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Glance at almost any magazine's table of contents and you're
bound to find one or more how-to articles. Besides using the words "how to," the titles of these articles use numbers and
words such as "10 Ways to Lower Your Grocery Bill," "The Biggest Mistake Most People Make in Hiring a Contractor," and so
forth.
The best part is that ideas for how-to articles are probably
in your journal! For example, have you written a complaint letter and got results, dealt successfully with telemarketers,
settled a dispute with your teen, found a great way to clean your house in 20 minutes flat, know all the stations that sell
gas cheaper, adopted a pet from a shelter, divorced your mate, painted your bedroom or house without a hassle, sold your house
or condo, purchased exercise equipment, get the best returns on an investment of x dollars?
What else? Think about what you've done this week and how
you've managed to hold it all together. For example, found extra money in your budget, developed a strategy for maneuvering
around traffic jams and holiday crowds, calmed an upset child or adult, negotiated a great deal at the local car dealership,
bank, or ticket window?
Make a list of everything you've done, yes, everything.
Don't worry about what it looks like or what it includes or does not include. You can edit later to your heart's content.
Next, give your list some time to cool off. In the meantime,
add items to it. |
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Pick up your list and select one of the problems that you've
encountered and successfully dealt with. Then, at your computer or on a clean sheet of paper, write the following:
Problem I've encountered: State what the problem was in
one sentence, such as fixing a leaky toilet.
Next, explain how you solved that problem, step by step.
For example, first, you examined the immediate area around the toilet in order to find the source of the leak. Then what did
you do? Did you look for or buy appropriate tools? What kind of tools? Then how did you use each tool to fix the leak?
And lastly, write a short conclusion. You could state that
although you were successful, there were one or two other things that you would or would not do again and tell why.
And voila! You've written an article!
If you have extra time, you could add a little pizzazz to
your article. For example, did you discover a quicker or cheaper way to solve that problem? Maybe you used handmade tools
or recycled materials. What were they and how did you improvise? You get the idea. But why do this at all? Well, you would
like to attract an editor's attention and sell your article. Giving that article a unique twist, so to speak, will make it
stand head and shoulders above the competition, and best of all, help the editor to say yes to getting it published. And having
one published article under your belt, you are a published writer! But don't stop there. Keep writing and adding to your journal.
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