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Want to write more and write faster too? Let’s discover the secrets of great writing habits, which completely eliminate procrastination and writer’s block.

Great writing habits start when you realize that writing is a process. Although others’ writing (including articles and books) may seem effortless - as though a piece of writing has been written in a single seamless session - that’s always far from the case.

If you understand the writing process, and that it’s messy and chaotic, then your own scrambled writing process will seem natural to you, because not only is it completely normal, but you’ll realize it’s essential.

You can’t create without chaos. If you try, you’ll choke your writing. Writing will be difficult, if not impossible.

Let’s look at three tips which will help you to get comfortable with chaos and to write more and faster too.

1. Set writing goals - what do you want to write?

All writing starts with setting goals for yourself: process goals, which only you can accomplish, and which you control.

For example, you may set a goal to have your writing appear in a particular magazine, or on a specific Web site by a certain date. This is a worthwhile goal, however it’s not a process goal that’s solely under your control.

A process goal would be: “By ________ (date) my essay for _______ (magazine name) is complete.”

Always set process goals - goals which you control. Yes, you can set financial goals, however the basis of all your financial goals MUST be process goals. There’s no point in setting a goal of making $250,000 a year from your writing if that goal isn’t supported by many process goals - if you don’t write enough, you won’t sell enough. It really is that simple.

So set process goals, and enter the daily tasks you must complete to meet those goals into your planner.

Break the tasks down - chunk them.

2. Separate planning, drafting and writing

Writing is a process which involves planning, drafting and writing.

Always chunk your writing process right down.

For example, I plan the articles I’ll write the following week each Sunday. I write the topics, the titles, and the outlines for all the articles.

During the week, I draft the articles further, and then I write them. Drafting for me involves a combination of free writing and mind maps. I separate the draft for a project from the writing by at least one day, often by a week.

3. Down-size your expectations while you write

I hope you have great expectations for your writing. Confidence is vital.

However, when it comes to the actual writing process, take the pressure off. All I expect from myself during a writing session is that I write - that I complete a certain number of words, and that those words are formed into sentences. That’s all.

Writing is a whole-brain exercise. It’s creative and mysterious. If you read the first draft material of any professional writer you’ll get a shock. It’s a mess, and that’s fine. The writing muse sends you hints, which you write down.

Over several sessions, a project takes shape. If you demand that your writing is like typing, that the finished project gushes from your fingertips like water from a tap, you’ll be disappointed.

If you take the above tips to heart, you’ll find writing easy. And once that happens, you’ll write more, and write faster too.

Want to write more? Angela Booth’s writing class, “Write More And Make More Money From Your Writing: Develop A Fast, Fun Productive Writing Process” is based on lessons she developed for her private coaching students. Her ebook “Top 70 Writing Tips To Help You To Write More” shows you how to end procrastination for good and write more.

Article Marketing remains one of the best ways to reach your target audience online. By writing and submitting quality articles to article directories you will generate highly relevant traffic and increase your sales in the same process.

Whenever you are going to be writing articles for the Internet there are a lot of different places that you can go to get ideas on what to write about. However, the best ideas are going to be the ones that people want to hear about. You have to know what is hot and what is not. Only then are you going to be able to write a quality article that people are going to want to hear about.

The best place to look, first of all, is on search engines. On search engines, you can take a look at what keywords are searched for the most. Thus, you are going to be able to get an idea of what most people want to hear about. Of course, keep in mind that just because something is the most searched thing, does not make it a great article to write about.

For example, if the number one most searched thing on the web is ”dogs” and the second more searched thing is ”cats”, then you should write about which one you like the most. If you are not a dog fan, then there is no reason to write about it just because it’s ranked higher than cats. You are going to get a better response when you write about something that you like vs. when you write about something that you do not care about. Your knowledge is power so use it to your advantage.

After you pick out what you are going to be writing about, you are going to need to pick out what you are going to write about under that topic. This is where on-line forums come in. Visit forums that have to do with your topic that you are writing about and read what other people are talking about. Usually, you will be able to get a pretty good idea of what topics are most popular under the topic you are writing about. Say you are writing about video games, and you go to a video game thread and see that the Nintendo Wii is one of the most talked about video game topics. Then you could choose to do a topic on the Nintendo Wii, because people are going to want to read about it.

There are tons of different ways to get inspired, but the main thing that you have to remember is to not force yourself to write about something that you are not into. When you do, it will show in your work. People are not going to want to read articles that are not entertaining. If they are reading about this topic, that means that they are into it, and it usually helps if the writer is into as well.

To Your Success!

Do you want to learn more about Internet Marketing? I have just completed my brand new guide to Search Engine Marketing Success: ”How To Consistently Drive Thousands Of Targeted Visitors With Search Engine Optimization”. Download it free here: Search Engine Optimization Success. Serge Daudelin Affordable Search Engine Optimization Services.com. Serge Daudelin is a Search Engine Optimization specialist and consultant who has written over 300 articles in print and 5 published ebooks.

Do you have a favourite writer - someone whose books you love to read? And when you buy their books do you sit spell-bound while you mentally absorb page after page of their writing? Or have you been so mesmerized by a magazine article that once you started reading it you couldn’t stop? Or how about a sales page you’ve read that had you so intrigued that you were dying to find out more about what it was advertising?

There are writers like these in the world (although not many) and the reason that their books, articles and sales letters put you into a “reading trance” is because they are powerful and persuasive writers.

Not only can they make you want to sit and read their books, articles or sales letters, but, through their writing, they also convince you that everything they are telling you is true.

Wouldn’t you like to know how they do this?

Or better still, wouldn’t you love to be able to write like them?

Imagine being able to write an article or a sales letter that puts your readers into a trance-like state that keeps them not only reading and absorbing every word you write, but believing every word you say.

This turns your readers into customers and turns YOU into a highly-paid copywriter because powerful and persuasive writers are always in demand.

And here are the 6 steps that can catapult your career as a first-class copywriter:

1. Copy the greats.

Find an extract from a book or a sales letter that you think is persuasive writing and copy it.

By this I mean sit down and write it out word-for-word. Do it several times and look for other pieces of powerful and persuasive writing and copy those out too.

Copying writing instead of only reading it will help you learn the secrets of powerful and persuasive writers.

2. Research, Absorb, Write

This is the order in which you need to work so that you can do powerful and persuasive writing.

First you need to research your subject thoroughly. Don’t take notes as you go along. Just keep reading and learning as much as you can. You’ll soon discover that the more you read the more you absorb the information and this creates a better understanding.

Once you’ve researched and absorbed as much information as you can, then AND ONLY THEN is it time to start writing, because you can’t write persuasively about a subject you don’t fully understand.

3. Use the “Free Writing” technique to write

This means writing from your subconscious rather than your conscious mind. The reason for this is because your conscious mind always has your internal editor attached to it.

Your internal editor is the little chatter box inside your head who criticizes everything you write.

As you write he says things like, “That’s not very good writing.” “Your punctuation is all wrong.” “No one will want to read that garbage.” “You are a terrible writer.”

Now imagine that instead of being in your head, your internal editor is an actual person standing behind you, looking over your shoulder and criticizing your writing out loud.

Would you be able to write if someone was doing that? Of course not. That’s why you need to switch your internal editor off, otherwise it’s as though he’s physically in the room with you.

What you need to do is take a few deep breaths to calm yourself before you start writing. Then begin. Just put your pen to your paper or your fingers to your keyboard and get going. If you’re using a computer, it’s sometimes best to turn off your screen so you can’t see what you’re writing. This will help you to keep going forwards instead of reading back over what you’ve already written.

Don’t worry if you think you’re going wrong or you think your writing things in the wrong order. Just keep writing.

And NEVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES try and edit as you go along. Writing and editing are two totally separate jobs and should never be done together. If you think you’ve made a mistake, ignore it. You’ll pick it up later when you edit your work.

The famous horror writer, Stephen King, calls this a “writing trance”. You just forget about everything around you and keep writing – no matter what – until you get to the end.

Once you’ve finished all your writing and taken a break away from it for a few hours (or a few days), THEN it’s time to edit it, because you can now see your writing with “fresh” eyes. And you’ll be surprised at how good it actually is.

4. Use Bart Simpson as an Editor

In order for your writing to be powerful and persuasive, you have to convince your readers to see things your way. For instance, if you are writing a sales letter to try and get people to by a particular product, you have to convince them that they need it.

You can do this two ways. You can persuade them by describing how bad their life/business is without this product. Or you can persuade them by describing the benefits of owning this product and how much better this will make their life\business. Or you can use both ways.

But first you have to keep their attention so that they’ll keep reading long enough to see everything you are trying to tell them.

A simple way of doing this is by keeping Bart Simpson in your head. Young Bart is well-known for being completely disinterested in anything that isn’t of personal benefit to him. So with every sentence you write imagine Bart Simpson reading it and asking -

“So What?”

“Who Cares?”

“What’s In It For Me?”

These are the exact questions your readers will be thinking, although probably more politely. So give reasons in every sentence as to why you’re making the statements that you are. Use words such as because, and, or. These will help you to give more explanations.

So instead of writing something like “Follow these 6 steps and you can become a powerful and persuasive copywriter” you can think about the Bart Simpson questions, “So what? Who cares? What’s in it for me?”

Then you can change the sentence to “Follow these 6 steps to becoming a powerful and persuasive copywriter and earn a 6-figure income working from anywhere in the world!”

Now doesn’t that sound more tempting?

Remember, people won’t buy or do something if it doesn’t benefit them in some way. So keep in mind that, like Bart, they ALWAYS want to know what’s in it for them.

5. Don’t suggest things, COMMAND them.

The most powerful and persuasive writers never make suggestions to their readers – they use COMMANDS.

They make bold statements that leave no room for compromise such as:

“Don’t settle for second best”

“Not to be missed”

“Don’t delay. Buy it today”

This is because once your readers are in a trace-like state while they are reading your sales letter or article, their minds become more open to persuasion.

For the same reason, when a hypnotist is trying to put someone into a hypnotic state, they don’t say “Are you getting sleepy yet?” They command their subject to go to sleep by saying “You are getting sleepy.”

Now I know you don’t want to hypnotise your readers, but you do want to influence their decisions, so use direct commands:

“You don’t want to miss this”

“This is the only product you need”

“This is what you’ve been looking for”

6. Keep your writing interesting.

Once someone becomes absorbed in reading your article or sales letter, the one thing that can break the trance is by their questions not being answered.

Questions will come to their minds with every sentence they read. Your job as a persuasive copywriter is to anticipate these questions and answer them immediately. So don’t just say “This is a brand new product” because this will prompt a Bart Simpson question-

“So what?”

You need to anticipate the question and say “This is a brand new product that will turbo-charge your writing.”

And remember that the most important part of your writing that needs to be interesting is the heading. The heading has to be not only interesting but INTRIGUING.

It has to entice those who read it to want to read more.

For instance, the heading of this article begins with the words “6 Steps”. This is because using a number in a heading intrigues people enough to want to know what the “6 Steps” are. It immediately puts a question into their minds: “What are the 6 Steps?”

And if you want proof that this works, well, you’re reading this article aren’t you? So you must have been intrigued enough by the heading to want to find out what the “6 Steps” were.

And the fact that you kept reading to the end also shows that the writing was persuasive enough to make you want to keep reading.

So now it’s your turn.

Go and copy the greats – your role models.

Then research, absorb and write without editing.

Don’t suggest, COMMAND!

And remember Bart Simpson.

All this will keep your readers in a “reading trance”. And when most of them follow your instructions, you’ll know that you’re a powerful and persuasive writer.

Ruth Barringham is a successful writer, author and publisher and runs an very popular website for writers at http://writeaholics.net where you can find articles, eBooks, writers resources and plenty of writer’s freebies. You can also sign up for the free newsletter, Writeaholic News, and instantly receive the free eBook, ‘Become a Freelance Writing Success.’ If there’s a way to make money writing, you’ll find it at Writeaholics.net

Part VII of the 8-Part BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE Series

Over the last six lessons, you’ve figured out your theme, and you’ve worked out at least one and possibly several subthemes. You’ve learned how to use blended scenes, intercuts, and cliffhangers to work both themes and subthemes into your work. You have great conflict waiting to happen. What do you do next?

All of our discussion of themes and subthemes comes down to this. It’s time to figure out how your story is going to go.

After more than 17 years of writing novels as my full-time job, I’ve tried every method I could find for getting my stories into order without so overworking them during the outline process that I no longer wanted to write the book. This is the method I currently use, and am still refining. It’s simple, it’s quick, and it’s flexible—all three advantages which make writing more fun, and keep your work fresher for you. This is going to seem like the strangest imaginable way to get a passionate, compelling, suspenseful story on the page…but it completely blows away waiting for your Muse to inspire you in terms of effectiveness.

I am a heavy user of plot cards—3×5 index cards or the software equivalent–upon which I write one single sentence for each scene. That sentence outlines the characters and the conflict that will occur in that scene.

(Don’t understand scenes? The Scene Creation Workshop will help you get the hang of them. http://www.hollylisle.com/fm/Workshops/scene-workshop.html )

To write your novel, you’ll need to know:

• How many plot cards/ scenes you’ll need for your book,

• Which theme or subtheme (or blend) you’ll be dealing with for each scene,

• Which characters will be in each scene,

• Who the POV (Point Of View) character—the person through whose eyes the story is told—will be.

You’ll start with basic arithmetic plus your themes and subthemes to do this to figure out how many scenes you’ll need.

An average first novel in the current market is around 90,000 words long (if you’re writing for the adult, not children’s or YA markets).

• So we’ll start with 90,000 words as our target length.

For this example, we’re going to assume that you have one main theme and two subthemes that you’ve decided will each run the complete length of the book.

• Theme: HEROINE sets out to win a writing contest and prove to her dubious husband that her dream of being a writer is not a waste of time.

• Subtheme #1: HEROINE meets man at work who encourages her writing, and her pursuit of fulfillment, leading her to consider leaving her current relationship.

• Subtheme #2: HUSBAND watches his wife’s life change as she pursues her dreams, and he starts wondering what happened to his own dreams.

Let’s further say that you’ve decided your scenes will average a thousand words each, so you’ll need about ninety of them to get a full-length novel. (In real life, the math is rarely this easy–mine scenes generally average 1500 to 1750 words each, but every book and every scene is different.)

• Target Length of Book ? Average Length of Scene = Number Of Scenes

• 90,000 ? 1000 = 90 scenes for the book (PLEASE NOTE: This is an APPROXIMATION. Books are not so cut and dried that you’ll end up with exactly ninety scenes, nor will they each be a thousand words long.)

You want to give a lot of the story over to your main theme. We’ll figure 50% because it’s a nice, easy number, but it could just as easily be 60%. Or 73.8%, if you like to make things complicated. Let’s not go there, though.

• 50% for the heroine’s main story.

Then we’ll divvy up the other half of the book between Subtheme #1 and Subtheme #2. Say you decide that you want the heroine to dump her husband for the man at work. You’ll probably want to give #1 more time and space than #2. If you want her current relationship to grow stronger because her pursuit of her own dreams has inspired her husband to pursue his, then you’ll want to put more work into #2. And if you want to keep the reader in suspense about which way she’s going to jump, split them down the middle.

I think the suspense angle is interesting, so I’m going to give:

• Subtheme #1 25% of the book, and

• Subtheme #2 25% of the book.

Multiply 90 (Total Number Of Scenes) by .5 (50%–the percentage your main theme gets). You’ll get 45.

• 90 x .5 = 45 Main Theme Scenes

Now multiply 90 (Total Number Of Scenes) by .25% (the subtheme percentage).

• 90 x .25 = 22.5

You’ll get 22.5, which basically means you round up for one subtheme, and round down for the other one. Or write two short scenes. Or don’t worry about the remainder, because this is just a rough technique to give you a quick picture of how you’re going to break up your story. I’ll give subtheme #1 22 scenes, and subtheme #2 23 scenes, just because I’ve decided the husband reawakening his own dreams is a better story than the dude at work hitting on someone else’s wife, and at the end of the suspense, I’m going to have the heroine stay with her husband.

• 22 Subtheme #1 Scenes

• 23 Subtheme #2 Scenes

Anyway, I now know I’ll need 90 3×5 index cards on which to write out plot cards, and I’ll have 45 of them for the heroine’s pursuit of her dreams, 22 for her entanglement with the man from work, and 23 for her relationship with her husband.

NOTICE that nowhere in here have I addressed POV (Point Of View)—that is, which scenes are shown through which character’s eyes. The theme and subthemes do not select POV for you. As you write out plot cards, you’ll have to select the best POV based on what is happening in each scene. Let’s do a few now, and I’ll show you what I mean.

• Jenna, cleaning the attic on a rainy Saturday afternoon, discovers one of her journals from her teenage years in which she promised herself that she’d be a famous novelist by the time she was 25, and something stirs in her at the sudden, sharp memory of that dream. [POV-Jenna] (Main Theme)

• Kevin Hobart hears Jenna talking to a co-worker about her crazy desire to write a novel, and does a good job of faking casual as he invites her to a meeting of a writers’ group to which he belongs. [POV-Kevin] (Subtheme #1)

• Mac watches Jenna reading through piles of books about writing, taking notes and writing things down, and tells her she’s going to get her feelings hurt when she does all that work and no one wants what she’s done. [POV could be either Mac or Jenna] (Subtheme #2)

• Jenna meets Kevin at her first meeting, and even though she brought something she wrote to read, is intimidated by the process and refuses to read when her turn comes around. [POV could be either Jenna or Kevin] (Blend of Main Theme and Subtheme #1)

You may not get all 90 scenes when you first start outlining. That’s okay. You may not, in fact, get much beyond the first third of the book. That’s fine, too. You have a plan, and you can build and change things as you go. The greatest advantage of figuring out and using plot cards is that when you discover a better direction for your story, you can toss a 3×5 index card or two, and replace them with better, rather than tossing several thousand or more already-written words.

I realize it’s unnerving to look at the mechanical processes behind creating edge-of-the-seat fiction. It’s more romantic to imagine typing like a wild thing, writing without a plan, tossing balled-up pages in the wastebasket from across the room…and dressing all in black, and drinking espresso in a coffee house while lamenting being blocked, too. Passion is in what you put on the page, though, not in how artsy you look while you’re doing it.

In the final installment of BRING YOUR NOVEL TO LIFE, “Life, Passion…Deadline,” you’ll learn how to hold on to your story and its heart while working to a deadline.

Full-time novelist Holly Lisle has published more than thirty novels with major publishers. Her next novel, THE RUBY KEY, (Orchard Books) will be on shelves May 1st. You can receive her free writing newsletter, Holly Lisle’s Writing Updates at http://hollylisle.com/newsletter.html

If you’re a new writer, congratulations. I wish I were starting my career today. You have unlimited opportunities to make as much money from your writing as you wish. These five steps will help.

Just follow the steps - all of them. By the time you’ve completed all five steps, you WILL be paid for your words. There’s an immense hunger online for words today; if you can write, you can make money.

1. Write ten articles on any topic you choose (as long as it’s not about yourself)

Write ten articles. These ten articles can be on any topic you choose; basically topics for which there are magazines: fashion, mountain bikes, dieting…

There’s one topic you should avoid, and that’s anything to do with yourself. Unless you’ve lived an amazing life, or write with humor, there’s next to no way to make writing about yourself profitable.

Here’s the thing: you’re aiming to write for people who will pay you, whether they’re magazine editors or business people. These people all have an audience, and that audience is interested in a specific topic.

To sell your words, you need to write about topics in which others are interested. So study magazines on a newsstand, and write ten articles.

2. Create a small Web site

Many of my writing students baulk at this one. Creating a Web site seems complicated. Agreed, the first time you do this, it may well be like assembling a toy for your children at Christmas - frustrating. You may want to swear a lot and kick things. Feel free to do it if it relieves your feelings.

Nevertheless, creating a Web site is an essential skill for writers in the new millennium.

And it’s EASY. Really.

I promise you if you take yourself to Blogger, it will take you less than three minutes to create your first site.

So go and do that NOW.

You’re back? Great.

3. Post your articles to your site

Now post all your articles - yes, all ten - to your new site.

Create a small sidebar with a “Hire Me to Write for You” notice. Ensure that there’s a way for people to contact you: include your email address and your cell phone number.

Congratulations. You’re now a writer - all you have to do to make money is to keep writing.

4. Post three articles to article directories

Choose three of your articles, and post them to article directories online - but create a “resource box” or “bio” first.

Your resource box is a chance for you to sell your new writing skill. It also provides a link back to your site, so people can view samples of your writing and can contact you.

You can craft your resource box in any way you wish. It can be extremely simple, as in “John Smith writes about fashion and finance, and he’s available to write for you today. Contact him at his site _____________ (the URL of your Web site.)”

5. Approach Web sites for writing jobs

Finally, approach sites to write for them. Which sites? That depends on the topics you’re comfortable writing about. Whichever topics you’ve chosen, there will be thousands of sites covering those topics.

Check the About page of likely looking sites. If they hire writers, they’ll often have Editorial contact information. Sometimes they won’t. Contact them, tell them who you are and what you want.

Before you know it, you’ll have several clients for whom you write. And you’ll get paid to write for money. It’s just as easy as I’ve described - have fun.

Discover how easy it is to make money writing with Angela Booth’s “Sell Your Writing Online NOW” Training Program. The training helps you to earn while you learn. For free weekly writing tips, subscribe to Angela’s Fab Freelance Writing Ezine.