Ready, Set, Go Again
Hello there,
If you’ve ever been curious about thought leadership and not taken the jump, I’d love to have a quick 15 minute chat with you as part of some market research I’m doing. If you’re interested, reply to this email and I’ll set up a time that suits you.
I’ve had some interesting projects on the go this week, including two lovely content sessions that helped clients see a new way forward in their approach. That always feels good.
And I’ve been a bit of a digital nomad this week. No beaches or sunny climes. Instead, I’ve been to my lovely coworking space, a garden centre and tomorrow I’ll be setting up in IKEA for a bit. Vegan meatballs and trinkets I didn’t know I needed here we come!
I don’t take my littlest hobo working set-up for granted as it’s taken some years to get here but it’s all worthwhile.
Right, enough of showing off my travel destinations this week, let’s talk about false starts. We all have them. Here’s why it’s not a massive waste of time.
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Ready, Get Set, Go Again
Have you ever spent hours writing something to find that it’s not actually going anywhere and your point was lost in a sea of words three paragraphs ago? The curse of the false start is one which affects every writer. In fact, it affects anyone trying to write at any time.
Think about it. How many times have you started writing an email only to delete it all and re-word it better? Even when you know what you want to say, getting the right words out for the person who is going to read them can sometimes be tricky.
In fact, I’d say that the emotional impact of how your words might be interpreted on something short like a text or email can produce the greatest amount of false starts as you’re trying to simultaneously write what you feel and also consider how the reader is going to interpret them. Anyone who has sent a text as part of an argument will know how many times you need to reword your careful response.
Yet, when it comes to writing longer pieces (think marketing emails, blogs, webpages and the like), having a false start can really put you back by hours.
Most of the advice online is directed at people writing fiction and that’s because false starts in fiction are common. It’s one of the reasons why writing a book - fiction or otherwise - is difficult. You spend so much time trying to get the opening right, to fight the false start that you rarely move forward with the rest of the manuscript.
There is a balance between getting the start right so it doesn’t impede your progress and carrying on regardless in the hope that you can correct it at the end. I think with writing long pieces like books it’s okay to come back later and rewrite whole chunks. When you’re writing a blog or newsletter, you risk writing something that will never see the light of day.
Like I said, it’s a balance.
So, how is a false start different from the editing process?
When we’re writing content, the editing process takes something that is there and reshapes it into something better. It’s a bit like making a sculpture with clay. Your first draft is the bit where you get the shape right. The lumps are in the right places but they don’t have the finesse and definition of the finished piece.
It’s as though you’re saying: “If you tilt your head, squint and see it from this angle, you can see what it’s going to become.”
The editing process takes that writing and shapes it into the finished piece. It’s different enough from the first draft in that it has all the detail and finishing touches but not so different that you can’t see the original shape and structure.
False starts are where you mould that lump of clay and have to smash it back down to start again because even when you squint, you can’t see what it’s meant to be.
Avoiding potential false starts
And this is the true cause of a false start: it’s ultimately a lack of planning. You started writing without knowing what point you wanted to make in the first instance. You had a few words that became a few more and somewhere in there is a diamond of an idea but right now, that work is a lump of coal.
The trick is to not feel disheartened by this process. False starts in writing are like false starts in sports. They happen. You simply have to get back to the start line and regain your focus.
There is an abundance of research on the impact of false starts in sprints that can be useful in understanding false starts in writing. For the sprinter, the start can be the difference between winning and losing. Our ability to be primed to sprint while also waiting for the gun is a delicate balance of self-control. Interestingly, studies find that exerting too much self-control can negatively impact the outcome of the race for the runner.
Liken this to writing, if the urge to write takes you and you think: “nope, I can’t just get my thoughts out, I must sit and plan first” there is a risk you spend too much time planning and the words rolling around your head take even longer to come out.
Sometimes you simply have to roll with it.
The key here is to not see what you are writing as anything other than a warm-up exercise. This can be difficult if you’re fitting writing around a busy day or other life pressures. You might only have a short window of time to get everything down onto the screen so that you can publish it.
Then the frustration creeps in when that writing isn’t going anywhere. My best advice in this situation is to accept it as a false start and park what you’re writing for another day. Don’t chuck it in the theoretical waste paper bin because in that writing might be the seed of something beautiful that needs to grow at another time.
When is a false start a good thing?
In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that a false start can be a good thing when it happens occasionally. Last week, I received some sad news about the passing of a friend. I spent some time writing out my thoughts and feelings about how much effort we put into building communities around our businesses and do we put the same energy into cultivating true friendships. Or do we realise too late?
It’s 1500 words that are sitting on my writing app and not doing anything right now. They might become a stronger idea in the future but it was very much a false start.
These don’t happen that often because I do spend time thinking about what I want to say about writing and creativity and doing research and planning. This newsletter takes time to put together. It’s not time that I can afford to waste on a regular basis. So thoughtfulness and planning are important before I sit down to write.
However, that’s not to say that if I followed a plan every week, my writing wouldn’t become formulaic and boring. You need a mix of both. Sometimes you just need your brain to have a play before you can get to what it is that you do want to say.
But most importantly, the false start is an incredible thing because you’ve started. There are people out there who talk about writing all the time and never actually do it. Then want to but starting is too big a hurdle to overcome. That you have started needs celebration, even if it doesn’t go in the right direction.
So, did I have a false start again this week?
No. I had the idea for this newsletter last week. I let it sit and percolate for a few days, writing some notes and thoughts down. I wanted to see if it had enough substance behind it to be helpful for you.
I’d like to say that I spend a day sitting in a coffee shop, people-watching and planning out ideas for the next quarter on what I’m going to say in these newsletters. Sometimes I do. But most of the time, it comes from other conversations or experiences. False starts do happen more when there is no plan but that doesn’t mean they are a bad thing.
So the next time you have one, see it as a way of getting to what you really wanted to say. Smash that clay sculpture down, don’t feel like you’ve wasted time, and start again.
How I can help:
Get your content mess sorted out with a Content Clear Out
Untangle your SEO with an SEO Audit
Solve your content conundrums with a Content Clinic
That’s it for this week. I’ll be spending my weekend enjoying a total absence of plans and possibly a good film.
See you next Thursday!
Fiona