by David Dewitt

Created on: October 25, 2008

Many writers on the web are also working a full time job to make their living. This means that there must be a balance between work time and writing time. One of the more serious challenges is to maximize the time that we can carve out for writing. When we work full time jobs, there may not be a lot of time for writing, so we want to get the most out of it. There are things that can help bring more out of the writing time that you might have and some simple ways to bolster the amount of writing that gets accomplished.

When writing there are three basic phases of an article: pre-writing, writing time, and post writing. Pre-writing is the basic work that needs to take place before any genuine effort can take place. This would include topic selection, research or fact-finding, and outlining the project. The article is organized and structured, before it can become a creation. Writing time is simply the work of pulling together the outline with the research to build the actual article. The work of writing is adding the flesh of facts to the bones of the outline. Writing expands on the ideas that are roughly, carved out with research to breath life into the outline. Post writing is any work that comes once the article is finished. This includes a final edit, online posting and promotion of the article. All of this is key to building some success with the article itself.

Pre-Writing Details

When deciding what to write about, look for topics around you and create a long list of possible topics that you either have some knowledge about or have an opinion on. Look for topics that are already part of your knowledge base. These are articles that you can lend some immediate knowledge to and be able to write in a relatively short amount of time. Also look for things that spark your interest because those articles will be easier to write and faster to create. Once you have a list of possible topics, narrow the list down to two or three topics, then begin the outlining phase.

Outlining may be simply listing the facts you already know about the subject or just fleshing out the ideas that are currently on your mind. The outline is simply the skeleton that will help build the article later on. Outlines are not necessarily set in stone because research may bring something new to light and cause you to make some changes.

Research is crucial to writing a strong article because you must know the facts involved before you can effectively communicate. Research does not have to be tiresome

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