First Things First

By: Terry Whalin

Many people want to publish their writing. After working as a magazine editor for years plus writing for many publications, there is a simple truth every writer needs to remember and practice:

If you only dream about writing and never submit your work, then you’ve never taken that first step toward publication.

Yet even before you submit anything, you have to handle the blank computer screen. How do you figure out what to write?

Many writers and would-be writers have told me how that blank page petrifies them. In this article, we’ll explore my technique for getting started to write for magazines. It’s a rare day that I have trouble putting those initial words on paper. I always jot down some ideas ahead of time before I write. Maybe my notes are just a couple of points that I want to cover when I write the article. The reality is ideas for magazine articles are everywhere and the places to write are just as plentiful. Maybe you have had an interesting personal experience that you want to capture in your story. Possibly you have been involved in a ministry and created some unique materials that you’d like to tell to others through a how-to article. Maybe you’ve compiled some teaching on a topic from the Bible and would like to get that into print.

Or if you don’t have any material from your own experience to write about, consider interviewing some interesting people around you and writing their story for publication.

Before you write anything, the first questions to ask are:

Who is my audience?

What publication will use this article?

The possibilities are endless: adult, women, men, children, teenagers, or youth. Are they in a specialized occupation such as pastors or school-teachers? Are they a certain age?

The important thing is to be sure to target a specific audience. #Freelance #amwriting Click To TweetYou can’t write an article assuming that every reader will want to read your material because that simply isn’t the case. Articles are written for a particular audience and a particular publication.

Every writer meets with rejection and projects which are never published. In fact, I have files of material which has circulated and never been published. I caution you that rejection and unpublished articles are a part of the writer’s life and the road to consistent publication.

As a writer, you have to practice first things first. Craft your article for a particular audience then get it off your desk and into the hands of an editor. It can happen, if you get it into the market so make your move today.

Terry Whalin, a writer and acquisitions editor at Morgan James Publishing, lives in Colorado. A former magazine editor, Whalin has written for more than 50 publications including Christianity Today and Writer’s Digest. He has written more than 60 nonfiction books including Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams. His latest book is Billy Graham, A Biography of America’s Greatest Evangelist and the book website is at: http://BillyGrahamBio.com Watch the short book trailer for Billy Graham at: http://bit.ly/BillyGrahamBT His website is located at: www.terrywhalin.com. Follow him on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/terrywhalin