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One of the biggest problems I have when writing new articles for LookLinkLove is staying on topic.  I almost always end up writing about something completely different from what I was originally trying to say.  Thanks to computers it’s easy to remove unwanted lines of text and start over, but sometimes you can avoid doing that completely.  There are five different, but equally simple ways to stay on topic while writing a new blog post. If you’re like me and you believe that everyone in the world has at least some level of ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) then you might find some of these tools useful.

• Tip 1: Close all windows other than your post window, and your research windows.  Even music can be a distraction sometimes, it all depends on how good you are at focusing.  If you leave windows open to sites like youtube, you’ll probably find yourself watching music videos, or checking out one of those optical illusions your friend sent you through an email.  Then once you get back to what you were writing you won’t really know WTF you were originally trying to say.
• Tip 2: Write down some of your ideas on a piece of paper.  Kind of like the brainstorming you did back in school.  This will give you something to look back at if you ever lose track of what’s going on.  If you want to be even more Geeky, you could write down an entire outline and then your post would practically write itself.  I doubt you would have much problems staying on topic unless you decided you absolutely had to stray from your outline.
• Tip 3: Use Dark Room for a “distraction free environment”.  As described on the website, “Dark Room is a full screen, distraction free, writing environment. Unlike standard word processors that focus on features, Dark Room is just about you and your text.”
  I use Dark Room on occasion, but in my opinion it is a little bit too extreme.  It blocks out beeps from any programs like Norton, MSN messenger, and etc… While this could be very useful, maybe you would miss out on something important.
• Tip 4: Close the doors and lock out all intruders.  If you’re a parent then you probably shouldn’t block your toddlers access, but try and stop the people you care about less from bothering you while you write.  When you’re at home, it’s harder to get work done because of the constant distraction that comes from family members and phone calls.  Then again, I’m not saying you should become some sort of recluse either, absolutely not… socialize!

The Most Obvious Tip:

• Tip 5: Review your post before you post it.  Although this is probably the most retarded tip you’ll ever read for staying on topic, it’s also the most effective.  Even though you may not have been able stay on topic while you were writing the post, you don’t want your random ramblings to escape to your blog readers.  While this tip completely defeats the purpose of this article (since it was supposed to tell you how to avoid needing to remove offtopic strains of text after you were done writing) I still think this is a useful tip to add to the list.  No article should go un-reviewed, even if you were perfectly on-topic the entire time.

How many people have told you that they have a great idea for a novel and are thinking of writing one when they find the time? Chances are you have run into them on more than one occasion, and they are hard to take. These are the people who ‘want to write’ but ‘can’t write’. The world is full of people who cannot write, and some even make a living at it. If you doubt that last statement, just look at television and tell me I’m wrong.
The truth is, while most people can’t write, there are some out there who can, and those are the ones you need to keep in mind when you are thinking of writing articles for your business.
If you want to write your own articles, then as long as you can define the following words, you may just be able to get away with it: noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, conjunction, proper noun, tense.
If you defined all those, and got it right, then you may have hope to write a good article, but chances are after noun and verb, you are completely lost. That is okay, you may not need to know how to write in your job, but when you want to promote your company through a press release, or through a sales pitch, then you better be able to write.

One of the biggest ways for you to lose business is to issue a sub-par article that is full of grammar errors and spelling mistakes. Even these can be simple things you may not think about like when to use ‘effect’ and ‘affect’ or ‘their’ and ‘there’. Hence, the reason you hire others to do it for you.

Those professional writers out there make their living writing things for people, taking the thoughts in your head and putting them on paper to make sure you are able to get the right point across, without embarrassing sentences like ‘Your crazy in affect if you didn’t bye this.’ If you caught the four errors in that sentence, then good on you.

The point is, if you had a car, and knew nothing about how to replace the brakes, would you do it yourself or would you pay someone professional to do it? Sure it isn’t cheap, but when you are slamming on the non-working breaks down a hill, will money be the first thing on your mind? Writing is the same way. Don’t let your company go in a tailspin because the press release or article you issued didn’t get the point across. Get things done right with a professional writer who knows how to write and can get your business on the fast track to success with their gift for the written word.