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How To Speed Up Your Article Writing By A Third

Author: Sean D'Souza

How To Speed Up Your Article Writing By A Third

Speeding up your articles writing: Is that really possible?
Do you want to write articles and write them faster?
Do you want to write outstanding articles and write them faster?
Do you want to avoid slogging over one darned article for three hours?

Let's answer that question by looking at piano lessons.

If you started piano lessons two and a half weeks ago…would you want to play faster?
Or better?

Would you want the notes to sound like a bit of a melody? Or would you want to rush through it, just to be quick?

I know the answer: With the piano, you'd want to play the melody. With the article, you'd want to write faster -without losing the melody.

So you have one standard for piano lessons, but quite another for article writing, but hey, that's not a problem.

Because lack of speed does frustrate.
But no matter how slow you are, you need to know something. It's important know that when I was in your situation, I was taking two DAYS to write an article! I'd have given anything to write in three hours. Man, writing in three hours that would have been like taking the bullet train!

But surely there's a way to speed up things without sacrificing on quality…

Yes there is. It's called posting on forums. Or blogs.

Because it takes me just a few minutes to answer a post on a forum or blog. And it takes you approximately the same few minutes to answer a post. Of course, if you answer a post with a longer answer, then it may take fifteen minutes. Or thirty.

But when was the last time you answered a post on a forum or on a blog and took a chunky three hours? Never, eh? Never is the answer. Neither you, nor I have ever sat there and composed a three-hour answer.

Any answer to any post is always done and dusted in less than about 20-30 minutes, no matter how detailed. No matter how long.
And that's because you're emotionally charged.

Your neurons are doing the salsa the moment you hit the keys. By the time you get into the first few lines of your answer, your neurons are on their third margarita. And that's when you really start to write with a flow. Often the thoughts come so fast, that you can barely get them onto the screen.

So try it. Try answering a post.
Jump onto a forum if you can. And see if a question tickles your fancy. Then answer the question in great detail. I do this on several blogs. And several forums. And as you've seen time and time again, in 5000bc.

I simply answer the questions in great detail and then I have an article. Of course, if it's on a forum or blog, then the person posting the question may come back with more questions.

And because as I get more questions to my original answer, I can fortify my original article as well. Or in some cases, the consequent questions may lead to different angles, and hence different articles on the same topic. And you know what? It's much easier to answer a question when you're charged up and all excited, than to write from a cold start.

I know this because I write hundreds of articles every year.
Of course if you're on the Article Writing Course, you know that's no big deal. A person who's been on the course just for a week, is writing six and seven articles a week. Even if you take a couple of months off in a year from writing, you can still turn out about 250 articles reasonably easily. But you have to ask: Where are you going to get questions for those hundreds of articles?

The answer is forums. The answer is blogs.

But what if you don't find blogs or forums?

Well get a student

Get someone who you can work with. Charge them a fee. Let them come over week after week, and you train them.  The discipline of having to train them will fill your head with ideas and concepts that you need to write down. And of course, students have an unending number of questions. All you have to do is to remember to make notes of what you said in your answer.

So keep a piece of paper and a pen handy. As you give that student the answer, make sure you write down the points of your answer. Do this all the time and for any question you answer.

Suddenly you'll have so many articles that you'll be like an air traffic controller over Heathrow airport.
Dozens of articles waiting to land. Dozens of articles circling the airport. And you've got the questions and the answers.

And of course we come full circle. You're not taking three hours (or a miserable two days to write an article) Instead you're doing it in 20-30 minutes or less.

And yes, it may not be the best article in the world…yet!
But hey, you become a lot faster. As you write on a daily basis you'll get better too.

And then you've got the best of both worlds: Speed and quality.

Just don't try this on piano lessons, ok?

Want to get more goodies?
Next Step: More Goodies: Find the entire series on article-writing (articles not tips) in text and audio with cartoons!
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Next Article Writing Article: How To Create Flow In Your Articles
Next Step: Read actionable articles on article writing.

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Filed Under: Article Writing, Human Nature, podcasts Tagged With: Add new tag, Article Marketing, Article writing, Brain Audit, education, human behaviour, internet strategy, Marketing Strategies, psychotactics, sean d'souza

Comments

  1. Flora Morris Brown, Ph.D. says

    August 16, 2009 at 12:43 am

    Sean,

    Love your writing, your metaphors, your ideas. Thanks.

    Reply
  2. Jonathan Stamey says

    August 16, 2009 at 12:58 am

    I subscribe to lots of internet marketing, copywriting, blogging, etc. RSS feeds…I think I can honestly say yours is the only one that I’ve read every piece of content from since the day I subscribed.

    Thanks a bunch Sean…I’m trying to write my first free report/ebook and I hope it creates the same effect that the Brain Audit had on your audience.

    Take care, always looking forward to more stuff from you.

    Reply
  3. Susan Greene says

    August 16, 2009 at 2:15 am

    Great advice, Sean. I’ve been mentoring a new copywriter. Every time she emails me a question, I turn my detailed response into an article for my website.

    You’ve taken this idea a step farther by suggesting that we seek out questions in forums and blogs. That’s something I haven’t tried. Thanks for the great idea!

    Reply
  4. Richard Michie says

    August 17, 2009 at 4:40 am

    I love your posts they hit me betwen the eyes and inspire me each time. I think that now your blog is as much of a must read as Seth Godin. So that’s two sites I read each day without fail.

    Reply
  5. Sean D'Souza says

    August 18, 2009 at 7:02 am

    Just wanted you to know that Sean is on vacation and will be back next week.

    Renuka

    Reply
  6. Sean D'Souza says

    August 23, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Ok, I’m back from vacation. And thanks for all the nice notes 🙂

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. The Best Article I’ve Read on Improving Writing Productivity | blog by dee says:
    September 15, 2009 at 2:39 am

    […] Edit: Just found another one that’s just as good by the same author. How To Speed Up Your Article Writing By A Third […]

    Reply

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