Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

How to Find Your Writing Voice: 5 Methods from Famous Writers

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When a reader says they love the way an author writes, they usually are talking about much more than the author’s style. For example, a fan of Ernest Hemingway might love Hemingway’s economy with words, but also the way he brings characters and places to life and how he views the world.

A distinct voice makes your writing resonate with readers. Even if you’re writing about a topic that has been discussed by others a hundred times before, your unique voice and perspective bring something new to the topic.

Readers who fall in love with your writing voice become your truest fans impatiently awaiting your next article or story. And once you find your unique voice, your writing becomes a truer representation of yourself.

Novelist Meg Rosoff observes,

Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing five methods you can use to find your writing voice. Let’s dive in.

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How To Use “The Hero’s Journey” in Fiction and Nonfiction Writing (video)

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I’m excited to share a new video with you today! 

It’s all about the fantastic story template called the Hero’s Journey. In this video, I look at how you can use this template for both fiction and nonfiction to make your writing more compelling and captivate your readers.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. Have you used the hero’s journey before or will you use it in a future piece of writing? Also make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already!

I’ve just started making YouTube videos and really appreciate your support. I hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching! 

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3 Powerful Writing Exercises from Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Steering the Craft”

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Last year, I compiled two articles sharing writing exercises from famous authors. Writing exercises give you a fantastic way to strengthen specific skills through deliberate practice. They can also help you spark new ideas for stories or memoir essays or blog posts (very helpful if you’re struggling with writer’s block!).

In response to the articles, a reader asked if I had ever read Ursula K. Le Guin’s book Steering the Craft, saying it was filled with a powerful set of writing exercises too.

Well, of course, I immediately put it on my to-read list. This past month I found a copy at my local library, and I dove in.

Le Guin was a sci-fi and fantasy author, but her book Steering the Craft is a useful guide for both fiction and nonfiction writers.

It deals with the nuts and bolts of the craft of writing and the subtle stylistic choices that will help you take your writing to the next level. For example, there’s a chapter on how to select the best point of view for your piece. Each chapter ends with several writing exercises so you can put into practice what you learned.

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Why Writers Need An Email List & How to Get Started (Video)

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I’m excited to share the first video of 2021!

In this video, I look at three reasons why having an email list is so important if you’re a writer building an audience online, and why you should focus on beginning an email list or growing your email list in 2021.

I also share three quick and easy tips to help you get started.

I also just released a brand new course “Email Marketing for Writers” all about how to grow your email list fast and make money from your list. Check it out here.

As a thank you for being one of my subscribers and to celebrate launch week, the course is available for just $97 until Wednesday midnight (the price will go up to $125 after that).

If you have any questions about the course, leave a comment below. Or you can go ahead and check out all the details right here.

New Course: Grow Your Email List Fast

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To kick off the new year, I’m excited to announce the release of my new online course: “Email Marketing for Writers: Grow Your Email List Fast.”

A few years ago, I wrote a little eBook about how to grow an email list. But a lot has changed in the marketing and blogging world since I published that book. 

So I’ve updated and expanded it and turned it into a brand new course (now with a section on how to make money from your list).

You can get all the details about it on this page (and discover why an email list is so powerful and so important for writers).

As a thank you for being one of my subscribers and to celebrate launch week, the course is available for just $97 for the next seven days only (the price will go up to $125 after that).

Keep in mind that…

  1. This comprehensive, hands-on course leads you step-by-step from getting your very first email subscriber all the way to promoting your first product to your audience.
  2. With this course as your guide, you won’t have to worry anymore about how to promote your blog and writing and find your audience online. The course will equip you with the strategies for building a loyal community so you can help more people and be able to devote your time to the projects you’re passionate about.
  3. The price goes up next week. So if you want to start building an email list, be sure to sign up as soon as you can!

If you have any questions at all about the course, let me know in the comments. 🙂

Or you can go ahead and check out all the details right here.

Don’t put it off though! This offer will be gone in just a few days.

I can’t wait to help you on your journey to grow your online audience!

7 Inspiring Questions For A Personal Year-End Review

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2021 is right around the corner and for most of us it can’t come fast enough. We’re ready to turn the page on 2020 and start afresh.

However, 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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The Powerful Ingredient in ‘A Christmas Carol’ That Will Make Your Writing and Marketing Compelling

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Illustration of Scrooge and Marley's Ghost from the first edition of A Christmas Carol
Illustration from the first edition of A Christmas Carol | Scanned image by Philip V. Allingham via Victorianweb.org

Want to connect with other writers? Make sure to get your invitation to my private writing community on Facebook!

Every Christmas Eve, my whole family gathers around the TV to watch the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol. It’s one of our favorite traditions.

(If you haven’t seen this version, you can watch it on YouTube here — I believe it’s the best film adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic story.)

No matter how many times I watch it, my heart is always touched by each scene. I feel the happiness of the crowd at Fezziwig’s party. Tears come to my eyes when Bob Cratchit cries over his poor Tiny Tim.

But, most of all, I love Alastair Sim’s wonderful performance as Scrooge — how he convincingly portrays Scrooge’s change from heartless and tightfisted to kind and joyous.

You watch with delight as the once grim man can’t stop laughing and smiling and stunning all with his kindness, even while muttering to himself, “I don’t deserve to be so happy.”

What makes stories like A Christmas Carol so enthralling? Why do we love watching movies like these year after year?

In today’s post, let’s look at one ingredient that makes stories like A Christmas Carol so powerful and emotionally compelling. It’s an ingredient you can use to make any type of writing captivate your readers, whether you’re working on a short story, a blog post, or even a sales page. [Read more…]

How to Use NaNoWriMo to Reach Your Writing Goals

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November is only a few days away, and that means that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo!) is nearly here.

If you’ve never heard of NaNoWriMo before, it’s a month-long event where writers challenge themselves to pen a 50,000-word novel (about the length of novels like The Great Gatsby or Fahrenheit 451).

The goal is to begin writing on the first of November and finish by midnight of November 30. You can plan and outline your story as much as you like beforehand, but the actual writing of the story can only be done during November.

Maybe you’re thinking, “Whoa, that sounds intimidating! Not for me.” Perhaps you don’t have any idea for a story, or you have an idea but not a plot, or maybe you’re not even interested in writing fiction.

Well, one of the cool things about NaNoWriMo is that you can adapt it to your own writing goals. Whether you want to start a daily writing routine or overcome writer’s block or begin working on a nonfiction project, NaNoWriMo can be the perfect way to motivate yourself to start writing.

In today’s post, I’m sharing three ways that I’ve used NaNoWriMo in the past to reach several different writing goals. 

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