The Writing Life — Can a Broken Writing Plan Lead to Success?
As I was getting ready to write this post, I took a look at what happened to my writing plan and goals for 2014.
You see, in 2014 had a VERY aggressive plan, wanting to complete a number of books along with regularly writing on the blog. (And when I mean writing regularly on the blog, I mean a regular schedule of nice, long, juicy blog posts).
So, what happened? Well, some of the plan got done. But not all. In fact, I would say I’m not sure I even got half of my lofty goals accomplished.
When I realized this, my first thought was disappointment in myself. I should have worked harder.
But, that’s the old Michele talking. And one thing I’m committed to in 2015 is different results — which means no more definition of insanity (i.e. doing the same thing and expecting different results).
So I took a deep breath and decided to look a little deeper. And here’s what I discovered.
First off, I actually got a tremendous amount of writing done in 2014. Yes, I didn’t complete every project I had intended too, but overall I did get a lot of writing done. (Including getting my Love-Based Copywriting Book done!)
So maybe, just maybe, what was really happening was my 2014 writing plan was unrealistic. (Gasp! Not that!)
And, in that same vein, what last year taught me was I really couldn’t do both. I couldn’t sustain both an aggressive blog writing schedule and an aggressive book writing schedule. There’s only so many writing “hours” I have in a day, and once those are used up, they’re gone.
But, I still wanted to do both. I wanted to have a hot blog that people loved reading along with lots of hot books being published.
Argh.
So, what do I do?
Well, the first thing I did was look at my assumptions. And one of those assumptions was what I had heard from a number of blog experts.
The experts were saying that now if you wanted to have a successful blog, you needed to be posting articles of 1500 words or even longer at least once a week, along with shorter posts.
I believe the experts. I think there’s a lot of truth in what they’re teaching.
But, I also think there are exceptions to the rules.
And what if I could be that exception?
So, I thought about what I could do to create interest and excitement using shorter posts. And voila — my 2 new blog posts columns Monday Morning Musings and Friday Creativity Jolt were birthed.
(I have a Wednesday column idea as well, stay tuned for that one.)
And the best part? I can give this a shot and if it doesn’t work, I can always do something different.
And, with my shorter, pithier blog posts, I feel like I should be able to also write my books.
Yay! Feels like a big win-win here.
(And if you want to check out the new columns and let me know your thoughts and what YOU would like to see more of, definitely give me a shout out.)
Until next time.
About the author: Michele Pariza Wacek
Considered one of the hottest marketing strategists today, Michele PW has a reputation for crafting promotional materials and creating marketing campaigns that get results. She is the owner and founder of Michele PW/Creative Concepts and Copywriting LLC, which is the premiere international direct response copywriting and marketing company around. She’s also a national speaker and author, plus her client list reads like the “Who Who’s” list of Internet marketing.
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