Bruce Lee was a one man, zero fat ass kicking machine like no other. That he was a film industry unto himself is a simple addendum to that one previous fact. He is arguably the single greatest martial artist of all time across any genre and his many teachings can be easily applied to the blogosphere just as it can be applied to delivering a swift sidekick to someone’s gut. Few know of Bruce Lee’s book, called “Tao of Jeet Kune Do”, but in it he reveals a lot of his philosophies when it comes to life and fighting. See if you can identify with any of them, for I’m sure you can apply those lessons to your blog as well.

“If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done. Instead, make the move and put your full effort behind it”

The Spanish sum it up beautifully with the concept of Carpe Diem. If you feel you have an opportunity, go for it by giving all of your best. If you come up with a fantastic idea for a post, don’t think about how you want to make it sound or look, just get it done. Sportspeople talk of this mental plane called ‘The Zone’ where they don’t think about their next move or shot, they just do it (that is not subliminal advertising for Nike). Just let fly, as if you’re Bruce Lee unfurling a karate chop. Do it now.

“You just wait. I’m going to be the biggest Chinese Star in the world.”

For Lee, it was more about the will to win than getting the win itself. If you wanted to win something, that will remains constant and drives you on to bigger thing. No hurdle is too high, no pre-condition too tough and no exertion of effort too great. What matters is the goal itself, but it is the individual’s will that powers people on to that target and Bruce Lee realized this. Becoming a noted blogger is incredibly difficult and only a small number actually make their living from it. That’s how hard it can be. But the question is how badly you want to make a success of yourself. It has to be a fire within that drives you forwards, a sustained passion.

“The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.”

Blogging can be some very draining work, so use your energy wisely. Channel it towards the essential while knocking off the unessential. There will be detractors and those that fire nasty vitriol your way. Ignore them; don’t let their hate weaken your own drive. Instead, focus on the positive. I receive lots of appreciative mails but none of them linger in my mind, only those two or three mails that were stinging in their criticism remained in my mind. I don’t do this anymore, and that is an example of paring away the unessential. Similarly, if you’ve hit a writers block, don’t feel frustrated. Replenish your creative energies, brainstorm, do whatever you need to come back rejuvenated and attack the essentials. Your energy is your biggest weapon; harness it wisely.

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once; I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”

It’s true when they say practice makes perfect. Are you practicing your craft daily and with the sort of fervent passion martial arts experts do? No matter what anyone says, a blogger is a writer and words are to you what a shuriken is to a ninja; it is a potent weapon. The best bloggers always practice their writing skills, and some even across a variety of styles and voices. If you can’t do that, perfect that one voice that is you distilled into its very finest. This will not only smoothen your blogging, but also reduce the time you take to come up with posts and write them down.

No matter what you set your mind to, you can achieve it if you only fully commit yourself to it, and that is the spirit behind these principles and quotes of Bruce Lee. Even from beyond the grave, Lee is teaching all of us to kick ass and there is a timeless wisdom in his words that you should apply to your writings and blogs right away.

Is simplicity is the soul of language, Hemingway was its personification. At a time when the who’s who of the writing world chose to embrace a more complex, artful style of writing Hemingway was the sole person to eschew all such obfuscation and write in a language that was simple and clear to understand. But how can Hemingway help your blog, or your business need? There are several lessons to be learnt from Ernest, and here are a handful of them.

Keep it short

Hemingway was minimalist before anyone deemed it fashionable. He looked down upon the complex writing style of others and cut out everything flowery and unnecessary. To Hemingway, it was all about penning short, powerful prose that caught the eye and captured the mind. Challenge yourself to write less and less about something until you can distil it its essence into nothing more than a sentence. Hemingway demonstrated this when challenged to tell a story in six words and he came up with “For sale: Baby shoes, never used.”

That in itself is a subtle, brilliant and sublime use of terse prose.

Use a crisp opening paragraph

Refer to the first paragraph of this post and note how it is short in length. Hemingway used to concentrate the power of his prose into a short burst right at the beginning. This acted as a prelude to the main course for Hemingway who would then continue to build on the simplicity of the storyline and wrap an entire plot and sub-contexts around it. But the key always was to use a crisp opening paragraph that got the reader on the same page as Hemingway.

Be passionate

Hemingway had a way of infusing vigor and passion into his prose. Sample this verse from ‘Old man and the Sea.’

“He was a very big Mako shark, built to swim as fast as the fastest fish in the sea and everything about him was beautiful except his jaws. His back was as blue as a sword fish’s and his belly was silver and his hide was smooth and handsome. He was built as a swordfish except for his huge jaws, which were tight shut now as he swam fast, just under the surface with his high dorsal fin knifing through the water without wavering.”

The focus and intention of Hemingway’s mind is unwavering and unambiguous and what shines through is his vision and passion for prose.

Stay positive

This is all a bit ironic as Hemingway himself had a blackness in him, but we are not talking about negativity versus positivity in a human sense. We merely refer to saying something positively versus saying something negatively. If your dentist were to tell you “this will be painless” what remains with you is the word pain, not painless. So use positive words, such as economical for inexpensive or stable instead of error-free.

I’ll admit it; it’s something that happens to all of us at some point or the other. Maintaining a blog takes a  lot of effort some days and it just doesn’t seem worth it at times. There is the small issue of visibility (or the lack of visibility conversely) of your blog as well as questions about your focus, research and what to write. And it all has to be very engaging while reaching out to readers. How on Earth are you supposed to keep at it? Not everyone has the patience of a Buddhist monk or a Himalayan Sadhu. Over time, I have come up with answers of my own to this problem.

Enjoy yourself

The moment you start treating writing and blogging as a chore, it becomes a chore. Keeping yourself motivated is a lot simpler when you’re thinking about ways to make things fun. In a way, writing a blog post has a lot to do with your state of mind, maybe everything to do with it. If you’re put off by the topic, chances are that will come through in your post. Enjoy yourself and you’ll be surprised how many more topics you can come up and how much more responsive your readers can be.

Baby steps

Never try to bite off more than you can chew at any one time. There is a lot you can do to help your blog reach a sustainable level of success, but don’t get ahead of yourself. The road to being known, if that, is a slow one and you won’t get thousands of readers overnight. Pace yourself instead and focus on doing the basics right, and over time you can add to this by doing things you feel could help spur you onwards. Find out what you have and haven’t done on a weekly basis and focus on improving those results or building on weak areas. Be kind to yourself, or you’ll burn out overnight and give up.

Always plan ahead

Always figure out ways for you to build up your blog’s content and how to reach out to your readers in the best way possible. Keep your expectations and your plans realistic and always assess your goals before you fully commit to them. A well thought out plan should be flexible and clear when it comes to achieving your goals.

Relax

Everyone needs to figure out a way to relax and get some downtime. Maybe you just want to put your feet up or you’ve had a particularly bad day, whatever the case is everyone cannot churn out posts at the same regularity or speed. Make things manageable always and work in time for friends, family or yourself.

Your voice is a critical component of your online success. Now if you’re lucky enough to have a voice like Morgan Freeman’s or Patrick Stewart’s, you’ll even make a rip-roaring success of yourself in the real world. But the blogosphere is made up entirely of words, puns and some poor innuendos and to cut through all of the clutter you need to have not just material that is unique but a storytelling and writing that is captivating and engaging.

Finding your voice, then, should be your first concern for without it you will never have a successful blog. Some writers and even advertisers refer to it as a ‘hook’; without it any new reader will not be reeled in by your text. This is why you often find people talking about great first lines in novels, such as:

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.”

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen”

“The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new”

From passion, to despondency to a humor darker than a moonless night, each of these lines has something in it that compels you to read on. Capture this well enough and your readers will keep on coming back to you like they’re addicted to crack. So how do you capture your voice and distil it into your blogs? Forget voice as you normally know it; your voice might be like Mickey Mouse’s for all we know but no one can hear your voice, so you’re safe (for now). What you should focus on more is the voice readers feel they hear when they read through your work. What shines through should be distinctly you and distinct in itself. It’s a very abstract concept and hard to capture, but once done it’s the most powerful tool in a writer’s arsenal.

Forget about blogs and think about your favorite writers instead for a moment. There is always that one quality about them that is so appealing, ranging from such things as Hemingway’s simplicity or Ludlum’s picturesque thrills. It’s that inescapable beauty that you must look to capture. Here’s how you can go about doing likewise.

Be spontaneous

Your inner chi flows most freely when you pull out the plugs in the dam that holds your soul. Okay, maybe it doesn’t but it is fun to make stuff like that up from time to time. Be spontaneous and just give air to your inner writer without judgment. Give yourself a three minute timer and just write, don’t think about it. Review yourself after three minutes and you’ll be surprised how freely your mind can paint a picture when you cut loose your inhibitions. What comes across will be quirky, will be authentically you and in the process, you can discover your voice.

Write as you’d speak

This is the truest test of your writing voice; is that writing on a page really you speaking? If it isn’t, re-work it until it is truly representative of you. If that confuses you, just sit back and ponder what is essentially you, words and phrases you might use and so on. You’ll see a difference come across instantaneously.

No norms

From a young age, we are drilled in the classical styles of writing and told to write in a standard style that conforms to norms. Sometimes, however, it is better to just break free and be you. The point of writing is to communicate a message and to that extent you must follow the written code. But feel free to experiment and use literary license on other occasions. In other words, feel free to explore yourself if you feel it’ll improve the quality and clarity of your message.

Just be brave in whatever you do and be yourself, a bit of sincerity and yourself reflected in a piece of writing goes a long way in endearing yourself to a reader.