I just set a timer on my desk, giving me no more than 15 minutes to write this message to you. It better be a good one, that’s all I have to say.
And to make it so, let’s start with the reality of the situation for almost all children. When your sons and daughters were four years old and younger, they most likely exhibited a lot of highly creative traits.
They drew pictures, they sang, they danced and many of them probably picked up a crayon or pencil to write their names.
The truth is that YOU were mostly the same way when you were a child.
Then you went to screwool and learned “their” way to learn. Before you knew it, your interest in art, writing, singing, dancing and so on dropped through the floor.
Said another way, perhaps you still had an interest, and took classes in these CREATIVE endeavors, but the fact is you never learned how to CREATE – nor did you enjoy the process as much as you did when you were given free reign to color, draw and write as you so pleased.
In regards to writing, you were taught rules of grammar, syntax, spelling and a host of other “essentials.” And before you knew it, your confidence as a writer grew smaller instead of larger. You could no longer sit and write without FEAR. In fact, you were a bundle of nerves as you wrote – most likely causing you to sit and think before writing instead of just writing.
Not only that, you began to worry about pleasing people, especially your teacher, who was going to assign a letter grade for what you wrote. And this worry caused you to begin editing what you were supposedly writing before you’ve even finished a sentence.
Uggh.
How in the hell can you write effectively when you’re filled with tension, anxiety, worry, fear and dread?
It doesn’t work.
As I often tell those whom I coach, “Tension is the enemy of success and the cause of failure.”
Mark Twain once wrote, “If people spoke the way they tried to write, everyone would stutter.”
How true.
And therein lies one of the keys out of the dreaded writer’s block abyss that so many would-be writers and so-called writers experience.
Another key is to stop thinking like a writer and start thinking like an author. As Dean DuVall said, “Writers write – authors sell.”
Now, my friend, we come to precisely WHY an English teacher, regardless of how well intentioned she may be, IS NOT the RIGHT person to learn writing
from, now or EVER.
Unless she is a MAJOR exception to the norm, your English teacher – as well as almost ALL other English teachers, have never made an honest or dishonest buck for anything they have ever written.
So, although they may know grammar and syntax and structure, they cannot write for profit – so you are far better off learning the grammar on your own – and there are 10,000 books that will gladly teach it to you – then get your hide, carcass or whatever else you want to call yourself, in the same room with someone who writes for a living. THAT’s the person you want to learn from. No one else.
This is why I don’t care if you got straight C’s or worse in writing while in school. If you learn how to write like you speak, you can be a writer turned author in record time.
This is what I show you how to do in my newest course, The Tao of Email Copywriting – which I am making available for six more days ONLY. Then
it’s off the market.
Yesterday it took off like gangbusters.
Make sure you get your copy NOW, while you still CAN.
I’m out.
14:52
Best,
Matt Furey