ONE OF THE BIGGEST MISTAKES TO MAKE AS A WRITER.
Just as the topic suggests I will be discussing just one of the many mistakes you can make as a writer. This mistake is often not thrashed out enough and as a writer who has written so many articles and has gotten rejected, I can boldly talk about this mistake.
YOU DON’T FLESH OUT YOUR IDEAS ENOUGH OR YOU OVER FLESH THEM.
This is a mistake often overlooked by newbie writers. Many times, core ideas, arguments, and thoughts are frequently covered up in numerous adjectives and grammatical rules. Don’t get me wrong, I am not stating that following grammatical etiquette is wrong, but sometimes they eat your ideas whole and do not give you space to expand a thought process or fully express your bits on a topic.
So, what can you do?
Below are some of the biggest sabotages of a great article or write up:
1. YOU RUSH YOUR IDEA:
The need to rush usually stems from overcompensating for missed deadlines or covering long periods of not writing, thus you feel the need to scramble. While this approach might give you an immediate dose of pleasure and competency, it does not allow for you to patiently draft, edit, flush and rearrange what you have written.
In this space, you are not ready to calm down and view other perspectives, make further research or even decide if a write-up should be divided into parts to ensure a comprehensive understanding, hence, you are left with a bad piece.
ONE STEP to avoid this mistake is to accept you missed a deadline, if you don’t, you either churn out a shabby rushed piece or you grow cold feet toward writing (I have been there). After acceptance, set another deadline or follow closely another deadline and make sure you create structures in place to ensure that this time around, you don’t miss it.
But let’s be clear, no DISCIPLINE, no CHANGE!
2. YOU ARE NOT PATIENT
Truly, if you are patient, you won’t rush. It is that simple. But again, as writers and especially newbie writers, patience is definitely not one of our virtues. We can’t wait for the world to see what we have written or what thoughts we need to share. This is surely a way that seems right, but the end, therefore, is destruction.
Jeff Bezos even knows this; how do I know? According to slab blog, at Amazon, Bezos asks his senior leaders to submit six-page well-structured memos, then he holds a meeting, a silent one where the senior leaders read their ideas and fish out their inconsistencies, through a rigorous standard templete.
Answer this question,
HOW CAN YOU GO THROUGH THAT PROCESS WITHOUT BEING PATIENT?
The results at the end are usually stellar, however, don’t confuse patience with being slow, these are different birds with different feathers.
3. YOU DON’T HAVE ENOUGH KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE TOPIC:
Writing a new topic can be challenging. For example, I am a freelancer and an essayist, I encounter so many topics that require tremendous amounts of brainstorming and deep effective research. If I don’t research a topic, I will definitely be writing unrelated ideas, over-romanticizing certain positions, or simply under-fleshing a thought process.
Thus research!
Researching does not make you a dull individual. I know quite some people feel like once they have to research, then they don’t need to write about a topic, it simply means they are not suitable. NOPE, not true, we are now in a world where knowledge is close to being free and research is so girl next door, dig right in!
I hope you learned from this piece and I hope you implement them. If you have questions, you can please, drop them in the comment section below. If you like this piece, don’t forget to clap as it allows others to see it and learn too.
HAVE A BLESSED DAY!
