WRITING AS A CAREER
“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit”
Writing is a bit like singing. Everyone can do it at some level. Social media have created a world of political commentators, film critics, travel writers, bloggers. But perhaps, one can be more than a hobby writer. You can be one of those for whom writing is a tremendous passion. Of you are seriously in love with words, you can transform your passion into a lifetime romance.
Throughout our education writing is always a part of a course plan. And we all know, why? It is something every student and professional should be good at, irrespective of their field of study and work. Writing is considered to be the most significant way of communication, from beginning to the end of the day. Communication acts as a vital element in almost everything we do. The earlier you get command on your writing skills, the smoother the things are for you in the long run.
Writing is a five-step process. This is a very commonly suggested framework for beginners or experts.
- Brainstorming: Thinking of ideas.
- Preparation: Jotting down key points.
- Draft: The first draft is made which is changed at least 10 times.
- Revision: The final draft is revised thoroughly.
- Proofreading: To check grammar and punctuation.
The most important step out of all these five steps of the framework is brainstorming.
Why?
In a regular cycle of writing, the basic elements of the process are to brainstorm. It is done to make an assortment of your thoughts and ideas that will go in your base. And brainstorming can be done efficiently following these step:
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Research: It helps to get a frame upon which you can build your article. For all kinds of writing, you can look around on how others in the domains are going. What kind of information is out there on your topic. It helps to know what is the take of readers and other audience. All of this gives a clear and better frame of mind with which you can overhead.
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Freewriting: Basically it is to write around for free. It helps to work around on the paper freely with your instant thoughts and not worrying about where it is going. It ends up letting yourself lose and not restrict your self much. This way a lot of content flows out on paper.
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Discuss: It helps to get more insights and views to imbibe in your piece. When you are talking to multiple people you get to know multiple perspectives. And it is always s a good choice to know various perspectives.
The art of writing should be done in a very concise manner. This can be done by taking care of the following steps.
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Sticking to the gist: Do not add anything extra that you don’t need and don’t go for less either. Be straight to the point.
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Clarity: Be clear as to what you want to convey. And once you know it you need to be confident about it.
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Trimming: It is done to remove the unnecessary bits. Read your draft. Identify what sentences can be removed without altering the complete meaning of your piece.
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Paragraph: It helps to present your writing in a neat way. Remember, it does not mean breaking a long continuous essay into segments. The segment should carry a categorized essence, as the paragraphs are me to pick on different elements in your writing and explain them separately on divided focus. The sub-titles should along to what’s inside the paragraphs and vice-versa.
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Concise examples: The key points in order to remove the extra waste are to use examples that are also concise and making your sentences shorter. Try avoiding negative words as it adds extra words to your statement.
Example: Instead of saying the food was not tasty, we can say the food lacked taste or the food was blot.
With opportunities galore in various fields, one can bravely venture to make a career out of writing. It offers huge career options in the growing market, especially for content writers. Today, we can see many full-fledged profession with firms dedicated exclusively to offer content solutions to clients. Many content writing jobs are outsourced to such firms.
There is always a demand for good content writers in the industry. Besides taking up employment with a company you can even become a freelance writer or a full-time content creator or blogger. The content writing filed is so extensive that anyone which good writing and communication skills can apply for it. A thorough knowledge of the field you are writing about is always an added bonus.
Some of the different fields of content writing are:-
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COPYWRITING: They distill the essence of the marketing message, open their hearts to their target audience and coins slogans that create an instant connection. They write much more than promotional or advertising texts for ads, brochures, and websites.
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BLOGGING: Bloggers often work on their own creating engaging original content for their own blogs or for online companies.
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SCRIPT WRITING: They start with television or film production houses writing screenplay and dialogue for serials and short films
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WEB CONTENT WRITING: Websites need to update their content regularly to keep it fresh and relevant.
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TECHNICAL WRITING: Technical writers mostly deals with literature like user manuals and do-it-yourself kits.
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PUBLIC RELATIONS WRITING: These days, most of the corporate hire in-house writers write their newsletters, press-releases, and bulletins.
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JOURNALISM: Journalist wields words powerfully, writing or editing almost 10 stories a day depending on the pressure of the news.
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ACADEMIA: From writing research papers to penning books based on original research, writing is second nature to most academics.
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FICTION AND NON – FICTION WRITING: It includes creative writing and playing with words.
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OTHERS: Some of the other fields of content writing include — health, lifestyle, financial, children’s writing, fashion, etc.
Since writing is one of the unheard career options with lots of hurdles in its way. It’s is the toughest path to take because like all art, the success of creative writing is unpredictable. For those contemplating taking up writing as a career, here’s some advice from the writer and editor of the best-selling anthology of short stories, stories that inspired Satyajit Ray, Bhaskar Chattopadhyay: “My only advice to young and aspiring writers it to have an open mind and write a lot. I often find aspiring writers disastrously contemplative, with nothing concrete to show for themselves.”
