Copyright (c) 2002 by Angela Booth

** This article is adapted from my new email workshop, Writing To Sell In The Internet Age. If you want to get a taste of workshop, you can sign up for free mini-course based on Writing To Sell In The Internet Age, on Web site --- http://www.digital-e.biz/

Want to become a better writer? Easy. Just write an article a day.

When you write each and every day, you develop skill. Writing is a skill that demands easy interaction of various parts of your brain. This interaction isn't developed without practice, nor does interaction seem to remain viable unless you consistently practice --- unless you write every day.

I imagine writing skills as being like developing communication pathways between different areas in brain. If you don't practice your writing daily, those pathways disappear, just like untraversed paths through a forest.

===> Please write an article a day for seven days

No instruction I give you about getting ideas for articles, doing research, or how to structure an article will do as much for you as actually writing things. Consistently. Day after day. For at least seven days.

I promise you, at end of seven days you will be a better writer. You've been reading articles in newspapers, magazines and online for years. You know how it's done. Doing it will bring out that hidden knowledge you have and make it consciously usable.

Writing articles is a skill you learn by doing, just as you learned to tie your shoelaces and to walk.

I'd like you to write an article a day, of at least three hundred words. That's just over one page.

Use BEST formula below to get your articles written.

The BEST formula is an easy way to remember basic article structure. I discovered it in June Duncan Owen's book How To Write And Sell Articles (Penguin Books 1992, ISBN 014 0146 253).

===> The BEST formula for writing articles

BEST is an acronym for ---

B --- Bait

E --- Explanation

S --- Step

T --- Termination

===> The BAIT

The BAIT is also known as hook. It's an intriguing beginning for your article.

As well as being beginning of your article, it's also most important part. It tells reader why she should care, why she should stop and read article. It's important because if your reader doesn't like bait, she's not going to read rest of article.

Pick up six different magazines, ones you have at home, or ones you go and buy. Look at baits, first couple of paragraphs, in each article in those six magazines. All baits in articles will be different.

Use in opt-in publications, or on Web sites, but please include resource box.

Please send me a copy, if possible. Many thanks.

**

Summary: Want to be able to turn on your creativity like a tap? You can. Follow these simple tips for ultra-creativity.

Category: Writing

Words: 950

Training Your Creative Self: Five Tips for Ultra-Creativity

Copyright (c) 2002 by Angela Booth

If you knew you could be as creative as you wished, whenever you wished, what could you achieve?

Surprise --- you can be as creative as you want to be. Creativity is a state of consciousness. And here's best part --- you can access this creative state anytime.

Try modelling those whose creativity you admire. Whether you're a writer or not, you can learn from super-creative Barbara Cartland.

Barbara Cartland, prolific romance novelist, completed one romance novel a fortnight. She wrote two complete romance novels a month. That's 24 novels each year. She wrote 24 romances a year for many years, as well as writing other books. She was in a perfect partnership with her creative self.

=> Tips for Ultra-Creativity

Based on Barbara Cartland's methods, here are five tips for ultra-creativity. They work.

==> Tip One: Routine acts as a trigger to your creative state

Each afternoon, Barbara sat down on her sofa, covered herself with a rug, and dictated that day's word count to her secretary. The secretary sat on a chair behind Barbara, out of her line of sight.

The key here is that Barbara trained her creativity to perform on command.

Your creative state is a state of consciousness. It's a flow state, that you can trigger at will once you understand what it feels like.

The easiest way to trigger it is via a routine. If you use same triggers until they become a habit, accessing your creativity will be like throwing a switch.

However, changing consciousness takes a little time. When you change consciousness from wakefulness to sleep for example, as you do each night, it takes you around ten minutes to go from wakefulness to sleep.

Your triggers to changing consciousness to a state of sleep are: showering, putting on your pyjamas, climbing into bed, turning off light, wriggling until you get comfortable...

It takes around same ten minutes to change consciousness from your normal busy-busy, slightly anxious, slightly hyper everyday state of conscious, to a creative state.

====> Takeaway: changing states of consciousness takes ten minutes

When you know this, you'll stick at tasks which initially seem distasteful just that little bit longer. For example, when I'm walking, I know that at around ten minute mark, I'll start to enjoy exercise. I'll have changed my consciousness to an "exercise" state.

What do you hate to do? Or what habit do you want to break? If you're breaking a smoking habit, for example, and you really, really want a cigarette, fight craving for ten minutes, and it will dissipate.