Content Mastery Guide

Editor and Ghostwriter

A day in the life of a ghostwriter, editor and music therapist – the Twitter experiment

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Twitter – networking, procrastinating or both?

Well, the jury is still out on whether Twitter will improve or degrade my productivity. The first few days have revealed it's addictive nature AND it's amazing capacity to shrink the world. I feel my relationships with my online colleagues deepening – and some of them I have known for years via email.

And I'm feeling more in relationship to other colleagues who I've known "by name only" up until now. Plus I've met plenty of new people. To borrow from a wise phrase, a stranger is just a tweeter (twitter-er? twit?) you haven't met yet.

Social networking as a marketing tool

If you're looking to dip your feet into the social networking pool, Nancy Marmolejo (@NancyMarmolejo) has some great social networking tips here. And next week's client story in the Idea Generator blog will feature Kristen Beireis (@life_enthusiast) and her new social networking paper.

For a more in-depth look at Twitter and how to use it, check out Jennifer Laycock's article (@JenniferLaycock). [Update December 15, 2012 – Jennifer's Twitter account seems to have changed so I removed the link.]

What isLinda Dessau is doing RIGHT NOW?

Find out by following me on Twitter.

Need a creativity kickstart?

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I really liked Jason Womack’s tips in this Lifehacker article, How to Kickstart a Low-Productivity Day.

I often use the "walk around" strategy when I’m stuck or tired. Since my home office is in an apartment building, I can take a trip downstairs to get the mail and maybe pop my head outside to breathe some fresh air.

I also love his emphasis on gratitude and connection with others – those are both very important to my productivity and well-being.

Writing Prompt: Take Jason’s suggestion to open up a favourite book to a random page and read for five minutes. Did that spark any ideas you can use in your current writing project? If you need some help making the connection between what you’ve read and what you’re writing, check out this post.

I’ll be jammin’

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If you've been a long-time reader of my self-care and creativity articles (and thank you for that!), you may remember me posting in the Everyday Artist blog about Downtown Jam – here's a link to the original blog post.

It's a very unique music club in downtown Toronto, designed to provide musicians and singers with organized opportunities to make music together. Specifically, ROCK AND ROLL (woo hoo!), featuring a 500-song chord book with many of my favourites, including the Beatles, Joni Mitchell and others.

Well, it's taken me two years, but I finally joined! My first jam night is coming up on September 16 (I signed up to do keyboards and vocals), and I can't wait!

It' s exactly what I'm looking for right now: music-making that's just for me, but without the structure and time commitment of a choir, or the extra task of putting together my own group. And music that I truly love.

Is your writing all dressed up but going nowhere?

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During today’s radio interview with Katherine Reschke of Passions That Pay, we were discussing the fine line between perfectionism-induced paralysis (no writing at all) and going overboard with your corrections until you don’t sound like yourself anymore.

Then, an analogy popped into my head.

If you were to leave your house today while you’re still wearing your pyjamas, slippers and curlers (ok, I’m not sure if anyone wears curlers, but you know what I mean), you’re probably not going to make a very good impression.

On the other hand, you certainly don’t have to pour yourself into an evening gown or tuxedo to take a stroll around the block. You won’t be comfortable, people won’t know how to relate to you and your message will be lost in the distraction of how you’re dressed.

It’s the same thing when you try to sound too smart in your writing, which is an issue I cover in the free report, Readability Secrets for Coaches Who Write.

Instead, take the time to clean yourself up and deal with any glaring errors so that you can make the best impression you can. But don’t try to be someone you’re not. You’ll risk intimidating your readers so they can’t relate to you.

Writing Prompts: Use this 5-point readability checklist as a systematic way to “run a comb” through your writing before you send it out into the world.