Are you in the mood?

By Anne Maybus

If there is one thing I know about writing, it’s that your best work is created when you’re in the right mood.

You know what it’s like when you have a good day. Everything just falls into place and you get all your work done quickly and easily. When it’s a bad day, you have fingers made of cement and a keyboard with jumping jack keys.

It’s easy to create a serviceable piece of writing that will get the job done, but is that really what you want? I think it’s short-changing your readers.

I have a lot of people talk to me about their blog posts or newsletters, and they are generally focused on the structure of the piece and all the details about keywords, length and whether or not to be “salesy.”  That’s especially true of new writers.  That’s what lead me to put together a writing course for business owners.

I learned as much from that course as the participants. I realised how hard it is for people to take the risk of showing themselves and their personalities in their writing.

I wonder what school did to us. The emphasis on grammar and spelling without considering self-expression seems to have produced a lot of people who are so worried about misusing a comma that they don’t write anything at all.

This is one of my soapbox pieces. I hate the thought that some of you have so much to offer, but it’s all inside you under lock and key and wearing a “Fail” label. Why should we miss out on what you have to say? More importantly, why should you be gagged just because you might misspell a word?  Don’t you sometimes feel like the words want to burst out of you? Perhaps they do and you set them free on a document that you never show anyone.

Next time you are in the mood to write, do it. But, this time, write a blog post as though there will be no one judging it. When the cement drops from your fingers, let them dance on the keyboard and create. Write to express yourself. Write to show yourself. It is important that you do this.

Remember that blog posts and newsletters are there to help you connect with your people. They can tell when you are being yourself and when you’re being a business person. It shows.

You can always have someone edit your work before it is sent out if you are really worried, but readers want to know YOU. They don’t care that you can’t write like Hemingway. They just want to hear from you – the real you.

We’re all a bunch of stickybeaks looking for a connection.  Get in the mood. Come on out and show yourself. Give us something worth reading.