The Secret Sauce of Content Creation
BY Scribewise
September 22, 2014

This might seem a bit cheeky, but I’m going to tell you the one thing that sets us apart at Scribewise. It isn’t based upon our strategic brilliance. It isn’t our otherworldly talent. And it isn’t even our stunning good looks.

It’s discipline.

Content creation takes discipline.

Scribewise exists because we’ll do the hard work of content creation all day, every day, and most organizations simply won’t do that. In some instances, they can’t, and in some, they won’t. It isn’t because they’re bad people, or bad writers, or just plain lazy. It’s often because they have other things to do, content creation is hard, and it’s easy to push that writing assignment out to the next day.

If you’re a content creator, you can’t procrastinate. Even when you don’t know where or how to start, you must start. And then you must keep going.

Contently founder Shane Snow recently was interviewed by Copyblogger and talked about his writing discipline. While working on his new book, he spent six hours a day, every day, writing. That’s in addition to running a start-up and, theoretically, living a life.

In his must-read book On Writing, Stephen King writes that his goal is to write 2,000 words a day. Can you do that? Every day?

That is not easy. We all have so many other things crowding themselves into our work lives – client meetings, paperwork, social media, emails that demand attention right now. And don’t forget family obligations. Plus, we have to have a little fun every now and then, right? It’s easy to look up in the middle of the afternoon and wonder where the hours have gone, and when you’re going to make progress on that writing assignment, and think that you’ll just do it tomorrow.

But if your job is content creation, putting it off today means you’re falling behind.

You either want it or you don’t.

Creating so much content requires enthusiasm for the work. A content creator needs to love to tell stories, and needs to be willing to roll up his sleeves and slog through it all. Some days it flies by. Some days it’s really difficult. And that’s why we need to have discipline. You have to embrace the grind. 

Importantly, you have to not freak out when writer’s block inevitably comes. If you’re focused on why the words won’t come, they won’t come. But if you’ve practiced your craft enough, you know that you’ll get past the block. Confidence comes from having that discipline; if you know you have the ability and that your writing muscles are well trained, you’ll be confident you won’t get stuck – at least not for long.

Writing is work. It can be mentally draining. There are days when you feel like you’ve hit a wall. And that’s when you take a quick walk around the block, catch your breath … and then dive back in.

Let’s talk about growing your company.

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