Ten Tips on Getting Your Article Written AND Published ... (Part 1)
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Earlier this week I was privileged to serve on a webinar panel sponsored by the CPCU Society. The topic was how to become a published author in its quarterly INSIGHTS publication. In recent years, I have been able to place 10 out of 10 manuscripts in that publication, with number 11 slated for publication this Spring. I'm offering a two-part set of tips for getting published.
These tips apply not just to getting published in CPCU periodicals or in insurance periodicals but in any trade publication. Getting published is an excellent way to establish your credentials as a thought leader in your field, which has multiple career capital advantages.
Here are my first five suggestions:
Give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft. Ease the pressure on yourself. View your first draft as a "Beta Version" of your article. Remove your Editor Hat. Don your "Crazy Madman" hat. This mindset frees you to break a deadlock and get words on paper (or on a computer screen). We procrastinate, in part, because of perfectionism. We want to write the perfect article right out of the gate. Assure yourself it's okay to write an imperfect first draft.
2. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. We get frozen into inactivity and procrastinate by wondering, "Where do I even begin?" Instead, compartmentalize. Break the article down into specific, manageable chunks. One writing session can focus on one discrete idea. View each idea as a Lego block. Save each one as an individual file. Later, when you accumulate enough Lego blocks, you can start fitting them together and deciding on a sequence. Deconstruct individual themes or ideas of your article into separate writing sessions or modules. "How does one eat an elephant?" One bite at a time! Shrink the size of your world and assignment to just you and the computer screen in front of you.
3. Create subfolders for each part of the article. Eating an elephant "one bite at a time" involves creating individual word processing files for each theme or section of your article. This keeps separate ideas discrete. Your article may have five or six or more significant themes or areas. Maybe more, maybe less. Create a Word document for each of them, using abbreviations as appropriate in your subdirectory. During each writing session, develop one of these ideas each day to get your thoughts on paper. You can always merge, edit, change, reword, delete, or polish them later. Do not think about writing an article. Write modules instead!
4. Proofread! Run your article draft through a spellchecker but realize that this will not catch all bloopers. Have another person read your draft with a red pen or pencil. (More on this later.)
5. Speak -- don't write. For twenty-plus years, most of my "writing" consisted of dictating into a computer microphone, using a speech-to-text software tool, Dragon Naturally Speaking. (I "wrote" this article using dictation software.) Although many would-be writers lament writer's block. I've never heard of anyone afflicted with "talker's block." Proficient typists can keyboard 60-70 words per minute. However, speaking at an average pace puts cranks you up to around 130-140 words per minute. You get more text on the page by talking into a microphone than by typing.
Stated for part two of this article and more tips on how to position your manuscript for publication!
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Thanks for reading. I’m an insurance consultant who helps clients nationwide improve case outcomes through expert analysis and testimony (usually, but not always on) high-value claim disputes. If you have a comment, a request for a future blog topic, or a concern about a pending case, please contact me at kevin@kevinquinley.com.