As we have all heard time and again (and it`s very, very true), writing articles for ezines/newsletters and ebooks is a great way to increase your exposure, brand your name, establish yourself as a Subject Matter Expert (SME), increase your subscriber/optin base and ultimately, increase that so-longed for amount of cash in your bank account.

For some people writing comes easy, others have gone to school and studied how to write. What about you?

To be honest, in my case, it kind of comes and goes. As youu may already know from my blog, I not only write articles and ebooks on a variety of business related matters, but I also like to write fictional stories with a hint of a Dungeons and Dragons quality (mind you, even those stories have an under- lying message hidden away - have you found it yet?)

I definitely am not a trained writer (I have even been chewed out by some very well educated readers about my style) and I write from the heart and soul. My focus is to try and get the message across, that`s all that matters to me.

There are some awesome writers and copywriters out there that create some incredible manuals, wildly entertaining stories and order-pulling sales pages. I am not one of them.

But I hope to be one day and the only way I know how is to keep writing and asking all of my readers for their opinions.

As they love to say, practice makes perfect.

But, I know that the writing sometimes comes very hard and can almost drive you insane because you are suffering from information overload, or are just plain stuck.

So what can you do when that happens?

A variety of things that I hope will help you too, have saved my bacon in the past on countless occassions.

First off, I need to clear my mind, so I can totally focus on what I am doing. There are tons of ways to do this and I am not going to give you this massive list, but in my case, a walk out in the forest, or my headphones and some tunes (depending on my mood) can work wonders.

The next part that always is just waiting to attack me, like that big mutt behind the fence waiting for the mailman, is the outline and direction.

Here I use a couple of different methods to bite the big mutt back as hard as I can.

If I am writing one of my fictional stories, I try to envision the outcome, the end, and then reverse engineer to the beginning. By knowing the desired ending of the book or story, I can figure out what had to happen to get to that point, then I fill in the blanks until I am at the introduction.

Sometimes I just start writing, it doesn`t matter what direction it takes, I can always work other segments in later that tie everything back together.

Another thing that helps me quite often, especially with business related articles and ebooks is good, old-fashioned brainstorming. I take out a piece of paper and write down everything and anything I can think of that relates to the topic (I even did it for this article). It doesn`t matter if I think it`s relevant or valuable or not. Don`t think about what you are writing down, just do it.

Then I sit back after a nice cup of coffee and read through the list a few times, making little notes on the side of the main points I see tucked away all over the page.

Finally, I just add the remaining keywords under the main topic that they belong.

Bingo, my outline is complete. Not only do I have my chapters ready, even my sub points are in place.

The only last thing before I start letting the creative juices flow is that I try to order them into a logical sequence of some type. Depending on what I am writing, I might make it more intriguing to draw the reader in deeper, I might align it to be more sequential and logical, so it has a smooth flow to it.

The choice is really yours. There are tons of options and many writers have their own `thing` that helps them get past the hurdles that all of us come across (and I mean all of us).

From here, it`s bound to be a lot easier to write your story, article or ebook. All the foundation and legwork is already done, in place and finished.

Well, there you have it and I hope my past experiences can help you on your path to success.

Here`s to your success,

Xavier