The Write step turns a locked outline into a rough draft that is long and not yet edited. You fill your blind spots first, then write in one go with no looking things up and no fixing words.
Writing here means laying out your outline as fully as you can. You write so that you understand it first; you still aim for your customers to understand, but switching to their words waits for the Edit step.
Before you begin
- You have a locked outline (see How to build an outline from a one-line topic).
- You have a stretch of time with no interruptions, even if it is only 30 minutes to 1 hour.
Steps
Go over the outline to find blind spots
This is the handover between the Idea step and the Write step. Read each big idea and ask yourself how well you understand it. Some ideas you grasp at 70%, some you have forgotten 30% of, and some are still hazy. Mark those ideas. Looking at your own outline, you usually know right away where you fall short.
Fill the blind spots with your own understanding
For each idea you marked, read articles, watch videos on YouTube and read books until you can explain it yourself. Do not copy and paste it into your notes to paste into the post later: you have to understand it before you can write it. All the looking up, checking and extra learning for the post must be done at this step.
Pick the way of writing that suits you
Open a blank page. This suits people who type fast and are used to sitting at a computer.
Open the voice recorder app on your phone. This suits people who type slowly, are often out, or have little time: talking is faster than typing.
Get pen and paper. This suits people whose eyes get tired from long hours at a screen; when you finish, take a photo to turn it into text.
You can mix these ways, as long as the result comes out fastest for you.
Turn off the internet and close every document
Turn off the network, close your notes and any open tabs, and do not open AI. From here it is just you and the page, so your train of thought does not get cut off. Each time you go online to check one detail, the flow of writing breaks.
Write in one go, big idea by big idea
Start right after you lock the outline, while you still remember what you said in the Idea step and still have the fire to keep talking. Go through each big idea in turn, then each small idea inside it, and finish one idea before moving to the next. Dig deep: what you understand, the process you follow, your memories and your stories.
While you write, you do not do these things:
- Fix words, stumbles or repeats.
- Switch technical terms into your customers’ words.
- Try to convince anyone, or stuff in keywords.
- Rearrange sentences to make them neat.
It is fine to say something two or three times, or to leave something out and come back to it. Those repeats and stumbles are exactly what show you which ideas you are still missing.
Turn the draft into text
If you recorded, give the file to an AI tool that turns speech into text, removes filler words and splits it into paragraphs. If you wrote on paper, take a photo and turn the photo into text. Only change the format; do not edit the content yet. The detailed steps are in Turn a voice recording into text for a post.
Check your draft
- Have you gone through every idea in the outline? If you skipped one, keep writing for that idea.
- Was there an idea where you froze and the words would not come? Getting stuck on an idea that has nothing to do with the post is fine: skip it. Getting stuck on an idea of the post, like an idea you cannot explain, a method whose name you forgot, or a process where you only remember step one, is a blind spot you missed: go back to the step where you fill blind spots for that idea, understand it again in your own way, then write or record its part a second time.
- Is there a part you copied from a source? Rewrite that part from your own understanding; the draft has to be yours.
- Is the draft much thicker than the post you plan to publish? It has to be thick so the Edit step can squeeze out the best of it. A draft is usually two to three times as long as the final post: the 17,000 words recorded for the Idea - Write - Edit post came down to about 5,400, and 3,000 words of recording usually make about 1,000. This is the stopping point of the Write step.
Next steps
How to edit a post and tighten the opening
Cut the rough draft into a finished post: tighten the opening first, then cut and switch to your customers' words.
How to publish steadily with little free time
Split the three steps across short free slots in your week, each slot ending with something finished.