S8 Bonus 02: How To Create Your Draft

Get the show’s transcript

[00:00:00] YD: Welcome back everyone. I'm your host, Yulia Denisyuk, a travel photographer, writer, storyteller, community builder, podcaster, and entrepreneur. Working with publications like National Geographic Traveler, Conde Nast Traveler, the New York Times, and more. Traveling to wonderful places around the world and producing stories that I'm really excited about.

[00:00:22] And Travel Media Lab is our platform for helping you break into the travel media space where we share insights, tips, advice, and stories from people working in this industry. And all this month we're continuing to share with you a few of my favorite conversations we have inside our membership, the Circle as we gear up for the return of season nine of our podcast.

[00:00:45] So in this bonus episode, I'm sharing with you a preview of our monthly workshops that we regularly hold inside our membership. Each month. Inside the circle, I set a theme we should focus on for the month, and our recent theme was how to create your actual draft. So you've. Pitched your idea, the publication has accepted it, and now you have to sit down and write the thing and create the thing.

[00:01:09] So how do you actually do it? In this episode, you'll learn why I think writing is similar to winemaking and what are the actual steps I use when delivering the articles. We dedicated the rest of the workshop to discussing the tools our members use to create the draft and how they can overcome some of the challenges they face, like writer's block or writing on a deadline.

[00:01:34] I also answered some questions from our members and this whole workshop and all of our workshops are available to you when you join us over at troublemedialab.com/circle. And I just wanna remind you today that at the end of this month, on Friday, June 30th, we will be closing open enrollment to our circle membership until further notice.

[00:01:56] So, If you've been considering joining us, this is your chance right now. Join us before Friday, June 30th, because after June 30th, the circle enrollment will be closed to the public. So join us now to get in on all the activities, all the insights, and all the support we have inside the circle. All right, now let's dive into this episode.

[00:02:20] 

[00:02:22] YD: All right. Awesome. Well welcome everyone to our monthly, monthly workshop at the beginning of the month. And, I'm really excited about today's topic because this is actually very relevant to me right now. I'm having so many deadlines and so many things that I need to write this week. So very, very fresh.

[00:02:43] And,you know, really, really great topic and this topic that we're gonna be talking about today, which is creating your draft, an actual process of creating the story after you've pitched and after you got the assignment, it came at the suggestion of, Jolene and Ilaria who bo both were interested in, in talking about that.

[00:03:03] So that's why we're doing that. And just a reminder too, that you can always suggest topics that we can discuss, during every monthly workshop. So, yeah, so don't forget that if you want to want me to cover something specific, you can always suggest that we have a space in the, in the group where you can do that.

[00:03:21] And Jolene is saying I'm here, but addressing loads of envelopes on camera soon. No worries, no worries, Jolene. sounds good. So yeah, let's get started. So what we're going to do today is, first I'm gonna take you through sort of my process of how I create the drafts. and again, right now it's super relevant for me because I have multiple drafts you last weekend this week.

[00:03:44] And then, we are also gonna spend some time with on looking at the. Document that Jolene has shared with us kindly from a workshop that she attended with the wonderful, network where the editor from photos came on and she was talking about what she expects from a draft submission. So, we're gonna cover that as well.

[00:04:09] And Jolene also kindly agreed to, to share some, some notes from that or, or give, give some color to, to that document as well. all right. Awesome. Well, let's get started and as we go along, also, as always, you guys, if you have any questions, just stop me right away. We can have a discussion right away, totally informal and a stress-free environment here.

[00:04:34] alright, cool. So, let's say that you're, you're in this space, right? And by the way, most of you have already had to be in this space. Of writing the draft and submitting a draft. So I would also love to hear about your process and how you do it. but here we are, right? So we, we had an idea, we developed the pitch, we pitched an editor, we got the assignment, now we have the deadline, and now we have, now we have a word,assignment as well.

[00:05:03] So the editor said, you know, 800 words or 1200 words or whatever, and I'll talk about words as well, word counts. so now we ha have to actually write the thing, right? So before I go into the process of how I do it, I wanna say that always negotiate on, on the deadline as well, if you have an opportunity to do so, because, you know, sometimes the editor can be, pretty aggressive with the deadlines.

[00:05:30] Not all the time, but I have experienced that before. Usually they're okay, you know, usually they'll give you three to two to three weeks. On average to, to, to fill in your, to, to file your draft. And that's, you know, that's, that's pretty good. But again, also look at, you know, look at what's happening in your life.

[00:05:47] Look at your calendar. Maybe you need a little bit more time and, you know, that's totally fine. So negotiate that. Hi la. Good to see you. Happy, happy that you were able to join us. I just had to request an extension, for example, for one of my, pieces because I originally was gonna, had to deliver it last Friday, but because of my last minute trip to Spain, my whole schedule basically went crazy and I, I wasn't gonna able to do that.

[00:06:15] So I, I wrote the editor and I said, Hey, can I get a one week extension? So he told me, actually, no. And it was the first time that, you know, I didn't get the full extension that I asked. but he gave, you know, he gave me until Tuesday until tomorrow. So he, he didn't give me a full one week extension, but he gave me a couple of days, which was fine.

[00:06:36] I'm almost done with the draft now. and that's because, you know, on their end, you also have to understand that when they give you those deadlines, they slot things into their publishing calendar. Right? So now this editor is expecting on the stories to be published by the, by the beginning of next week.

[00:06:51] And so that's how he explained that he couldn't gimme the whole week extension. He gave me a little bit of extension because, you know, when they, when they receive the p the p the piece, you know, they have to give you a rounds of, feedback and maybe there's some light editing, et cetera. So they, they count that buffer time and then they, you know, say, okay, it's gonna be published here.

[00:07:13] So, but, but in any case, asking for, you know, negotiating for your deadline that feels good to you is always, I recommend that always. And then if you need to ask for, for an extension, please do. Like, don't be afraid to ask for an extension. And I'm telling you this because I remember when I was starting out, I was afraid to ask for that extension, right?

[00:07:33] Oh my God, how is it that I don't deliver the piece on a date that, that we set? I will, but you know what? Things happen. We're human and sometimes you need to move things. So it, it's absolutely fine. so, alright, so again, you got the piece accepted, you have your word count, and now you have to write the thing.

[00:07:51] So how do you actually do it? So here's how I start, right? So first of all, I always start with the pitch. I literally copy and paste my pitch that I pitch them into the, the document. And this is my starting point, and this is why I always recommend, writing your opening paragraph in the pitch. Because it'll be an excellent breadcrumb and an excellent starting point later on.

[00:08:16] Sometimes from the time you wrote the pitch and to, from, to the time that you actually have to write the, the story, it takes a while. Sometimes, like in this case right now, the story I'm working on, the trip happened two years ago, summer of 2021, and I've been pitching it and pitching it and pitching it, and finally this pop take took it, right?

[00:08:36] So now, two years later, I have to write it. So the fact that I have that pitch in the opening paragraph, it's an excellent starting point for me to start. So that's step number one. You know, copy paste the actual pitch. Start with the opening paragraph. Step number two is create the outline of the story, right?

[00:08:55] What are the actual important parts in the story that you need to talk about? You know, who are the main characters? Maybe there's something that you learned may, maybe there is some. Something special that needs to be part of it, right? Just map out the outline of all of the pieces that you want to mention in the story and the outline, to, to make your, your, your job easier.

[00:09:20] It's, it's good to create the outline at the time of pitching because at the time of pitching, you will have a pretty good idea of what the story is, right? You've done some research already, you know, major characters. You kind of know what, what the story will be. So it's right. I recommend that at the, at that time, you can create a basic outline.

[00:09:39] However, I actually don't do it that way myself. I think it's good to do it that way, but I don't, to be honest, I create my outline when I have to write the draft, not when I write the pitch. but in either case, create an outline, right? And, and have those important parts of the story. So now you have two starting points.

[00:09:58] You have the opening paragraph from the pitch, and you have the outline. Okay. The next step that I do is, probably one of the most painful for me at least, and I think for many writers, now that you have the outline, it's time to fill out each outline section with actual words on the page, putting actual words on the page, right?

[00:10:19] And for a lot of people, this is very painful, myself included. Sometimes it's really painful to just sit down and start writing. So what do I do to get around that? In this part of the process, the goal is not to create the most beautiful copy and language in this part of the process. The goal is to brain dump everything you know, everything you want to say about that particular section onto a page.

[00:10:50] And it's sometimes hard for us because we get tripped up on, Ooh, is this the right word or is this the best way I can say it? Or, you know, is this, is this, is this good enough? Right? And so we get tripped up by that. Our brain starts playing tricks on us. So how do I get around it? I try to trick my brain into not participating in this process.

[00:11:14] And, and what do I mean by that Is that when I have a draft view and I need to put a lot of words on a page, I try to wake up two hours early from when I usually wake up and I try to ride in that state. So your brain is not even awake yet at that point. I don't even go brush my teeth. I don't go get coffee.

[00:11:35] I don't get started with my day. I literally get up at 5:00 AM let's say I usually wake up at seven, I wake up at five. I'm still like, you know, like this. I sit down in front of my computer. And I start writing just anything that comes to that point into my head on this topic, on this outline, on this section, I start putting those words on the page.

[00:11:59] And it's a literally a brain dump. The goal is to put as many words as you can into each of those sections. and what I also do is I put one song on repeat, one song, same song on repeat, and that has been proven scientifically to help us get into a state of flow. Because what we're trying to do here is we're trying to silence that brain, right?

[00:12:22] That says, oh, this is not good enough. Or, oh, how do you say it? Or, oh, it's not the best copy in the world, right? So we're trying to silence all of that and just literally get everything that you know about the story, about this topic onto a page. Sometimes I combine the two. Right. So I wake up early and I put the song on repeat.

[00:12:40] Sometimes when, like for example, right now I'm traveling. I had a train ride yesterday from Grana to Valencia. I needed to put those words on the page, so I did that on the train, right? So I'm already awake, but still, I put one song on repeat and for three hours, that's what I just did. I just wrote, I just wrote, and I, I was listening to that song for three hours.

[00:13:03] And believe me, when, when you do that, something happens in your brain that your access, a different part of your brain that you know, that puts you into that state of flow. So that's how I do it. Basically, I, that's how I put words on the page. And again, at this stage, we're not worrying about, you know, how many words it is.

[00:13:22] We're not worrying about if it's the best words, the best writing that we can do. The goal is just to put everything on the page. Once you have that, for your outline, for your whole story, Then at a different time, you come back to this draft and you start editing it. And this is the time when you are as sharp and as clear and as focused you as you can be.

[00:13:44] You're, you had your coffee, you're very focused, you're now, your brain is awake. And what you're doing in this stage is you're now editing ruthlessly, ruthlessly. You're cutting things. You're actually cutting things, right? Because you probably overrode in the previous stage, but you needed all that material, right?

[00:14:04] You needed to have material to work with to now start shaping it into the narrative that it will be finally. And in this stage, you're cutting, you're, you know, let's say you wrote whatever, 1500 words, let's say the editor told you it'll be a 1200 word edit copy. You probably need to cut it a little bit.

[00:14:25] And we had this discussion, I think last week. People are worried. That, you know, my article was 800 words and it's at eight 30. Can I submit that? Yes, you absolutely can. Like, don't, don't worry too much about how many, if you're over the limit, if you're under the limit, that's the problem, right? Because it means you don't have enough to say about the story.

[00:14:46] But if you're, you know, let's say you're at 789 words for 800 word story, that's totally fine. But if you're, you know, severely under, that's a problem. If you're over for eight, like right now, the editor assigned me an 800 word story. I'm actually go, I'm, I'm actually submitting a 12 to 1300 word story. And in my case, I'm gonna tell him, listen, this story needs more, needs more space.

[00:15:13] Because there is a lot of detail there. And he might tell me, I still need to cut it, and it's fine. You know, I, I'll work on that, but don't really, don't worry about over submitting. pieces worry about under submitting. There's one, there is one exception to that and that is print, right? When, when we are assigned print stories, then that word count is pretty strict, and that's simply because they have to do layout, right?

[00:15:41] So they actually don't have extra space online. Of course, we have extra space, so if we're over the assigned word count, it's fine. But in print, you know, again, there is some le wiggle room there, even in print, you know, but it's not as big as it is online because simply there is not so much space. 

[00:16:00] And that editing process, I do that four to five times. Not in one sitting. Not in one sitting. Right. So again, I wrote my first brain dump. I let it go. I came back to it with fresh eyes maybe the following day with all my coffee in me. I edit.

[00:16:23] Maybe once or twice again, I let it go. It's, it's, it's interesting because 

[00:16:28] I found that writing is similar to like winemaking. You need to have it ferment somehow, because every day that you come back to the draft, you see something different or you find a different way to say something. And I'm not saying rewriting it completely every time.

[00:16:48] At this point I'm talking about tweaking, but sometimes tweaking is so important. Sometimes tweaking gets a good draft to a great draft. By a simple change of a word or by a simple cut of a phrase, but that kind of needs that time to ferment, 

[00:17:04] you know? And that's why I also say that, you know, be generous with the deadlines for yourself.

[00:17:11] And when you are negotiating that deadline at the first step, think about when are you actually gonna write it And think about having that buffer of coming back to the piece and letting it ferment. Right? Because don't be like me sometimes, and because sometimes I do procrastinate and I write like, you know, let's say we negotiated that the piece is due in one month, although usually that's not the case.

[00:17:38] Usually it's two or three weeks at the point of exception, right? So they accepted the story and they give you two or three weeks, don't wait until the last day to start writing the piece. Of course, right? Like that's super stressful. 

[00:17:51] You know, procrastination is actually normal, like. Many of us do it. You know, many editors and writers I speak to, they all procrastinate.

[00:17:58] So I know it's normal, but it's a bit stressful, especially if you only have like one or two days left in, in your deadline, right? Give yourself time to, to go through this process in the best possible way,

[00:18:10] which is why I think that the sooner you can do the brain down right in, in this, in this process, the more time you will have to edit to ferment, to tweak, which means you will have a much better draft, to submit at the end.

[00:18:27] sometimes when you write your draft and you're doing the editing, you realize that you have gaps in the story that you might maybe weren't even aware of before, right when you were pitching. That's also why it's important to give yourself. That time and to do that first draft as early in the process as possible because, and again, that's just happened to me just now with the story I'm doing.

[00:18:51] I realized I had gaps, so I had to reach out to more people and request more information and, and do a, a few quick interviews because I had gaps. Right? And I had time to identify that because I started my draft earlier in the process. and then, you know, so after, after doing that four to five time editing, sharp, focused, heavy editing, then I also f reserved time for final read through.

[00:19:21] So right now with my piece, with the story that I'm working on, it's due tomorrow, US time. Which means I have all of tomorrow because I'm in Europe right now, I have all of tomorrow to do the final read through and submit it still by morning US time. So that's what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'm not working on it anymore tonight cuz I, I spent all day today editing tomorrow with fresh eyes.

[00:19:44] I'm gonna read it again one or two times just to make sure that I'm just very happy with the final piece. And then I'm gonna read it out loud, which is something that, it's funny, that the photos editors recommend this as well. I do it because I find that when you read your piece out loud, it's again, accesses something different in the way you process it and helps you maybe edit it or tighten it even a little bit further.

[00:20:11] So I always read the piece out loud as, as the final step. and that's pretty much it. I talked about the word count already. That's, you know, we don't wanna worry about word count so much. and then also sources. So all of the sources for the story. if it's a link to another article or you know, a study or something, then I always link to it right in the piece.

[00:20:37] And if it's a source, like an interview or something, I just add it at the end. I say, you know, sources, and then I add, all the sources that I interviewed in the piece. and that's it. And then I send the email to the editor and see what they have to say with feedback, et cetera. And that part to me at least, is super exciting.

[00:20:56] I love getting feedback from editors. oftentimes they make the piece so much better, you know, because when you've spent so much time on this story, you're like, you're so deep in it that sometimes you don't see. Something that's, you know, a person that's just reading it for the first time sees. And so almost always they have suggestions or questions or things to make it even better, the story.

[00:21:22] and then you kind of, you know, you, you go through that process with the editor as well. but yeah, that's pretty much my process. So again, to recap, I start with two things. I start with the pitch, which has that opening paragraph as the breadcrumb. And by the way, that opening paragraph can change too, right?

[00:21:41] It's, it's not always gonna be the same opening paragraph that you started with when you wrote the pitch, but the main, main purpose of it is to be the bread cramp. So you have a starting point, you're not starting from scratch. and then I create the outline with the important parts of the story. Then I do the brain dump as many words as I can, for each of the sections.

[00:22:04] Then I do the editing, the ruthless. Ruthless, ruthless editing four to five times. and then I do a final read through with, with fresh eyes, usually on the day of submission, to be honest. Like that, that usual final, like, okay, here's my story. and then we talked about gaps, right? If you sometimes have gaps in the story, so it's important to give you enough buffer time to identify that and to maybe reach out to, to people if you need to.

[00:22:32] and we talked about sources, so linking your sources in the piece. And if, if it's a source that is not an outside article, but somebody you exchanged emails with, then you, then you, mentioned that in the, below the article that, you know, email exchange between such and such on such and such date, for example.

[00:22:53] and yeah, word count, we're not worrying about it so much, especially if it's online. And that's pretty much it, you guys. That's my process. And it's interesting. Yeah. Right now it's being tested multiple times because, you know, when you have deadlines, multiple deadlines in the same week, it's, it's a bit, you know, you have to make sure that you go through this very efficiently.

[00:23:15] So it is being tested right now and it's, it's, it's working pretty good for me. So, I'm excited to share it with you. 

[00:23:23] Thank you so much for listening to our bonus episode today. I hope you found the ideas we discussed here, relevant and inspiring to you. And if you're looking for support, opportunities, and community in the travel media space, consider joining our Circle community where we have conversations like the one you just heard on a regular basis.

[00:23:42] Go to travel medialab.com/circle to learn more, and be sure to join us before Friday, June 30th, because we will be closing. Open enrollment into our membership. Until further notice. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you very soon.