Write. Write. Write. I do it all day long sometimes. A lot of the time actually, and my work has nothing directly to do with writing.
As a trained writer and editor, I think of writing as a craft or business in itself. Yet, I actually write as much or more helping run Heart of Business than I did as a freelance editor and writer. I think it’s a rare business owner that hasn’t had to fess up to the fact that written expression is essential to their business’s success.
Let’s face it, whether you do it or you hire someone to do it for you, your hands must be deeply involved in the creation of your business’s written expression. And no one’s going to write your emails and day-to-day social networking messages. Those may not be styled with much style, but those messages need to be readable, they need to make sense. A lot of credibility gets packed into your writing.
I wonder if you’re surprised by how much you’ve had to focus on what to write, how to write it, or whether you can write what’s needed to feed your business’ momentum.
Facing the “I’m Not a Writer, How’m I Gonna . . .” Full Body Writing Balk
It’s generally not my role to work with Heart of Business clients, but in a growing business of two, sometimes three or four-ish, flexibility and creativity keep us all alive in our work. Gladly, I’ve ended up as a sideline writing coach for members of a health care clinic Mark is working with. As you may know or guess, writing is a key skill needed to make the most of his heart-centered marketing and business development teachings.
My intention has been to offer ways for the practitioners to gain greater ease with writing in general, to give them the confidence and motivation to make writing one of their powerful business tools.
Then surprisingly, prior to Mark’s first meeting with the clinic, a practitioner sent us an email asking for writing support. Right on, I thought, someone’s claiming their writer’s balk before they’re faced with writing their customer focused story, or web pages, or articles, or . . .
Anyway, I ended up getting to do some coaching with this practitioner and thought you might relate to some of the struggles she faces as a self-promoting health care provider cornered into having to write.
Staring Down That Pesky Inner Critic
The “Inner Critic” is a familiar character in the world of professional writing. Maybe you’ve heard of this character, if not you’ve most likely experienced an inner voice that has crash landed more than one of your attempted flights of creativity.
When I asked this practitioner what she felt was making writing such a struggle, I got back a list of pleading cries from a determined but bruised and battered creative spirit–the inner critic standing nearby shooting barbed criticisms at her as she shared:
- I want to be perfect
- I’m lacking self-worth
- I don’t want anyone to judge me or my writing
- I lacking confidence
- I don’t want to draw attention to myself
- I don’t know how to write–I use the passive voice, write long sentences, use too many comma
“Oh, dear heart . . .”
This is an Inner Critic gone on a rampage. Sound familiar? Bet you could add a few choice reasons to this list, eh?
Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for this Inner Critic, but there is no room for it to be butting into the creative stages of writing, and you have to gain the confidence and experience to keep it in its place. It’s place comes after you’ve completed a piece of writing and want to mold it into a shape that can be effectively shared with those it’s meant for. In this place the Inner Critic moves into its heart formation, becoming the Inner Editor, or the Creative Refiner.
But before that part of you can show up in your heart, you have to give your Creative Spirit the freedom to splash, roam, rave, and sprint. You need to give yourself permission to be messy, to experiment, to free your thoughts, to practice translating them, however clumsily, into meaningful, heartfelt written communication.
You can read every copywriting, website writing, or article writing book on the market; you can take course offered, but if you have an unconfronted raging inner critic or traumatized school kid reeking havoc on your insides, how-to writing instruction is going to be tough to integrate and use successfully. Give those places longing for attention the mercy, compassion, and space to undo before pushing yourself even harder to produce the writing everyone is telling you is so important for your business.
The push will lighten. You might even find the joy that comes when you find the sweet spot between thoughts and feelings, and just the right words to convey them.
Write, Make Mistakes, and Write Some More!
There are as many ways to get through writer’s balk as there are people needing to write. Here are a few suggestions that I came up with in response to the health care practitioner’s woes:
- Take time before you face the white page to remember the source of your creativity, that you are not alone in the process. Connect in your heart with Divine Source.
- Spend some time doing unstructured writing. Free-write for a designated amount of time–5 minutes, 20, 2. Don’t stop typing, don’t take your pen from the page. Even if all you can write is “I don’t know what to write,” write it until something else come. The Inner Critic is not welcome, no punctuation is necessary, not even capitals, periods, or commas. Banished here.
- Consider taking that process a step further. Make free-writing a daily dump to free space for creative writing by following Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages practice. Free write three handwritten pages a day, preferably first thing in the morning. If you can devote the time, this process will go a long way in peeling your Inner Critic off your shoulder. Freedom.
- Use free-writing as a brain-dump for specific writing projects. Now take your creative process into a specific project. Sit, connect with your heart, Divine Source, and ask what’s most important to include in the project. Then begin free-writing with only your writing project goal in mind.
- Copy other people’s style and structure. I’m not talking about plagiarism here; I mean study how someone else puts their marketing copy, or article, or whatever together using your own language and ideas–which come from your free-writing. This is the point where learning tools like Mark’s Heart-Centered Article Writing or Creating Heart-Centered Websites become useful.
- Find someone you trust who will give you useful feedback. I don’t recommend asking your mother to do this. You want someone who’s a reader, someone who’s good at communicating clearly, someone who’s nurturing, encouraging, and honest. Well, someone with as many of those qualities as you can muster, anyway. Share your writing; it’s what it was created for.
I could go on and on, but I’d rather hear things that have worked or not worked for you. Write to me. Challenge your writer’s balk right now. Don’t worry about writing it perfectly. I really want to know what it’s been like for you to write for your business when writing was not on your life list of things to get good at.
Remember, writing is about expressing ourselves, it’s about communication, connecting with others. And that means the thought of doing it can stir up all sorts of emotions that can stop you in your tracks. Facing those stirrings is what opens the space to try. Practicing is what makes it easier and more effective.
