I Write 2 Articles Most Mornings Before My 9-to-5 - Here's How I Do It

The reality of writing part-time on the internet with a day job

👋 Hiya, how’s it going? I’m Eve and I run the Part-Time Creator Club.

Each week I write about advancing your 9-to-5 career while building a successful side business. That means growth, building, communication and anything else that helps you work better (and happier).

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Learn how to write Medium, build your newsletter business & digital products to help you build on the internet. See latest post on the behavioural science behind Medium success here.

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I struggle.

I scratch my head, wonder what to say, wonder if this is the right thing, whether I’ve said too much. Too little. If it’s added anything to the conversation.

That’s all part of this craft — to write.

I accept that and it’s how I’m able to write so much. If you want to write more, read on.

Write on top of existing ideas

I have millions of ideas zooming around in my head.

Whenever I catch a good idea, I’ll write it down in my drafts. I know it’s so important to catch ideas early on before they’ve had time to acclimatize to the world.

Too long spent on an idea can sometimes lead to pollution. Other ideas from the world, easy ideas, things that aren’t worth writing about seep in and then the thing becomes generic, you don’t want that.

More often than not (which loosely translates into 5 times out of 7) I’ll sit down and have 2 article headlines picked out ready to work on. Of course, not every day is perfect. Take today, for example, I woke up late and I’m writing in my snoody. Things happen. Real life isn’t clean — it’s messy.

Every article though starts with an existing idea. Every article starts with an idea that I am to take and evolve slightly in some way. I want to shape, tweak and build on the things the world already knows.

My aim is to add something new to the conversation.

Protecting my 2 hours

120 minutes. That’s all I get.

I am somebody who likes a deadline, in fact, I am somebody who finds it hard to muster up the energy if I don’t have a deadline. When I have all day to do something, you bet it’s take me all day. When I have 2 hours, I’ll squeeze everything into those 2 hours.

It’s do it now or don’t do it.

And you bet I feel like not writing. My word… all the time I feel like giving up. I feel like staying in bed, watching TV, or frankly, doing anything else. Writing is hard but that’s exactly why I know I need to do it.

But I write because I know it’s good for me because I feel better when I do. Because my life is infinitely better when I have the morning to dump my thoughts onto the page.

It’s like exercise for my mind. I need it.

Lower the bar

I know it’s hard. I’ve been here so many times, I know it’s so difficult to do this thing. To show up day after day, to have something to say, to not doubt myself, to be honest, to not shy away from the hard topics.

It’s hard.

And sometimes (often) the writing sucks. I’m lost. I sit staring at the screen, I’m questioning the last line. It happens, it happens when things are difficult, you’ve got to suck it up and do the work.

I’m not trying to write my best work right now, I’m trying to get my ideas on the page. I will reshape and remodel later. For now, it’s enough to just get my ideas down.

Don’t stop to think about it

If you stop and think about your previous sentence you’re dead.

Revising the thing before it’s had a chance to marinate is a fool’s errand. You’ll forever be tweaking a thing when all it needs is to sit, to absorb the world, and for you to come back and look at it later.

Two rules:

• Don’t be tempted to edit as you go.

• Don’t stop to think about it just write.

Avoid the temptation to play with the thing. Instead, allocate time in the future to come back to the thing and look at it. Maybe in a day or so. When it’s had time to sit.

Protect your mind

I write with 2 provisions — coffee and noise-canceling headphones.

As long as I have those two things, I can pretty much write anywhere. I try to minimize distractions where possible. I want silence. Silence externally so I can amplify my internal.

So I can tune into my thoughts, and turn up the volume on my ideas. But I know I have to learn to silence the negative part of my mind — the bit that tells me I can’t, I’m not good enough, it won’t work. That part of me will never serve me.

I have to protect myself from that.

Use your life

My life is full of tiny, interesting moments that teach me something.

I try to tune into those things, to absorb life. Someone once said writing allows you to live life twice and I think there’s something magical about that.

So I pull from my life, I write down my experiences, and I talk about the things I’ve lived through. It’s a form of therapy for me.

You don’t need anything more than you have right now

I used to think I needed more time. I used to think I needed more skills, more experience, more talent. It always stopped me from starting.

Sooner or later you realize, you’ll never be enough in this impossible game you create for yourself. Ask yourself — what is enough? And you’ll realize you’re setting this impossible bar that you can never reach because if you ever did, that would mean doing the thing you are most scared of:

You’d have to try.

And that would mean maybe, likely, you’d fail. And nobody wants that. But you have to realize everybody fails their way to success. The quicker you fail, the quicker you’ll start winning.

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What about you…are you thinking about writing on the internet? What’s holding you back?

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Much love,

Eve :)