How I Wrote an Article a Day for a Month & How You Can Too

On Sunday, October 25, 2020 I set myself a goal: publish an article every day for a month. It was a stretch. I'd not written much since my blogging days. I wasn't sure how I was going to find the time or motivation. I wasn't even sure where to post... should I revive my old Blogger website or start afresh?

Deciding on Vocal as my publishing platform, I whipped up my first article, Book a Model For Your Next Photoshoot Using this Simple Tip, and hit submit for review. A couple of hours later a friendly email let me know that my story had been approved! The ball was a-rollin'.

30 days later and, as of this moment, I have 29 published articles. But if you're reading this it means that I hit the big three-oh! Hooray!

Now that I've pretty much reached my goal (I'll post again tomorrow to make it official) I thought I would share what I learnt.

So, how did I find the time to write and edit 600+ words a day, while also juggling a job and other responsibilities? How can you do the same? Here are my three top tips...

1. Get organised

If you're going to execute a packed writing and publishing schedule, a planner should become your best friend. It doesn't matter whether it's a physical diary or calendar, or one on your laptop and phone. All that matters is that you schedule in your writing to-dos... and actually tick them off!

Try this: schedule in an hour each morning to write the first draft of your article. Then, dedicate on a later time slot for editing and proofreading the article. And, of course, schedule in a good five minutes of feeling smug after hitting publish!

2. Let go of perfectionism

A classic self-sabotaging move is to cling tightly to the myth of perfect. The idea of the ultimate article can stop you beginning, or it can stall you and put you off actually posting your finished piece.

In reality, nothing is perfect. I know, you know, everyone knows that. And yet, there are thousands of perfectionists out there not sharing their work because they're thinking... what if I could source a better image? Perhaps it's too wordy, should I cut it down? Is the title catchy enough? Maybe I should just start over...!

Of course, you should strive to create and share your best work. This does include a lot of time spent editing and, in the case of self-publishing, sourcing images, writing the title and subtitle, formatting. However, if you become too critical and bogged down in the editing process as you aim for an impossibly perfect article, you're not going to reaching your publishing goals.

Strive for your best, but remember that perfect is a myth. Write, edit, publish, repeat.

3. Cheat (a little)!

Okay, okay, since you've read this far I'll let you in on a secret. To achieve my goal, I totally cheated! While it is true that this will be my 30th article in as many days, these are not all 100% new pieces of writing that I created this month.

On some days, in order to meet my own tight publishing schedule, I looked at my back catalogue of work, repurposed and remixed it, and republished!

For instance, to write my article 4 Fun Self Portrait Ideas to Try in Lockdown, I looked at the transcript for one of my videos in my Skillshare class: How to Take Beautiful Self Portraits. Although this class was released well before the pandemic, it didn't take much to repurpose some of the tips and make it relevant to lockdown. And now it's become one of my most viewed articles!

You probably have a lot of content out there already, perhaps on an old blog, in long Facebook and Instagram posts, podcasts, YouTube videos... Don't let it sit and fester in a corner of the internet where no one passes by. Rediscover it and rewrite it! You could give it a 2021 update, perhaps. Or write about how your feelings towards the topic have changed. Just put a new spin on it and release it into the world.

In some cases, you can even repost the content word-for-word, especially if it isn't searchable online. For instance, I did series of interviews that I had only ever published in a newsletter. So I decided to share them here too.

Don't worry that people will think you're repeating yourself. The internet is a big ol' place and it's unlikely that people will even notice.

And besides, when you give an old post a fresh new update, you're either sharing more great content with your audience, or introducing people to your perspective for the first time. Either way, your unique perspective deserves to be heard!

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By doing this challenge I've learnt how to pump out high-quality articles at supersonic speed. So even after I publish the last article of the month, it certainly won't be the last you'll hear from me.

Apply these three tips to your own writing process, so you too can up the amount of articles you publish in any given month. Good luck!

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And, that's article number 30 checked off! If you liked this post, you might like my other 29 (and counting): check them out.

Follow me on Instagram, @byclairep.