Coffee Break for Writers Your Guide to Writing for Profit
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Sharpen your writing skills or beat writer's block with our many writing exercises below.
Fiction Writing Exercise: Write a short story that begins with something taking place in a train station.
Article Writing Exercise: Write a back to school top ten list.
Non-fiction Writing Exercise: Without worrying about grammar and spelling, and without stopping, write an essay about your first acceptance letter from an editor. Just let the words flow onto the paper or computer screen. Make sure to choose a location where you won't be distracted.
Writing Exercise for Greeting Card Writers: Think about something special you'd like to say to a friend or loved one, and then shorten those words into a verse for a greeting card.
Fiction Writing Exercise: Last week I blogged about unpredictable endings on Life of a Writer, so for this month's writing exercise I'd like you to try to come up with an unpredictable ending for a fiction book or short story that you're writing or plan to write in the near future. Before you perform this exercise, head over to Life of a Writer and read my entry entitled Unpredictable Endings.
Freelance Writing Exercise: This is a three-part exercise. Once you've completed all three parts of this exercise, you'll be ready to market your writing services in record-breaking time. Ready? Here we go ...
Part One
Step one: Make a list of all your main niches.
Step two: List all experience you have related to each of those main niches, include experience not related to the writing industry (education, work performed outside the home for an employer, etc.).
Final step: List all your publication credits related to each of your main niches.
Here's two examples using parenting and health as main niches.
1. Parenting - Worked as a daycare provider for five years, currently hold a degree for childhood development, and I've written and published 10 parenting-related articles in publications such as Parenting, American Baby, Dabbling Mum and Family Fun.
2. Health - Worked as a personal trainer for three years, currently hold a PFT (Personal Fitness Training) certification, and I've written and published over 20 articles related to health and fitness in publications such as Fit Pregnancy, Prevention, Men's Health and Shape.
Part Two
Step one: Refer back the main niches you were asked to list in part one of this writing exercise. Beginning with your first main niche, brainstorm a list of at least five topics that you could write related to that niche. If you can come up with more than five topics, keep on listing until you run out of ideas for that niche.
Step two: Create a catchy title for each topic.
Step three: Write a short outline for each topic. This is optional, but can be helpful later when you go to write the topics for the publication that you sold the idea to.
Final step: Repeat steps one through three for your remaining niches.
Part Three
This is the final part of our three-part writing exercise. Once you've completed it, set aside an hour or two of your time today to use the material you created through this exercise to market your writing services.
May you be blessed with many new clients and a multitude of words that your clients and readers will love!
Step one: Refer back to the main niches and experience you listed in part one of this writing exercise.
Step two: Write a letter of introduction for your first main niche. Use the experience information for that niche to fill in the blanks on the following sample letter of introduction:
My name is (your first and last name) and I've been freelance writing for (number of years). (List relevant experience and publication credits).
If you allow me the opportunity to write for your (niche) (magazine/website/blog), I'll (state what you can offer them that would be beneficial to them and/or their magazine, website or blog. Examples: meet your specified deadlines on time, communicate with your readers by responding to any of their comments, write original and compelling articles geared toward your audience, etc.). I'm including links to two of my clips to give you an idea of my voice and style. I'm more than willing to work on assignment and look forward to discussing the possibilities with you.
To learn more about me, you can visit my website at (URL to your writing services website). Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, need any additional information or wish to discuss possible assignments. You can reach me via e-mail (your e-mail address; place in parentheses) or phone (your phone number; place in parentheses).
Kind regards,
(Your first and last name)
(Your postal mailing address)
Clips:
(List two relevant clips. Include the titles and the URLs to the clips)
Step three: Fill in the blanks in the last two paragraphs of the sample of introduction.
Step four: Save the letter of introduction you just created on your flash drive. Name the file "letter of introduction for (name of your niche) markets."
Step five: Repeat steps one through three for each remaining niche.
Final step: Search the Internet for magazine, websites and/or blogs related to one of your main niches. When you find a magazine, website or blog that has lots of content on that niche, rummage around the site to find the contact information for the editor, website owner or blog owner, and then send the letter of introduction you just created for that niche to the editor, blog owner or website owner.
