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Hereās How Jon Morrow Writes
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Pat was alarmed when her son wasnāt crawling by age one. So, like any good mother, she took him to see the doctor.
After a long examination, the doctor diagnosed baby Jon with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). That meant instead of getting stronger as he aged, Jon would get weaker. Eventually he would get pneumonia and die.
The doctor, who said he was being generous, gave him until two years old to live.
Pat, however, would have none of that.
She ā and a cadre of medical staff, family, and friends ā fought to keep him alive.
Jon did get pneumonia. 16 times. But because of their hard work, he survived, and at 31 Jon is one of the oldest people alive with SMA.
As you can imagine, Jon is infused with his motherās warrior spirit.
The warrior with a strong voice
Jon graduated high school at 16 with honors. He nailed a 3.921 GPA in college (though he confesses he wishes he hadnāt). Heās asked for $500,000 in seed money to start a software company. Brokered million dollar home money.com/index/countdown'>sales.
Because he can only move the muscles of his face, he gets things done with his voice ⦠and his voice alone.
Jon is best known, however, for blogging. Viral content, to be precise.
He got his start with On Moneymaking, a site he grew to respectable heights before it leveled off. He then watched it rocket again when he published a guest article on Penelope Trunkās blog.
That exposure eventually led to a gig as Associate Editor here at Copyblogger.
From there, Jon launched Partnering Profits, Guestblogging, and he is the founder and CEO of Boost Blog Traffic. Heās also written some crazy popular articles on sites like Problogger and Copyblogger.
Jonās mission is pretty simple: empower the little guy and gal to earn a living from their blog.
By the time weāre done, you wonāt be a spectator in the battle for attention, squeaking out your posts and praying for a couple of retweets.
Youāll be a warrior, armored with marketing know-how, brandishing your perfectly-crafted content, sending spammers scampering by the thousands as you claim your rightful spot at the top of the web.
Thankfully Mr. Morrow took time out of his busy schedule to talk to us about his weird pre-writing ritual, the secret to climbing to the top of any field, why his disability has been both a curse and a blessing, and the special tools he uses to write.
Who are you and what do you do?
Did you have to start with the hard questions?! You couldnāt do an easy one first?!
Iām Jon Morrow. The last time I checked, Iām the CEO of Boost Blog Traffic, LLC.
What is your area of expertise as a writer?
Iām a blogger. More specifically, Iām known for writing viral blog posts.
Where can we find your writing?
The writerās productivity ā¦
How much time, per day, do you read or do research?
Well, I read 2-3 hours per day, but every moment of my life is āresearch.ā I use all of it.
Before you begin to write, do you have any pre-game rituals or practices?
I often read Stephen King for 5-10 minutes. Out loud.
Weird, I know, but itās better than insisting on carrying around miniature pairs of doll underwear like James Joyce. Or refusing to wash your clothes like Beethoven.
Do you prefer any particular music (or silence) while you write?
Silence. Good writing has a rhythm. If I listen to music, it makes it harder for me to āhearā the words.
How many hours a day do you spend writing (excluding email, social media, etc.)? What is your most productive time of day?
One of the unfortunate side effects of becoming a fancy-pants CEO is I have a lot less time to write than I used to. Where I used to spend 5-6 hours a day writing, Iām lucky if I get 1-2 now.
Not that Iām complaining. Being the CEO also pays a hell of a lot better.
In general, my most productive times a day are between 10 AM and 12 PM, and between 8 PM and 10 PM. I donāt know why. Those are just times when my creativity seems to light up.
A side note: because I know thatās when Iām most creative, Iāve asked my staff to never schedule meetings during those times. Instead, I spend the time working on a blog post, writing money.com/index/countdown'>sales copy, or creating instructional videos.
Do you write every day or adhere to any particular system?
I used to be more rigid than I am now.
For years, I wrote a minimum of 2,000 words a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I never, ever took a day off. Not Christmas. Not my birthday. Not even when I was sick.
Is that extreme? Yes, I suppose, but I wanted to be the best.
Point to the top person in any field, and youāll find someone who went to extremes to get where they are. So, I did too.
Itās no coincidence thatās when I created my best work.
Do you believe in āwriterās blockā? If so, how do you avoid it?
I believe it exists, yes, but itās never happened to me.
Sometimes I get burned out on a particular topic, but Iāve never reached a point where I couldnāt write anything at all. That would be horrifying.
The writerās creativity ā¦
Creativity (n): a word people use when they want to sound smart talking about a really abstract subject.
Me? I prefer to avoid abstractions.
Who are your favorite authors, online or off?
Stephen King is my favorite. I also love Seth Godin, Jim Butcher, Robert McCammon, Chip and Dan Heath, Brandon Sanderson, Steven Pressfield, Neil Gaiman, Dan Kennedy, Jeffery Deaver, Gary Bencivenga, Lee Child, David Wong, and countless others.
Iām kind of a bookworm.
Can you share a best-loved quote?
Here are a whole bunch of my favorite quotes.
How would you like to grow creatively as a writer?
Iād like to go beyond being just a āblogging authorityā and write about some mass-market topics. Maybe self-improvement and/or entrepreneurship.
That way, I get the chance to screw up millions of people, instead of just a few hundred thousand.
Who or what is your Muse at the moment (i.e. specific creative inspirations)?
What makes a writer great?
A gazillion different little things.
If I had to choose one though, it would be empathy. If you canāt ride in the readerās skin, youāll never be a great writer.
The writerās work flow ā¦
What hardware or typewriter model do you presently use?
I have a few different PCs.
(And yes, I said PCs. In my opinion, Apple is nothing more than a Steve Jobs cult, and I refuse to be converted. And yes, I know that means Iām going straight to hell.)
The one I use the most is a Dell laptop with an i5 processor. Nothing fancy.
The fancy part is my VXI TalkPro UC2 microphone and my prototype lip-operated mouse. High-tech, baby!
What software do you use most for writing and general workflow?
Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Microsoft Word for writing. Iām a fan of Trello for workflow.
Do you have any tricks for beating procrastination? Do you adhere to deadlines?
Remember the scene in Fight Club where Tyler puts a gun to a guyās head who wants to become a veterinarian, and he tells him heās going to hunt him down and shoot him if he doesnāt enroll in veterinarian school?
Best. Procrastination. Beater. Ever.
The secret to being productive is finding metaphorical guns to put to your head. One of the best ones for me is I rarely do anything until someone has already paid for it. That makes me obligated to finish, so I do.
How do you stay organized (methods, systems, or āmad scienceā)?
I employ a professional nag ⦠err ⦠Executive Assistant. Her name is Marsha Stopa.
(PS: Sheās going to kill me for calling her a nag. Goodbye cruel world.)
How do you relax at the end of a hard day?
I read books, watch movies, play video games, talk to friends, and lots of other normal stuff. No worshiping Satan or microwaving kittens. Sorry to disappoint you.
A few questions just for the fun of it ā¦
Who (or what) has been your greatest teacher?
My disability has taught me more than anyone. Itās been just as much of a gift as a curse. Really.
What do you see as your greatest success in life?
Just being alive, dude. At 31 years old, Iām one of the oldest people in the world with Type II spinal muscular atrophy.
Whatās your biggest aggravation at the moment (writing related or otherwise)?
Why, oh why, canāt people work for money.com/index/softwarefree6'>free?
AND WHATāS THIS I HEAR ABOUT HAVING TO PAY THE GOVERNMENT TAXES?
Choose one author, living or dead, that you would like to have dinner with.
Since weāre talking fantasy, I would choose myself. Hereās why:
If I were able to have dinner with myself, that would mean somebody managed to clone me and there are now two Jon Morrows in the world. I would strap a bomb to his chest and get him to do all the work while I sit at the beach and read and wink at girls.
(On second thought, the other me would probably have the same plan, and we would end up coercing each other to do even more work than we did before. Damn. Never mind.)
If you could take a vacation tomorrow to anywhere in the world, where would you go (cost or responsibilities are no object)?
Nowhere. Iāve spent the last three years traveling, and Iām freaking sick of it.
Can you offer any advice to fellow writers that you might offer yourself, if you could go back in time and ādo it all over?ā
Hereās the thing about that question:
The most valuable things I could tell a beginning writer wouldnāt make any sense, because knowledge is viewed through the lens of experience. Without that experience, the knowledge is worthless.
So, Iād tell them to gain experience. In other words: write, a lot.
Please tell our readers where they can connect with you online.
And finally, the writerās desk ā¦
Every serious writer builds a shrine of some sort, whether it be picking the perfect table at a coffee shop, or carving out a quiet nook in your home, with which you hope to entertain the Muse.
Jon Morrow is no different.
Thank you for sharing a snapshot of your amazing open-air writerās lair, Jon!
And thank you for sharing The Writer Files ā¦
More Q&As are in the works from writers who inspire us, and if you care to sift through our archives, you can find more inspiration here.
If youāve already subscribed to Copyblogger via email or RSS, the next installment will be delivered to you just like the rest of our daily content. If not, go ahead and subscribe right now so you donāt miss a thing.
Now set some ambitious deadlines and get back to work! See you out there.
Demian Farnworth is Copyblogger Mediaās Chief Copywriter. Follow him on Twitter or Google+.
The post Hereās How Jon Morrow Writes appeared first on Copyblogger.
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