For those of you who missed it live, the video of my WordCamp US presentation, “Publish in 10 Minutes Per Day,” is now available. The transcript of the talk is here. Enjoy!
Tag: writing
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I presented the following at WordCamp US 2015. Enjoy!
You’re an awesome blogger, right? You never run out of ideas, you work your full time job, exercise daily, manage your household, and still publish regularly on your blog. You post exciting content every day and can sustain your level of blogging forever and ever, amiright?
Yeah. Me neither.
Sad blogger. Days go by, and then weeks. You think about how good posting would feel: to write, to publish, to get those likes and comments. But you don’t actually do anything about it. The longer your blog sits untouched, the more pressure you feel to make your next post AWESOME to make up for being a slacker. Which of course means you now have writer’s block, because really, who can write under the pressure of having to write something amazing? So you don’t post. Your visitors leave. Your views trickle down to zero. You feel like a terrible blogger and you go cry in a corner.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
I found a way to make time for your blog so that you can not only fit it into your life, but so that you have something to write about every time you put fingers to keyboard.
My name is Andrea Badgley and I’ve been blogging for four years on my personal site here at andreabadgley.com. When I first started my blog, I was a stay-at-home mom and published multiple times a week. I had a decent following, and was gaining more online friends every day.
But when I started working full time, I no longer had time or focus for my blog. I stopped publishing regularly. My views and followers dwindled. I felt bad about myself for neglecting the blog that I had not only grown to love, but that helped me find my career path with WordPress.com.
Blockers
Abandoning my blog was not okay with me. So I tried to figure out what was keeping me from blogging. I determined that I had two blockers:
- Time
- Topics
During my blogging drought, I’d think, I don’t have time for my blog anymore, or if I made time, I’d sit down with my pen and paper only to be blocked by, I don’t have anything interesting to say. So I came up with a way to make time, and I devised a tool that ensured I’d never run out of topics.
First, let’s talk about time.
Carve out 10 minutes per day
I was once a member of a group who met weekly to write together. We often did what’s called a free-write: we’d set a timer, write for 10 minutes without lifting our pens from the page, and when the timer dinged, we put our pens down and read what we wrote.
Timer To make time in my life for blogging, I iterated on the idea of the free-write and decided to carve 10 minutes out of my day, every day, to write.
Ten minutes is so little. You can do it after a 6AM workout, when an early morning run has gotten your creative juices flowing. Or you can do it as soon as you wake, when you’re still in a dream state. Or you can do it on lunch, or with a cocktail. Or in bed when you realize, oh crap, I haven’t written yet today.
The main thing to remember is that ten minutes can be squeezed in anywhere in the day.
Pro-tip
Use an alarm to remind yourself to write To really make this work, here’s a pro-tip: Create a trigger. Carve out a specific time of day and create a cue for your writing time so that you will make a habit of it. Set an alarm for when you want to write, and give yourself a reward for following through: a peaceful house in the early morning, or an afternoon cup of coffee to go with your writing time. Pairing a trigger, like an alarm, with a reward, like coffee, will help you build a habit of writing every day.
Keep topics on hand
The ten-minute write takes care of the time issue, but what about topics?
Prompt box Again, I’ll turn to a writing group strategy. At our gatherings, we placed a silver engraved box filled with folded slips of paper in the middle of the table. At the beginning of each free write, one of us would pull a piece of paper from the box and read the words written on it aloud. We’d then write for ten minutes about whatever the prompt was.
This same strategy works for blogging. To create a prompt box, snip a sheet of paper into about 30 slips. On each slip, write a word or phrase that has meaning to you. Examples of some of mine are thunderstorms, rolling pins, and salt marshes. If you’re writing for a business site, you could seed your box with employee names, materials you use, or anything unique to your business or the way it operates.
Once you’ve written your prompts, fold the slips and place them in a box or some other vessel. Whenever you sit down to write, if you have nothing to say, pull a prompt out and start writing.
Timer + Prompt Box = Writing
To overcome writer’s block and start publishing again, pair the ten-minute free write with the prompt box. During the time you’ve carved out for your writing, grab your timer and your box. Pull a prompt, write for ten minutes, and when the timer dings, stop writing. That’s it.
Does this really work? What about editing?
Case study
The 10-minute write motto In April 2015, I dedicated to publishing a 10-minute write every day for 30 days. Each morning, beginning March 31, I poured a cup of coffee before my work day started, pulled a slip of paper from my prompt box, started a timer, and wrote until the timer dinged. I did a quick scan for spelling and punctuation errors, tagged the post AprilDaily, then scheduled the post to publish the following morning.
The scheduling delay allowed me to do additional editing if I wanted to, but I rarely did. Why didn’t I edit? Because during that month, I learned to live by this creed:
Perfect is the enemy of Done.
Publishing this way is liberating. Some posts will bomb, but some posts will take off more than you can anticipate. It’s like shooting 100 frames to get the right photograph: every shot isn’t going to be brilliant, but each click of the shutter helps you improve and sets you up for when a prime moment arrives for you to capture it; because you’ve been practicing, and because you’re ready, you’ll capture it beautifully.
Results
Views increased 45% during #AprilDaily experiment Using the prompt box and the timer, I published every day in the month of April. My blog no longer sat empty and neglected. Visitor climbed 26%, and views increased 45% over the previous month, from 3700 in March to 5400 views in April. My blog was active again, and readers loved the spontaneity of it. In fact, they got involved by sending me prompts. When I wrote from a reader’s prompt, I gave credit and linked back to their site, helping build community.
Giving yourself meaningful topics to write about and then carving out the time to write will get you not only practicing, but will get you publishing again. It will make your blog active and will bring visitors to your site.
Starting is the hardest part. Once you start, the writer’s block wall will begin to crumble. By making a habit of writing, and by making sure you always have topics on hand, you’ll be able to reduce that wall to a pile of rubble that you can easily kick out of your way.
Get writing
So how do you get started? Create a prompt box. Make a list of 20 things you love: moss, mountains, bacon, brioche. When you are out in the world, whether eavesdropping in a coffee shop or watching an acorn roll across the sidewalk, make notes of objects or scenes that strike you. Record a voice memo on your phone or ink these ideas on your hand if you have to so you can remember them. When you return home, add those mementos to your prompt box.
Then? Write.
Pro-tips
- If you’re really worried about editing, set your timer for 7 minutes to give yourself 3 minutes for edits.
- Write every day, but publish every other day. This will allow you to stockpile posts for when you are on vacation or for those days when you don’t want to share what you’ve written.
- To mix it up for your readers, keep a handful of photos on hand. A compelling photograph with a well-written caption doesn’t require a long blog post and can take only minutes to craft.
Additional Resources
- Getting Started with a Prompt Box on The Daily Post: The Art and Craft of Blogging
- AprilDaily posts, where I published a 10-minute write every day during the month of April
- NovemberDaily posts, where I replicated the AprilDaily experiment and had similar results with increases in visitors and and views
If you have questions or decide to try publishing in 10 minutes per day, I’d love to hear about it. Let’s keep the conversation going with the hashtag #10minwri. Have fun!
Special thanks to my writing partners at The Joyful Quill for introducing me to the 10-minute-write, and to Luca Sartoni and GetSpeak.in for the tremendous support helping me prepare for this presentation.
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A little over a year ago, I submitted work for a writing gig that I was sure I was a great fit for. I was deep into my writing habit, and I knew the work I submitted was good. When I never heard back — a fate even worse than outright rejection because it feels like they don’t even care — I was heartbroken. I had had pieces of work rejected before, but this rejection stung. It stung because I knew the platform, I knew the subject, I thought I was a part of the tribe. It stung because I realized I wasn’t part of the tribe: I was chasing people who didn’t want me. I felt like a girl with a crush, and the object of my crush didn’t even know I existed.
And then came Automattic.
And I realized who my true tribe are.
Automattic is the company that makes WordPress.com, the blogging platform I use for my Butterfly Mind and Andrea Reads America blogs: the blogging platform that enabled me to dig deep into my writing habit. WordPress.com is the blogging community that helped me keep writing, keep improving, and keep publishing without a gatekeeper, without giving control of my work to someone else who could potentially reject it even when I know it’s good.
Automattic is a company dedicated to the mission of democratizing publishing. That’s a mission I can 100% get behind.
One year ago today, I joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer, and was welcomed into the fold with open arms and a genuine feeling that I am trusted, I am wanted, and I am where I belong.
My job is to help others realize their publishing dreams. As a Happiness Engineer, I have the honor of helping writers, photographers, small business owners, poets, graphic artists, and other creatives get their work into the world without anyone else’s approval, without fear of the big fat REJECTION stamp that someone else wields.
How have I done that? One of the things I love about my job is how nerdy we all are. Which means we have stats. I’ve been waiting for this day so I can peek at my support stats and see what I’ve done this year:
Support emails with WordPress.com users: 2232
Live chats with WordPress.com users: 3738
Number of Blogging University courses I helped with: 5
Number of bugs reported: 35+What about that writing dream?
Number of internal blog posts written: 430
Number of comments written on internal blogs: 1299
Number of Daily Post articles I authored or contributed to: 7+And this is my very favorite:
Number of words posted on internal blogs at Automattic: 126,010.
That’s longer than a standard novel*, y’all. And that doesn’t include my personal blog posts here on Butterfly Mind or at Andrea Reads America. I seem to be writing more now than I wrote as a writer.
Thank you Automattic, for an amazing first year, for welcoming me, for trusting me, and for providing a place of purpose to work.
*For reference: 126,000 words is almost double the length of The Color Purple by Alice Walker or The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
Does this sound awesome to you? Join us. We’re hiring.
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I admit. I fell off the writing wagon for about a month. This past week, I began writing again, and I’ve burned through almost all of the prompts in my prompt box. There are only about six more slips of paper in there. Will you help me fill it back up?
Feed me your favorite word, a vivid scene, an unlikely pairing. A piece of dialog, an object, a potent verb. I’ll write them on slips of paper and put them in my tea tin of ideas.
Some past prompts I’ve written from:
rolling pins
ocean
ink
thunderstorms
sun on my skinYou get the idea. I look forward to your words. Thank you!
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It is New Year’s Day, January 1, 2015, and I thought I wasn’t going to make any resolutions this year. I’ve got a new job, and in the second half of 2014 I set goals to make sure I didn’t forget my personal life in the excitement of my new work life: exercise four times a week, blow dry my hair twice a week (I work from home).
After a couple of months on the job, I carved out time – 6 AM – for exercise, and I managed to dry my hair and (gasp) wear makeup at least twice a week. I felt pretty good accomplishing those two goals and didn’t feel like I needed any others.
The only problem is that the 6 AM time slot used to be my writing time. So while I’m adding health and hygiene back into my life now that I work full time, I haven’t managed to add writing back in. I rarely write for myself anymore. I’ve journalled maybe 5 times since I began my job in July, and many of my recent blog posts have been photo-heavy or have been recycled content. Not so thoughtful or writerly anymore. I haven’t been to my critique group in six months, and I quit my craft group as well (sniff).
I want to change that in 2015. So I guess I’ll be making a resolution after all. It feels like I’m going backwards: last year I resolved to focus on the nuances, the skills, the craft of writing, this year I’m just trying to write.
I’ll start small. I’ve fallen out of the habit of writing. It is no longer a part of my daily routine. I want to add it back into my life, to make it as integral to the structure of my day as coffee and exercise are.
In 2015, I resolve to dedicate ten minutes a day to writing. Ten minutes is so little. I can do it after my 6AM workout, when pushups have gotten my creative juices flowing. Or I can do it before that workout, when I’m still in a dream state. Or on lunch. Or on a break. Or in bed when I realize, Oh crap, I haven’t written yet today.
I don’t have to post what I’ve written to my blog, though sometimes I’m sure I will. Like this post, the first of 2015’s ten-minute writes.
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A man without a wife can be lonely in a big black Mercedes, no matter how many readers he has. – Howard Jacobson
Have you ever read a book that just didn’t do it for you, but had one character, one scene, or one line that has stuck with you forever? You’re going through life, feeling sorry for yourself that you don’t have more time to write, and then BAM. You remember a line from a book you had otherwise forgotten, and you thank God you read it?
That’s how it is for me with the line above from Jacobson’s novel, The Finkler Question. The book itself was only okay to me. The characters, meh. Kind of endearing, but kind of annoying, too. The story was not funny in a laugh out loud kind of way, but was witty, in an internal chuckle kind of way.
But that line. I have come back many times to that line. And it made the whole reading worth it.
I met with a fellow writer recently to trade critiques, and our conversation gradually transitioned to where to submit, who pays, who doesn’t, you could pitch it this way for this publication, that way for that journal. She is far more seasoned than I am, and when I asked whether her writing contributes substantially to her family income, she responded, “It doesn’t supplement my husband’s salary, but it pays for my writing studio.” And I was instantly jealous. A writing studio! God, how I’d love a studio. A room of my own, with a window seat, and light on my face, and a door that closes.
But more than that, a designated room would mean that writing was more than a hobby. That it was something serious, that I had time to do, that I wasn’t squeezing into an hour here, a half hour there. I’ve got 17 pieces I have started, then abandoned when it was time to wake the kids up, or volunteer at the school, or shop for groceries, or meet the school bus. By the time I get back to the essays, the mojo is gone. I’m not with the feeling anymore, and I can’t finish.
At these times I get frustrated. I fantasize about having large chunks of time to focus on writing, to research, to finish pieces, to edit, to polish. I go into my head, mulling all those incomplete essays, thoughts for this one jumbling with ideas for that one, and I think, if I were alone, and didn’t have all these responsibilities, I could take care of these. I could get them out, get them done.
A man without a wife can be lonely in a big black Mercedes, no matter how many readers he has.
And then that line from The Finkler Question snaps me back to reality, reminding me what it would really mean, at this stage in our family’s life, if I dedicated that kind of time and mental focus to a life of words. Because that line, regardless of its context within the novel, is about more than the emptiness of fame and fortune, or the loneliness of the writer’s life. It’s about throwing yourself into something so deeply, dedicating so much of your attention to this passion, or job, or hobby, that you risk losing contact, sacrificing closeness, with the most important people in your life.
There will come a time in the not so distant future when our children leave home, and there will be silence where their voices once were. Like the writer in The Finkler Question who lost his wife, I will rattle around in our empty house, with all the time in the world to write, and every room will be a room of my own. I will think of the pies I made with our daughter, of reading The Old Man and the Sea with our son, of answering their questions about sex and bad words, and I will give thanks for that single line in an only okay book. The line that reminded me to take my time, to enjoy my kids. A woman can be lonely in a room of her own, no matter how many readers she has.
The Finkler Question, by Howard Jacobson. “Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, Jacobson’s wry, devastating novel examines the complexities of identity and belonging, love, and grief through the lens of contemporary Judaism.” (Publishers Weekly)During the holidays I will be republishing posts from my first couple of years on Butterfly Mind. My site has this fancy new look now, and since I don’t foresee myself writing a lot over the next couple of weeks, I didn’t want the makeover to go to waste. This post was originally published two years ago today, on December 18, 2012.
Butterfly Mind 