How to Write a 1000 Word Article in 45 Minutes
I once read someone suggesting that writers should spend at least six hours writing an article around 1000 words. Who has time for that?
If you are getting paid to write that specific article, yeah, take six hours and do a spectacular job. But if you may or may not make money on it, for example, if you are a blogger, you don’t have the time to waste.
Most articles and blogs that I write happen in less than an hour from the moment I start typing to the moment I publish or send it off. Here’s how I get it done.
Mental cataloging
If you sit down at the computer and have no idea what you are going to write about, you will not write anything worth reading in less than an hour. It is important to know what you will write before you begin writing.
I call this process mental cataloging. To me, mental cataloging is the process by which you think, process the world and create ideas. It is the activity of passively brainstorming throughout your day. I write a lot about writing and leadership. So I am constantly analyzing my day through these two fields. When I am writing, I ask myself, “What is happening here?” “What can someone else learn from my experience?” These questions lead me to the articles I write about the writing process.
Recently, I have been listening to and reading books about leadership, productivity, and company culture. I usually consume these books during my drive to and from work. As I drive, I think through these topics that I am hearing and look at my own work life through the new found lens. Usually I become passionate about something. Recently, my passion has been about good leadership. As I drive, I begin mentally cataloging my ideas about leadership and my experiences.
I began mentally cataloging this article as I went about my morning routine. As you can imagine, I was feeling less than motivated by work. Before I even put pen to paper I had three of my four points outlined in my head.
This brings me to my first main point: most of the work of getting articles down quickly happens before you are even in the writing zone. If you want to get good at mentally cataloging for writing, you need to see the world with curiosity. What are some ways the world is broken? How can those broken places be fixed? These questions can naturally lead you to articles.
Outline your main points
After you have mentally cataloged, you can begin writing. I always start with a simple outline of my main points. For the above article about workplace motivation, I had three of my points in my head and I came up with the fourth early in the writing of the article. Having an outline gives you a roadmap for connecting your thoughts. It allows you to space out your words so you don’t spend too much time on one section and not enough on another.
Again, if the goal is quickly writing, then you don’t need to spend a ton of time on your outline. My general rule is the longer the piece, the longer the outline. For anything under 1000 words, a simple word or phrase for each point is the extent of my outline.
Start in the middle
And now it is time to write. It can be tempting to jump right into an introduction, but most of the time, time spent crafting an introduction before you have written anything else is time wasted. So many times when I start with an introduction, I realize halfway through the piece that my introduction doesn’t actually fit what I am writing. And so I have to rewrite it. This is time wasted. I will usually start with an introduction only if I have a specific story I want to tell or when I have the article mapped out in my head in a very detailed manner.
Rather than fumble around with an introduction, start right in on point one. Then write point two, three, etc. and your conclusion. Then write your introduction tying everything together from the beginning. Your readers will think you are brilliant.
No distractions
Now comes the hard part for most writers: the writing. Writing is simple if you don’t over think it. For a piece like this, I imagine I am having a conversation with someone over coffee, explaining my process. I write like I talk.
To get into a good flow of writing, you need no distractions. Put the phone away. Close your unnecessary tabs. You can go 45 minutes without checking email or your phone. The faster you write the quicker you can go back to that stuff. Just write. Trust your gut and your outline and get that piece down on paper.
Final thoughts
Because I spent the necessary time in my head before I wrote this, I was able to get this article down in about forty minutes. The final word count ended up at 1000 words. With a job and a family, I need to maximize my writing time. I hope you can use these principles to maximize yours. It is very possible to write a lot in a short period of time, if you set yourself up for success.
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