Transform your Stupid, Boring Steemit article into Pure Sexiness!

These tricks may sound ridiculous, but they will make your next article fun to read, and even more fun to write!

We all know that writing is hard work, and anybody trying to sugar coat that fact is probably either full of shit, or some kind of writing wizard who enjoys a charmed life. Since I suffer from being a normal, lazy person like most others, I want to share my top 5 personal brain hacks for getting over myself and getting work done as painlessly as possible.

I promise in advance that I’m not going to waste your time with generic advice like “Meditate”, “Focus on the Positive” or “Drink lots of water”. That’s fantastic advice for improving your daily routine, but it’s not great advice for getting shit done.

If you have tried your hand at writing, you already know that everything comes down to getting IN THE ZONE and pumping out that first 75% of an article. The editing and final touches are usually easier and more fun.

There are a bazillion articles about how to polish up your content, but the hard part is un-fucking your head and just writing the damn thing in the first place.

So here are some excellent, albeit weird, ways I have personally discovered to attack the problem of writer's block at the root and get your creative neurons firing, boosting the quality of your content in the process!

1. Use Copious Profanity in the First Draft

Profanity is a useful in everyday speech as a shorthand for expressing emphasis and stringing half-thoughts together. It can be used to make conversations more efficient, or just to add a pleasing cadence to our human babblings.

Because of this, it can also be very effective tool for writing first drafts.

The trick to writing a good first draft, of course, is not trying too hard to worry about the fine
details of a paragraph, and simply getting the structure typed out. This is surprisingly tough for me, because I NEVER want to write a sentence or paragraph that looks awkward. Even if I tell myself it’s a first draft, my brain hates writing bad-looking sentences. As a consequence, my natural tendency is to write flawless first drafts that take two fucking hours to finish - COMPLETELY defeating the point of the drafting process.

One useful way to hack your brain into entering “draft” mode without even trying, is to just throw some random fucking profanity into the text. All of a sudden, your brain doesn’t think you are writing an “article” any more, it assumes you are writing a text to one of your friends. And like magic, you will find yourself pounding that bitch ass article out like a motherfucking boss. As with ALL of the tricks in this article, this is something you can EASILY fix in your final draft. Before you publish, you can simply go through and replace all of your cuss words with smarter sounding adverbs And of course if any of your cuss words are funny, or get the point across better, leave them!

Life is too short to write boring shit!

2. Start with Something Ridiculous that Doesn’t Belong in the Article.

Traditional logic says that you should start your draft by outlining all of your keys points and then writing little conversation prompts for yourself in each of the sections and then fill out your sections one by one.

Fuck That.

If you are capable of doing that consistently without boring yourself to absolute death, more power to you! I cannot. The creative side of my brain HATES operating within a rigid structure, because it feels like work instead of play.

So instead of building the frame and working inwards, I try to work “outwards” from a central starting point, or a collection of dislocated points. I call this method “Rock Soup” based on the Old Folk Tale about a hungry band of travelers who trick an obstinate group of villagers to into feeding them a hearty meal - by asking for one ingredient at a time.

There are lots of valuable lessons about collaboration that can be taken from this fable. However, the only lesson I will focus on in this article is the following:

The men cooking the soup started with something absolutely irrelevant - a rock - and eventually wound up with delicious soup by describing a series of ingedients that would make the rock taste better. At the end of the process, the original rock was discarded, as it is was longer essential to the structure.

So let’s assume you have decided on a general premise for your article, how do you pick what points to work from? That’s the best part - it doesn’t matter! I recommend picking absolutely random, silly things. It’s like a conversation prompt, except backwards. Thinking about something that has nothing to do with the topic of the article helps me identify what should be in the article. For instance, If you are writing a piece about crypto-currency, write the problem out like a class assignment for yourself:

“Describe how China is impacting the Cryptocurrency market, using references to Ninjas, Gene Roddenberry and Pabst Blue Ribbon. Go!”

And in defiance of all logic, once you read that sentence, answers will start to occur to you. The creative brain works best when it is trying to connect two points together, rather than inventing something out of thin air, and the act of simply making connections in your brain will kick-start your creative process. Before you know it, the connections you are making will start to be more and more useful to your actual article, and you will have a framework that you truly enjoy working with.
You can always edit out the stupid shit later, but most of the time you will find a funny way to include it and make the article more entertaining, or you will find a way that the first stupid joke leads you to an even better stupid joke.

3. Create an evil alter ego.

Comparable to the idea of “finding your voice.” this is basically a method of tapping into your subconscious by creating a fictional character. I like using a “bad” character who says whatever he or she feels like saying.

This is very powerful for accessing an honest place in your soul that is also provocative and will create discussion.

If you feel like “yourself” when writing the article, you simply won’t write as well, because you will be too preoccupied with apologizing for your opinions and trying to make yourself look good. Good content doesn’t apologize for itself, even if it raises tough, divisive questions.
My favorite personal example of this tool being put to good use is the rapper Eminem and his alter ego Slim Shady who sings from the perspective of a violent criminal who wants to murder his ex-wife. A lot of people listening to Eminem’s music were immediately able to identify with the harsh and hurtful emotions he was experiencing during and after his divorce, because those emotions were honest even if they were socially unacceptable. Tapping into your honest emotions about a topic will give your content surprisingly broad appeal. In Eminem’s case, his music became very popular with teens and young adults, people who probably didn’t want to murder their wives, but were able to take his twisted, provocative anger and identify it abstractly with other frustrations they felt. Whether you are frustrated with your parents, your spouse, your job or some other complication in your life, Slim Shady forges a powerful connection, because the honesty of emotion is often more important than the violent, fantastical details.

As a result of personally listening to an unhealthy fuckload of Eminem when I was younger, I will confess that my own “voice” is roughly inspired by Slim Shady with a humanist approach to philosophy and a dash of Libertarian political theory thrown in. If a gentle humanist like Steven Spielberg impregnated Slim Shady in the butt (consensually of course), and Slim gave anal birth to a clever, fast-talking raccoon named Gustavo who smoked cigars, pounded away on a typewriter with his sneaky raccoon hands, and didn’t fully understand human reproduction, then Gustavo would be my voice.

If that’s too much of a stretch, don’t worry about making your character outlandish, just think of some easy stereotype that you can identify with or aspire to. A monologue-prone movie character like Frank Underwood or Tyler Durden works great. Even the process of creating and naming your profile on a website like Steemit is a fun way to daydream about what type of character you want to play.

Faking a personality might sound counterproductive if you are trying to write honestly, and I will freely admit that there is potential for this to be abusive or annoying, however, I will also point out that you are faking a character EVERY DAY when you pretend to be “yourself”, you simply don’t realize it. Your concept of self is largely built on a scrambled mess of your own misperceptions, plus your misperceptions about what other people misperceive about you. Here is the obligatory Alan Watts video explaining why your concept of self if a lie and you should stop trying so hard to discover it.

All that said, you do need some consistent place to speak from, and I highly recommend creating an alter ego as a solution. Intentionally developing a voice that is close but not quite “You” gives you more control over the end result, and is also a lot more FUN, which is what motivates us in the first place!

4. Write like a speech, not like a novel.

This piece of advice may not agree with everyone - I have read plenty of good articles that leveraged advanced language mechanics or flowery writing to make a beautiful point. For most purposes, though, I recommend using conversational, seventh-grade English. It is your best bet for reaching the largest audience and having your point properly understood. Some great examples of easy-to-read, memorable and impactful writing are the Speeches of Sir Winston Churchill, which he notably wrote himself. LINK!
That source may sound pretentious, but if you read or listen to the speeches you will quickly understand that despite a few lofty-sounding word sprinkled in like “Shall” and “Hitherto” the overall text is very simple to understand and gets straight to the point. Churchill was also brilliant at using cadence and repetition to make a point stick in the memory of the listener. A critic may note that he uses a lot of full stops where a comma might suffice. I have been criticized for the same stylistic crutch, but I prefer to err on the side of short sentences, rather than lose my reader. Because it more closely imitates human speech. Breaking your thoughts into bite-sized chunks also makes everything SOUND better in the reader’s head, whether or not the text is actually being read aloud. As a final benefit, this usually makes the transition from draft to final product quicker and more efficient. You will waste less time re-writing sentences if your sentences are short to begin with, and the information will be easier to move around within the article.

5. Make Big Promises in the Title - Then Write Whatever Fits!

This tactic might sounds like a surefire recipe for shitty clickbait, and indeed this would not be an effective or ethical way to start a news article. It’s very effective for writing advice, opinion or entertainment articles, however.

The concept is simple but powerful:

First, start by writing the most amazing title you can think of. Write something that is bold and crazy and could not possibly be true. Second, consider the way this title makes you FEEL and focus on the emotional challenge you have given yourself, as opposed to the technical aspects. Third, do your damnedest to write an article that feels as good as that title.

Even if you fail to meet the bar you have set for yourself, I guarantee that you will bring more energy and creativity to the project this way. It’s a great method to remove mental limitations you don’t even realize you have. If you think this sounds stupid, I would encourage you to try it right now! Open two blank documents on your computer.
At the top of the first document write:

“Humorous Article about Cats”

Then at the top of the second document, write:

“These 7 facts about cats will make you shit yourself laughing”

Now click back and forth between the two documents, and see which article you feel more inspired to write!

Remember, you can always change your title to be more accurate before you publish! If the title doesn’t fit or doesn’t make any sense by the time you have about 75% of your article completed, there are two easy options:

1. Change the title until it makes more sense with your draft, or
2. Save the good-but-irrelevant parts of your draft for another article, and continue hacking away until you have content that fits better.

As long as your article title is honest by the time you publish, everything will be fine. But up until the very second you click “Submit” you should feel free to cheat and lie as much as you want – you are only tricking yourself into writing amazing content!

To quickly recap my list on unconventional wisdom:

1. Use profanity and slang in your first draft like you are texting a friend - it’s nbd you can edit that shit out later.

2. Start writing by adding a ridiculous concept and tying it back to the main point of your article - I guarantee this will help kick your creativity into high gear!

3. Start to develop an alter ego which will allow you to vent your ideas honestly and inspire you to be bold.

4. Emphasize each idea like you are Winston Fucking Churchill addressing the nation of england.

5. GO BIG with your title to inspire yourself. It’s not just an article, it’s the best damn article anybody has ever read.

You might think this advice sounds completely nuts, but I dare you to try! Using these tools always pushes me to try harder and be more creative, helping me to power through the initial discouragement and of writing an article.
These tools are now yours! Use them well.

Thanks for your support, and Keep on Steeming!

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- Pachenko