20 Surprising Things I Learned By Writing For 30 Days
In September of 2016, I embarked on a journey. I would write every day for 12 weeks. It stretched me. It taxed me. It made me dig into caverns of my mind I hadn’t explored in a very long time. In 12 weeks, I was able to create more content than I had in the previous two years combined. The concept was gleaned from Brian Moran’s book, The 12 Week Year.
As I went along, I learned some things and wrote about them here. But, there was more to be learned. So, I decided to do another 12-week stint, kicking it off with a 30-day writing challenge in my Speak Write Now Community.
Here are some things I’m learning:
1. I work well in sprints. Some people write every day all the time. Jeff Goins recommends this. Maybe I’ll get there. But right now, it works well for me to sprint and then take some walk breaks.
2. Always seek inspiration. You won’t run of ideas. But you may get stuck on ways to present them. Always look for other ways of sharing them.
3. Get out of your head. Playing with your ideas in public is OK.
4. Some articles will be ok. Others will be better. Just keep writing without judgment.
5. Ask questions. The answers other people give might be fodder for writing.
6. Seek questions. What are people asking? The second 30 day block of my writing stint will involve me going to Quora.com daily and creating a blog post based on questions I see asked there. Follow me on this journey.
7. I’m a writer. Yeah, I’m a writer. I’m learning that since I’m writing, I’m a writer. I’m a speaker first, who writes. But, I’m a writer.
8. Don’t beat yourself up. I did my best to get some writing done every day. I missed a couple. I jumped back on the wagon the next day and completed the prompts. Now here I am at 30. Keep going.
9. Community is great but don’t compare yourself. The push of a group is definitely motivational. But, some people are going to fall off. You will still need to pull from some internal motivating resource to get past some of the blocks.
10. Write about stuff that excites you…mostly. All of your writing won’t be exciTING. But, you can write about stuff you care about most of the time.
11. Writing prompts are good. But, don’t forget to write down your ideas when you have them.
12. Using a site like Grammarly.com greatly improves your writing consistency and readability.
13. You don’t always have to follow the rules of grammar. I found I was sometimes held back by “proper” sentence structure. Sometimes, it’s fine to start with a because, an and or an or. Just because. Other times, it’s ok leave out the subject and the predicate. Coz you feel like it. But, it is good to be able to flip on the scholar switch sometimes.
14. Be real. Tell stories. Write about real stuff.
15. People like stories.
16. The more you do something, the more you’ll learn about it. I’ve found a ton of writing resources. I share a lot of them in my community.
17. Headlines really are important. But, don’t let them hold you back. You’ll get better at them as you go along. Just keep writing.
18. Sometimes long is good. Sometimes short is better.
19. Break apart your paragraphs for visual ingestion. Long paragraphs are harder to read.
20. Write when you don’t feel like it. Anything worth doing is going to be hard some days. Push through. You’ll like the results.
OK. Maybe these weren’t all surprising. But, I had to get an emotional word into the headline. :).
Interested in learning more about speaking and writing? How about connecting with an amazing community that is sharing their amazing stories with confidence? Join me in the Speak Write Now Community.
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About The Author
My name is Robert Kennedy III. I’m a leadership and communication speaker, trainer and author. I recently released 7 Ways To Know You Were Meant To Lead on Amazon. Connect with me on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or on my website, RobertKennedy3.com.
