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How Cheryl writes an article...

The Rich Writer: How Cheryl writes an article...

The Rich Writer

How to Thrive on the Writer's Road

Thursday, April 3, 2008

How Cheryl writes an article...

Here are the eight steps I use for writing a nonfiction article. Use them at your peril:

  1. Find Idea. (Mood=Ridiculously optimistic) (Actions=brainstorm a million beautiful words)

  2. Begin Research. (Mood=Wow! This is so cool!) (Actions=spend hours collecting and reading articles, get distracted by every available nuance of every available topic)

  3. Write Outline. (Mood=Man, this will be a cinch!) (Actions=daydream in tub)

  4. Write 1st Draft. (Mood=Danger! Danger! What the heck was I thinking?) (Actions=Polish nails, repaint living room, write new blog posts)

  5. Rewrite. (Mood=Man, this is really, really terrible) (Actions=Pick off nail polish, write more blog posts, check flights to Australia)

  6. Rewrite more. (Mood=Maybe this will work...probably not, but it's definitely possible) (Actions=Rearrange commas, read manuscript aloud, get excited by discovery of perfect introduction idea)

  7. Rewrite still more. (Mood=Hey, this is actually getting somewhere!) (Actions=Rewrite more)

  8. Give article final polish. (Mood=Relief) (Actions=resist sending it off before critique group review)

  9. Dream up next projects (Mood=That wasn't so bad! Hey, I should write these other 20 books and articles. Tomorrow. Before breakfast. It'll be a piece of cake!)

~Cheryl

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