How to write in style Fun first aid for creating content that kicks conversion BUTT - part 1

Hi there, creating content for a living? If the answer is yes and you find the writing part a challenge, fear not! As of today, I’ll post weekly advice on writin’ style (watch out for the wordplay!) you can put into practice yourself, directly. You’ll learn how to write in style, that is, well: well. Five weeks in a row. That’s five style smash hits that have endured over a hundred years for a reason. So hop onto my newsletter and join the Bright Idea family –

don’t miss any of those other FREE killer tips that will turn visitors of your site into drivelling slaves to your mojo! Fabricate your own fan club with the help of not just anyone, but none other than the grrrreat….*drumroll*…FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE (and a few of his friends)!

Yup, you heard me. No need to quickly click away with a gasp. The dude is actually insanely fun to read; human, all too human in what occupied his (admittedly amazing) mind and hey; he still has millions of readers the world over today, 117 years after his untimely demise. True dat!

The best thing? He told us himself why that is. First thought for today:

Den Stil verbessern — das heißt den Gedanken verbessern, und gar nichts weiter!

In English?

To improve one’s style merely means to improve one’s thought, nothing more.

“But what does that mean, and how does it work?”, I hear you wonder. Worry not!

Bright Idea’s very own WONDER WOMAN will bring light into the darkness.

In fact, that is precisely what you need to do first. Wonder. Be curious. Let stuff amaze you. Know any children, or keep some of your own? Go hang out with them. Switch off your electronic devices, say a polite “flipp off!” to social media and availability overkill of any kind, and just get lost in the wonder of discovering things anew.

This could just entail a mere walk to the bakery around the corner or, ideally, anything that involves nature. Flora and fauna have a way of drawing us out of our heads, and the vacuum they leave (NB to my fellow students of philosophy: just like Nietzsche did with his destruction of all values!) will almost automatically draw in wondrous ideas or even epiphanies hitherto unconscious to you. Promise! If your writer’s block is really huge, I’m afraid you’d best battle it with something comparable in size. Here, the sea and/or the mountains have worked best for me in the past. Consider nature a huge reset button for the old head!

Alternative techniques to achieve this desired effect include, but are not limited to:

Visiting a GOOD rock show – or, even better, make music yourself, ideally with others; doing or trying out yoga (obviously!); partaking in a sport or athletic-ish activity you really ENJOY (this last word is super important); reading the kind of books you can totally disappear into (as opposed to the ones you think you need to be reading in terms of self-improvement et.); anything that features sun, sex and, erm, socolate…you get the picture (talking of which, a fab funny movie or a scary Netflix show also count if you’re unwell or the weather sucks. Binge-watch all of season 2 of Stranger Things if you have to – typographic AND cinematographic porn if ever I saw any).

Basically, baby, consider yourself allowed to have some FUN first and foremost. Please feel empowered in following your desires (lest they involve crime and/or hurting others) right NOW.

1. This is the first step towards good writing, always. At least if we talk about the kind that inspires, lifts up, makes people laugh (or cry, or both).
2. The second step is what the Romantics called recollection in tranquility. Get yourself (into) a room of your own, Virginia-Woolf-style, and digest your experience. No-one gets to disturb or interrupt you here. Just sit with what comes up. (You might just find you yourself are quite riveting company – and that, indeed, YOU ARE ENOUGH. Nice side effect, innit?) 🙂
3. A fun way to capture it is écriture automatique – this is simply a fancy French name for writing WHATEVER COMES INTO YOUR MIND for ten minutes, without stopping. That means your keyboard has to make noises or your pen has to scribble across the page non-stop – even if you write “I have no ideas” for seven minutes in a row. Trust me: around minute 8, at the latest, your subconsious will start throwing these amazing curveballs at you you just need to catch. No censorship allowed, and TELL FEAR AND SHAME TO GO HOME!

If that doesn’t work? Start over at the beginning. Take a walk. How did our main man FN put it?

So wenig als möglich sitzen; keinem Gedanken Glauben schenken, der nicht im Freien geboren ist und bei freier Bewegung, in dem nicht auch die Muskeln ein Fest feiern. Alle Vorurtheile kommen aus den Eingeweiden. – Das Sitzfleisch – ich sagte es schon einmal – die eigentliche Sünde wider den heiligen Geist.

In English, in a nutshell:

Sit down as little as possible. Let your muscles have a party, too. Don’t trust any thought that wasn’t born outdoors and in free movement. Prejudice comes from the gut. Sitting on your arse is the original sin against the holy spirit.

Now go out there and get moving – and I bet you will come up with words that move, others as well as yourself. For there is no good writing that doesn’t also directly inspire action. I let Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have that (nearly) last word – which amounts to just this:

Übrigens ist mir alles verhaßt, was mich bloß belehrt, ohne meine Tätigkeit zu vermehren oder unmittelbar zu beleben.

Amen!

Stay tuned for next week, when I will walk you through structuring and shaping the raw material you have thusly gathered. YAY!

Namaste and rock on.

(And if you STILL can’t be arsed with writing, let me do it for you – but I don’t come cheap.) 😉