The 10 Success Pillars For Professional Writers

By The BBS Agency

June 10, 2022

Being a successful professional writer takes a lot of hard work and dedicated creativity. It takes a lot of getting to know yourself: when you’re most creative, for how long can you write without your brain wanting to explode. Getting to know how you work best and sticking to that schedule is the first success pillar for professional writers. When you can establish efficient routines (including both writing time and rejuvenating breaks), you’ll be able to juggle multiple writing projects. When establishing a routine for your writing projects, it’s important to plan extra time for editing and proofreading. This keeps your standards high for every piece of writing that you produce. However, I would urge you to just edit once or twice and then leave it alone. Every time you read your writing you’ll want to tweak it. Accept it when you’re proud of what is on the page, and put it out into the universe. If you have any questions about content writing or want us to handle it for you, reach out to us at Prebuilt Sites or The BBS Agency. We’d love to help you out!

Professional writers inevitably find themselves in social situations with non-writers, when the topic of discussion turns to careers and someone innocently asks the group: “What do you really want to be doing?”

It’s a conversation-starter that the well-intentioned party guest thinks will be a fun question to prompt people to share their passions and dreams. The careers they’d like to have — if only …

I reply bluntly. I can’t help myself.

“What I currently do.”

Such a buzzkill.

The misery-loves-company train does not want to bond with the person who actually knows how to make money as freelance writer.

I knew I wanted to be a writer before I was aware I wanted to be a professional writer.

It was the first activity I was drawn to and, all these years later, it’s still my first priority.

But most people write in some capacity, and for many, being a professional writer seems like a made-up job. A career that happens magically. Or by accident.

A one-in-a-million scenario where a piece of your writing happens to gain popularity. You know, desperate aspirations of “going viral.”

When, in fact, the exact opposite is true if you want to become a freelance writer.

There’s no sorcery. No coincidence or random luck. No inspirational quotes for writers that hold up in practice.

For professional writers, every choice needs to be painstakingly intentional.

Source: Copyblogger

Professional writers don’t treasure creative ideas

It’s part of our nature to create. We want to build. We want to innovate. It’s fun and it makes us feel alive. We’re creators.

That doesn’t mean we actually meet our goals.

Because we talk. We’re also talkers. And often, the more we talk, the less we accomplish.

Not always, but when someone is preoccupied with talking about a great creative idea, they tend to neglect nurturing, developing, and executing the idea over time.

That’s why creative concepts, alone, bore me.

Show me the strategy and storyselling.

Strategy activates creativity

Disciplined Creativity gives your content ideas the care and conditions they need to mature.

Time to be frenetic.

Time to be focused.

Space to take action.

Space to take a break.

Balance leads to progress.

When professional writers are consumed with their work, they swiftly recognize what causes mental blocks. You need the discipline to finish a writing assignment on time and the confidence to swiftly start brainstorming your next blog post ideas with the same high level of creative energy.

That takes practice.

Success pillars for professional writers

I’ve been using the term Disciplined Creativity for the past several years, but I haven’t explicitly described what it means … until now.

What does Disciplined Creativity look like for professional writers?

Below is a brief, 10-part manifesto on the Disciplined Creativity it takes to work like a pro.

1. Commit to your own production schedule

The First Rule of Disciplined Creativity is follow-through.

Your ability to follow-through with your responsibilities rests on taming your wild side and committing to excellence.

Since creative work often doesn’t “look like work,” it’s essential to follow your own production schedule.

That way, it doesn’t matter if your routine doesn’t look like work to anyone else. You know you’re doing what you set out to do, whether it’s an assignment for a client or your own writing project for your website.

Serious writers don’t make excuses that inconvenience someone else or disappoint their audiences.

2. Professional writers juggle multiple writing projects

This section is about how professional writers gain momentum.

Even though your follow-through skills require focus, if you only take on one creative project at a time, what happens if you feel stuck?

You get frustrated and, dare I say it, get writer’s block.

But if you outline multiple topics for different business blogging projects, one will typically stand out as The Most Easy to Write About. Start there.

It might not always be the first assignment you need to finish for your production schedule I mentioned above, but you can use that topic to warm up your brain and then transition to your pressing deadline.

3. Establish routines

Our creative processes aren’t independent from the rest of our lives, so our other routines, as mundane as they may sometimes seem, can have a direct impact on our creativity.

Think of the old adage:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

So, what do you nurture in the rest of your life?

You could:

Set aside special time in the morning to enjoy your favorite beverage.
Start a meditation practice.
Try new, meaningful activities — not just top priorities.

You don’t have to run around in Panic Mode, constantly drained and stressed out, in order to get things done.

When you choose another way — and stick with it — you deepen your self-discipline and your ability to create on command.

4. Accept that professional writers break their routines

This one is for you if you thought I got a little too idealistic just now.

Life is messy.

We all want to optimize the conditions that contribute to our productivity, but those pure intentions don’t guarantee that our daily routines run smoothly.

So, instead of berating yourself on days you don’t exercise, write that first draft, or develop new online business ideas, accept that unexpected situations and challenges are part of the creative process. Simply taking breaks is part of the creative process.

5. Find the easy way to get back on track

After your routine gets derailed, you might naturally feel overwhelmed by tasks that appear to be piling up on your to-do list.

There’s no one correct order in which you have to do things, and you don’t have to wait for “perfect” conditions to start a task that is important to you, such as learning how to create digital products.

Review your schedule for the rest of the day and the rest of the week, and then ask yourself:

What can I realistically accomplish?

Not some huge goal that you’ll likely not meet. A significant milestone that you can complete and do well.

Then adjust your schedule accordingly for the day and for the week, until you naturally get back to your preferred routine.

6. Professional writers give themselves extra time

For me, creative work always takes longer than I think it will.

If you don’t leave enough time to embrace your enthusiasm and curiosity, you might miss your deadline, which gives the impression that you practice Flaky Creativity rather than Disciplined Creativity.

You need space to explore tangentially related topics, but many anecdotes you love often don’t have a proper place in your final draft (more on that in a bit).

Leave plenty of time anyway to perform the research that makes your writing voice more robust and nuanced.

7. Set small, satisfying goals

Do you want to know the secret that gets Brilliance to pour out of you in one writing session?

Don’t expect Brilliance to pour out of you in one writing session.

Dedicating an entire day to writing, or even half a day, might seem like what a “real writer” does, but real, professional writers have the same messy lives as everyone else.

Even though you want to leave enough time to indulge your creativity — and be disciplined enough to meet deadlines — that doesn’t always mean scheduling extended periods of writing time.

Exhausting yourself is the quickest way to unsustainable creativity, and if you can’t maintain your creative output over time, you’re a poor candidate for a steady writing career.

You might need a few long writing sessions during a project, but Disciplined Creativity is the result of consistent, focused work.

Plan shorter writing sessions to meet small, satisfying goals daily. Then, if that Brilliance doesn’t all pour out of you perfectly at once, you don’t feel intense pressure to write better content.

You know you’ve left enough time to make more progress during your next block of writing time.

8. Professional writers prioritize editing

Great writers are great editors, and to become a great editor, you have to learn to recognize ideas that serve you more than they serve your audience.

Those areas of your text need to be revised or removed.

To hone this skill, editing can’t be an afterthought, a “quick pass” through your writing.

Even if you learn how to write a good blog post, you still have to leave enough time for creative self-editing, which is a separate activity.

9. Raise your standards

Copy editing and proofreading your text before you consider it complete are obvious editorial steps, but you also need to become the Editor-in-Chief of your writing career.

To grow and evolve, analyze your recently finished work and make notes about how you can improve in the future.

You only benefit from consistent creative endeavors if you learn from them to reach your goal of making a living online.

At the end of every month, you can plan to give yourself this type of critical review, as if you are your own client.

10. Let go of feeling 100% right

Whether it’s your creative process or your final draft, you’re never going to feel 100% certain that you got it right. That doesn’t mean you got it wrong.

“Final” is an illusion.

You strengthen your Discipline and Creativity with every new project you take on. You keep building your writing portfolio, little by little, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

It’s not glamorous.

It’s not easy.

But professional writers who succeed turn their creative ideas into paid work — and transcend all ideas of magic, accidents, and luck.

It’s actually practical.

Looking for a community of professional writers?

The written word drives the web. It always has, and it always will.

Even if you’re working with audio or video, the right words are still what make the difference.

Words drive engagement.
Content drives customer experience.
Copywriting drives sales, growth, and profit.

And if you want to master the art of using words to drive business results, you’ve come to the perfect place — Copyblogger has been helping accelerate the careers of writers just like you since 2006.

“If you are both killer and poet, you get rich.”

In the classic book Ogilvy on Advertising, legendary copywriter David Ogilvy recounts a conversation with his colleague William Maynard, creative director at Ted Bates & Company.

Maynard shared this observation about the writers he had worked with during his career:

“Most good copywriters fall into two categories. Poets. And killers. Poets see an ad as an end. Killers as a means to an end.”

And then Ogilvy famously added:

“If you are both killer and poet, you get rich.”

He would know. Ogilvy was responsible for some of the most creative and innovative advertisements of the “golden age” of advertising.

So when we talk about being a poet and a killer inside Copyblogger Academy, what does that mean?

It’s simple. We’re talking about a person who is both creative and strategic.

Too much content produced in the name of digital marketing is viewed as simply a means to an end, and that’s why it fails.

And yet, no one is interested in paying you to express yourself unless it also meets business objectives.

The best copywriters and content marketing professionals understand how to combine poetry with purpose — and that’s a large part of our ongoing training with Copyblogger Academy members.

When creative writing is employed strategically, with the aid of illuminating data and powerful technology, your capacity for meaningful impact and personal success skyrocket.

Originally published on Copyblogger.

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