Writing Inspiration: Six Mini-Cards to Get You Thinking

by Ali on May 29, 2012

 

Look what I made!

(Thanks to moo.com.)

These are mini-cards, half the size of regular business cards. I’ll be handing these out at BlogWorld New York next week, but if you can’t make it to BlogWorld, I hope you enjoy looking at them here. :-)

I’d love to hear which one(s) you like best: pop a comment below to tell me. Or, if you have any of your own ideas along similar lines, feel free to share those too!

 

{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }

Silver Huang May 29, 2012 at 4:29 pm

My favorites are the last two:
“You don’t find time to write. You make time.” and “To write faster: Plan first. Set a timer. Edit later.”

I found that my writing speed increased dramatically (even though it is still extremely slow as you know) when I decided to just spew stream-of-consciousness material out onto the screen without thought for even spelling, grammar or even complete phrases or sentences at times.

Basically the idea was to type as fast as I could think, with no care for word limit. Starting point is inspiration and then the writing was either to flesh it out or to discover if there was a point at all to make. Many times, there wasn’t… but until I brain dumped, I wouldn’t have known.

Strangely, even brain dumping therefore can sound like a waste of time, as not every dump results in a useable post, I feel that the act of just getting the thoughts out, however incomplete, as a discipline just helped.

Is it the same for you Ali?
Silver Huang’s last blog post ..Update! Exciting News And Something Special For June 2012

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Ali May 29, 2012 at 9:54 pm

Thanks, Silver!

For me, writing is a thinking process… today, I wrote out 2,400 words for my BlogWorld session next week (despite the fact I won’t use those words — I’ll reduce them to notes, and then just use the slides I made). I’m a more disciplined thinker when I write instead of just gazing into space, though! Sounds like your process is similar?

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Silver Huang May 30, 2012 at 6:30 am

Yeah that sounds about right.

Julia Cameron was right, getting it out onto the page is the key. Keeping it in the head just keeps it in a near unusable ephemeral form.

Can’t mold smoke into gold. LOL.

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Carole Lyden May 29, 2012 at 4:48 pm

These cards are a great idea. I use cards for ideas and research material. I think I’m with Silver on this but “To write faster:plan first. set a timer .Edit later.” is the best.
Carole Lyden’s last blog post ..Who stole your confidence?

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TNeal May 29, 2012 at 5:07 pm

I’d agree with the “…set timer…” choice. I’m drawn to the two cards with the word “plan” in them. As a seat-of-the-pants writer, I find planning a weaker discipline for me, yet I’m recognizing the important of organizing and directing my thoughts before hitting the keyboard.

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Ali May 29, 2012 at 9:55 pm

Thanks Carole, and TNeal. My talk at BlogWorld is on editing, so that was coming through as a theme a bit … and I firmly believe that good planning means much less editing!

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Laura Howard May 29, 2012 at 5:09 pm

These are fantastic Ali! So adorable!! Wants one!! :)

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Ali May 29, 2012 at 9:57 pm

Thanks, Laura! :-)

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Yoneco Evans May 29, 2012 at 5:58 pm

I love cards from Moo! I’ve never tried the minis, but my business cards are from there. My favorite is “plan, write, edit, publish, repeat”.

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Ali May 29, 2012 at 9:59 pm

That was the first one I came up with — glad you like it, Yoneco! :-) Moo are awesome, aren’t they? All my business cards are from them. Thinking of making stickers in the future..!

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Donna Brown May 29, 2012 at 6:12 pm

I love the cards, I would love to do the same! Great ideas!

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Ali May 29, 2012 at 10:01 pm

Thanks Donna! They were really easy to make (you basically just type in the text, choose a font, and choose a background pattern & colour — if I can do it, anyone can..!)

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Giulietta Nardone May 30, 2012 at 6:46 pm

Great idea! Someone suggested Moo to create some cards and I forgot about it. Thank you for the reminder. I also like the shorter ones.

G.
Giulietta Nardone’s last blog post ..Time, Would We Really Want To Save It In A Bottle?

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Ali May 31, 2012 at 6:09 pm

Thanks, Giulietta! Hope you get a chance to make some Moo cards of your own. :-)

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Sandee June 1, 2012 at 8:19 am

I think you should think about actually printing them (maybe actually business-card sized, for older eyes?) I would definitely buy the set to post on my wall for inspiration!
~ Sandee

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Ali June 1, 2012 at 4:09 pm

I never thought of people wanting to buy them, Sandee! I think that’s possible through Moo, but only in quite large sets (50 cards or more). Will have a think about how I might be able to provide them… thanks. :-)

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Sabina June 1, 2012 at 8:07 pm

I like “Plan, Write, Edit, Publish, Repeat” :)

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farouk June 3, 2012 at 10:30 am

very inspiring Ali
thank you :)

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Lena June 3, 2012 at 11:36 am

Although I feel one of them looks cluttered, this is a great idea. I especially love the one with “Build traffic: ….”
Lena’s last blog post ..Would You Take Me For A Friend?

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Ali June 4, 2012 at 10:32 am

Thanks, Lena! I did them in a bit of a hurry, so the design definitely has room for improvement…!

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