Sometimes writing is easy. The ideas and the words just flow. You don’t even notice the time passing. Most of the time it feels like work. Eliminate distractions and get into a flow and it goes okay.

However sometimes it feels completely impossible. You have the time and the space, but you don’t have any ideas. Or motivation. Or anything.

This is for that time.

I’ve been having lots of conversations recently with people who are feeling overwhelmed. Whether it’s lockdown, work, lack of work, family dramas, fears about the future, there’s something about the restricted way we’re living at the moment that is prompting an uncomfortable feeling of overwhelm. Here’s how to counteract that, and write with kindness and clarity.

When it comes to telling stories to build your business, the founder or origin story is one of the most powerful. It can be the hook that pulls in investment, and the glow that attracts the best talent. Founder stories can make brands famous, with the owner’s personal story of how and why they started becoming part of business folklore.

Newsletters are a really useful tool in your content marketing toolbox. Probably the most important one. If you’re in the business of expertise you need somewhere to share your ideas with the world so that potential clients can find you.

But how do you create a newsletter that people will welcome and read?

A copywriter asks questions. What’s the most important thing to say here? What do you want people to do when they read this? How do you want people to feel? Good copywriters get inside the head of the ideal reader, just like you want to get inside the head of your ideal client. Think like a copywriter, and you’ll know just what to deliver to the people you serve.

In the old days stuffing your web copy with keywords might have fooled a search engine into ranking you highly, but it never tricked a reader into sticking around for long. The key to pleasing search engines and people is to create well targeted valuable content, written in a natural and engaging tone of voice.

In these turbulent times should you lower your rates or change your offer? Or should you keep holding out for your ideal clients? Tips for attracting your hero clients.

If I could bottle something and give it to my friends and family it would be confidence. The fairies in Sleeping Beauty missed a trick with their gifts of Beauty, Grace, and Dance. What’s really going to protect you in life is the gift of confidence.

Two months ago I wrote a blog about the first week of being in lock down. I’ve just reread it, anticipating finding different words on the page. Two months seems like an age, and I feel more grounded now, so I was expecting to find something more naive and jittery. But actually it’s pretty sound. I surprised myself.

People have always named ‘finding the time’ as the biggest barrier to creating content. There are always so many other things to do when you’re running a business. ‘Finding the time to write’ slips all too easily down the to-do-list. Ideas to help you use your writing time to your best advantage.

Imposter Syndrome is everywhere, and it’s got some new guises. There’s the ‘anything I say right now feels irrelevant compared to what’s going on in the world’ version. There’s a debilitating ‘I’ve lost all my confidence’ strain.

If you’re thinking ‘there are real heroes emerging all around us, I’m not expert/brave/important enough to add anything worthwhile’ I’m not surprised that you’re finding it hard to write anything at all.

This might help.

Our words are a proxy for everything we can’t do at the moment.

We can’t meet people; touch them, hug, laugh, persuade, smile, show, flirt, reassure, explain, commiserate, calm. We can’t just be with each other, passing the time doing nothing in particular, sharing the everyday mundane things that connect us - but our words can do at least some of that for us.

Here’s how to make your writing feel more immediate and alive while you’re isolating.

I get it. You’re worried about your business, your life, the universe and everything. Emotional, stressed, overtired, trapped, anxious - you’re finding it hard to focus on anything, let alone writing for a business that’s feeling scarily precarious.

But if you want to write now - and there are lots of reasons why you might - here are some pointers on where to put your attention.

If you’ve had your fill of corona virus inspired blogs, then this isn’t for you. But if you’re like me, and keen to find out how other people are coping, then this might be helpful. From managing anxiety to feeling cheered by seeing other people’s piles of washing, here’s what’s helped this week.

Last Tuesday my client made the decision to cancel her two day workshop booked for Friday and Saturday in London and deliver it online instead. It was a hard decision to make, but the right one. Here’s what happened, and some ideas for you if you have to change your plans and deliver online fast.

If you want to speak out clearly to a big handful of perfect clients, then you’ll be relying on your unique blend of experiences and expertise to create the story that will lead them towards you.

Here’s how to use content to spotlight your expertise and build your reputation.

Businesses that really connect with people put their clients and customers at the centre of all they do. How do you do that? By talking to the people you serve; asking them the right questions and listening hard. The single most useful thing that you can do to inform your marketing, and indeed your whole business, is to invest in customer feedback.

Building a reputation depends upon getting known. Do one thing well, draw a community around it and you’ll be on your way to building a brand.

But getting known for one thing depends upon you talking about that one thing, not just once, but for weeks and months and years. How can you do that without boring your audience, or, just as importantly, without boring yourself!

Good writing is at the heart of good communication.. And in many ways being an introvert is a position of strength for a writer. More observant, more reflective, and happier to sit down alone to write.

Here’s why being an introvert could be your writing superpower.