Bloggercise Your Writing

Bloggercise Your Writing Probably the best writing advice I ever received was this: Keep a Blog. Let me share with you a few reasons why and how my blog has helped me begin earning as a freelance writer. In my former life as a music teacher I found that the best musicians were those that didn’t just practise their scales and pieces the most; they were the ones that listened to music too. Both things are essential exercise for the musician. Writing is the same. Your ‘scales’ are the articles, books, stories and poems you write; your ‘listening’ is the literature you read. The old saying is true: a writer is a reader first. Keeping a blog helped me practise my ‘scales’ to develop my technique and my ‘listening’ was the hundreds of blog posts I’ve read as I mingled in the blogging community. I discovered what was popular, what was en vogue and what worked for me. Here’s a summary of just how my blog has helped develop my craft:   Ã‚     Experimentation Although my blog, kenthinksaloud, is primarily about Bangladesh where I work for a charity organisation as a teacher, I played with all sorts of ideas many of which have become lucrative for me. For instance, I started posting book reviews after enjoying some books with my kids. I had one accepted   Ã‚     Deadlines Keeping deadlines with editors is a big deal. For a while I made myself write three posts a week, each with a self-imposed word count, even when I didn’t feel like it just to practise meeting deadlines. Now I’m getting plenty of paying gigs, I’ve reduced it to once a week but after writing hundreds of posts, dashing off 500 words is a breeze now!   Ã‚     Finding an audience My main topic is something of a specialist interest, but as I explored ideas I was surprised which subjects were very popular. My son and I both have ADHD and writing about this provoked huge response. I am now submitting articles about ADHD to editors.   Ã‚     My blog sells me Several of my articles and stories, re-written from the blog, have been published So, I recommend bloggercising for you today. You can read what’s out there, try a variety of styles for yourself, practise meeting your own deadlines, build an audience as you learn what’s popular and then turn those winning ideas into paying articles and maybe even books that catch the eye of publishers. And if nothing else, bloggercise is fun and good for you. Give it a go – you never know where your posts might take you!