Nicole Bianchi

Writing, Copywriting, & Marketing Strategies

7 Letters from Famous Writers Sharing Fantastic Writing Advice

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Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” — Blaise Pascal

I love reading the journals and correspondence of famous writers. It’s a wonderful way to get a peek into their writing process, and often you’ll discover exquisite gems — fantastic advice you can use to become a better writer. 

That quote attributed to Blaise Pascal is one example. It’s an excellent reminder to examine your writing and see if there are any parts you could leave out — unnecessary repetition, irrelevant tangents, etc. Unfortunately for Pascal’s friend, Pascal didn’t have time to edit his letter. I hope the unedited letter was entertaining. 😉

In today’s blog post, I’ve highlighted the best writing advice from letters from seven different famous writers. Enjoy!

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A Powerful Productivity Tip To Help You Reach Your Writing Goals (Video)

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I’m excited to share a new video with you today! It’s a productivity tip that I’ve found invaluable for reaching my personal writing goals.

This tip works best for writing projects or goals that don’t have a deadline attached (for example, creating a daily writing habit) or for projects where you can set your own deadlines. However, you can apply some of the strategies I mention in the video to other projects as well to make them easier to tackle.

I hope you find the tip helpful! I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. Thanks for watching!

3 Fantastic Writing Tips from Arthur Conan Doyle

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Photo of Arthur Conan Doyle, Public domain

This month I’ve been watching Granada’s “Sherlock Holmes” television series from the 1980s starring Jeremy Brett.

While I’ve enjoyed numerous different screen adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s mystery stories (including Cumberbatch’s modern spin on the detective), I love how this series seems to bring the stories to life exactly as Doyle envisioned them, including his Victorian England. Jeremy Brett is absolutely fantastic as Holmes, portraying him to the letter.  

Here’s a clip from one of the episodes (you can find many of the episodes on YouTube).

I also love how this show makes me want to dive back into the Holmes books all over again (I read them long ago when I was a little kid). Stay tuned! I might be typing up a blog post soon filled with writing techniques gleaned from Doyle’s stories.

But, today, I have an interesting find to share with you. 

While reading about Doyle and the Holmes stories online, I stumbled across a short article by Doyle titled “How I Write My Books”. The article first appeared in The Strand Magazine in 1924. 

It’s always fascinating to get a peek at the writing process of a famous author. 

Here are my top three takeaways:

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Feeling stuck while writing? Try this strategy (Video)

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I hope you’re crushing it with your writing this month and getting your unique message out to the world. 🙂 I’m really excited to share this week’s writing resource with you because…it’s a video!

For several years, I’ve wanted to revive my YouTube channel. I used to post educational videos there for my tutoring students quite a while ago. This summer, I finally decided to take the leap.

Here’s the first video I recorded for you:

In this video, I share a strategy that helps me overcome writer’s block when I’m beginning a new writing project (you can use it anytime you get stuck while working on a piece of writing).

I hope you find it helpful! I’d love to hear if you use it too.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a like and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. 🙂

Thanks for watching!

How to Finish a Big Writing Project: Six Effective Strategies

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Pens, notebook, keyboard, and pair of glasses on a table
Photo by Jess Bailey

Last week, I completed a big writing project. I finished working on expanding and updating a small eBook on email marketing that I’d written several years ago and turning it into an in-depth online course. (I’ll be releasing it soon!)

At the same time, I’ve been working to wrap up the first draft of a novel that I started writing at the end of last year. I’m not at the finish line yet, but this week I reached 52,000 words total.

Working on both these projects has tested my endurance. A big writing project comes with many more challenges than writing a blog post or a short story.

It requires far more motivation, especially on those days when it feels like you’ll never make it to the end of the project.

It requires far more time because you have to devote months to the project, not just a handful of days or weeks.

And it requires far more planning up front so you don’t end up overwhelmed and unsure how to move forward from one day to the next.

In today’s article, I’m sharing six strategies that have helped me overcome these challenges and work diligently on big projects from start to finish.

I hope these strategies will help you whether you’re working on a novel, a nonfiction book, a college thesis, an in-depth digital product, or any other type of big writing project.

Let’s dive in. [Read more…]