#50: Stop Waiting for Last-Minute Writing Inspiration
My life presents numerous complications making it hard to plan ahead or get ahead. One simple practice I\u2019ve begun is to stop waiting around for last-minute writing inspiration and instead, generate ideas that can be waiting in the wings, for their chance to step onto the screen and become a blog post, podcast, article or even a book project. That way when some time opens up to write, I don\u2019t spend half that time trying to come up with an idea; instead, I choose from my existing list.\nJon Morrow's Massive\xa0Headline\xa0Output\nNot long ago, I was listening to a Duct Tape Marketing interview with\xa0Copyblogger writer\xa0Jon Morrow. In it, Jon said he likes to focus on the emotion he wants to bring out in the reader. The interviewer asked him about his practice for finding that target emotion, and Jon explained that Brian Clark, the founder of Copyblogger, gave Jon an assignment early on when they started working together. Brian told John to write 100 headlines a day for different blog posts and get really good at it.\n\nAnd Jon did. A month later, he went back to Brian with 3,000 headlines. And Brian was astonished! Because even though Brian had told other people to do the same thing, no one had actually followed through. But Jon did.\n\nBy taking on that assignment, John noticed certain headlines made him feel something, and those were the ones that grabbed his attention.\xa0So his approach is to focus on what he wants the reader to feel, and then\xa0choose a topic and dive into the writing.\n\nWe\u2019ve got two things going here...one is this philosophy of writing for emotional results\u2014emotional connection. That\u2019s interesting and we could discuss this in more detail in another podcast. But I want us to pause for just a second and let that number sink in: Jon wrote 3,000 headlines in one month.\n\nIn fact, Jon continued that practice of writing 100 headlines a day. He says he got so much out of it for 30 days, he continued doing it for two years, seven days a week. He never took a day off. He wrote 36,400 headlines in one year, and at the end of two years, he\u2019d written 72,800 headlines.\n\nWith all that practice and repetition, he got better and better. And he had absolutely no lack of ideas when he came time to write an article!\nThe 50-Headline Challenge\nSo in honor of this 50th episode of the podcast, I\u2019m issuing a challenge.\n\nYou can take Brian Clark\u2019s challenge of 100 headlines a day if you want to, but I\u2019m going to go easy on you.\n\nI challenge you\u2014and I\u2019m challenging myself, too\u2014to\xa0write no fewer than 50 headlines for whatever kind of writing you do...in one week.\n\nIf you write online content, you might enjoy playing around with some tools like CoSchedule\u2019s Headline Analyzer or a tool called the \u201cEmotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer.\u201d You can have a little fun with this.\n\nScreen Shot of CoSchedule Headline Analyzer at work\n\nFifty\xa0might\xa0feel like a lot if you've never done this before, and the first few could\xa0feel clunky, but once you get going, I think you'll start to feel yourself loosen up, and the ideas will flow.\nHeadlines Provide Writing Inspiration\nIn episode 46: What\u2019s the Big Idea, I suggested coming up with the big idea of your piece, your controlling idea, your theme statement, your thesis, to\xa0guide your writing.\xa0Well, each of these headlines can capture a big idea.\n\nAnd don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re locking yourself into writing all 50 of these ideas. It\u2019s practice for headline writing, and offers you options when it comes time to write.\n\nLet\u2019s take the challenge. Let's generate headlines, or titles,\xa0so we have options and inspiration at our fingertips,\xa0because\xa0I don\u2019t want to be stuck sitting around waiting for last-minute inspiration. And I don\u2019t want that for you, either.\n\nAre you ready? 50 headlines. Let's do it.\n\n\n\nClick on the podcast player above or use subscription options below to listen to the full episode.\nResources:\n\n \tDuct Tape Marketing interview with Jon Morrow