Today the Zen Master of Email Copywriting speaketh.
And he says, most wanna-be writers have wrong thinking on the subject. And that is why they struggle.
Ya see, most would-be writers have the idea that writing is a full-time all-day job. It’s not.
In my whirld, writing is something you begin doing for short periods of time – then you take a break.
These short periods build momentum. They teach you that you can write – and write exceptionally well. They train you to begin a task… and finish it.
As momentum builds from writing for short periods of time, so does your endurance, your strength and your POWER.
You realize you can easily write for longer periods of time, if you so choose.
I say “if you so choose” because you don’t have to EVER write for long periods of time. It is up to you.
You can be lazy as hell, writing 300-500 words per day, and turn your emails into gold.
These emails can then be tweaked a bit to become articles and columns, or chapters in a book.
At some point, using this type of approach, you may get the “writer’s bug”… and your laziness is gone. You get up in the morning and “cannot wait” to get rolling. You might write for hours each day, completely unaware of the time.
When I was writing and assembling my most latest book, One Breath at a Time, I was writing, editing and compiling for long stretches of time each day. Midnight would come and go, and I was still in a chair, whirling away.
But mark my words, in the beginning, you want to start small. If you only write for 10 minutes per day, that’s enough to activate the writer’s bug within.
In fact, if you only write for five minutes a day, the same thing will happen.
Becoming a writer is about gaining momentum and traction. It’s about finding a groove. Once you find the groove with short segments, the writing becomes effortless. There’s no struggle.
Email writing teaches this better than anything else. And the reason is because writing emails is more of a sprint than a marathon.
You are the cheetah, running 60-70 miles per hour for a 1/4 mile to nab your prey. Once your sprint is over, whether you made a killing or not, you are done for the day. No more sprints until tomorrow.
Some days you kick absolute ass. Other days your results can be so-so or blah-blah.
No worries.
Kick your socks off at the end of the day and wipe the board clean.
Put a new pair of socks on the next day and peck away. With this method, it’s only a matter of time before you are putting numbers up on the board.
Every day is a new lifetime.
If you lost yesterday you work to turn today’s game into a WINNER.
And if you won yesterday’s game, you write a little something to win again today.
With my method, all of your writing is done without trying. You write without mental strain or effort. I refer to this as “effortless effort.”
Wrong thinking about writing is trying to write. It’s thinking of writing as hard work.
Correct thinking about writing is letting yourself FLOW. It’s a realization that hard work is not the key. When you are creating something new, there’s nothing hard about it. It’s pure joy.
That’s why time disappears when you write without effort. You’re doing something in the moment that you love doing.
Thinking of writing as difficult stops more people from beginning than anything else.
If I viewed writing as something I must do for four, six or eight hours per day, I wouldn’t do it. Even two hours – nah, not for me.
Five or 10 minutes? Yes.
Hell YES!!!!
Occasionally you can do a marathon session of writing. Twice a month I crank out two newsletters, each of them are around 10,000 words. Both of them are stellar. Neither of them can be written in 10 minutes.
But let me tell you something, whether it takes me 10 minutes or 10 hours, it’s all the same when there’s no such thing as time.
I’m considering adding a third newsletter into the mix at some time. If I do, that would be an awesome feat.
Even if I do, keep in mind the reality of what I have told you: “Life for a writer begins with five to 10-minute segments.”
Here endeth today’s lesson – unless you’re wise enough and excited enough and ambitious enough to follow up by latching onto my Original Email Copywriting Course.
Matt Furey
P.S. The people who attended this event paid $10,000.00 each, plus airfare, hotel, etc. And they only got to hear the message ONCE. You get the audios from this event, digitally delivered instantly, for a fraction of that amount, and you get to listen as often as you choose. In fact, one of the greatest email copywriters of all times, Ben Settle, says he has listened to this series at least two dozen times… and counting. He gives me credit for helping him go from pumping gas at Chevron to becoming a millionaire. Perhaps you could be next.
