by Annette Young
If you need to set motivational targets within your writing, then why not set yourself a real challenge and write an article a day? This might sound a big challenge if you are new to writing but nothing speeds up your writing progress more than having an objective that makes you write consistently. You might think that writing an article a day is unrealistic time-wise especially if you have many demands on your time each day but it does depend what you are writing about in terms of research and writing time and of course, also the word count.
I would suggest writing 400-500 words initially and these are the sorts of articles ideal for web content. When I first started writing articles, I deliberately chose subjects that I was interested in and had some knowledge or experience of already. Although my technique at the time might have been a bit wobbly, it was an easier process than expected because I could draw on my own experiences or dig that little deeper to reveal facts and figures to support the topic.
Article writing in itself is not difficult, there are different techniques and styles of course but it is amazing how quickly these techniques fall into place through trial and error. Don’t worry too much if they are not of a standard suitable for publication, that’s not the issue at this point, it is more a case of developing a writing routine and an ability to be able to produce articles of a reasonable standard quite quickly. If left to my own devises, I would take much longer to write a short article as I quite like the article writing process but when under pressure i.e. a deadline is looming, I can produce an article in about half an hour with little editing required. I do know some writers who write vast quantities of articles and can churn out approximately 4 an hour but I personally think that this detracts from the readability of the article and also the enjoyment in writing it.
If you fancy having a go at producing an article a day, give yourself a head start and write down a list of potential topics first and some key words to stimulate your thought process such as
Golf- golf clubs, expenditure, clothing, golf lessons
Bird watching- start locally, binoculars, birding scope, get a bird watching buddy
Give yourself an hour every evening and see how far you progress, it doesn’t have to be finished or polished, but remember to keep all of the articles that you produce and when you look back and review them, you will see a rapid improvement. A little dedication now, will ensure that you find it’s much easier to write an article a day than you initially thought possible.
