TA #93: 💪 How to Build a Daily Writing Habit [Template]; Seeking Forgiveness

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Welcome to the 93rd issue of Total Annarchy, a fortnightly newsletter by me, Ann Handley, with a focus on writing, marketing, living your best life. THANK YOU for being here! I appreciate you.

Boston, Sunday, August 15, 2021

Hi, friend.

I'm typing this with one hand—let's call it Lefty, because it's my left hand.

Righty hangs by my side, injured but itching to get in on the action, like a sidelined Olympian in Tokyo.

I had shoulder surgery two Thursdays ago for rotator cuff tears—four of them. (Caused over a year ago when I slipped and went down hard on a slushy Boston street. My right arm shot out and tried to be the hero.)

I thought my cuff and I would bounce right back. I thought my arm would spend the weekend lounging in the summer sun like a lizard. And within a week—tops!—she'd be good to go.

Maybe not quite ready for the batting cages. But at least capable of... I don't know... chopping a tomato?

But no. Here I am, 2 weeks later—right arm strapped across my stomach, housed in a hot nylon sling for another month. (Hot like sweaty; not hot like sexy.)

A few times a day I wrap a Cryo Cuff onto my shoulder. It's a cold pack that swaddles my arm like a burrito, and then sticks that burrito inside a walk-in freezer.

It's supposed to keep the swelling down. It makes me look like a lopsided linebacker.

* * *

I've worked hard to create a daily writing habit. Usually every morning—before I crack open the spine of my laptop or scroll through Instagram—for 15 minutes I capture things that happened the previous day: stories I heard, things I experienced, whatever I connected with or found inspiring.

In the back of my notebook, I keep a random list of things like half-baked blog post ideas, speech fragments, book ideas. It's like an Amazon wish list of things I might buy from the Content Store if such a thing as a Content Store existed.

I call my daily ritual 15 Minutes of Sunday because it's a slow-like-Sunday-morning start to my day.

A daily habit like this is important if you want to become a better writer.

It tunes you into your life. It documents things too easily lost. (The world comes at you fast.)

And it builds creative muscle: "Habits practiced once a week aren't habits at all. They're obligations." (Jeff Goins)

But what happens when you lapse a little? Because you're uninspired. Bored. Worn down by a global pandemic. Or when your right arm is furloughed, unable to perform her job responsibilities on the right side of the keyboard, leaving Lefty to struggle on her own?

What happens then?

* * *

I'll tell you: You lose motivation. Your daily journal entries read:

"In pain."
"blllrrrrgh."
"What's the point?"

The Practice becomes The Plod. It's not fun anymore.

Time to get our groove back. Time to call on the genius of artist, author, professor (UW—Madison) Lynda Barry.

* * *

Lynda's book What It Is: Do You Wish You Could Write? is part memoir, part trippy picture book, part guide to capturing your creativity. It's weird and fantastic. (You'll either love it or completely hate it.) She also wrote Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor.

From Lynda Barry's Syllabus

Lynda references a four-square technique to helps give structure and inspiration and a bit of whimsy to a daily habit.

It works like this:

Divide a journal page into four sections, titled as in the header image above. Every day, fill in each section. Bullet points help—because they give you permission to use sentence fragments and partial thoughts.

▶️ Did—How did you spend your day?
▶️ Saw—What did you see? Notice? (Me = my couch. LOL)
▶️ Heard—What did you overhear? Snippets of conversation overheard from strangers, neighbors, unsuspecting spouses on a Zoom call, kids?
▶️ Draw a related doodle or sketch. Important point: Just draw. Do not judge your talent or its artistic mettle. Your objective is just to loosen up/have fun—not judge the quality of your art.

After a few days, you'll start to notice the world a little differently. You'll start to act like a hunter-gatherer, collecting things inside your noggin so you can record them later. And you'll get your groove back—almost by default.

You aren't "writing." You're "just making a list."

* * *

There are other techniques that can inspire your daily writing habit when you're stuck and rut-ified. (Not a word? Is now.)

The Bullet Journal Method
Julia Cameron's Morning Pages
One Line a Day

But I like the Lynda Barry Four-Square Method because I can pop in and out of the structure, if I need to.

Try it! Then hit reply—let me know how it works for you.

* * *

RESEARCH: The One That Got Survey

A few months ago I asked all of you writers and content creators to participate in a research study of content entrepreneurs, conducted in partnership with Joe Pulizzi (godfather of Content Marketing) and Brian Clark (of Copyblogger fame). Now the results are in!

A successful content creator does these 4 things:

Spends 2-ish years building before bringing in enough revenue to quit their day job
Works full time on their content business
Sees themselves as business owners, not merely content creators
Focuses on building owned channels (blogs, newsletters) rather than social or other third-party channels

This from The Unconventionals: 2021 Benchmark Study of Content Entrepreneurs. It distills the experiences of 1,400 writers, podcasters, and other creative content business owners. It's good info if you're looking to grow or scale your own business—and includes benchmarks of how others have grown their audiences:

Joe Pulizzi has a synopsis of the findings. Full report here. (No reg. required.)

QUICKIES

Apple's Hide My Email: A New Reason to Accept Only Corporate Email Addresses Should B2B companies block non-corporate email addresses from signup forms? Chad S. White weighs in.

Related 👉 How to Write Emails People Love: My best advice direct from my Tiny House Studio to copywriters and others creatives.

How to Repurpose a Webinar into 9 Other Content Assets, Step-by-Step Create once, publish 9X.

Related 👉 How to Creatively Repurpose Content Because Good Content Is Hard: All the Tips, Tricks, Tools You Need I'm looking forward to this webinar with the wonderful Melanie Deziel, because no one knows more than M-Deez on how to repurpose. [free reg.]

SHELFIES

When I quoted writing advice from the novel Bel Canto a few weeks ago, TA reader Bobby Lehew asked me if I'd ever read another Ann Patchett book, This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Bobby—himself an incredible writer and storyteller—said it contained one of the best essays he's ever read about writing.

He was right, because it pinpoints the weird self-loathing and grief you can feel when what you see in your head doesn't quite come out the way you expect:

I never learned how to take the beautiful thing in my imagination and put it on paper without feeling I killed it along the way. I did, however, learn how to weather the death, and I learned how to forgive myself for it.

Forgiveness. The ability to forgive oneself. Stop here for a few breaths and think about this, because it is the key to making art and very possibly the key to finding any semblance of happiness in life.

11/10 recommend.

EVENTS

My big face recently had a moment in Times Square to promote the Make It Big Conference, Big Commerce's free online event for ecommerce businesses taking place this September 14 & 15. Also speaking: Mark Cuban, Neil Patel. Register to hear my stories and advice on creating content that truly converts.

P.S. Did I mention it's free?

DEPARTMENT OF SHENANIGANS

Did you read the fine print?

LOVE LETTERS

💌 To Marijana Kay for citing my welcome email as an example of what works.
💌 To Dennis Shiao for the Sea Shanty love.
💌 To Bethany Spence at digital22 for the group hug for Everybody Writes.
💌 To Kristel Staci at TechBullion for naming me one of 7 Must-Follow Thought Leader + Influencers on Instagram.
💌 To Alison Pratt at Demand Spring for the reminder that pre-pandemic times existed.

* * *

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for your kindness and generosity.

Stay safe. Stay sane. Protect your rotator cuffs.

I'll be back on August 29.

P.S. If you like this newsletter and want to support it, you can:

1) buy a book.
2) Get yourself some $WORD coin. (Read more about creator coins here.)
3) Simply forward this newsletter to a friend with an invitation to subscribe right here: www.annhandley.com/newsletter.

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Ann Handley is the author of Everybody Writes and other books.
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TA #93: 💪 How to Build a Daily Writing Habit [Template]; Seeking Forgiveness

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TA #89: 🗣️ Public Speaking for Introverts (And Those Who Forget How to Be Around People); My Writing Framework

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