Craft Your Content - What writers should focus on.

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Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

"What didn't you do to bury me? But you forgot I was a seed." - Dinos Christianopoulos.

Elisa’s Thought for the Week

I’ve started asking coaching clients a new question.

Tell me about your writing life.*

There’s a reason I’ve started using this phrase.

While there are a ton of articles out there about your writing set-up, and routines, and desk yoga for writers, and networking hacks, and various other “not writing but about writing” topics — we’re not talking as much about how these all blend together to create a writer’s life.

See, the act of sitting down and figuring out what words you want to put on the page is maybe 10-20% of the actual writing process.

And the writing process is barely 10-20% of our cumulative life experience.

There are so many factors that affect our writing, and we never think about them.

• How do you manage your physical, mental, and emotional states to come to your writing with your almost-best-cause-we’re-all-human-and-working-with-what-we’ve-got stuff?
• Do you have peers and colleagues you can turn to for anything? How about friends and family (particularly about your writing, craft, and work)?
• Where do you go to find inspiration?
• What are your reading, watching, or listening to that will help you develop more ideas and aha’s to write about?

All of these pieces factor into your writing just as much as the writing itself.

Of course we focus as an advice industry on the writing because actually sitting your butt in a chair to do the actual writing is what makes you a writer.

But what we’re missing out on is the fact that everything else impacting our ability to sit our butt in a chair to do the actual writing (whether we are publishing yet or not) is what makes the writing happen.

Seems like a pretty important parcel of parts to spend some time figuring out, huh?

What You Missed on Craft Your Content …

Our articles have the same mission we do — to help you to make your words even better

• In case you missed it earlier this week, we are offering a FREE 5-Day Mini-Course: 2022 Writers Annual Review. This course will help you look at your writing life over the past year to collect insights, reflect on them, and then use them to begin to architect your 2023 writing plans. Click to Join Today!​

In Other Reading This Week …

Need more insights and inspiration for your writing and mindset?

• If you are a reader who loves talking to other readers, Yashvi Peeti has pulled together a list of the best places to discuss books in 2023 over on Bookriot (and we’ll have one to add starting January 3rd…)
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• ​Struggling with your writing and/or imposter syndrome? As this piece on The Guardian shows, you’re in good company! Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy trilogy, often felt the same way.
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• I love to see how other writers collect notes and go through their research process (as anyone who’s taken our Crafting Your Creative Flow course can attest!) This is another take from Wired and Smithsonian columnist Clive Thompson.
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• Wonder what it’s like to publish a book traditionally through a publishing house? This piece from Colwill & Peddle (an independent literary agency) quickly breaks down the standard 10 steps to the publishing process.​
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• TWR readers have asked why I get SO excited about words and this article from Big Think by Jonny Thomson, about 7 lost idioms in the English language, is a master class in the cultural importance of our words and phrases.

Weekly Writing Tip …

A quick chance to learn from the masters.

“…my job as a writer isn’t to be aware of the writing. It’s to be present in the world first.” — Nikesh Shukla

Untranslatable …

Exquisite words from other languages.

Voorpret [VOR-preht] (n.) From the Dutch, it is an intense feeling of joy in the lead-up to a fun event. It literally translates to English as “pre-fun.” Sorta synonyms: anticipation, giddiness, eagerness, pregame, keenness, ants in your pants

This Week’s Writing Prompt …

We often do our thinking when we write.

How do you get in the zone with your writing? Do you know what your zone is? Where it is? What it feels like? What it sounds like? Dig deep into the 5 (or more!) senses to see what you can learn about your writing life.

For the Upcoming Week …

Because we all need a good chuckle to start things off right!

It truly is a love language.

Cheers ~

* My amazing copy editor would like to note this sentence is a request, not a question, but y’all know what I mean! The question is implied…