Thomas Clifford | B2B Content Marketing Copywriter (for Professional Services)

People talk like people. Does your business?

Where Do I Start?

GET YOUR FREE 28-PAGE EBOOK NOW

E-Book Testimonials

"Thomas Clifford has made something useful here. This report will give you some really catchy, useful ideas.

It made me reconsider how I do what I do, so you might give it a look-see, too!"

Chris Brogan, President, Human Business Works

"Tom Clifford is by trade a filmmaker. For most of his life, he rarely wrote anything longer than a brief comment in the margin of a script.

Now, though, he's producing tens of thousands of words a year, first as a Fast Company "Expert Blogger," and then as a writer for the Content Marketing Institute.

How did Tom go from a non-writer to a prolific and much-read one? His eBook, '5 (Ridiculously Simple) Ways . . . , ' holds some of his secrets."

Mark Levy, Author of "Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content"

“Tom is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet—if you have the privilege to meet him. And he does sterling work as well. But don’t just take my word for it.

Read this free report and you’ll not just love its tone and content, but learn a lot as well.”

Sean D’Souza, Psychotactics.com

“Anyone who wants to improve their writing needs this e-book. A lot of ebooks are short because they just don’t have much substance to offer. They’re not worth your time (and so are many of the long ones, too, for that matter). Tom’s is short because he’s so good at giving you only what you need to know.

‘5 (Ridiculously Simple) Ways to Write Faster, Better, Easier’ lives up to its promise by example as well as in the words themselves. Tom used the very same techniques he teaches you to write this book.

And what’s in here is not just a rehash of the same tired ideas you find coming from people who have suddenly fancied themselves as writing gurus. There are tricks in here I never heard of (like the Writing Funnel) and some I had forgotten about and was glad to be reminded of (like Sporadic Writing).”

Michael Martine, Blog Alchemist, Remarkablogger.com

Wednesday

Aug102011

Can Music Improve Your Writing? Try This Simple Experiment

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 at 05:39PM

It’s great having a few tricks up your sleeve to boost your writing speed. (Especially tricks that can “flip your switch” when writing from scratch.)

Can music “flip your switch”?

Music is one of those things we don’t pay much attention to—unless we have to. That is, we don’t pay much attention until we want to hear a specific piece; then it becomes important to us.

I recently wondered if music could improve one's writing. So I tried an experiment.

Try this fun experiment

If you haven’t tried using music to inspire your writing efforts, this could be a fun little experiment to try over the next few weeks (or days).

If you have a CD collection, choose about seven discs. Pick a variety of musical genres, genres that create different feelings or moods when you hear them.

Each time you sit down to write, play a disc. Observe how you feel when writing.

Most likely, you’ll experience one of two things:
1. Momentum
2. Distraction

1) Momentum

Momentum feels like a train leaving the station. The words are flowing, you have a general sense of direction and you feel clear in how you express yourself. It’s easy to write. You’re not fighting with ideas.

2) Distraction

Feeling distracted is easy to spot—you’re stuck. Creating a few sentences feels like it takes forever. For me, distraction means my attention turns outward—daydreaming without continuing to move forward.

When you catch yourself thinking of other tasks you want to do, that’s another sign of being distracted. Try changing the music. Go back to writing. Observe what happens after five or ten minutes. Are you still distracted? Or are the words flowing more easily?

In about a week, you’ll see patterns

Maybe music with vocals is too distracting. But classical guitar feels perfect. Maybe jazz is a bit too much. But ambient is just the right groove.

For example, I enjoy writing to ambient music

Right now, I’m listening to the Ambient Space Music station. The music is at a very low volume and the station is playing music continuously. For some reason, the steady stream of music keeps the words flowing.

You’ll be able to tell which type of music works best for you after experimenting. Or maybe you discover that music doesn’t help you. Hey, at least you’ll know!

Try Internet radio stations

iTunes Radio (or something similar) has a huge selection of radio stations. Each station specializes in a musical genre: ambient, alternative rock, blues, country, jazz, hard rock, etc. Internet radio stations are free, and many are commercial-free. Search around to see if there's a station or two you like.