Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

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The Future of Blogging + My Writing Goals for 2023

Published January 29, 2023 | Last Updated February 1, 2023 By Nicole Bianchi 1 Comment

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood

I sent this blog’s very first email newsletter way back in 2016. That’s seven years ago! 

A lot has changed in the blogging world since then. In fact, it was just around that time that video was rising in popularity, and people were beginning to ask whether blogging was dying.

Funnily enough, Vine (the popular short form video platform at the time) did end up dying. But short form video did not. Instagram reels, Tik Tok videos, and YouTube shorts have become all the rage.

So, seven years later, is blogging dead? 

I have to admit that I’ve worried over that question. It has seemed that people have been losing interest in blogging over the years. Many of the bloggers I knew back in 2016 have long stopped blogging. Even I started creating YouTube videos in addition to my blog posts.

However, over the past year or so I’ve sensed a shift.

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Filed Under: blogging, creativity, featured, marketing, writing

How to Develop a Daily Writing Habit: 7 Effective Strategies

Published January 4, 2023 | Last Updated January 30, 2023 By Nicole Bianchi 26 Comments


Ray Bradbury once stated, “I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice.”

If you need thousands of hours of practice to become an expert at your craft, then writing every day is the quickest way to start racking up those hours in order to become a master wordsmith.

Writing daily has other benefits besides helping you sharpen your writing skills.

It forces you to clarify your thoughts and arrange them logically. It helps you become a more creative person because you must think up new ideas each day to write about. And, finally, it gives you a constructive way to redeem the time by training you to work productively every day.

Of course, if you’re not used to writing regularly, you’ll probably find it difficult at first. I know I did. I’d make excuses that I didn’t have enough time that day, that I wasn’t inspired, that I had just finished a project and had no idea what to write about next, that I was suffering from an incurable form of writer’s block.

However, these are all bad excuses. Writing every day actually boosts your creativity and helps you overcome writer’s block. Writer’s block is more difficult to beat if you write only sporadically because then writing is unnatural rather than being second nature.

Ultimately, when you start writing every day, eventually it becomes easier and easier to write every day.

Now I make sure to write something every day: it might just be an entry in my journal or it might be several paragraphs of a new article or a new short story.

Here are the seven steps that help me write every day.

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Filed Under: blogging, creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, productivity, writing

7 Inspiring Questions For A Personal Year-End Review

Published December 20, 2022 | Last Updated December 20, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

This is a post that I originally shared in 2020 that I’ve updated for 2023. Enjoy!

The new year is right around the corner. If you’re like me, you’re already thinking about goals for the new year and planning out projects you hope to accomplish.

But, it’s worthwhile to take a step back and put these past twelve months in perspective. At the end of each year, I do that by writing up a personal year-end review.

This exercise helps me set myself up for success in January. I reflect over what I achieved during the year, what obstacles I faced, and what lessons I learned. I try to think positively on the past year so I’ll be motivated and inspired as the new one begins.

The insights I gain help me choose my goals for the new year. I’m able to see what worked and what didn’t so I can draw up a plan of action. As the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once wrote, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing the seven questions from my annual review. Feel free to adapt them as you like — your answers can be a few sentences or several paragraphs long. It’s entirely up to you.

And you can still do this annual review even if December has passed. I usually write it up the last week of December, but I’ve also completed it at the beginning of January.

Let’s dive in.

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Filed Under: blogging, creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, productivity, writing

5 Favorite Things I Found in June: Writing Tips and Creative Inspiration

Published July 9, 2022 | Last Updated July 9, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 9 Comments

Hello, friends!

In my Saturday email newsletters, I usually include a little section with links to articles and writing tips I’ve stumbled across in my Internet travels. But sometimes I want to make a comment on one of the articles or highlight a specific quote. So I thought I’d turn that little section into its own blog post today and share five favorite writerly things I found in June. 

Let me know if you like this format, and I might write up a second installment next month. Enjoy!

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Filed Under: blogging, book reviews, creativity, featured, inspiration, motivation, productivity, writing

Monroe’s Motivated Sequence: How to Write a Powerfully Persuasive Essay, Article, or Speech (Video)

Published June 26, 2022 | Last Updated June 29, 2022 By Nicole Bianchi 2 Comments

I hope all of your writing projects are going well this June. It’s been a few months since I last published a post here, and I’m happy to finally be back.

While I was away, I was making a new video, and I just uploaded it to YouTube:

You can click on the CC button for subtitles. In this video, I look at a persuasive speech outline called the Motivated Sequence created by psychologist Alan H. Monroe.

I first learned this structure when I was competing in a speech and debate league back in high school. It was extremely effective at grabbing the attention of the audience and inspiring them to action. 

Since then, I’ve continued to use it for articles and essays and have taught it to many writing students who were working on persuasive essays and speeches. And I’ve been wanting to share it here on the blog for quite a while! I hope you find it helpful.

If you enjoy the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up on YouTube and subscribe to the channel. This lets me know that you found the video helpful and also encourages YouTube to share it with more people on the platform. Thank you!

**RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO**:

  • 📚 Principles of Speech eBook by Alan H. Monroe: https://archive.org/details/principlesofspeemonr
  • 📚 Paperback copy on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xQEyDL
  • 🎙Full Text of “I Have a Dream”: https://www.npr.org/2010/01/18/122701268/i-have-a-dream-speech-in-its-entirety
  • 📝 2015 study on Attention Span: https://time.com/3858309/attention-spans-goldfish/
  • 🎥 My Video about Four Powerful Persuasive Techniques: https://youtu.be/h2Zx6oBolZY
  • 📬 My email newsletter, The Inkwell: https://nicolebianchi.com/newsletter/
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Filed Under: blogging, copywriting, featured, video, writing

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Hi, I’m Nicole! I help creatives, business owners, and writers take their writing and copywriting to the next level and grow their online audience. I’m also a published writer of essays and short stories. As a Christian, I seek to follow in the tradition of artists like Johann Sebastian Bach, dedicating all my work Soli Deo gloria.
Find out more about me here.
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“My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”
– Psalm 45:1

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