Five simple tools to find your voice

Writing daily seems to be a gift to some people. You can have such a gift too. Everyone can. Practice does wonders to your overall productivity. You are aware Anne Frank did it, Andy Warhol is known for it. A few easy tools that kickstart your day and find your voice.
Writing daily morning pages

(image credit – flickr – Derek Gavey)

Bestselling author Julia Cameron suggests to practice writing a few morning pages to become the artist you already are. It is a proven method. In England, each november thousands of people pledge to write daily in the National Novel Writing Month. The purpose is to write a novel sized amount of pages in 30 days, by setting a daily goal. If you consider yourself to become a writer. What are the simple ways for you to jump in? I’ll share five starters that could easily change the rest of your life.

 Keep a diary and someday it will keep you.

is what Mae West said, about the daily write. Through my own practice I discovered the flow of ‘per-diem-writing’  took away much more than writers block. Before I seriously got hooked on this method, only 300 words could take me hours. Now I just write a few pages easily. In an unstructured unpolished manner, each day. But what is the result and how do you make it work?

So how do YOU make it work?

The value of writing daily.
  • Flow: 190 thousand words rattled from my hands, in blocks of thousand beats per day. I unlocked a vault inside my brain. I feel space to develop new ideas.
  • Speed: Time involvement decreased to less than half an hour on some days. More efficient in other (creative) projects.
  • Voice: Express my mind freely. The editor in me learned to relax. He waits for his turn. The paralysing blank screen, waiting for my first sentence, is losing power.
  • Listening: Awareness of you, and what you have to say. A platform to listen to your voice. This site should bring value to you, I’m learning to listen to your voice.

The website 750 words.com suits me perfect to write three pages.  It is a simple distraction free writing app. When you accomplish your goals you get lovely bonuses and encouragement. Just a fun example: Somehow I’m the proud owner of  a ‘Phoenix badge’, for writing [Fill in ridiculous number here] days in a row.

Try 750words.com

(image credit – flickr – Laineys Repertoire)

Good, YOU want to find out how to make it work?

The fundamental trick to remember: “Don’t break the chain”. Build yourself a method that helps you stick to your good habits and break bad ones. Try to hit a short streak of writing at first, let’s say for a week. Then try to hit a long streak, for maybe 20 or 30 days. The daily writing after that just continues with little effort, as part of a new habit. You might find yourself to be motivated by the urge to have the longest streak ever. You’ll see.

Just give it try it for 10 days (Seven plus three if that does the trick). Getting organised in the rest of the day becomes a breeze as well, I’d like you to let me know if it is not. Because, this is what surprised me most: The huge positive spin-off on other tasks I set myself. Surprise, easter egg, disbelief, call it what you want, I was astonished by the unwritten side effects. My wife can hardly believe I really accomplished a ‘zero inbox’ after 7 years of complaining about gmail clutter. My tax consultant receives my invoices before due date. He joked he misses sending the reminders. Well, I don’t.

Five simple tools

Plenty of services are here to help YOU to go and keep up with writing. Find the most bang for the buck in writing tools available and stop reading right now and go sign up to write through one of these awesome services:

  1. 750Words
    Clean and elegant interface. No distractions. Export and with tons of motivational tricks. Will start charging after May 1st. For less then 5 bucks a month, consider it worth the value it provides. (Sign up soon, before April 30 you’ll still be entitled to a free-for-life account) Comes included with a tribe of fellow writers and monthly challenges to take part in. You won’t have to share your diary to feel you’re not alone. It is waiting for you.
  2. Penzu
    Someone said: “I’m not kidding when I say Penzu is the most realistic re-creation of paper I’ve seen on the Web.” The paid version allows you to write in several notebooks. Has a few layout options like changing colour and font. Some might see this as too distractive, others love the freedom to add immediate style to their text.
  3. Evernote
    Best of Evernote: It mimics your memory. It includes a thorough search agent. You only need to jot a few notes and pen them out further at some later time. It is available on web, on desktop and phones so will never loose any of your thoughts. In combination with any of the other services, it will help you keep your mind organised with all the ideas coming from a daily morning write. Signup here.
  4. Day One
    Highly recommended for its usability. Sleek and plain interface. Easy to turn of distractions, I’d hide the options to automagically add weather or other social network data to your diary. Furthermore a perfect digital diary.
  5. Writechain
    Is 750 words too much? Start with an easier goal. Keep the target in reach. Writechain is iPhone only, so you need to feel comfortable with keying in your writings by thumb only. Find it on iTunes here.
Value without volume.

Don’t get me wrong about the target of 750 words a day. Chris Brogan, a blogging ninja, progressed to a level of 4.000. You might think a volume as a goal is akward. It’s the quality that counts. True that! You’ll discover the daily production buffer guarantees more paragraphs available and a larger stock of thoughts to pick from. Steal anything valuable from your writer’s warehouse and polish your final writing, when you switch to editing mode.

As thousands of other morning pages fans agree: The daily writing is a creative spur that does wonders to the overall calibre of your writing.  Don’t you want to stop reading already and start writing? Remember this tip of a king of contemporary writing, Cory Doctorow:

There is no good or bad day for writing. You just write and you’ll find out later if it was good enough to make the cut.

What are your thoughts on such a daily exercise? Will you let me know if something holds you back?