How To Become a Prolific Writer? The 50% Rule.
September 5th, 2021
Last Updated on September 5th, 2021
This text was fully written by humans.
SUMMARY / KEY TAKEAWAYS
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In this article, we introduce a rule that will help you become a prolific writer who enjoys the process.
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The gist of the method is: treat writing as a process of building a relationship with the reader.
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The key to success is to gamify your writing process.
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Lastly, to succeed, you should get to know yourself and find the right time to write during the day. This is really just a practical form of how to build self-awareness for growth: paying attention to when your own mind actually works best, rather than copying someone else’s schedule.
Table of Contents
- How To Become a Prolific Writer?
- What Does It Mean to Be a Prolific Writer?
- The Process of Writing Is a Relationship.
- Do You Wish To Become a Prolific Writer? The 50% Rule.
- Don’t Expect To Achieve Perfect Text at the First Go. Prolific Writers Edit and Update!
- How Can You Gamify Your Writing Process?
- Find The Right Time For Writing.
- Delegate When Necessary.
- Own Your Text and You Will Become a Prolific Writer.
- Do You Need More Training In Writing?
- Which Courses Can Sharpen Your Writing Further?
How To Become a Prolific Writer?
Today, in the vast majority of white-collar jobs we need to write. For instance, essays, reports, educational materials, instructions, and emails all count.
The need to create content in a written form is especially pronounced when it comes to content creators — authors, bloggers, essayists. However, all of us need to write to a smaller or larger extent.
However, some of us have a natural blockade from creative writing. For some reason, it is a challenge for us to take a blank sheet of paper and cover it all with new, original content. As a result, this often leads to procrastination.
According to a classic study by Harriott and Ferrari, published in Psychological Reports, about 20% of adults identify as chronic procrastinators who put off tasks — including writing — across many areas of their lives, not just occasionally but as a habitual pattern.
Is there any way to find joy in writing and become a prolific writer — when you are not one of those who “naturally enjoy writing”? Of course, there are various types of writing, and you can’t put all writers in one basket.
What Does It Mean to Be a Prolific Writer?
But, what does mean to be a prolific writer? Being a prolific writer means writing regularly on a schedule you set.
It can be every day, every few days, or even every week. It is important to do it regularly and write large amounts of text.
First to say, there is not just one way of doing it correctly, or optimally. As a matter of fact, all established authors tend to develop their own, individual writing styles that differ from each other.
Steven King is known for writing at a steady pace of six pages a day. Kurt Vonnegut used to do pushups and sit-ups all the time while writing. Ernest Hemingway used to only write in the mornings. Khaled Hosseini used to push himself to write whenever he felt inspiration or not.
In this short article, we will focus on creative writing — which is particularly challenging to professionals who don’t have an inborn drive for writing. Regardless of your personal writing style, there is a number of rules that will help you become more productive and successful as a writer! So, here we go.
The Process of Writing Is a Relationship.
Of course, just as with any other activity that we tend to procrastinate on, the key to success is finding the right work motivation.
The key to prolific writing is to imagine your writing process as a form of a relationship with the reader. The reader is the receiver of the content or information, while we are the creator or broadcaster. In any happy relationship, the two sides should be equally satisfied. In other words, as the creator, you should find some source of satisfaction coming from your writing.
To many people, the thought that a receiver — someone they might not personally know — learns something new is motivating. Indeed, simply enjoying the read is often motivation enough to keep writing. But is it strong enough for you?
If not, perhaps you need to create a deeper feeling of personal gain from writing, going beyond educating your reader. Perhaps, you need to also educate yourself in the process. After all, you must take care of your education and work on your professional development.
Do You Wish To Become a Prolific Writer?The 50% Rule.
One extremely helpful yet rarely mentioned principle is the 50% Rule. Namely, choose a topic so that you can create 50% of the content using knowledge and resources you already have.
Then, you will need to learn the remaining 50% along the way. As a result, curiosity and willingness to learn will prompt you to write the piece. This is a good example of self-development strategies for professionals more broadly: choosing challenges that stretch you by roughly half, rather than staying entirely inside your comfort zone.
You will have the additional benefit of writing useful for your personal development. Framed this way, writing becomes part of how to build a self-development plan rather than just another item on a to-do list. You will entertain yourself and learn something new in the process — regardless of who your readers might be and what they will gain.
Why 50% rather than 90% or 10%? Well, if you only write a summary of what you already know, then you won’t experience this motivating joy of exploration.
On the other hand, writing about a topic you know nothing about is risky. You won’t have any message to convey, and there will be no central thought in your piece. In such a setting, you might easily get lost or discouraged.
For this reason, it is good to select topics where you have at least a vague idea of what your message is going to be. In such a case, you can start by creating a list with a number of bullet points.
Then, google for more information to unfold each point and add crispy details to your arguments. As a result, you can better justify the opinions you already have, or disprove them in the process.
Don’t Expect To Achieve Perfect Text at the First Go. Prolific Writers Edit and Update!
First the mass, then the carving. Most good writers don’t write in a linear manner. Instead, they stack ideas first, and finish and polish the text only after reaching the critical mass of content.
There is almost no one who could sit down with an idea in their mind, and write a perfect text from A to Z in one go. So, don’t expect this to happen!
Most likely, you will need to come back to the same text multiple times – and every single time it will read smoother than before. This technique, also known under the ugly name of “word vomit,” is highly popular among prolific writers. It is important not to stop working on your projects and to improve the art of writing by being open to any comments from readers.
How Can You Gamify Your Writing Process?
As humans, we love games. If you can enjoy scoring points in a nonsensical video game, why wouldn’t you enjoy scoring points in a real game of life? You can section your text into pieces, and read yourself for completing every piece.
For example, you can write a screenplay containing 10 points. Then, treat yourself to a coffee, a cookie, or a quick scroll through social media each time you finish a step.
Many people experience that their results improve even in cases when they assign meaningless points to the tasks on their list! According to an experimental study published in Computers in Human Behavior, points and similar game elements are not inherently rewarding on their own; they motivate because they function as feedback that satisfies the psychological need to feel competent, so the points only need to feel like a meaningful signal of progress, not objectively significant. So, don’t wait for your boss to give you tokens of appreciation for your work. Show appreciation to yourself!
Find The Right Time For Writing.
For many people, the most productive time for writing is in the early morning, right after they open their eyes. However, they are dogmatically glued to their 9-5 working scheme and never get out of their comfort zone to explore new writing practices. One of the most important aspects of being an efficient writer is experimenting with yourself! Treating your own schedule as something to test is itself one of several self-development tools for professionals, since most people never actually check whether their assumed routine matches their real energy levels.
Today, especially after the corona crisis, most employers prioritize effects over fixed working hours. So, even if you are not officially expected to type at 5 am, why bother? After all, working at your natural peak time can make you three times faster.
According to Forbes Advisor’s review of 14 workplace studies, office attendance has stabilized at roughly 30 to 40 percent below pre-pandemic levels, and hybrid employees have been found to perform identically to fully in-office workers across every measured metric while also cutting attrition by a third.
Delegate When Necessary.
Many authors have issues with kicking off the writing process which often leads to procrastination. As a matter of fact, writing becomes much easier if you first collect information and materials on the topic.
Authorship means that you take the responsibility for the outcome text. The fact that the text is yours, doesn’t mean that you need to be alone in the writing process.
For instance, you are free to take a subcontractor on board and let them collect materials for you, or engage ChatGPT, AOMNI, and other AI tools based on Large Language Models using Natural Language Processing in your research on the topic.
You can also make use of free services such as Deeep that employ AI to browse the web for news.
As a result, you can quickly find current, relevant material on your subject.
Own Your Text and You Will Become a Prolific Writer.
One thing worth mentioning is: it is also a motivating factor to inject your personality into what you do. Today, in most areas go the job market, the written text becomes more and more cross-stylish.
Even in texts traditionally formal in tone, such as research articles, we can find humor and metaphors more and more often. Whenever it comes to your own interpretation of facts, you can always find a way to add your own touch to your text.
Of course, there are exceptions. For example, you couldn’t put humorous comments in a flight-control procedure or a tax bill. However, in the vast majority of circumstances, adding a little bit of your own character is possible, and will greatly boost your satisfaction from writing.
What are your own ways to increase your productivity as a writer? Please share with us!
Do You Need More Training In Writing?
Would you like to further improve on your writing skills? Courses like these are a reasonable entry point into self-development frameworks for personal growth, especially when the skill in question is one you use every single day at work. We highly recommend the following Skillshare and Coursera courses in writing:
1. Creating A Daily Writing Routine That Actually Works.
Do you struggle with maintaining a consistent writing habit? This class will guide you through how to create a personalized daily writing routine that actually works for you in six steps. Building something this concrete is a good example of how to build resilience through self-reflection, since a repeatable process survives bad days better than motivation alone does.
2. Start Writing: 5 Easy Steps for Getting Unstuck.
Are you in a creative rut? Do you feel stuck in your writing practice? Learn how to get unstuck in this actionable class with writer and educator Jennifer Mattson. Whether you have a book or essay, or you’re stuck and can’t finish what you started, this class can help. It will help you clear your mind and start writing today.
Through a series of prompts, exercises, meditation, and discussions about craft, you will gain a better understanding of creativity. In turn, this will help you learn how to ride the wave past writer’s block toward inspiration.
You will come away with warm-up exercises to get the pen moving, and a simple meditation to clear your head. You will also leave with a guided exercise to find your idea, and a draft of your writing project.
Which Courses Can Sharpen Your Writing Further?
3. The 5 Fundamentals of Effective Writing.
Do you experience the lack of flow every time you try writing? Well, your writing has to have certain ingredients in order to become fun. This class is all about five fundamental, essential elements that are always going to be there for you as the basics to help level up your writing.
4. Good with Words: Writing and Editing Specialization.
Perhaps the most important thing students and professionals of all kinds can do to improve their effectiveness is embrace the following advice: become good with words.
This series of courses targets the writing side of that recommendation. The skills it focuses on include everything from how to arrange a complex set of information in a reader-friendly way. In addition, you will learn how to give and receive high-quality feedback, and how to consistently hit deadlines.
5. Creative Writing Specialization.
This specialization covers elements of three major creative writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir. You will master the techniques that good writers use to compose a bracing story. Specifically, you’ll learn to populate it with memorable characters in an interesting setting, written in a fresh, descriptive style.
This set of four courses is designed for anyone from the aspiring short story writer to established novelist. You will analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. You will draft, rewrite, and complete a substantial original story in the genre of your choosing.
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