Whether you’re a freelance blogger, brand writer or in-house content producer, one of your major responsibilities (and challenges) is to maintain an exciting, busy editorial calendar.
But sometimes, it ain’t that easy. (e.g. If you’re the anchor blogger for a lipstick company, you’ve written so many posts on lipstick that you hate lipstick now. The mere thought of lipstick makes your mind go black. Yes, it’s possible.)
I have one particular trick to share that will help you come up with new ideas for posts.
If you’re anything like me, you spend your first draft writing without abandon, even if it’s packed with run-on sentences, thick paragraphs and phantom words. After I’m done, I take a break and return to the first draft so I can edit edit edit. Much of the editing involves cutting things out.
And there’s the secret.
Don’t delete anything you cut out. Save that information on a separate sheet. Because even one sentence — the one that quite doesn’t fit with the rest of the article — can turn into a whole new article on its own… with its own supporting examples and cheesy puns.
Take this for example. The other day, I was writing a brief blog post about green tea and how you can repurpose the used leaves as eye masks. As a criminal parentheses abuser, my first draft was peppered with tangents that, unfortunately, the post was better off without. Such as: “Tea is excellent for sweltering East Coast mornings. Just steep two bags in a large pitcher the night before, add a dash of lemon and honey and store it in the fridge. You’ll thank yourself the next day when you’re in your damp PJs!” (Don’t ask.)
Clearly, that has no relevancy to the eye mask article. However, I had another great post to add onto the pipeline. I say it’s a win-win situation.
Do you use this method? If not, would you start?