Create Make Write

Thoughts on creativity, writing & making

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An Extra 8 Hours & 27 Minutes Each Week — What Would You Do?

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Do you play video games?

What about games on your phone?

Here’s a data point I want to talk to you about:

That number doesn’t include mindless phone games.

What could you do with an extra 8 hours and 27 minutes each week?

Bottom line: If you’re looking for extra time to create, think about your phone and think about video games.

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Blog Post Outline (Free Template)

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Free download of the Notion template.

Do you travel without knowing where to go?

Will you head in the general direction but not plug the address into Google Maps?

That’s cool for a little while. Kinda freeing. But eventually, you’ll get frustrated. Especially if you do that each day.

The same could be true for writing.

An outline keeps you on track.

It keeps you focused and provides a blueprint for how the article should proceed.

By thinking about this on the front end, it will improve the structure of your story, and help you think critically about how the blog post will unfold.

It saves you time, as you’ve already generated and thought about the points you want to include, which makes the actual writing much faster.

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How Long Should Your Blog Post Be?

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Just because it’s the Internet doesn’t mean your article should be as long as possible.

Editing and revision are still crucial.

There must be a sweet spot, somewhere in between 280 characters, and the reading time of a popular longform essay.

So let’s think about: how long should a blog post be?

The classic answer is: “It depends.”

And it really depends on the *channel* you’ve picked for your content.

Medium is than LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is different than a random Google search.

Google is different than Twitter threads.

But there is a point of diminishing returns, especially with social sharing.

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What Are You Building?

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Creating Your Content City

The more articles I write, and the more content I produce, the questions I ask myself about writing have shifted…

Instead of asking: “What am I writing about next?”

Ask: “What am I building?”

This is a subtle shift that has a dramatic impact. One is about the immediate future, the second is about the larger goals that you’re trying to accomplish.

It reminds me of a city — an interlocking content ecosystem.

1. Build a City of Content

With your writing, you are creating buildings, roads, highways, neighborhoods, and local stores with your writing.

Each is slightly different. Some topics will be a local boutique (a short article or passing though), others could be a gigantic skyscraper (a topic cluster if you will).

Yes, be known for a niche or a topic, but it goes deeper than that.

Many of your articles and ideas should build on top of each other, and even be connected.

Think of a city — it spreads out, it goes deep, it goes up, it goes down.

There are roads that connect one building (article) to another, and they are all loosely related.

In the SEO world, this is called internal linking to form topic clusters, related articles, and posts that show you’re an expert and that you have in-depth knowledge of the topic at hand.

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