{"id":4134,"date":"2010-02-11T08:32:04","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T13:32:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/37d57f8fa2.nxcli.io\/blog\/?p=4134"},"modified":"2010-02-03T08:42:23","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T13:42:23","slug":"writing-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/copywriting\/writing-truck\/","title":{"rendered":"When Writing Is Like Pulling a 10-Ton Truck&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Let&#8217;s be honest. Even prolific writers have bad days when they can&#8217;t seem to hit their stride. Not to mention business owners who avoid writing unless they have to!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Sometimes the words just flow. (Isn&#8217;t that the best?) And other times&#8230; well.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">So what do you do when writing feels like pulling a 10-ton truck? How do you prime the pen and get the ink flowing?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Here are three ideas that work like a charm&#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Idea #1: Get your market to ask you questions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">One of the best ways to break writer&#8217;s block and grease the mental skids is to ask your market what questions they have&#8230; what challenges they currently face.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/copywriting-strategies.JPG\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4136\" title=\"copywriting strategies\" src=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/02\/copywriting-strategies.JPG\" alt=\"copywriting strategies\" width=\"150\" height=\"116\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This process is magical because it&#8217;s <em>waaay<\/em> easier to answer a question than it is to write something from a standing start.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In the case of a sales letter, you might try writing a Frequently Asked Questions page first. Portions of what you write here can then be rewritten to fit with your copy.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Idea #2: See what other people have written about your subject.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Also called competitive research!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This is super-easy to do with the help of Google. Just type in &#8220;articles about [your topic]&#8221; and see what pops up. You&#8217;ll be amazed by how many ideas you can get in under five minutes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">If you&#8217;re writing a sales letter, just look up your competitors. See what their ads say. Then look up old ads that have run in your market. After you&#8217;ve perused a few samples, your internal idea mill will start grinding away.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Key point: Do NOT copy another person&#8217;s article or sales letter! All you want to do is absorb ideas from a variety of sources &#8212; and then synthesize it all into something that is original.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>Idea #3: Spend some time reading oddball stuff.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">This may seem counterintuitive. But sometimes you just need to give your brain a rest from whatever you&#8217;re trying to write.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Go pick up a book about a subject you wouldn&#8217;t normally be interested in. Read a few pages or a whole chapter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">What you may find is that your brain starts to relate your current writing project to what you&#8217;re reading. And once you start making those creative connections &#8212; seeing how normally unrelated things connect &#8212; you&#8217;ll be off to the races and writing like a mad man (or woman!).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Next time you find yourself struggling to write, put these ideas to the test. I think you&#8217;ll be pleased with the results.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8211; <em>Ryan<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">P.S. Want more in-depth copywriting lessons like these? Then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.copywritingcode.com\/amember\/signup.php\">check out Copywriting Code here.<\/a><\/p>\n<table style=\"text-align: left;\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"8\" cellpadding=\"8\" width=\"450\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td width=\"450\" height=\"0\" valign=\"top\" bgcolor=\"#ececec\"><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/ryan-healy\/\">About Ryan Healy<\/a><\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mfsstore.com\/writingcopy.html\"><strong><br \/>\nRelated Resources<\/strong><\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/author\/rhealy\/\"><br \/>\nMore Posts by Ryan Healy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To discover the easy and inexpensive ways <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">anyone can attract more clients and maximize their profits<\/span>, sign up for your<strong> <\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">FREE <\/a><\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">Profit Now <\/a><\/strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/free8-s.html\">Report<\/a>. <\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px; text-align: left;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" href=\"http:\/\/reblog.zemanta.com\/zemified\/35b855eb-dc65-47b1-9f40-151e1e06675e\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: medium none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/reblog_e.png?x-id=35b855eb-dc65-47b1-9f40-151e1e06675e\" alt=\"Reblog this post [with Zemanta]\" \/><\/a><span class=\"zem-script more-related more-info pretty-attribution paragraph-reblog\"><script src=\"http:\/\/static.zemanta.com\/readside\/loader.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s be honest. Even prolific writers have bad days when they can&#8217;t seem to hit their stride. Not to mention business owners who avoid writing unless they have to! Sometimes the words just flow. (Isn&#8217;t that the best?) And other times&#8230; well. So what do you do when writing feels like pulling a 10-ton truck? [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[376],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4134\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marketingforsuccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}