It’s an age-old question for all creatives that love and want to write.
Sometimes we are inspired by our lives and the lives of those around us and sometimes we just aren’t.
Nothing that interesting is going on and we really desire to write something but just don’t know where to start.
So here are some quick thoughts to help inspire any writer.
Do you like to write fiction or non-fiction?
Personally, I love writing fiction with a bit of non-fiction spattered in there.
For instance, if I am writing about a dermatologist diagnosing a patient with skin cancer I want to know all about the true to life skin cancer melanoma and I want to be able to write factual things about what it would be like to be diagnosed with it and what the real to life treatment procedure would be.
If I am writing about medieval times I feel I have more fancy and license to make stuff up as I go but to include fun facts like the spears the Romans used to capture enemy shields. They have a type of hook on the end so the soldiers could pierce the shield and hook it and rip it off their enemies and strike them down.
I also enjoy creating completely fictional worlds in which I make up all the rules, the weapons, the magic and I have total control over the universe, the history of the universe, and anything that may come up or come along.
That is my favorite and most enjoyable way to write because the possibilities are endless and creativity can flow without too much research or inspiration.
Do you want to write non-fiction?
If you have an idea and you love researching and the idea of interviewing people than you will most certainly love to write non-fiction.
If we are writing non-fiction, we can write a biography, we can write down a historical event, we can research our favorite science project and write down the science of it.
Personally, if I choose to go the route of non-fiction I think the most interesting topics are true stories about people.
The people could be alive or dead, but there are many fascinating stories about peoples’ lives and experiences they went through that no one really knows about.
I think it would be very enjoyable and interesting to interview 20 people with a fair amount of life experience and get a few of their most fascinating experiences in life written down and then write a book about all of their experiences.
Or another idea would be to take their real-life experiences and create one to three characters that live through them all in one lifetime combining them in a way that entertaining to write and read about.
Writing prompts
Writing prompts are a great way to start writing short stories that can later turn into full-fledged novels.
You can google or go to Pinterest and find a plethora of assorted writing prompts and choose one or more and just start writing based on that writing prompt and just see where it leads you.
Another great way to use writing prompts, I highly recommend keeping a writing journal.
In your writing journal anytime a writing prompt pops into your head you can quickly write it down and come back to it later.
So the next time you are wondering “What should I write about?” you can grab your handy writer’s notebook and have an entire large list of ideas ready at your fingertips.
I hope these tips help prompt great writing for you!
If we want our readers to enjoy what we write and the stories we tell than we need to carefully consider how we get them to see what we want them to see while they are reading.
We especially want to do this with our villains because who doesn’t enjoy seeing a good interesting dynamic villain?
Good example: “he threw her to the kitchen floor muttering how worthless she was. He immediately reached down and took a twenty out of her purse that had spilled onto the floor. As he stared at the twenty tilting slightly from being drunk he spit on her, walked out the door and slammed it behind him.”
It takes more time to write that way and we have to find more creative ways to “show” our readers who our characters are, but the end result is much more interesting and will hold onto your reader’s interest longer.
Sometimes it’s hard to know what to write to help our reader see our villain more than just hearing about them.
A sure-fire way to get through this is to be more specific about details.
Bad example: “he wore a coat and glasses.”
Good example: “when he walked through the door the first thing anyone noticed about him was his dirty unshaved face hiding behind small circular thin glasses. There was a tiny chip on one side. Even his facial hair couldn’t hide his striking cheekbones and jawline, but he never looked up. His long brown leather jacket that looked to be as old as twenty years. It looked as if it had never seen any type of wash and it dragged just sightly with each step. If the smell wasn’t his own body it was most certainly the jacket.”
Again, longer to write and takes more creative juices, but we really want to get into the practice of imaging what our villain looks like and then using specific details to tell our readers what we see.
Don’t worry about being a dynamic writer.
Be concerned about passing what you see, hear, and smell the best you can as if you were in the room yourself.
It is the Amazon you love, for work. Make workplace procurement easier with convenient delivery options, simplified purchasing workflows, multiple payment options, and a competitive marketplace with business-only pricing and quantity discounts. Anyone who makes purchases for work (eg. procurement specialists, office administration, IT departments, etc.) can create a FREE account for their business. Customer must be from a verified business in order to successfully create their Amazon Business account.
11 + Things You Should Know About Your Main Character Before You Start Writing Chapter 1
We spend so much time thinking about the story and the plot and what we want to happen and why and then… we start writing chapter 1.
We start writing only to find that we don’t really know our main characters very well.
Have we ever taken the time to see what it would be like to sit down with them and have a cup of coffee to see what they would be like as a person in the real world?
Imagine you are sitting with your main character on a nice sunny breezy day outside a coffee shop and their name is Thor.
“Hi Thor, how are you today?”
“I’m marvelous and this brown liquid you have served me, what did you call it again?!”
“Hah, Thor, that’s coffee.”
“Ah! Coffee! I love this stuff! It makes me feel so alive and ready to conquer all my foes! I’ll take 3 more pitchers!”
“But Thor that much might make your heart race very fast.”
“Good! Indeed, I hope it does! I’ll take 5 more in that case! Bring them at once bar maiden!”
Silly though as it may be, it can be quite fun to think about what it would be like to sit and talk with your main character in various scenarios and even in their realm.
What would it be like to be their sidekick on an adventure?
What would it be like to walk with them through a quiet field?
What would it be like to go with them into a bar or tavern?
What would it be like to go on a 10-hour road trip with them?
What would it be like to go on a high-speed car chase with them?
By knowing upfront how they would act in a certain situation we can put them into almost any scenario and not betray their character. This is one simple way to make sure we write a good main character compared to a lousy one.
How would they act if they were sad?
Characters show sadness in different ways. Some bottle it up and try to manage it on their own.
Others immediately wail out and tears are flowing.
What pokes the heartstrings of your character? What would make them a little sad and what would be devastatingly sad to them?
When we are able to make our characters realistically sad it will have an effect on our readers too.
How would they act in anger?
Are they the type of character that can’t handle their anger and they act vengefully? Or do they act cool and calm no matter what comes at them?
What would make them angrier; their best friend getting punched in the face or their own face being punched?
Does injustice make them angry? Or could they care less? Does their own suffering make them angry or does seeing the suffering of others make them angrier?
What would devastate your character emotionally?
What things could your antagonist target in your character’s life that would devastate your main character?
How would they feel emotionally and react to someone messing with:
Their brother or sister
Their mother or father
Uncle
Best friend
Acquaintance
Stranger they see
Shop owner
Their teacher
Their relationship or crush
Their waiter or waitress
Their car
Their grades
Scholarship
The sports team (cheating)
How does your character react to change?
Change comes in many forms and it is a brilliant idea to introduce change to your character while you are writing about them to see how they would react and what the consequences would be.
Are they forced to move away from home?
Did the school just kick them out of one class with their favorite teacher to a class with a terrible teacher?
Did they lose their job? Did their boss quit? Did they get a new assignment with a different team?
Did they not make varsity this year compared to last year?
Does your character make friends easily?
Whether or not a character has friends and makes friends easily says a lot about them. Are they the life of the party or a good personal listener?
Or are they a loner and have a hard time relating to others in any form?
How do they normally react to the idea of spending an evening around strangers? Do they thrive on meeting new people or do they hate the idea?
Do they have many friends? Do they have just a few friends? Or do they not really have any friends?
There is a simple method over 30,000 people use to get paid for freelance writing online.
Opportunities can get started in just minutes a day, all from your home couch.
It’s easy to get started! No previous experience or degree required to start.
Exclusive job listings for writers, updated daily.
Check out Writing Paychecks to see if you can start getting paid to write today.
What are the character’s major fears?
Know what your character fears and how this affects the plot. Some characters fear getting into certain situations.
They may fear being on stage or swimming with sharks. They might be afraid to talk to a popular person they like.
Other’s experience fears of certain things.
They may fear certain animals or bugs like snakes and spiders. Those are a bit cliche, but you could make them afraid of other things like certain flowers or butterflies. These types of fears give our fictional characters more depth.
What are your character’s minor fears?
Writers often think of major fears without thinking of minor fears. You can give your character more humanity by giving them a slight fear of rats, bats, or spiders. Things people are commonly slightly afraid of.
Everyone has minor fears, things that might make them jump or scream. They might run out of the room because of these fears, but they won’t become debilitated or break into a sweat or start crying.
What are your characters not afraid of at all?
We can make entertaining and interesting characters by writing that they have no fear of more commonly feared things. Make them not afraid of sharks, speaking, cliff jumping, sky diving, or bank robbing. Think of common major fears.
Is your character a planner?
Does your character plan out what they do? Do they know what they are going to do tomorrow or not?
Are they extremely spontaneous or do they plot every move they make at the grocery store?
If plans don’t go their way do they get impatient and lose their cool? For planners, the plans they make are EXTREMELY important to them, so if anything goes outside the bounds of the plan that can make the entire event a COMPLETE and utter failure.
For someone that is more spontaneous, they actually enjoy just going and seeing what happens. They’d rather not have a plan at all and just enjoy the adventure.
Is your character spontaneous?
Does your character jump first and think second? A spontaneous character can be easier to write sometimes because you can easily make something up as you for their actions.
Planners have to be planned out and stick to the plan.
On the flip side, your character could be a hardcore planner where their plans almost NEVER work out. This could be entertaining and interesting to watch how it plays out for a character that experiences a lot of stress and turmoil just by plans going out of whack.
Does your character have a habit of lying? What do they lie about?
Do they lie because they are afraid of getting caught? If they do lie but not easily, what first prompts them to lie? Why would they give in to the temptation and who are they willing to lie to and about what?
A character’s personality and traits are a complicated web of thoughts, habits, and emotions, but know how they would think about and react to things is a great place to start figuring out just who this new character you have in your mind REALLY is.
Check out these FREE trial resources from Amazon for when you work from home (or are stuck at home 🙂 ) As an Amazon associate, if you do sign up or buy anything using Amazon links from our site we make a commission at no extra cost to you.
In order to beat writer’s block, you’re going to need to figure out where you’re at in the writing process.
In order to know where you’re at in the writing process, you are going to need to know what the writing process is.
What is the writing process?
The writing process goes as follows:
You get an idea.
You start to write that idea out
You finish writing that idea out
This sounds really simple and it is. The hard part is figuring out why you specifically are suffering with writer’s block.
Do I have writer’s block because I don’t have an idea?
In order to start writing you MUST have an idea.
An idea is not complicated in itself.
An idea is like, I want to write about a bank robber, but the bank robber isn’t nasty or mean she’s actually extremely polite and kind. She just gets a job at banks and figures out a nonconfrontational way to rob it and then disappears.
How do I start writing about my idea if I have writer’s block?
Writer’s block happens for different reasons at different times.
If you don’t have any idea of what to write about than it is time to do some reading and researching and thinking and sitting down and just making a giant list of ideas until you find one that you just love the idea of writing about.
If you already have an idea but you are having a hard time actually sitting down and writing that is a completely different beast altogether.
IF I have an idea what about writer’s block is stopping me from writing?
This is where you have to dig deep down and be really honest with yourself.
Are you having a hard time getting the idea in the right words or are you having a hard time actually sitting down and physically doing the work of writing.
Some of us fantasize about the idea of being a writer and being famous for a story and making lots of money and being called an author, but if we are honest with ourselves we don’t actually love the work of writing.
Let me make something very clear: The real work of being a writer is finding a place where we can sit or stand and write manually or type words on a page that cause others to want to read those words.
If you don’t like the idea of getting alone in your mind and creating words that lead to interesting words and paragraphs then you don’t actually like the work of a writer or author.
This very fact is to be considered when you have an idea, but you find it much easier to turn on Netflix, play a video game, go on social, go out with friends, and the thought of actually sitting down and writing seems bleh.
What do I do if my writer’s block is actually me not liking the physical work of writing?
This may sound blunt and it is. If you want to get past this type of writer’s block, you will have to stop what you’re doing and just go sit somewhere and start typing words.
It doesn’t have to be a million words the first time and every time you sit down to write, but I would recommend treating it like physical exercise.
Start small. Start by writing 10 words at a time and in time if you find that you can sit down to write 10 words then most likely you will feel like writing more.
The biggest problem for this type of writer’s block is not knowing what to write. Its the daunting feeling of feeling like writing takes a lot of work.
And writing can be a lot of work, but if you don’t just sit down and start writing something as small as ten words in a session you will never write anything you want to. You’ll just keep putting it off and procrastinating.
What if I have an idea and I’m trying to sit down and write, but I just stare at a blank page with a blinking line?
This is the real writer’s block and I’m going to give you the BIG but not so crazy secret to crush writer’s block and never have it be a problem for you again.
RESEARCH.
AND
READING.
Instead of staring at a blank page, start to read and think about and research the idea that you want to write about.
Let me give you some practical ways to research say BYE BYE to writer’s block.
EXAMPLE: Let’s say I just got a story idea and I want to write about an orphan girl in Vietnam during the Vietnamese war and her journey to find life family and love amidst war and being orphaned by that place and war.
Even though I have this idea that I like if I go immediately to the blank word document I still have ABSOLUTELY no idea how to write about an orphaned Vietnamese girl during the Vietnamese war.
So what should I do instead?
I should start reading about the Vietnamese war. I should read about orphans. I should read about young girls during that time and in that place and what their life and culture were like to deal with.
If you start to think this way and you start to read anything about what you want to write you will instantly start to have the knowledge to work with for the next time you pull up the blank page.
And I recommend that you write as you are reading and researching.
If you think of something while you are reading DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE WATI TO WRITE IT DOWN.
I can’t stress that enough. You will almost always forget your ideas if you do not write them down right away.
I recommend keeping a writer’s notebook near you while you are researching.
What if my idea is about fictional stuff and I can’t research it historically?
If you want to write about dragons, vampires, werewolves, unicorns, and leprechauns read about dragons, vampires, werewolves, unicorns, and leprechauns.
Exact same principle, different reading subject matter.
I hope this helps! Now gt out there and write something!
IF you have a specific idea and you are having a hard time figuring out how to research it, PLEASE feel free to reach out and I’d love to help you think of ideas for how to research any specific subject.
Leave a comment and I’ll try to get back to you soon!
If you enjoy Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Common! I don’t have all day! Pick up your weapon and face me!
He hates me! I knew it!
I didn’t know what to do so I hid in the bathroom and prayed!
I had never seen anything so beautiful!
The treasure glimmered in the firelight and reflected in her eyes.
Where were you last night?
Why am I the only one that thinks this is insane?
Tell me again, were there two of you or four of you?
I told him I could only give him a ride a couple of miles down the road, but when he pulled a gun on me I said, where do you need to go? He was pretty polite after that.
If you enjoy Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy Writing Prompts, Storytelling and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
How to Know What Your Readers are Thinking: What Do They REALLY Want?
When you are writing any type of copy, know what your readers are thinking and what they desire. It’s a BIG DEAL!
It’s important to take time to think about this every time you sit down to write, but especially when blogging, freelancing, and doing client work.
What do you need to ask yourself when sitting down to write to know what your readers are thinking?
Here are some profitable questions to ask yourself:
What is my brand?
What products are you using and love?
What are other writers in your niche writing about and promoting?
Did you Google it yet?
What is going viral in your niche?
Know What Your Readers Are Thinking: What Is My Brand?
To know what your readers are thinking, you need to understand who you are as a brand.
This may seem like backward thinking, but in order to know who you are attracting with your writing, you need to know who you are.
And it may be obvious to you what your branding is, but you’d be surprised how many blogs and websites are unsuccessful because they are a cluttered mess of every affiliate offer and ad under the sun.
You may be thinking, I need to cast a wide net to get more.
BEWARE of this common MARKETING TRAP!
Stay true to who you are and who you are writing to. Loyalty to your readers is more important. By maintaining a straightforward voice and being open about who you are and who you are writing to from day one you will start to build a loyal audience instead of a fair-weather audience that is not connected to what you do.
The big question you need to be asking yourself is WHY?
Why do I do what I do and why should anyone else care?
If you don’t know your “why,” you will communicate that to your readers without even thinking about it.
Your why will help you focus down and see a clear path from where you are to where you want to be.
Do you want readers to come to you because they are looking for a certain product?
Are they looking for information from you? What type of information? Get specific.
If your why is “I want to make money selling people something.” You probably won’t gain much traction or sell anything for that matter. So you are going to have to be a bit deeper than just “selling stuff.” (This isn’t always true as we have places like Amazon. It is probably pretty hard to compete in that space though.)
Try to have an important purpose. Something only you can help readers do or learn. In the process of trying to help them first instead of yourself, you will find helpful products to tell people about what they will enjoy and they will come back to you to find out more.
And when you do your best to help them succeed in their goals that will, in turn, help you succeed as well.
He’s an inspirational speaker and a thought leader on marketing and branding. I have gotten a lot of inspiration and ideas from his talks.
To know what your readers are thinking, know: Why do you do what you do?
Know What Your Readers Are Thinking: What Products are You Using and Enjoying Yourself?
To know what your readers are thinking you need to analyze what you like personally and the type of personalities you want to attract with your writing.
If you are writing about something you love and enjoy already in your daily life, it’ll be easy to see if your audience will love to use it too.
For me personally, I love finding things that save me money passively in my daily life, I wrote a post about it and actually found out that most of the things I enjoy using daily have referral offers and affiliate programs. I have no problem promoting them because I love them and save hundreds of dollars using them every year anyway, so I hope that others will be able to save hundreds every year by using them too. And ALL of them don’t cost money to start using which is convenient, because everyone likes FREE 🙂
Know What Your Readers Are Thinking: What are Other Writers in Your Niche Writing About and Promoting?
To know what your readers are thinking, analyze what other writers are having success with.
The last thing you want to do is copy someone else’s work. Don’t do that; not classy and not worth it. But taking time to look at other blogs that are succeeding in your subject area can really help give you some ideas of what similar readers to yours like, want to hear about, and want to use. It never hurts to look outside the box for help.
Don’t hesitate to look outside yourself for help and inspiration.
Buy some books, take some online courses and invest in yourself.
There is TONS of good free info out there, thanks to bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers, so there is no excuse not to be able to find what readers are interested in hearing about.
If you enjoy Know What Your Readers are Thinking, Storytelling, and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Know What Your Readers Are Thinking: Did you Google it yet?
To know what your readers are thinking, Google it. Period.
Google is a writer’s best friend. I don’t care if you have a human best friend. It’s not true. Google is actually your best friend, you just don’t know it yet. Whether it’s using google analytics to see why people visit your site or whether you are Google researching if you haven’t used Google yet you are leaving valuable insight out of the equation.
Some simple things to search for:
Forums
Reviews
Competitors in your niche
“Your niche” affiliate program
Go out there and see first hand what readers like yours are ACTUALLY saying. This will be gold for your Brand.
Most times when you are staring at a blank page and wondering, “What do I write next?” It’s because you haven’t done enough research.
You’ll be shocked to see how quickly words fly onto your page with a simple Google search. Do your best to stay original while doing your inspirational research.
And definitely take the time to search google’s keyword planner to see what users are typing into their search engines.
Know What Your Readers Are Thinking: What is Going Viral in Your Niche?
To know what your readers are thinking, check out what is going viral in your niche.
Go on social media platforms and see what pins and posts have and are going viral.
Seeing what’s going viral in your genre can help you decide on what you should write about or promote on your next blog post.
Maybe it will inspire you to write a post on something you haven’t thought about yet.
Or maybe you’ll discover that something you already use and love is going viral. If you know it’s going viral you can know what your readers are thinking and then you can quickly punch out a quick meaningful post on why you love it so much and why your readers might enjoy it too.
Know What Your Readers Are ThinkingBonus: When finding out what your readers are thinking, the gold is in their OWN words.
To know what your readers are thinking, find their own words and write in the way they talk.
The best places to find your readers’ own words are in forums, FB groups, and product reviews.
Start with something simple.
For example: Let’s say you are promoting hair straighteners.
Look on Amazon (I can’t tell how many bloggers miss this key opportunity) for hair straighteners just like yours and start mining the reviews.
You should be looking for patterns.
Look for phrases and statements that are common among many of the comments.
You read 100 reviews and you start to see that many reviews are saying “I love how this straightener doesn’t burn my head.” BOOM.
You just discovered 2 things.
A common problem is that people burn their heads with other straighteners.
The one you’re looking at on amazon solves that problem.
If you write in a hair product niche it will be helpful for you to tell your readers about this straightener, (maybe try it out yourself first) and you can feel confident to say “this straightener is great because it doesn’t burn your head easily like others” knowing full well that your statement will resonate with a lot of what your readers and potential readers are thinking about and by providing useful trustworthy information you will build good rapport with them.
You can do this type of research with any product and any niche to know what your readers are thinking. You just have to find where they are talking about what you are trying to write about and look for common repeated problems and solutions.
Rinse and repeat this type of word research for any product or niche.
What is your blog about?
How are you finding out what your readers are thinking about and want to hear?
Do you need help finding out what they want to read?
Do you need help finding the right words or phrases for your niche?
If you enjoy Know What Your Readers are Thinking, Storytelling, and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy Know What Your Readers are Thinking, Storytelling, and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
It is the Amazon you love, for work. Make workplace procurement easier with convenient delivery options, simplified purchasing workflows, multiple payment options, and a competitive marketplace with business-only pricing and quantity discounts. Anyone who makes purchases for work (eg. procurement specialists, office administration, IT departments, etc.) can create a FREE account for their business. Customer must be from a verified business in order to successfully create their Amazon Business account.
Update Bonus: 21 Shocking Writing Prompts to start writing your next book or short story optimized Quick Pinterest Pin at the bottom of the Page.
6+ Easy Practical Steps to Becoming a Better Writer in 30 Days or Less
Follow these strategies below and you will most assuredly be a better writer than when you started.
Whether you want to become a technical writer, a ghostwriter, a TV writer, a travel writer, or just learn how to write your essays better, these tips should prove helpful.
Becoming a better writer isn’t difficult, but it absolutely takes a solid discipline.
As with most things the more hardcore you go with these strategies, the more you’ll get out of it.
6+ Easy Practical Steps to Becoming a Better Writer in 30 Days or Less:
There are plenty of good sites to start blogging today for free, wordpress.org being one of them and they allow you to use free plugins as well compared to wordpress.com.
Disclaimer: You can always start a “free” blog, but the terms of use for free sites is that they can shut it down for any reason (at ANY TIME). So it’s possible to randomly lose all your hard work on a free blog. Be careful.
So just a fair warning, you can use free blogging, but I haven’t had much success with it personally. I started many free blogs and none of them stuck. This is the only one I’ve paid for and I’m glad I did. And it is the only one that I continue working with.
If you want to start a legitimate blog or if you think you might try to monetize it one day you are eventually going to need a hosting site.
I personally use Bluehost. They made getting my blog started EXTREMELY easy and their ‘one-click’ WordPress.org setup was ridiculously smooth.
Bluehost is one of the top web hosting companies in 2020. You can start your own blog with them for as low as $3.95 a month (on the page you’ll see that they say it is normally $7.99, but I’ve never seen them try to get anyone to start for that.) The $3.95 sale price only comes with their 36-month plan. I use them and that’s what I did and I’m happy about it. ( I did the 36-month plan and so far we are still happy with it 🙂 )
Sign up them and you can also get your domain free if you purchase a 12 month or longer hosting plan (that’s worth $15). As I said, we did the 36-month plan because it was the best deal but you can choose any plan. If you’re not planning on monetizing your blog it might be a good idea to start with a free blog.
I can tell you from personal experience that a free blog won’t motivate you to write as much as paying for a blog, but it’s up to you to decide what works best for your unique situation. If you really love blogging you never know when you might decide to monetize and at that moment you’ll be happy you decided to host with Bluehost and owning your domain.
Having your own site looks more professional to affiliate programs and readers. You will be able to have a better following, no one can shut you down for no reason (like on a free blog) and at any moment you will be able to monetize through ads and affiliate programs.
Some of my blogging mentors had their blogs going for years before they decided to monetize. You just never know.
At the same time, you can always start a free blog to test things out and buy a domain name and hosting later, but there is no guarantee the price will still be as good and no guarantee that the domain name you love will still be available.
Do what’s best for you and your specific situation 🙂
For me personally, I started with Bluehost and WordPress.org right from the start because I enjoy work from home and being my own boss. As far as online jobs and work, blogging is one way to pay yourself and work when you want.
If you want to reasons why it’s a good idea to start a blog, you can check out this post here:Why Start a Blog
If you are interested in more details on how to make a great blog from scratch you can see this post: How to Become a Blogger in 2019
2. Read about writing every day
Good writers all have certain traits in common. One of them is that they read A LOT.
Most of them read every day. Now I won’t say that I’m a good writer that’s up to others to decide, but I do read mostly every day.
You might be thinking “but you probably grew up reading as a kid and loved it.” Not true! I personally couldn’t stand reading and writing growing up. Hated reading with a passion actually.
It actually wasn’t until I got into college that I really started to read and then probably a couple of years into it that I started to enjoy it.
So you don’t have to be some kind of savant to get started in writing. You just have to have drive and discipline.
But this type of reading isn’t just reading at first. It is specifically looking to read about writing (I know, it sounds boring and it can be tedious but the foundational knowledge will help in the long run). During your becoming a better writer in just 30 days, you will want to be keen to read and learn about writing, especially if you want to do writing online or freelance writing.
Try to read things that help you get to where you want to go. If you want to become a blogger read about blogging tips and tricks. < (I googled it for you)
If you want to become a ghostwriter, read about how to become a ghostwriter. (Pssst! What’s a ghostwriter? A ghostwriter is a writer that gets paid to write something for someone but doesn’t own the project. For example, a person could hire you to write a novel for them, but they get to publish it as the author. They paid for it and own all the rights to it and you are just the ghostwriter.)
It’s just one way to get paid to write.
If you want to be a technical writer, read about the best practices of technical writers. As long as you are willing to read the right things you can learn to write anything 🙂 there really is nothing holding you back.
Look up blogs, articles, look at the library for books on writing. Depending on what type of writing you want to pursue will be very important to the writing that you read about.
As you get a good idea of a foundation for the type of writing you want to do, you can start to branch out studying other types of writing. You will see how understanding the why’s and what’s and styles behind them all can help you in your pursuit of becoming a better writer.
Look on Amazon for great reads on writing. I personally recommend these ones for when you need to think outside the traditional box or when you get bored of reading about writing:
These are non-traditional and will help open up your mind to more strategic possibilities for the potential of writing. Full disclosure: I didn’t read any of these yet. I took Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass, which was amazing and I highly recommend it.
In fact, I recommend Masterclass to anyone who loves learning and thinks it’s neat to learn from celebrities (such as Dan Brown, James Patterson, Samuel Jackson, Christina Agulera, and many more.
@ $15 a month, it is extremely worth it. I’ve been using it for a year and learn so much from professionals that I never would have. And the lessons always feel personal. Sometimes the teachers who are celebs even write back to your comments. Can you imagine Samuel L. Jackson responding to your comment?) about their crafts.
On Writing was recommended to me 2nd hand by a writing mentor of mine. He said that it was good if you need to get outside the traditional learning about writing books and it was interesting if you’re a fan of Stephen King novels too.
I love TED talks, I watch some when I can, so when I saw this book about public speaking from TED talks I knew it would be a winner with powerful knowledge.
If you’re wondering why I would suggest a public speaking book for learning how to be a better writer, it is simple.
When writing has been your profession for years you learn what crafts complement great writing. For instance, IF you want to be a great writer, your secret weapon is research. If you aren’t a personal professional researcher, it will be nigh impossible for you to become a great writer. Public Speaking skills go beyond just speaking and writing.
Those skills bleed into SO many professional avenues that it will not only make you a better writer. It’ll make you a better person in almost everything you do (unless you live in a hole and never interact with other humans in any way, shape, or form.)
Read some of the reviews on each one to see if they look like something you would enjoy. (And DON’T just read the 5-star reviews, read the bad reviews too. I almost always read the bad reviews, most of the time, I read the 1-star reviews first. This actually saves me time when shopping for a new product, especially tech products.)
There is a simple method over 30,000 people use to get paid for freelance writing online.
Opportunities can get started in just minutes a day, all from your home couch.
It’s easy to get started! No previous experience or degree required to start.
Exclusive job listings for writers, updated daily.
Check out Writing Paychecks to see if you can start getting paid to write today.
3. Write Every Day
Now this one is the kicker. If you do nothing else from this post, do this one thing and you’ll surely become a better writer. Write every day.
Now you can:
Write at a certain time every day
Or
Write a certain amount of words every day
Or
Write a certain amount of time every day
You can mix and match these however suits you best. You try them all out and see if one is easier and sticks better for you.
Me personally, I like writing a certain amount of time and writing at a certain time of the day. This keeps me going and I don’t feel bad if I don’t come up with a certain amount of words.
I tried writing a certain amount of words every day and I couldn’t keep up with it and instead of doing it I’d skip it because I knew it would take “too long.”
You see, you are more likely to develop a habit if you start small and take smaller bites that you can handle.
If you already write every day that’s great and you can choose to write more.
If you don’t write then start small.
Start with 1-10 minutes a day. If you find that easy, do more. If you find that hard, write less. At first, start with what seems easy to you and build on that.
The last thing you want to do is start with a habit that’s too hard to do every day. If you bite off too much you might not swallow it. If you find yourself dreading it, that’s a bad sign. If you find that you easily go a week without doing it, that’s a sign you tried to do more than you should start with.
If you want to do a certain amount of words every day I recommend starting with 100 a day. If that’s easy write more. If that’s too hard write less.
I tried 500 words a day and I couldn’t keep up with it. It just became tedious and therefore unenjoyable. I’m a professional writer, so that’s why I recommend starting with less. I mostly work in email writing, so if I’m on a job I might write more or less on those days, but if I’m not writing for a client, 500 just didn’t seem appetizing.
Blogging has definitely changed that for me, that’s why I recommend Starting a Blog.
I now try to write a certain amount of time every day and usually I find that if I get started, I end up writing longer than the first little amount that I force myself to do anyway. Thus, this strategy works very well for me. I’d start with the easy goal of 1 minute. 60 seconds, if you can’t do something for 60 seconds a day, maybe you don’t really want to do it at all.
You can also benefit from writing at a certain time every day. You will know what time works best for you.
It could be first thing in the morning. Some people find that this is their most creative and profitable time.
Me personally, I don’t do so well in the morning, I prefer to write at other times. Afternoon and evening, not late evening though. If I feel my eyes start to droop, I just know that I’m not gonna get much coherent information on the page. (It can be comical though. I’ll go back and read what I was writing the night before and it can be some of the worst writing! I’ll save myself time and energy if I just get some sleep or caffeine instead of trying to push through.)
You might like to write during your lunch at work, or first thing when you get home after eating something.
It’s always a good time to be able to put something on T.V. and write while relaxing.
So you can take time and figure out when is best for you to write.
If you write even just 10 minutes a day for 30 days you will be a better writer at the end of that short 30 days, and you might find that you have developed a habit you look forward to and fully enjoy 🙂 I know I do.
Update: Since Blogging and traveling more while blogging I find that a certain amount of time a day and a certain time of the day becomes tedious and makes blogging less enjoyable for me personally. Again this may work for you, so don’t hesitate to experiment.
Now, I enjoy writing at some point during the day. I find that it doesn’t have to be strict or a certain number of anything. I sit down to write and I find that I can easily be there for hours or an interruption might come up like a family member or friend wanting to hang and I am able to get up and go without any sort of remorse. I find this to be key to my success as a writer and blogger.
4. Research Storytelling
Storytelling will benefit you no matter what writing niche you go into, except maybe academic writing. Even then I’m sure it could be a little useful.
If you look around, you’ll start to see how stories are everywhere and people love stories. We eat them up. We can’t get enough of stories.
Stories are in the movies. Stories are on the news. On blogs, web pages, profiles, social media, history, we find stories fascinating and that is why they work so well and why we should find ways to incorporate the skill of storytelling into our writing, no matter what niche we are in.
Let me give you an example:
I once knew a guy.
He had a problem.
He was about 30 years old living in America, but he didn’t know how to read or write…
Did you notice something there?
I introduced a character and a problem he had, did you notice how you instantly went into “consuming story mode.” Did all your attention get drawn into the short story that started?
If not, that’s okay. It wasn’t super dynamic, but if you did, take time to think about why that happened. Stories are a powerful tool you need to add to your writing arsenal. Study stories and storytelling to engage your audience and grab their attention when you choose.
Stories are great at helping illustrate a point. Great as an ice breaker and a great way to regain your audience’s attention if you think you are losing them.
And stories work across all mediums. Art, writing, presentation, public speaking, with a group of friends or colleagues. Storytelling is a life skill that anyone would benefit from developing, but especially writers.
There is a simple method over 30,000 people use to get paid for freelance writing online.
Opportunities can get started in just minutes a day, all from your home couch.
It’s easy to get started! No previous experience or degree required to start.
Exclusive job listings for writers, updated daily.
Check out Writing Paychecks to see if you can start getting paid to write today.
5. Read about different types of writing
After you get a good handle for your specific niche of writing, you will really benefit from studying other styles of writing and using different tips and tricks to make your style even better by borrowing from the other types.
Different Types of Writing include but not limited to:
Copywriting
Fiction
Non-fiction
Blogging
Email Writing (cold emails, drip campaigns)
Article Writing
Academic Writing
Web Page Writing (About us, Home pages, etc)
Mailers
Landing Pages
Branding
Sales Pages
Video Scripts
Sales Funnels
There are probably more. And there used to be a time not long ago where most of these genres didn’t have precedence, but these days knowing how to do any one of these well can mean good freelancing money for you or better your own business. Either way $$$.
Even looking at this list might help you think more about what you want to do or discover for yourself. You may have not been aware that some of these opportunities existed before now, but now you know and can do something about it.
6. Read, Read, Read
It should make sense at this point. One easy way to get better at writing every day is to read every day.
Having a wide array of reading will make you well rounded and increase your understanding and vocabulary.
Writing a lot is necessary but if you don’t expose yourself to all sorts of different voices and writing styles you might find that you don’t have much to write about.
I recommend have light reading along with tough to read stuff simultaneously.
By having light reading you’ll be able to enjoy reading and move along. But having tough to read material will stretch your will power and ability as a reader and writer.
Exposing yourself to writing that is better than your own will help you improve. You will also more readily observe bad writing and notice when you yourself are writing poorly.
Humans have been writing for some time now and many tricks of the trade are out there for you to see, experience, enjoy, and make a part of your own writing repertoire. So don’t skip the reading.
Bonus: Be a Critical Consumer
Being a critical consumer doesn’t mean you make a bunch of critical comments on the stuff you read and watch like your the next reality TV show judge.
Being a critical consumer is the opposite of being a mindless consumer.
We all watch and read a lot of entertainment.
When you are reading or watching your favorite stories or documentaries take mental notes.
Think about how they use dialogue. What is the main theme of the story?
How did they seamlessly carry you through each step of the story while you consumed it?
Did something not sit right with you about the character development?
Were all the important plot questions answered satisfactorily?
Updated Bonus: 21 Shocking Writing Prompts to get you started writing your next book or short story.
Check out these FREE trial resources from Amazon for when you work from home (or are stuck at home 🙂 ) As an Amazon associate, if you do sign up or buy anything using Amazon links from our site we make a commission at no extra cost to you.
So you’re thinking about starting your own blog and you want to check out Bluehost? If that’s true read on.
If you are thinking about starting a blog I think a REALLY important question to ask yourself is why.
There are many reasons to want to start a blog, but why would you personally want to start a blog now?
Ever dream of starting a blog?
What type of person wakes up and thinks, “I want to start a blog?”
Maybe you want a place to write out all your thoughts.
Maybe you want a space where you can share and teach what you’re learning.
Maybe you just want to sip margaritas during lunchtime and play on Pinterest?
It’s a dream for some, but if you read through my posts on this site about making money blogging it could be a reality for you soon.
Read on and see if you think blogging might be your thing…
To start a blog that makes actual money and grows in time is actually quite inexpensive compared to other startups.
If you have ever thought that you may want to start a blog for fun or ESPECIALLY if you are considering making some passive money on the side blogging, I recommend Bluehost to host your site. Bluehost is still one of the top web hosting companies in 2019 and you can start a blog with them for as low as $3.95 a month ( They advertise that it’s normally $7.99 a month, but if you use the link above you will see that it is as little as $3.95 a month)!
You can choose a different site to host your blog but when you use bluehost to sign up, you can get your domain free for the first year if you purchase a 12 month or longer hosting plan (this will save you at least $15 on your initial purchase). I recommend doing at least the 12-month (I’m using the 36-month to save more $) hosting plan through Bluehost even if you’re not planning on monetizing your blog because if you really love blogging you never know when you might decide to monetize and at that moment you’ll be happy you decided to host and own your domain.
Having your own site looks more professional to affiliate programs and readers. You will be able to have a better following and at any moment you will be able to decide to monetize through ads and affiliate marketing.
Some of my blogging mentors had their blogs going for years before they decided to monetize. You just never know, so you might as well start off on a good foot.
Bluehost is affordable and you can save yourself a lot of money by signing up for at least 12 months. Plus, if you want an even better deal, your best value would be purchasing a 36-month plan (that’s what I did, I like the best deal.) With the 36 month plan, your monthly rate is WAY lower over the long run. So you have options. Do what’s best for you and your specific situation 🙂
For me personally, I started with Bluehost (36-month plan) and WordPress right from the start because I enjoy work from home and being my own boss. Online jobs are growing (and we just saw through the pandemic that having extra side hustles is especially helpful) and this is one way to pay yourself and work when you want. You’ll be glad you did. I’m glad I did.
1-Click WordPress Install (this saves a lot of complication)
24/7 Support
Get 36 months at $3.95 a month instead of $7.99 (That’s a saving of at least $145!)
Plus * Special intro offer and 30-day money-back guarantee (fyi, the 30-day guarantee does not include the domain name, so if you request a refund they will charge a fee. It wasn’t a problem for me, but I just wanted you to know and be aware)
This post on “Why start a blog” is really mean to help you decide and think about any reason why you personally would benefit from starting a blog business of your own.
Why Start a Blog?
Starting a blog can be fun
Start a blog and it can become passive income
As a freelance writer, I can tell you, blogging for yourself is WAY better than blogging for clients
Start a blog and you can serve people with your talents, research, and know-how
You can become a better writer (and content creator) by blogging daily or weekly
If you start a blog you can land jobs as a writer, content creator, and work from anywhere
There are many reasons to want to start a blog, but why WOULD YOU personally want to start a blog of your own?
“In the United States, there are over 31 million active bloggers posting at least once per month. And according to data from Ahrefs, people search Google for “How to start a blog” 121,000 times per month worldwide. That’s nearly 4,000 people who consider starting a blog every day.” – Growthbadger “How many Blogs are there?” – Jan 2, 2019
Sometimes when people think “blogging” they only think writing about a subject. This isn’t true anymore.
A blog is just a space on the internet you own where you can create anything and people can find you and you can share with the world what you have to offer.
If you don’t love writing like we do, that’s okay!
Top Secret: You don’t have to be a good writer to be a successful blogger.
It’s shocking to hear, I know. And it’s a well-kept secret amongst bloggers that they might not want to let you in on.
But today you can start a blog of your own and make videos, pictures, internet tools that help people, infographics, graphic design, and art.
Pretty much anything you can dream up.
You can do it for fun and you can learn how to monetize it. Because who doesn’t love to do what they find enjoyable and make some money while sharing it with the world?
A blogger I follow, Michelle Schroder, makes over $100,000 a month offering her expertise on finance.
If you happen to be passionate about finance why couldn’t you start a blog today and take even a small portion of that pie?
People are out there looking for what you have to offer, the only question is are you going to make the time investment it takes to put your passion out there and see what happens?
1. Starting a blog can be fun
One reason to consider starting a blog is because blogging about your passion is fun and enjoyable.
For me and many other bloggers, we will sincerely tell you that blogging is fun!
You get paid to write (or create) what you’re learning and what you know well. You don’t have to be a 10-year veteran or an expert, you just have to know more than your readers and BE HELPFUL!
If you start a blog to be helpful. Other people will enjoy it more, share it more, and you will find it to be satisfying too.
If you’re looking to help others, there is a big chance you will gather a following and you will enjoy what you write about every day more than if you JUST try to make money online.
And just in case you do like writing, I would venture to say that blogging is fun for most writers.
I know plenty of bloggers that decided they were going to start a blog that now make a decent side income from blogging. Some people even make a full time living from the notion to start a blog.
As I have mentioned before I really enjoy the idea of passive income because it allows you the freedom to do what you think is important in life with the precious time you have.
They generally require very little maintenance once they are running full steam. They require extremely little money or energy investment to start compared to other projects, but once you have it built and going it can continue generating money for you without taking up much of your time.
For instance, if you enjoy writing and getting paid to write you might enjoy being a freelance writer.
Getting paid as a freelance writer you can be paid very well for your time and make your own schedule, but at the end of the day, you still are trading your time and performance for money.
If you stop working the money flow stops too.
If you start a blog, you really can choose when you want to work on it, and when you don’t.
There are many reasons to want to start a blog, but why would you personally want to start a blog now?
3. As a freelance writer, I can tell you, blogging for yourself is WAY better than blogging for clients
If you’re not interested in freelance writing, you may want to skip this section 🙂
I hope I don’t rant here, but I’m pretty passionate about the subject. Writing for clients can be awesome and terrible. At the end of the project, what they think about what you did can outweigh how it performs in their market.
This phenomenon can work for you or against you in your freelance writing business.
Much like a chef if you just focus on SERVING them a fresh dish of what they want you can easily build up a good amount of good rapport and reviews for yourself, but then you run the risk of it not performing well and then they are left with a bad taste for you and other freelancers. This can be bad for everyone.
On the other hand, if you focus more on the performance of your copy and ignore the client and their requests than it might perform well, but they won’t like you which can leave you bad rapport and bad reviews even if you’re the best copywriter.
That’s what makes it hard. You have to find the magical place between where the client feels like they are getting excellent service from you, but at the same time, your piece performs well. This can make for a lot of pressure on yourself, especially if you are a perfectionist.
This is what leads me to say that blogging FOR YOURSELF is much more enjoyable because you have an avenue to be a paid writer (or paid creative), work on your own time, and not feel the pressure of performing for others.
You can use your talents and what you enjoy to help other people without them being disappointed for various reasons outside of your control.
But don’t let that stop you from being a freelance writer. I have been doing copywriting for years working with clients and you can’t beat the money and lifestyle as a copywriter for the time it takes.
I have been able to step away from the 9-5 for the past couple of years, travel more, and spend more time with family and friends by becoming a freelance writer. That’s just one of the specific “headaches” I noticed personally, but some people thrive in that type of environment so I recommend trying it and seeing what works best for you.
Many freelance writing “gurus” will say, “if you buy my course and become freelancer you will become your own boss!!!” This only partly true.
When you write for yourself on your own blog that you own, you REALLY DO BECOME YOUR OWN BOSS.
You are a paid writer. You do work from home. It is an online job. It can become passive in time. It is online work. If you don’t want to create the content (or don’t know how) you can hire freelancers. You get to see first hand the results of your writing and what’s working and what’s not working.
In fact, if you are thinking of becoming a freelance writer I highly recommend starting your own blog through Bluehost (I mentioned the benefits at the beginning of this post) so you can become a better online writer and give your clients real-life experience to help them with their online business. By figuring out how to make your own blog work, others will be much more likely to hire you to help with their blogs and online businesses. You can also promote that you’re a freelance writer using your blog. You can also make more money using your own blog that you own and control.
Blog writing is a big niche for ghostwriters, online freelance writers, and copywriters. So this would be a spectacular way to gain experience that will prove to be invaluable for you and your potential clients.
4. Start a blog and you can serve people with your talents, research, and know-how
Some of the best authors in the world, such as Neil Gaimon, Dan Brown, and James Patterson will all tell you how important research is to great writing.
I don’t care what type of writing you’re doing. I don’t care if you are a blog writer, a copywriter, an author or even a fiction writer. The amount of research and real-life experience you bring into every single piece will carry that piece further than those that do very little to no research.
So do yourself and your readers a favor and do your homework, do good research.
Since you’ll hopefully be researching something you enjoy, it will make sense to want to write it down somewhere, or record it somewhere. Why not a blog?
Take what you’re passionate about and learning and turn around and give to the world via a blog.
When you do your research focus on finding the facts so that you will be able to serve other people with what you learn.
What you looked up someone else will most likely look up too, so don’t be afraid to post what you learn. As you learn, take good notes and write.
Just by writing it down, you will become better at formulating your thoughts in writing and you will retain the knowledge that you learned better.
Focus on serving people with the things you are passionate about.
Find creative ways to share what you are learning about through blogging, making videos, writing, creating images.
There are so many mediums in which you can create using a blog, you just have to figure it out or hire someone to do it for you. And that’s not difficult through places like Upwork.
If you think you aren’t a talented writer and want to be, find out why your copy is failing and get better by blogging and researching more. Don’t accept what other people tell you about your talents as a writer as how good you’ll always be.
And again blogging has become so much more than writing these days. There are:
Recipe blogs
Fashion blogs
Brand blogs
Forum blogs
Freelance blogs
Tutorials
Guides
Info-graphics
Make up
Video
Finance
Design
Architecture
Music
Art
Any medium or topic you can think of can be turned into a successful blog that can help people.
With some good research and practice, I’ll bet you can become very good. Much better than you or anyone else thinks.
When I started copywriting, I didn’t know even what it was. My friend told me he was working as a “copywriter” and I said, “a copywriter? What’s that?”
He explained it to me, I loved the idea and the rest is history. I dove into the world of copywriting, marketing, and writing, and I love it.
So focus on using what you know and what you don’t know (Don’t be afraid to blog as you learn when it’s fresh, someone might find it helpful) to help others out with your Blog. You will get much better feedback and who knows, you might just love it!
If you want to learn something well, teach it. And you can definitely do that by teaching people through what you create on your blog.
5. You can become a better writer (and content creator) by blogging daily or weekly
Blogging is not only fun and beneficial for others, but it can also be beneficial to you as well.
If you think you are bad at writing but want to try it out, ask any professional writer, the best thing to do to get better at writing is to ……. You guessed it! Write!
What’s the best way to decide if a day of writing was successful???
Did you write today?
Yes: Success
No: Failure
So how do you really get better? Research yes, but as far as putting it to practice here are some strategies.
Choose a certain amount of words to write every day.
Choose a certain amount of time to write each day.
Choose a certain time of the day to write every day.
If you really want to dive deep check out our post on How To Become a Better Writer In Just 30 Days in the “search” box.
Same thing with any type of content creation.
If it’s video make and edit videos.
Images? Start creating images.
Design? Sales? Pictures? Etc. And on and on the creation wheel goes and where it stops only time will tell. But you can be a creator and use your blog to share your creation and help the world.
It doesn’t matter what type of information you want to share with your audience. A blog can help.
6. If you start a blog you can land jobs as a writer, content creator, and work from anywhere
Tis true.
I have heard many times how having a blog has led to the blogger being asked to write for a company or other blogger, both as a staff or contracted writer.
You might get a “test job” at first but if you do well and they like it they might ask you for more.
If you dream of being a professional writer, it’s not a bad route to go.
And since they found you and they see your writing already, you can lose the “what if they don’t like my writing,” fear. They ask you to write for them after they’ve seen your writing, they must like something about you’re doing.
If they ask you to write for them, you’re doing something right. I have heard of this happening too many times to think that it won’t happen for any good writer.
As you write your own blog you’ll find your voice and as you find your voice others will notice. It’s a win-win.
Starting a blog helps you create and learn many freelancing skills:
