Episode Details

It may seem like article writing is very hard. And it is. Good writing needs structure, it needs skill and it needs one more thing: input. Without input, nothing happens. So where do we get this input? And why bother with bad input? Finally, what if you don't like audio learning? Can't you just stick to books? Knowing these answers can dramatically change the way you approach article writing. And yes, make you a better writer.

For more, go to http://www.psychotactics.com

For the fun workshop: http://www.psychotactics.com/dc

For the Story Telling Product: http://www.psychotactics.com/story

---------

Hi, this is Sean D'Souza from Psychotactics.com and you're listening to The Three Month Vacation podcast. This podcast isn't some magic trick about working less. Instead, it's about how to really enjoy your work and enjoy your vacation time.

Imagine you go to the café and you're sitting there and the barista is making this fabulous coffee. The machine is superb, the barista has just won the championship. This is the top of the line barista and then you get your coffee. You take one sip and you think, "Something is wrong with you," because it can't be. It can't be this bad. How come this coffee is so yucky. It's very simple. Bad input. In coffee land, that is bad coffee beans. Either they're over roasted or under roasted, or just inferior coffee beans. Input is what matters and the same thing applies when you're writing an article or a book. The most important thing of all is input.

If you were to ask someone to write a story about their life, they probably could manage it. You would have to narrow it down, of course. You would have to say, "Tell me about when you were 10." You would have to narrow it down further, maybe some episode at school, but eventually, they would come up with some story and the story would have clear ups and downs. It would have a storyline, it would have everything in place. How did they do that? How did they conjure that up from nothing?

Nothing is a silly word to use here, isn't it? They already had something. They had the whole story in their mind. They have the concept in their mind. That becomes input and then it's a matter of structuring it in an article, and you have to know that structure, or structuring it in the form of a book. Then, you have your material. Most of the time, when you sit down to write an article, we don't have enough input. We have knowledge but we don't have enough input.

In this episode, we're going to look at what is input, where do you get it, and why structured and unstructured input is very important. Let's tackle the first burning question, which is: What is input?

The thing with you and me and everyone is that we already have the answers. The problem is we don't have the questions. We don't have that thing that prods us in the side and gets us to answer the question. That is our problem. It doesn't matter if you're a lawyer or in real estate or fitness or any business. You already have the answers. The problem is you're not getting enough questions. People don't ask you enough questions and so to get those questions, you have to go elsewhere. That elsewhere is really other books, other material, and that is input.

To give you an