How I quadrupled my article writing and freed up my creativity. You can too.

27 replies
Hi all,

This is such a simple thing you probably already know it but just in case there is one more wannabe article writer or eBook author like me here, I want to share this.

I've been told by others that some of my posts are good or at least OK.

Personally I don't have any problem writing an acceptable post here on this forum.

When It comes to writing articles I've also been told I do pretty good. At least by some of the people I've Ghostwritten for.

However although some of the posts I've written are longer than some articles I labor over my articles a lot more than I labor over my posts.

I've always taken for granted that articles were harder to write than posts and that was the reason but it's not the reason at all. The real reason knocked my socks off and gave me great inspiration to crank out 6, 500+ words articles in less than an hour.

OK, here is what I accidentally discovered, here is what was in front of me all the time that I just stumbled onto.

I was using a friends computer to write an article. I got the article written in about 10 minutes instead of my usual hour (I told you I was slow). Anyway, I was pretty impressed with my self but when I asked my friend to look at my article he said, "It's a nice article but your spelling is horrible."

"My spelling," I challenged,"Is perfect. Spell check didn't find one problem."

My friend said, "I have spell check turned off."

Upon running spell check I found I had a LOT of errors. I corrected them in a matter of a few seconds and now my article was perfect.

Then it hit me. When I write a post I use Google Spell Check to check it after it is done. However, when I'm writing an eBook or an Article spell check nags me every time I make a mistake. I stop and correct the error and lose my train of thought and rev up to speed again only to be stopped by the darn spell check nag.

Turning off spell check lets me be creative and get all my words down without the distraction of stopping several times during the creative process to make corrections.

Yes, turning off my Spell Check really helped me. I hope this can help at least one other Warrior.

Goerege Wirght
#article #creativity #freed #quadrupled #writing
  • Profile picture of the author Terry Hatfield
    Great tip George. I would bet many of us do this without realizing it. I know I sure do.

    Hmmm, I noticed while typing the above sentence that I had to go back and change a word I didn't like. Slowed me down big time.

    Thanks,

    Terry Hatfield
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  • Profile picture of the author JFrost
    Thanks George for sharing that, I never thought of it. That would cut down on writing time and contribute to better concentration. I heard somewhere that the sum of a great speller is equivalent to a $1 pocket dictionary.
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  • Profile picture of the author Monetize
    This is the curse of the perfectionist

    I normally check my spelling when I've completed my task.
    It's annoying to be prompted every time there's a typo or
    a mispelled word.
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    • Profile picture of the author TheWatcher
      I noticed something similar while making Camtasia videos.

      I used to keep stopping every time I made a mistake or stumbled over a word. I would end up recording a lot more than I needed to and spend ages editing out the duplicate sentences.

      Now I just plow on through to the end regardless and the resulting video is always smoother and more coherent and the errors are less significant than they seemed when I was making them. Not Stomper quality ... but good enough!

      -Mark
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      • Profile picture of the author Doug McIsaac
        Originally Posted by TheWatcher View Post

        I noticed something similar while making Camtasia videos.

        I used to keep stopping every time I made a mistake or stumbled over a word. I would end up recording a lot more than I needed to and spend ages editing out the duplicate sentences.

        Now I just plow on through to the end regardless and the resulting video is always smoother and more coherent and the errors are less significant than they seemed when I was making them. Not Stomper quality ... but good enough!

        -Mark
        I definitely agree with you Mark. I find that I do much better when I just plow through than when I stop over and over to edit my videos. For most of us it's all about the content anyhow. We really don't care if there's an oops unless it's one oops after another.

        Doug
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  • Profile picture of the author Don Schenk
    OMG George, you're right. (Actually you're wright.)

    I hadn't thought about it. I used to use a wordprocessing program that didn't run spell check automatically when I typed ,and I wrote much faster in that program than I do in Word with its spell check turned on.

    In typing that last sentence I found myself looking at the monitor as I typed, and my typos slowed my typing because I had to stop each time to correct each one. I just realized if I look away or if I close my eyes when I type, it goes much faster.

    Thanks for the insight.

    Don
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  • Profile picture of the author sparrow
    Its funny you should say this

    I had the same fleeting thought going through my head as I was making a correction to my ebook this morning about how this is slowing me down.

    I should of turned it off I may of done my ebook much faster

    thanks for solidifying this

    Ed
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  • Profile picture of the author PRandContent
    Nice tip! I actually discovered this a few years back (the slowing down part whenever the Spell Checker's on) and I realized that I was more creative, more profound when it was turned off.
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    • Profile picture of the author kumar
      Excellent tip, George. Looks as if you were standing by my shoulder when I was writing that article today
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  • Profile picture of the author Glenn Leader
    This is the reason I do my newsletters in a text editor. I pile
    through my notes, then tidy up and spell check etc. afterwards.

    Glenn
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  • Profile picture of the author WebGato
    I never do any editing while writing. I find that any distraction disrupts my flow of thought and it takes a few minutes to get back on track. Even if I don't like the sentence that I just wrote I ignore it and write another sentence.

    When I'm finished with the entire article I go back and edit it, but you offer a great tip. I can't believe I never thought of something as simple as turning the spell checker off. I guess I've just learned to ignore those squiggly red lines.
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  • Profile picture of the author logosi
    I've found over the years of writing IM (and other things) that my spelling has seemed to get worse (why? spell check will catch it), but I've never found it actually interfered with my flow. I'll give it a try today and see what happens.
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    • Profile picture of the author Greg Cooksley
      Hey George,

      That's a really good tip.....

      I've only just twigged onto how often I actually look up at the
      screen when I type....

      Need to retrain myself.....BTW anyone know of any really good
      typing tutorials out there?

      Regards

      Greg
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeus66
    I think this qualifies as one of those "not seeing the trees for the forest" moments. Great post!

    John
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    Good thread. I've had several books published and have been a contributing editor to several national magazines, and I learned long ago that you're better off keeping your train of thought flowing when writing. So I always compose all of my writing in a text editor (my choice is Note Tab Light).
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    • Profile picture of the author Chri5123
      Awesome tip George,

      It is always the simple things that work and I can see how this one works as upon reading your post I found that I do the same thing and lose my train of thought.

      Going to try this out!

      Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Dennis Wagoner
    Hmmm.. will be trying this tip.

    Tanky George!

    Dennis
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Great tip George, thanks for sharing. I find the same myself, if I just type and don't check or edit, it goes so much faster.

    Some people even say to go as far as turning your monitor off while you write.
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  • Profile picture of the author cj.1.cash
    Nice one, I too usually couldn't be bother to check my spelling while writing =)
    I do it after
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    • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
      I've never turned off my monitor while writing, but spell check, that is defintely something I can do without. Sometiems the simple things that are right under our noses (my nose, anyway) are the most important.
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    • Profile picture of the author reapr
      Oh boy always check your speeling!!! I have found it can effect conversions and more importantly acceptance into article directories.
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      • Profile picture of the author Peggy Baron
        And I'm sure it would help if I could type as good as I could when I took typing in high school. My spelling is okay, but my typing has really gone down hill.

        Peggy
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