, DON’T add words for the sake of increasing length. Useless rambling and optimized self-opinion ie. content that does not allow a space for the reader to draw their own conclusions, will severely jeopardize your users experience.

Each word and sentence structure needs to carry the weight of meaning and purpose. Consider these factors for optimizing reader experience:

• Does your copy provide meaning and purpose - is it going somewhere?
• Will your reader be better informed if they invest time on your post?
• Do you aim to entertain or enlighten your reader - have you achieved this?

A problog will usually have the reader better positioned as a result of investing their time reading the content; and it will do so, without long endless rambling. Put bluntly - if you bore the crap out of your reader or dont’ give anything of value, they won’t come back.

While some ideas take more words to express than others, strike a balance between lengthy copy for search engines and word count that holds the attention of the reader. Consider why word length is important when an editor commissions articles for a magazine: it has less to do with budget and more to do with the attention span of the reader, and their available time for reading.

Before publishing, edit your copy several times, omitting useless words and pointless ranting and raving. To help you achieve this, read Editors tips: blah blah blah … no one cares what you think! and Cut the fat. Stick to short, snappy posts that inform without the reader being required to think too much.

You will either hook or loose your reader within the first two to three paragraphs of your post, so it’s vital to make sure you have a good intro to your article. Ideas on how to achieve this can be found at … are you leading me on?

A problog usually strikes a good balance between optimizing search, whilst avoiding boredom, by posting between 500 - 1000 words. While this is not a hard and fast rule, large media publishing companies have invested a lot of time and money into research on word count that works.

How do you determine the length of your post. Do you set a word count before you blog?

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Kazi Dolezal — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:38:13 +0000

Creative twist: journal for unparalleled discovery

Journal writing is one of the most powerful and easily accessible tools we have to heal, expand and transform our lives. Creative journaling goes way beyond recording day to day events, it opens the gate to unparalleled discovery.

A creative journal is a place for self-reflection, self-expression and self-exploration. Free from rules it is a space to make observation of the world around us and a potent place to develop a voice and position from which to write. Structuring ourselves to write regularly in an uncensored space we tap what author of The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron refers to as a ‘vein of gold’, creative juices that propel our work into infinite dimensions.

Writers resource

As the cornerstone of our New Journaling Bookshelf, “The Many Faces of Journaling” explores such a wide variety of topics and methods, there’s literally several “somethings for everyone.” The bountiful examples range from poignant to whimsical to startling to insightful. By the time you finsih reading this book, you’ll be itching to grab a pen and paper and start writing our your views of your life and the world iin general! Check this resource

Participate in an online Artist’s Way group at Paper Art Studio

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Kazi Dolezal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 22:01:17 +0000

… cultivate write habits

“We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit” - Aristotle

Jessica Gregson, whose debut novel The Angel Makers, published by PaperBooks, reveals the top tips required to be a successful writer and novelist.

Don’t be superstitious - develop the ability to write anywhere, under any conditions. Having a writing ritual can be an excuse not to get anything done.

Don’t edit as you go - it’s a sure fire way never to finish anything. When writing I tend to save each day’s work in a new document, which helps me resist the temptation to go back over what I read the day before.

Set concrete goals and time limits. Writing’s a job like any other and requires concentration and discipline. Deadlines help concentrate the mind.

Keep rejection in perspective (there’s likely to be a lot of it). Trust your own judgement, and remember that the opinions of the people you’re submitting your work to may carry more weight than others, but in terms of the quality of your writing, their opinions are no more right than anyone else’s.

Jessica stumbled upon the inspiration for The Angel Makers in 2000 when she came across an encyclopedia of serial killers at a railway station. It described how a group of women in a small village in Hungary started killing their husbands after the war.

Jessica claims that the idea for the book ‘took a couple of years to percolate’. She abandoned the project after writing 20,000 words, but picked it up again and finished the first draft at the end of 2003. The second draft was completed toward the end of February 2004.

‘I decided to concentrate on my writing, so quit my job and moved to Nottingham, working part-time in Sheffield,’ she said. ‘Much of the writing was done clandestinely at work, or on trains between home and the office.

She believes she took her writing more seriously after telling friends that she was working part-time to write a novel, a clear statement that she was making a commitment to produce something.

Sacred habits

Susan Santucci author of Pathways to the Spirit: 100 Ways To Bring The Sacred Into Daily Life, shares these tips on the power of forming habits.

Habits establish routine, structure, continuity, reduce tedium, and give meaning to our routines. Turning what is tedious in life into a habit gives meaning to otherwise meaningless things. Even bad habits offer the reassurance of the familiar.

Learn to turn good habits into rituals by performing them with awareness.

Examine your life. Identify which of your habits are beneficial and which are destructive.

A bad habit may give temporary pleasure, but it only creates more misery in the end.

You have the power to unlearn old patterns and develop good habits. Are you having trouble breaking a bad habit because you’re a “creature of habit”? You have “an addictive personality”? All right, admit it and now substitute the bad habit with the good one.

Find a partner to help you break bad habits. Company is stronger than willpower.

Good habits are the ones that make us feel good about ourselves. Letting go of old patterns increases our self-confidence, sense of control, and hope for the future.

Writers resource

Inspiration Running Low? Is Your Muse out to Lunch? Need a Nudge to Channel Your Creativity? Next time you’re stuck, check out The Writer’s Block where you’ll find ideas and exercises that will jump-start your imagination. Many of these assignments come straight from the creative writing classes of celebrated novelists like Ethan Canin, Richard Price, Toni Morrison, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Learn how Joyce Carol Oates uses running to destroy writer’s block. Elmore Leonard describes how he often finds ideas just by reading the newspaper. E. Annie Proulx discusses finding inspiration at garage sales. Isabel Allende tells why she always begins a new novel on January 8th. And John Irving explains why he prefers to write the last sentence first.

Fresh, fun, and irreverent, The Writer’s Block also features advice from contemporary editors and literary agents, lessons from the awful novels of Joan Collins and Robert James Waller, a filmography of movies concerning writer’s block (i.e. The Shining, Barton Fink) and countless other surprises. Check out this resource

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Kazi Dolezal — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 06:32:06 +0000

Common freelance career killers and how to get past them!

Working freelance requires commitment, dedication and courage. Early in my freelance career, I wrote dozens of articles and feature pieces, but never sent any to an editor for fear they weren’t good enough.

I would get disillusioned if my work was rejected, running back to a ‘regular’ job, and quite often, working away from an office, I’d get lazy or easily distracted.

And although I work differently today, from my own past experience and that of other artists, I discovered four habits that can break a freelance career.

Lack of discipline - A writer must everyday write!

If you were to undertake a survey you would find that writers successful in their field, have a tendency to write everyday. Regardless of whether it’s for work or pleasure - they write. It’s like body building or maintaining fitness, if you want to tone and remain toned, you have to discipline yourself to daily exercise.

A creative journal is a valuable tool for developing a ‘unique voice’; exercising writers muscles; and creating the write habit of regularity and routine … without the two ‘R’s, a freelance career will die pretty quickly or never get launched.

I write on average between 2000 to 5000 words every day. Some of this is for commissioned assignments much of it is observational writing ie. I capture the movement of the world around me, particularly nature; or I capture the nature of my thoughts.

Practice will of course improve writing skills, but daily writing does much more than that - it stimulates creative juices, that’s why veteran writers continue the practice. Daily writing gets us into the habit of turning up at the page, and breaks the ideology that we must be in a particular mood, state of mind, or special place, to be able to capture words.

I have had many people comment on the quality and quantity of work I produce - the key is discipline. But not discipline in the sense that it’s a hard slog. Regular writing, particularly creative journaling is fun.

Inspiration for work is often backed up in my mind, before I reach the page, as soon as I pick up a pen, words start spewing onto the paper with very little effort. I don’t have to sit and ponder too much, on what I want to write or how I should write it. Regular daily writing creates a habit similar to auto pilot - you pick up the pen and the words start to flow.

In the beginning it doesn’t much matter what you write as you practice, start by writing the ‘crap’ out of your head. Even if you have to sit for an hour and write - “I have nothing in my head to write about - gosh this sucks”, just practice moving your hand and putting words on the page. I write two to three pages of ‘crap’ every morning before the real juices flow. It’s like removing the scum from the top of a stew, and during the act of removing - you develop ‘write’ habits.

Habit develops from doing the same thing repeatitively - practice, practice and more practice. But forget about the ideology that practice makes perfect, throw that notion out the door. There is no such thing as perfect. Practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes quantity, and over time quantity becomes quality. Quantity and quality are what a freelance writer requires to survive - not perfection. This brings us to our next freelance career killer …

Perfectionism - You’ll never get it write!

Perfectionism can be listed with other forms of addiction and self-abuse. Perfectionism does not produce good work, interesting work or uniqueness - most often it produces the opposite; it can place us in a state of paralysis, because the fear around not getting it right, or not being good enough, means we either never get started or we never finish.

Competitiveness is a relative - feeling that we have to do better or be better than everyone else, is a companion to the dis-ease of perfectionsism. If we combine competitiveness and perfectionism, it is almost sure to cripple our creative nature and ensures that our freelance career does not blossom in an enjoyable way.

Freelance work is inspiring, light and fun, that’s why so many creatives choose to do it, but if we become a slave to perfectionism there is nothing enjoyable about freelancing.

When writers nurture this dis-ease they very rarely succeed because perfectionists tend to get trapped in the habit of never starting, never finishing or never submitting. Instead they can waste endless hours and creative energy constantly criticising their work, or comparing themselves to others.

Underneath the mask of perfectionism hides the pain of fear - fear of criticism, fear of failure, fear of never being good enough.

If you fall into this category - let it go, because the reality is this: we will never be good enough, smart enough or better than everyone else: someone will always appear better in our eyes. As artists, we are bound to receive criticism - deal with it! Take the constructive criticism and use it to learn, change and develop as a writer and let the rest wash over you. If need be, buy some thick skin.

Lack of confidence - Write to feel good about Self!

This obstacle is a natural feeling when we launch into something new - it comes from lack of experience and time. Remember when we first started driving a car? Not sure about you, but I didn’t feel to damn confident, however time and practice behind that wheel, has me looking - dare I say it - like a pro!

The wonderful thing is this: as we overcome the first two career killers - lack of discipline and perfectionism, our confidence will begin to flourish. Confidence definitely arrives over time and with practice; the more we discipline ourselves to write daily the more confident we become at our craft and the more willing we become to test the waters outside our square.

There is a correlation between practice and achieving goals, when it comes to building confidence and self-esteem: set small, achievable and measurable goals eg. today I will spend one hour researching my topic and then write a 500 word summary on what I discovered.

It’s also a great practice to investigate classes, workshops or local writers groups, get involved in anything that supports you as an artist and helps nurture your talent. If you find a writers group too competitive, leave it: remember career killer number two; there’s better places to invest your time and energy. As artists we need to surround ourselves with people and events that support and nurture: it’s our priority to take care of Self.

Lack of commitment - Make the write choice!

Make the decision to commit to your success - you deserve it. Commit to a number of hours each day for both personal and career development.

Personal development may be daily exercise, meditation or yoga. Perhaps you might like to join a 12 step program to deal with that perfectionism! Personal or spiritual development is the core to success in all areas of our life. If we don’t sit well within, we have difficulty in the outside world. When we have trouble dealing with our life’s circumstances - it’s pretty difficult to feel inspired to achieve in our career.

It helps to feel content and at peace in our ’self’ or ‘being’, it gives us the courage and strength required as writers, to reveal our work in what can be described as an intimate way. It takes a lot of courage and commitment both to self and our career to hang our laundry in public places - so to speak!

Then of course we make the commitment to our career. One of the freelance writers I employed for a special publication, commits a percentage of her earnings toward re-investing in her career. She does this by way of books, courses, workshops, and travel to venues to listen to topical speakers. This is a good practice to follow.

Commit to your career by investing time, money and energy into obtaining further knowledge and skills. Also think of areas outside of writing that will enhance your career, for example: page layout and design; image manipulation; or photography. Don’t be afraid to cross pollinate, the rewards are astounding on both a personal and professional level.

Perhaps the best advise is make the leap - don’t wait for conditions to be right, go ahead and get started; believe in yourself, in your success and don’t be afraid to take risks.

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Kazi Dolezal — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:05:32 +0000

Write from within

Cambodia has some of the most intriguing, prehistoric jungle. I stood beneath roots that spanned the height of three story houses, then atop of this a tree that blows open the most vivid imagination. Equally fascinating is the ancient world buried beneath this jungle, its secrets held captive by these towering forms.

I spent an amazing amount of time exploring, wandering, sitting, contemplating and writing with both pen and camera. And I had the pleasure of stumbling across other artists tucked away from the world, in the bowels of this vast and truly remarkable landscape, writing with ink, brush and paint.

These artists were both locals and travellers like myself, all of us with similar goal in mind: to sit still enough, quiet enough, long enough, to capture a sense and feel for the stories hidden within this jungle. And I often got the sense that, lingering here, were stories wanting to be told.

I believe that hidden within each of us, like ancient tombs and temples, are stories wanting to escape, and I believe we are born to tell them. There is a writer inside all of us, just waiting for permission to come out.

In every moment of living, we tell a story in some shape or form - the way we dress, the way we conduct our business, create relationships, form community, play sport, paint, photograph or sing. In everything we do, we are writing.

The way we live and the way we die, is our story told. Within us all are fabulous, amazing stories waiting patiently to be crafted and brought to light.

Writers resource

Telling one’s life stories can be a voyage of self-discovery, freeing up images and thoughts that have long remained hidden. Using the techniques of Writing From Within, anyone can create vivid autobiographical stories and life narratives. For everyone interested in writing, this program enables them to explore their lives, rediscover forgotten experiences, and find out hidden truths about themselves, their parents, and their family histories. View this resource

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Kazi Dolezal — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:17:42 +0000

Creative Drought

For many, writing is a process that is quite magical, and there is a feeling of disillusionment when the magical becomes mundane. Creating for a living is not the same as creating out of passion.

Whether for work or study, intensive writing can suck the passion out of our soul. I much prefer the enchantment, fluidity and surprise that creativity brings when there is no pre-determined outcome or product in mind. Free from desired outcome the mind becomes a clear channel, a pure vessel for creative flow.

Creative non-fiction is a favourite genre, but it’s easy to reach a point where you feel like you’ve sucked the memory well dry of experience - both past and present. Sometimes I can feel as though I have reflected upon everything that can possibly be reflected upon!

During these times of creative drought, there are two things that help me - the first requires play. It is important for creative people to take time out to have fun, walk, wander, go see things that inspire like art exhibitions, a human circus, 3D documentaries, mountains, beach, bush, botanic gardens.

I love collecting shells at a secluded beach, and taking my camera out for photographic dates with nature. Both photograph and shell collections sit close to where I work and act like a portal to imagination, inspiration and creative energy.

The second thing I do, is remind myself that, like the cycle of seasons, creative passion comes back! Passion for creating, regardless of the medium we work with or in, always returns and, often after drought, the creative energy has doubled.

The creative forces of nature, like tidal patterns of the ocean and cycles of the moon, remind me of this ebb and flow. Resisting the ebb impedes the flow of new beginning.

I find that silence is valuable during drought - periods of meditation create a great space for the muses of new beginning, they are drawn to a quite and open mind. Zen masters remind us that life should always be approached with a “beginner’s mind”, for a beginner is open to discovering all possibilities.

Meditation, contemplation, reflection - perhaps three of the greatest tools for an artist. Contemplating what I would like to leave behind if I was soon to depart from this planet also inspires me to think beyond the limits I tend to subconsciously set for myself.

If this were your last week of life what would you notice about your world?

A year leading up to his death, 80 year old poet, William Stafford, started getting up at 4, and in the quiet, dark hours of the morning, in long hand, he penned his observations of the simple and small things in life. He wrote in a voice that carried a sense of morning meditation.

It is unsure as to whether Stafford knew of his approaching death but, wrote author of Tell It Slant, Brenda Miller, “the poems written during those final days have the quality of “last words”: stripped of artifice, speaking from a self that wants us to pay attention - not to abstract ideas and philosophies, not to idle worries or regrets, but to the world as it unfolds before us, every minute, every day. And as I read these poems, I’m thinking that all of our writing, perhaps, could be written with this kind of disposition: with the tenor of last words, the essays we would leave behind if no further writing were possible.”

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?

Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?

William Stafford - You Reading This, Be Ready

Stafford lead an interesting life. One of the most striking features of his career is that he began publishing his poetry only later in life. His first major collection Traveling Through the Dark was published when he was 48 years old. It won the National Book Award the following year in 1963.

Stafford kept a journal for 50 years, and during this time composed 22,000 poems of which approximately 3000 were published. He had a quiet daily ritual of writing, that focused on the ordinary.

“I keep following this sort of hidden river of my life, you know, whatever the topic or impulse which comes, I follow it along trustingly. And I don’t have any sense of its coming to a kind of crescendo, or of its petering out either. It is just going steadily along.”

I have found that keeping a journal - not now and then, but daily, has become my preventative medicine against creative drought. Through the meditative art of contemplation and reflection that journalling evokes, it appeared that Stafford maintained a connection with the ‘hidden river’ of his life and avoided creative drought - 22,000 remarkable poems is a major accomplishment!

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