There is nothing worse than staring at a blank page when seeking to write. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an article, the chapter of a book or a blog post. That blank page is rather daunting.

Without an organised approach to writing, anyone will flounder because they have probably not done the preparation. If you consider an analogy of building a house, you will have plans done, collect the materials, organise the manner and order in which you will put them together and finally build the house. (This is a very abridged version of house building, of course!)

Writing is no different and in this article I intend to pass on a few tips I use to create my articles. It may not be perfect and it may not suit you, but if you have nothing at present, it may well be a good place to start.

Writing Tool of Choice

Although there are many ways of creating the written word, my tool of choice is Obsidian. The reasons are that it is free for personal use, (although I pay for some additional services). It uses Markdown, so I can copy and paste anywhere and I can link all my notes on any subject and my articles so I can find them.

Generate a List of Ideas

Keep a list of ideas for articles somewhere. If you have the ideas recorded, they will percolate away in your mind and create new ideas around the subject.

Do Your Research

There are some amazing tools around for research apart from Google, but it’s a good place to gather facts and references. Perhaps search for “content research tools” and there are many offered that can help with keywords, number of searches, etc.

There are some really great free tools around if you are looking for academic papers too. The advantage of using such papers is they can add considerable credibility to your article. You can have a look at Research Rabbit, and I have also written two articles here on Medium on Elicit Part 1 and Part 2.

Setup a Template in Obsidian

A template will guide your writing and provide the prompts to structure the article properly. Below is how I have set up my template:

up:: 
tags::
date:: {{date}}
alias:: 
x::

# Concept | Idea | Teach | Promise | How To?

# {{Title}}

## Purpose of Writing Article
*Why am I writing this article?*

## Resources & References
*Add links to supportive sites here and citations*

## Story Tags 
1. Tag
2. Tag
3. Tag
4. Tag
5. Tag

# Article
- **Problem, Agitate, Solution (PAS System)**
- **Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA System)**

## Any Final Thoughts on the Article?

## Ideas for Future Articles
*Link to other notes in Obsidian here, perhaps. Use this article to spark ideas for others.*
You can copy and paste the above code into an Obsidian note. You will need to add spaces between the headings as I have condensed it for brevity in this article. I formatted it for Markdown so all the headings will expand. Save the template in your Templates folder so it’s easily accessible.

Write Your Article

I set the template up to do the following:

1. The metadata at the top for “up” is to insert a link to a Map of Content, perhaps. Don’t worry if you don’t have any as yet.
2. In the tags, I always use #article/written. If it is in process as a first draft or just a blank note with a possible heading, I will use #article/inprogress. Use whatever is meaningful to you.
3. Obsidian automatically inserts the date when the template is applied to a note.
4. Alias is where you can place comma separate keywords for search.
5. x is if you wish to link to any similar articles as a cross reference.
6. Is the article a Concept | Idea | Teach | Promise | How To?. Get it clear in your mind the purpose behind your article.
7. Define your purpose in writing the article. You will refer to this when the article is completed to see if you have fulfilled your purpose. Consider it like setting an assignment in school and then checking to see if you have covered the questions.
8. Resources and references are where you list web sites, articles and other source material you can use to back up your article content.
9. Medium allows you five tags when publishing and blog posts are similar. Start with some and perhaps add some more later or change the ones you have before publishing.
10. So now, after nine steps, we are at the article writing stage. For some suggestions on how to structure your article, you can have a look at 9 Proven Copywriting Formulas (With Real-Life Examples). These formulae have been tried and tested over time for structuring copywriting.
11. The next heading is where you can place any final thoughts on the article. This is not for publication, it is for your personal reflection on what you have written.
12. And finally, has this article sparked any ideas for other articles? I will put them in here and also in my Articles Ideas list. Sometimes I may even create a note and tag it with #article #to/write. The reason I use this tag is that I use to/write for other tasks around writing that may not be articles.
13. Just one more thing. Don’t forget to edit your article. Use a grammar checker to improve your style. Leave the article for a while, a day is best, and then go back and re-read it. It would surprise you how often things get changed.

Summary

There you have it. My system for planning, researching and writing articles. I have covered all aspects from initial conception to completion of the article ready for publication. I trust it will at least give you some ideas about how you can improve your own approach and outcomes.

Thanks! I really appreciate you reading my work. If you enjoyed this article and found it useful, you can clap (up to 50 times) and follow me for more articles. If you spotted something that wasn’t clear or wish to add to the content, or even just say “G’day”,please leave a comment below.