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This piece is in response to Rainar who kindly held me to account following an online conversation (below), and continued to request via DM’s!! Thank You Raniar.
Rainar posted a tip so simple that it blew me away. The premise is you are struggling to write; the solution you write about is what you’re struggling with. Cool right, and so simple it’s genius, you can’t write about anything yet you have a topic right there.
If you journal then you will already be doing this, probably. I try and journal every day, a simple stream of thoughts. What happened, what was good, what did I struggle with, how I’m feeling? It’s my very own place to have a rant and rave to express frustrations or a celebration of something. Some parts will make you cry, other parts laugh. For me, I can see progress.
Whilst it’s good to get it all out on paper it is equally important to me to take action. Expellaruptus is a great place to hold any negative thoughts and leave them there. Sure spend 10-15mins venting but then what? Spew the same shit tomorrow?
I work across at least two notebooks. Evo where I get everything out. The second is Zeal where I keep my focus list. It comprises all the tasks I need to do, and the research I need to stop the venting. To make progress.
1. Journaling through your pain points
For example, I was bitching about my headlines, so I made a note to look into creating better ones.
On another page (more than one) I complain about the amount of time it takes to go from an initial idea to a finished piece. So I refined my process. When it came to pushing my work through Hemmingway and then into the template it took half the amount of time. The headline tutorials I was watching led me to content and copywriting tutorials. Something happened during that stage that resulted in a far quicker process.
2. Journaling for Idea generating
When I write like this, I feel unleashed to scribble down all the ideas that come to mind, mostly rubbish but every now and then a little bolt hits me.
When I journaled about the writing I had done for my fitness round-up I was hit with a bolt of an idea – I need to build a fitness tracker. So I did. Then a few days later I was writing away and then another bolt – a video. Which I made.
Ideas flow, the minute you put pen to paper – collect the ideas – work on them, write about them in your journal – generate more ideas, round and round we go. You get the picture. Lightening was created exactly for this purpose, a place to take one idea/topic and create more ideas leading to taking action.
= Progress
For several pages, through Feb and into March I moaned about not getting shit published. April has seen 2 published long-form articles which were adapted for other platforms. I have repurposed an article I pushed to Twitter and popped it onto LinkedIn. There are 5 active ideas all in different stages, some 1st draft and others ready to format.
When I look through my journal I see lots of moaning for sure. But, I also see the topic of whining change, this goes on week after week. I see progress.
So if you are stuck on what to write – pick up a (Purple Reset) notebook, get comfortable and write about it, work it through, and kick start your idea bolts – check out the Purple Collection
The Flow – Journal / Notebook
Purple Reset launched the 1st in a collection of notebooks and journals created by a writer for writers in April 2022 – The Flow.
Since then the collection has grown, offering multiple ways to do some offline thinking.
If you want to be the first to know when it is on sale sign up here: Purple Reset Publishing
