BC WRITING

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush 5 years, 6 months ago 878 views

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The first principles of selling online:

1. Increase the number of people who see your product.

2. Increase the percentage of people who see your product that buy it.

3. Increase the percentage of people who buy your product that rave about it.

Writing increases all three.

More from Dickie Bush 🚢

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

5 dead-simple steps to build a daily writing habit (that you can actually stick to):

By the end of this thread you will have:

1. Found time to write
2. Generated 12 months of ideas
2. Set a daily publishing cadence
4. Overcome your procrastination
5. Built a bulletproof accountability system

Just in time for the new year.

Let's go:

Step 1. Design your writing routine in a single sentence.

This is immediately where most people go wrong.

They set a vague goal to "start writing."

Instead, you want to define:

• When you're writing
• Where you're writing
• For how long you're writing

Here's an example:

Bad way to build a writing habit:

→ "I want to start writing."

Good way to build a writing habit:

→ "Every morning at 8 AM, I will sit down at my desk with a cup of coffee and write for 20 minutes."

Clearly defined when, where, and how long.

But how do you decide these?

Enter: Sacred Hours

To find your Sacred Hours, ask yourself 2 questions:

1. What time of day am I most productive?
2. What time of day can I be least reachable?

The overlap of these times are your Sacred Hours.

During that time, start small and commit to just 20 minutes.

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

To master the creative process, give yourself permission to create junk.

This is one of the many things I learned diving into everything @jamesclear has published on creativity and building a writing habit.

Here's a thread of his best articles, tweets, and podcast appearances:

1/ Reasons @JamesClear writes

• Write for yourself
• Write to learn more
• Write to build a business
• Write to clarify your thoughts

But most importantly, writing is leadership at scale.

And it will carry your ideas further than

2/ Five steps to mastering the creative process

1) Give yourself permission to create junk
2) Create on a schedule
3) Finishing something
4) Stop judging your own work
5) Hold yourself accountable

I can't overstate the value of this resource 👇🏼

3/ How to overcome others (and yourself) judging your writing

• The first obstacle: overcoming your own judgment
• But once you start publishing, you will meet external judgment.

His advice comes from Mario Andretti:

Focus on the road, not the

4/ Three tips for getting started as a writer:

1) Publish on a schedule
2) Share your writing publicly
3) Write about what fascinates

3 tips for getting started as a writer

1. Publish on a schedule. Consistency develops ability.

2. Share your writing publicly. Writing is a magnet. It attracts like-minded people.

3. Write about what fascinates you. You don't need to be an expert. Curiosity leads to expertise.
— James Clear (@JamesClear) March 20, 2019

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

If you use it right, Twitter is the most powerful platform in the world.

But Twitter does a horrible job of showing you its advanced features.

Here are 10 of them you probably know nothing about:

The most underutilized Twitter feature: advanced search.

It blows my mind how few people know this.

Want to find someone's best tweets?

In the search bar, type:

from:dickiebush min_faves:500

Replace the handle and the number of likes as you see fit.

Another good advanced search tip:

Want to see everyone's tweets on a particular topic?

In the search bar, type:

from:dickiebush "consistency"

Again, replace the handle and keyword as you see fit.

You can filter by popularity too:

from:dickiebush "consistency" min_faves:100

We all have those people we don't want following us, but don't want to block.

Here's a good hack:

Block them, then unblock them.

This will unfollow you, but they'll never know.

Get mentioned in a tweet that is receiving way too many replies, turning your notifications into a disaster?

I've been there.

Click to expand the details of the tweet, then click the three dots on the top right-hand corner.

Then, click "mute this conversation."

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

What is 1 YouTube video you think every person on Earth should watch?

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

In the last 60 days, I've helped 253 people build an online writing habit.

Here are 10 lessons they've taught me in behavior change, human psychology, and writing online.

THREAD...👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

1. Start smaller

The foundation of Ship 30 for 30 is the Atomic Essay.

• One idea
• Under 200 words
• Fits in one iPhone screenshot

This eliminates any friction to publishing ideas online.

And without that friction, momentum is inevitable.

2. Constraints create freedom

"Write something every day" is hard.

There are too many choices to make.

"Publish a 200-word essay with a 30-minute time limit every day for 30 days."

This is easier.

Within these constraints, creativity thrives.

3. Results come from tight feedback loops

The foundation of Ship 30 for 30 comes from @jackbutcher:

Make noise, listen for signal.

Weekly blog posts sent into the void = no feedback.

Daily Atomic Essays on Twitter = immediate feedback.

Faster feedback = faster iterations.

4. Impostor syndrome is curable

But not with common advice of "believing" in yourself.

Early writers think everyone else has figured out.

Until they start writing.

Then, they realize everyone is figuring it out as they go.

Cure impostor syndrome with action, not belief.

More from Writing

$Vida Cruz, magical dog mom \U0001f49c\U0001f33b\U0001f984 \U0001f363\U0001f35c$

Vida Cruz, magical dog...
@laviecestmoi

I want to talk about how western editors and readers often mistake protags written by BIPOC as "inactive protagonists." It's too common an issue that's happened to every BIPOC author I know.

Writing tip: let\u2019s talk about the INACTIVE PROTAGONIST. I\u2019ve seen a lot of amazing books lately with incredible plots, intricate worlds, and just really great writing with one recurring issue, which is the inactive protagonist. I think it can get tough when you\u2019re writing (1/10)
— Briston Brooks (@briston_brooks) January 26, 2021

Often, our protags are just trying to survive overwhelming odds. Survival is an active choice, you know. Survival is a story. Choosing to be strong in the face of the world ending, even if you can't blast a wall down to do it, is a choice.

It's how we live these days.

Western editors, readers, and writers are too married to the three-act structure, to the type of storytelling that is driven by conflict, to that go-getter individualism. Please read more widely out of your comfort zone. A lot of great non-western stories do not hinge on these.

Sometimes I wonder if you're all so hopped up on the conflict-driven story because that's exactly how your colonizer ancestors dealt with people different from them. Oops, I said it, sorry not sorry. Yes, even this mindset has roots in colonialism, deal with it.

If you want examples of non-conflict-driven storytelling google the following: kishoutenketsu, johakyu, daisy chain storytelling/wheel spoke storytelling. There was another one whose name I forgot but I will tweet it when I recall it.

Nicolas Cole
@Nicolascole77

[THREAD]: Here are 10 (painful) lessons I've learned writing 3,000+ articles on the internet over the past 7 years.

On writing advice, growth hacks, going viral, and feeling fulfilled in the process 👇

1/ There is only 1 secret to online writing.

Volume wins.

There isn't a writing platform on the internet where this ISN'T the case. Social platforms. Major publications. Every growth period of my writing career happened during months/years of consistent volume.

Period.

2/ Growth hacks are overrated.

In my early 20s, I spent a LOT of time reading digital marketing blogs about how to get 50% more views here, or 20% more subscribers there.

A lot of it is mental masturbation.

You're far better off just consistently creating new content.

3/ Writing that engages/goes viral is emotional.

You don't have to "air your dirty laundry," but you do have to say something that makes the person on the other side of the screen pause, *feel you*, and engage.

This can be done through story, tone, before/after photos, etc.

4/ You don't go viral by getting lucky.

You go viral by publishing day after day, week after week, year after year.

My Quora dashboard is a great example. Out of 1,200+ Answers, less than 100 have gone viral.

That's not luck. That's rolling the dice 1,200+ times.

$Loved\U0001f4cc \u02b3\u1d49\u1d5b\u1d43\u1d57\u2071 \u1d50\u1d43\u1d4d\u2071\u1d9c\u2071\u1d43\u207f \u1d5b\u2071\u1d47\u1d49\u02e2\u2740$

Loved📌 ʳᵉᵛᵃᵗⁱ ᵐᵃᵍⁱᶜⁱᵃⁿ...
@L0ved_77

𝑭𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒚 𝑻𝒂𝒍𝒆 𝑾𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔
𝑁𝑎𝑘𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑎 𝑇ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑

Most of the fairy tales are ancient folklores & it's hard to trace back to it's original creators. Still I wanted to see which nakshatra natives has contributed to this field.
* all charts calculated using cosmic insight app & lahiri ayanamsa

Jacob Grimm

Purva Asadha ☀️
Chitra 🌙
Magha ketu

Wilhelm Grimm

Shatabhisa ☀️
Purva Asadha 🌙
Pushya ketu

These German scholars are perhaps the most famous fairy tale collectors of all time. This collection was actually done as a part of their academic work.

Many popular tales reached a wider audience through their collection, including:

⭐Little Red Riding Hood
⭐Hansel and Gretel
⭐Snow White
⭐Sleeping Beauty
⭐The Frog Prince
⭐Rapunzel

Nicolas Cole
@Nicolascole77

🚢 Atomic Essays Republishing Framework 🚢

1. Write Atomic Essay
2. Post image on Twitter
3. (Bonus) Copy/paste text as thread
4. Find relevant Question on Quora. Copy/paste Atomic Essay + image.
5. Copy/paste again on Medium.
6. Again on LinkedIn
7. Win

Guide below ✍️🚢👇

Step 1: Write Atomic Essay

I really enjoy writing right inside the Figma template. It helps give me a good sense of exactly how much "real estate" I have/have left before my time us up and I'm out of space.

Once finished, I export the image and send to my phone on Slack.

Step 2: Post image on Twitter

Before I publish my Atomic Essay on Twitter, I use the Edit/Photo Markup function on the iPhone to highlight standout sentences.

These are usually power-phrases: things the reader skims and thinks, "That's interesting," prompting them to read more.

Step 3: For the Ship 30 for 30 challenge, I only turn Atomic Essays into threads if...

1. The piece is SUPER actionable and lends itself well to the thread format (lots of bullets, quick points, lists, etc.)

or...

2. I'm referencing research and want to link to the pieces.

Step 4: Find relevant Question on Quora. Copy/paste Atomic Essay + image.

Search on Quora around the topic you wrote about. Find a related Question. Copy/paste the whole Atomic Essay as your "answer" (& fix formatting). Then include image so it appears in the thumbnail.

$Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2$

Dickie Bush 🚢
@dickiebush

The world's most valuable skill:

Writing effectively.

But colleges charge you 120k and still do a terrible job teaching it.

Instead, here are 9 writing frameworks that cost you nothing and will save you hundreds of hours:

1. Start with building your writing habit by leveraging @jamesclear's Four Laws of Behavior

Atomic Habits from @jamesclear changed my life.

In Atomic Habits, James lays out the Four Laws of Behavior Change.

1. Make it obvious
2. Make it attractive
3. Make it easy
4. Make it satisfying

Here's how to leverage them to build a daily writing habit (\U0001f9f5\u270d\U0001f3fc):
— Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2 (@dickiebush) March 10, 2021

2. With your writing habit down, study these 10 tips from the world's most legendary marketer: David Ogilvy.

One of the most legendary marketers of all time: David Ogilvy

In 1982, David wrote an internal memo to the employees of his advertising agency titled "How to write."

And in just 10 bullets he put together a masterclass in effective writing.

Here's a breakdown of each one: pic.twitter.com/MxRYuQRLyA
— Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2 (@dickiebush) June 2, 2021

3. Then, immerse yourself in the takeaways from the bible on business

Business writing is a superpower.

But schools and employers do a horrible job teaching people to write.

In 1981, two advertising executives wrote a timeless guide for how to write in the business world.

And here are 12 of their tips you should staple to your desktop: pic.twitter.com/w0hh0qBOG4
— Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2 (@dickiebush) June 8, 2021

4. Like to learn on the go?

Dive into the creative process of the world's best writers in these 10 episodes of the @timferriss show.

I've listened to every episode of the @tferriss show.

And some of my favorites are when Tim interviews prolific writers, diving into their creative process to improve his own.

If you are looking to build a writing habit, these 10 episodes are a must-listen:

\u270d\U0001f3fc\U0001f3a7\U0001f447\U0001f3fc
— Dickie Bush \U0001f6a2 (@dickiebush) March 3, 2021