4 step method to write content

+ inspiration how you can create your own writing process

Being a creative business owner and having a website to fill, content creation is such a huge part of your daily task list. You need to fill your website with words, your social media needs to get updated, your blog needs to get feed with content that is full of value for your reader, there are newsletters, your products, offers and all this together can surely sound like such a huge task.
I know it surely did and still does sometimes for me, since my strength is clearly the visual part and not the written words. For this I shaped over the years a process that really makes producing written content so much easier for me.
In this blogpost I share what works for me, this doesn’t mean that it is the perfect solution for you. Just try it out and you will clearly know. As individual as all of us are, so are our methods and the way of doing things.

The first thing is getting out of overwhelm and start with what you have, know and do right now.
Creating content, building a business and managing all the tasks around it, becomes easier, the more experience you get. So just start with where you are right now. You only can shape your own and unique voice, if you start using her.

• Tell your story: Writing content on your website helps you to show who you are, how you work behind the scenes, your values and believes and it helps you to demonstrate your experience and point of view.
• Spread love: You can share from your heart, help others in their growth and provide valuable content that inspires the ones that seek it. It is a way for your potential clients to see who you are, how you work and what you believe before paying for your services or offers.
• Be seen: A way to build trust, be visible and become known as an expert in your field.

 

 

To make your content valuable, you need to help solve a problem or give inspiration how to handle a challenge. Your experience, your way of doing and being can inspire others to find their way.
Connect with your ideal reader or client, look where she is now. What is it that makes her struggle and what does she look for in your content? What are your struggles with this? How did you overcome them?
Knowing who you write for can make everything easier and take away a lot of uncertainty. It helps you to really become magnetic and attract the people you like to work with.

 

Start collecting ideas and inspiration

Accessing the wisdom of your soul, is what gives a certain theme or piece of writing your unique and authentic voice and point of view. My process starts with collecting inspiration and ideas. To create written content, I usually start with a mind map, but everyone needs to find the easiest way that fits best to them to collect ideas, to have them ready to structure in the next step.

In this step it is important to just get your ideas out of your head and into the physical world. You still don’t need neither any concept nor any order for that, as ideas don’t flow out of you already neatly.
I have a view tools for how I collect my ideas in this early phase. My favorite is making mind maps, just because it is so close to how my brain already works. I start with writing down on paper everything related, no matter if in a second step I will integrate all the bits and pieces or just filter some of them. Writing them out, calms my mind and makes space for new ideas. In this first step I start to connect them and color code in a way that sounds right for me, this step then flows often into the structuring of my content in a very holistic way and without forcing.

Collecting future ideas in lists (I use Trello for this ) helps me to focus on what is important right now and not hop in my mind from one idea to the next.
I also write morning pages and often my journal is full of inspiration I can just harvest, structure and bring together.

One place where I most often get some light bulb ideas, is in nature when walking our dogs. How could I take out a notebook and pen when I’m on the road with three dogs (and often my two daughters)? So I started to audio record my ideas onto my phone, to don’t loose them and conserve them for later.
It often happens that I seem to have the innovative ideas in the most unsuitable situations, like when I am just baking a cake together with my daughters. In this situations, I take out my phone and record my ideas into an audio file to conserve for later. I save this audio file directly into my Evernote account. This really helps me to don’t loose my brilliant light bulb moment and at the same time stay present in the beautiful moment and enjoy baking with my two daughters.

For visual content, I use Pinterest and collect and bring together everything in mood boards.

I think this first step is the most crucial and needs to really fit with your way of thinking and how your brain works. Just try out all the different methods and see what sticks and works to find ways to access your ideas.

When do you get your ideas and how can you capture them?

 

Shaping and structure

Once you have all your ideas out of your head and onto paper, it’s time to shape them in a way that it is interesting and makes sense for your readers.
When creating content, I nearly always follow these three step rules:

• Evoke emotion and decide on how you want them to be felt when reading your story
• Share value, your unique voice and experience in a way that helps her to go from where she now to where she wants to be
• Inspire to take action. Help her to get started right away and make her see how she can integrate this into her own world.

Writing an outline and just bringing all the content together with bullet points, really helps you to create a piece of content that is full of value, unique and authentic.

Write your content in the flow

Working through your bullet points list, starting to write and weaving all your content together into a story and flowing piece of content that is interesting to read.
Weave in pieces of your own experience, examples and emotions.

It’s important that in this part you don’t get caught up by grammatical rules, commas and perfection. This step really is all about creating a story that is pleasurable to read and informative at the same time.
We have two brain parts, and writing needs actually both of them in different ways. Our left brain side is for the structure, creating an outline, connecting the different parts between each other, grammatical rules and editing. Our right and creative brain side is for the idea collection, opening up for inspiration, innovative ideas and creating an emotional story.
It’s very hard to switch back and forth continuously and it is much easier to keep apart the different tasks, not mix them up and alternate every minute.

For this, write first in the flow, like you would write in your diary and then in the next step come back and edit.

 

Edit, prepare and share

Reread your writing, go through all the sentence and edit them.
Now is the time to take your raw story and polish it into a real diamond.

I outsource the step of editing to a virtual assistant, because I know that this isn’t my strength. Look through all the tasks you need to do to create written content and find the steps you feel that you are less gifted or come more difficult to you and find a way how you can get help.
You may need help with generating ideas, so you could look for someone to brainstorm together. It could be that you have difficulties to bring your ideas into shape and order, maybe you need help with the structure and someone can talk through with you how your different pieces of inspiration connect between each other.

Really look where your weak points are and what you would need to improve them and look out for someone that can help you! Ask for help and allow it.

Sharing your ideas is such an important step and it’s important that you really go out and share.
Publish that blogpost you have written, even if it isn’t far from perfect. Just write your about page and put it onto your website. Be brave and share your truth.

Your brand will shape over time and sharing where you are, who you are and what you do is the most important step on your path of growth. Your authentic voice will build up with every piece of content you share. Experience and finding innovative ways to do it in a way that makes you feel good, is the foundation of a business that is sustainable and fulfils your core values.

I have made for you a Cheatsheet to print out, so you can follow along with the steps if you need some guidance and don’t know where to start when you need to create your next written content for your creative business.

Click here to save it as a pdf and start collecting your brilliant and unique ideas right away!

Have a beautiful day
With Love,
Eos