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5 Activities that Make You a Better Writer
Instead of telling you how to improve your writing, let’s talk about what you can be doing right now to get better…
Being a writer is tricky, especially if you’re actively seeking out ways to improve your skill. I know that every time I go online to find advice on writing, hundreds of experts are going to tell me hundreds of different things.
I don’t feel like doing that today. Instead of telling you how to improve your writing, I want to give some tangible advice on what you can be doing right now to get better at writing.
See, I learn better through experience, and a lot of you may be the same way. Here are the activities that I find myself doing all of the time (and things I’ve been doing for a long time) that have been a tremendous influence on my growth as a writer.
5. JOURNALING
I bring this up because I bought a new journal today. It’s a leather-bound journal that was made in Italy, which means it’s the most attractive item on my desk. Obviously, I get pretty excited about journaling, and not for the reasons you probably think.
When people think of keeping a diary, they typically dwell on the idea of jotting down the mundane things you do every day. Don’t get me wrong, I like to write about events in my life, but I would never keep a journal if that was all there was to it.
Journaling is best done without structure. I jot down thoughts, struggles and emotional turmoil. I write down the things I want to say but don’t feel like sharing with other people.
I confess things in my journal. I identify things I don’t like about myself, or guilt I have for something I’ve done. I write about chance encounters with beautiful women and odd situations I find myself awkwardly implanted into.
Journaling is a best-practice for writing because of all these things. When you start writing for the sake of catharsis (or in other words, for you), you begin to actually enjoy writing across other avenues.
I know when I write, my thoughts tend to clutter what I’m trying to say. When I release my emotions in a focused way through my journal, however, I find myself being far better at writing apart from my emotions.
Make any sense? Let’s hope so, because next…
4. ISOLATION
Sorry fellow extroverts, but isolation is an activity that vastly improves your writing. When I say isolation, I’m referring to your environment. Going into nature just to write is a way for you to bombard your mind with new senses.
There’s nothing wrong with writing in crowded places or at home, especially if that’s your preference. But take time every once in a while to seclude yourself and empty your mind. Because life can be so distracting, you can find a type of solace in the rhythm of nature, allowing you to focus more effectively on what you’re trying to write.
Creativity is far better fostered this way, and you’ll improve your ability to incorporate sensory into your writing, a skill that is quite difficult to learn.
3. TRAVELING
It doesn’t take a lot to convince people that they should travel, but this is still a helpful reminder. Traveling brings about new experiences, and new experiences expand your mind.
The more expansive your mind is, the more things you actually have to write about. It’s simple logic, and it absolutely works. Every time I find myself feeling the onset of writer’s block, I actively pursue new experiences. They allow me to absorb new ideas, people and stories that spur my creativity.
Obviously, the farther you travel, the more likely you are to learn a lot. If you really want the most out of a trip, consider journaling throughout and keep track of what you experience.
2. READING
You can’t be much of a writer if you don’t read as much as you write. For one thing, reading is an ongoing method of cementing your grammar knowledge and improving your vocabulary. It’s also helpful for keeping the flow of your sentences fresh and evolving.
Of course, you should read all kinds of books and anything that interests you, but if you’re not much for reading things on paper, try turning on the subtitles/closed captioning.
I love television as much as I love to read (I basically just love stories), and ever since I was a kid, I’ve always put subtitles on when available. The results are pretty hard to argue with. I thrived in grammar, reading comprehension and spelling all throughout my education due in no small part to the simple act of all always finding an excuse to read.
1. WRITING
You may be thinking this is unnecessary to point out, but I know for a fact that people reading this article don’t realize how much writing it takes to improve at it.
Have you ever read something you wrote a few years ago? It probably makes you cringe (I know it does for me). That’s because time is on your side when it comes to writing. Practice makes perfect and all that (although perfect practice is what actually makes perfect, but whatever).
So, how can you get this done?
Let’s take blogging for instance, if that’s how you want to exercise your writing itch. Do you have multiple blogs, but only update them every once in a while? Well, you may need to cut that out, because for a lot of us, it’s much more fruitful to focus on just one blog and update it frequently.
Posting once a week is the bare minimum in my view, but three times a week is what you should really strive for. That said, I don’t usually recommend that you post five times a week. Most of the time, we write a lot for our blogs at first and then lose interest.
This happens because after the honeymoon phase, we realize that updating a blog five times a week is pretty exhausting. Instead, try scheduling ahead when you feel the itch to write a lot. Spreading your posts out gives you more time to breathe and feel like you have control over when and what you want to write.
Eventually, you may find yourself ready to do more and able to write much more consistently.
Are there any activities that you recommend for better writing? Tweet to me about it or comment below.
Like what you read? Connect with me further via twitter @JonNegroni. I’ll follow back if you say something really witty. You can also subscribe to this blog by clicking the “follow” button in the top-left corner.
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A Day In The Life of a New Professional
What can you expect from post-grad life? A friend of mine asked me this just a few days ago. He’ll be graduating in just a few weeks, and I can’t blame him for being curious.
I asked myself this question one year ago, right before I completed my own undergrad. Since then, my life has changed dramatically, and I am anxious to give some words of encouragement to anyone who is about to embark on the post-grad adventure.
That said, I had a hard time answering my friend’s question, so I decided to use my favorite writing tool of all time: storytelling.
This article is a chronicle of a typical day for me, Jon Negroni, and hopefully it will shed some light on the type of lifestyle you can expect from career life. There is a lot in the post about work, of course, but I also shared some of the more personal, albeit trivial, details of what exactly a day looks like for me.
[I wrote this last night] Today was Monday. The 22nd of April in 2013.
I woke up at 7am, completely cold thanks to this year’s oddly frigid April. Like any other day, I immediately went to my desk and made my daily to-do list and prayed to God that I would complete everything I had to do.
Because I don’t have to go to work until 10am, I had three hours to prepare for the day, so I read two chapters of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and went on my morning run. As always, I opted to do my morning run in silence in order to gather my thoughts for the day and get my mind going.
I walked my dog and grabbed The Wall Street Journal from my doorstep. I then made my breakfast and morning coffee while reading the paper. This part of the day is essential so that I can grasp the current events I can use and share later in the day.
Once I skimmed through the news, I checked my Facebook, Twitter, and some stats for jonnegroni.com
This is easily my favorite part of the day, as it usually consists of me browsing my social media channels stretched out on the couch with my dog comfortably beside me.
While getting ready for work, I turned the radio to NPR and caught some news on the Boston Bomber story. It got pretty depressing, so I eventually turned on Spotify and listened to folk music for the rest of the morning.
Though I don’t have to come in until 10am, I mostly aim to arrive about a half an hour early so that I can start the morning at a steady pace. The drive to work is only a few minutes, so I listened to “Time With You” by Marc Robillard, which is what I listen to on my way to work every single day. I like routines as you’ve probably gathered by now.
I am the social media and Google AdWords manager for a faith-based nonprofit, so I divide my day into two major sections of work. I give my mornings and early afternoon to social media and the rest to AdWords.
I began the day by writing all of our new stats on my dry erase board, which shows off our likes, reach, and followers for each of our social media channels, which includes two Facebook pages and two Twitter feeds.
After I checked over all of our notifications, mentions, retweets and favorites, I began posting our first round of stories.
The first few posts were based on content delivered to me at 8am, so it didn’t take long for me to get to the next stage of my typical day: gluttony. I scoured the internet for content to share and publish for our brand, using Google Alerts and Talkwalker. At any given time I’ll have up to about 1,000 articles and news stories to read through and disseminate.
I also sifted through my email while doing this. I went the whole weekend without marking my emails, so I ended up having 181 unread emails to deal with. I didn’t find anything particularly important except for a few articles I read and shared online.
By 11am, I had almost all of the day’s posts for Facebook and Twitter completed and scheduled, so I moved on to social media engagement.
Our website prompts you to create a profile, so I greet our new members every day and invite them to connect with us on social media. Since we had a weekend full of new members, it took me longer than normal to get through the list.
Next, I went over our notifications again and measured impressions for all of our posts over the weekend. I’ve been experimenting a lot with new types of stories we share, so I’ve been spending plenty of time watching our posts closely to see what works and what doesn’t.
Before I went to lunch at 12:30, I brought up the blog post I wrote Sunday night and did one last proofread. Once it was published and shared, I finally went home for lunch, though I checked my WordPress app for likes and shares almost the entire time.
Before I ate lunch, I went on another run, but this time using a Sony Walkman I received for free as a Klout.com perk. The music player is ideal for running since there are no wires, and they’re great for doing a run when I’m in a hurry. I ran for 10 minutes (so I wouldn’t sweat) and then came back inside to eat leftovers from the night before.
I headed back to work to finish the social media half of my day. Using Talkwalker again, I scoured the internet for keywords based on our brand to see who was talking about us and why. I found some articles people shared via Twitter and then made a startling discovery: Some of our content had been plagiarized.
You see, we write landing pages that are designed to help people with various problems such as suicide, depression, and mental health (that’s where my Google AdWords work comes in). One of our most popular pages is a large list full of simple tips on improving mental health.
Thanks to Talkwalker (which I’m doing a review on later this week), I discovered that the content of this page had been copied and posted on another brand’s Facebook page (I won’t divulge their name) without attributing our organization to the author.
I let my boss know about this and then communicated with the admin of the page in order to get the post properly credited. All in a day’s work for your local social media manager.
By 2:30, I was ready to spend the last four hours of my workday on Google AdWords.
Unlike social media, a lot of this work is a little more tedious and involves numbers and data, although today I wrote copy for ads we are preparing in regards to a child sponsorship project. I also did keyword research for our search ads.
We use Google AdWords to drive people to our landing pages, which are about tough topics like marital issues, mental illnesses, and more. I create ads for these pages, add tons of keywords, and then measure our clicks, impressions, and conversions for each of these pages in order to properly allocate our AdWords budget as effectively as possible.
There’s not much more to it than that. I like this part of my day because it allows my mind to sort of empty. I’ll listen to podcasts, classical music, and NPR to keep myself entertained. Today I listened to a few Freakonomics podcasts.
I finished the day’s work about an hour early, so I began to cool down and read blogs and articles that I could use for the next day before I eventually went home.
I changed into casual clothes and went to get groceries for the week. I went home and cooked to 90s music, ignoring my dog’s pleas for attention. Once I finished dinner and cleaned the kitchen, it was already sunset, so I set out to walk to a coffee shop just a few blocks away from where I live.
On my walk, I listened to “Rhapsody in Blue” by Gershwin, which was pretty much the most beautiful part of my day, as I observed the shifting sky to beautiful music.
I ran into a couple of friends at the coffee shop, including an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while and managed to catch up with. I got my beverage and read a few more chapters of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest before walking back home to “Meditation” by Thais, which was fantastic.
As soon as I got home, I changed into workout clothes and went to play tennis with one of my close friends for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, she completely bested me, but I still managed to have a great time.
I went home, cleaned up, and then worked on my book that I plan to have completed sometime this decade (sarcasm).
And then I wrote this article. Once I’ve finished, I plan on reading a few another chapter or two and getting some much-needed rest.
So there you have it. A typical day in the life of a new professional. I like to think that every single person has days exactly like this, but that is unfortunately ridiculous.
Like what you read? Connect with me further via twitter @JonNegroni. I’ll follow back if you seem like a real person. You can also subscribe to this blog by clicking the “follow” button in the top-left corner.
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What The Weekends Should Be For
At least for me, my work week is packed full of writing. In other words, I spend my time at work just putting out tons of information from my mind. For you, that can be in the form of something else, but the idea remains the same.
When it comes time to plan out my weekend, I am then faced with trouble. I want to be productive, but I am mentally exhausted. What can I do to keep myself from being lethargic without missing out on much-needed rest?
For me, the solution is reading. After days of spouting content from my mind, it is actually refreshing to just take in some profound insights from something else. Escapism if you will. The key is to find something that isn’t just entertaining, but thought-provoking as well. In other words, if it isn’t interesting enough for you to talk about the rest of that week, you’ve probably wasted your time.
JN