I have been writing for the Odyssey for a couple of months now, and I often find myself doing these same 10 steps over again when I am writing my article every week. Actually, to be honest, I find myself doing this process for every assignment I have to do. Here are the 10 steps of writing an Odyssey article:
1. Turn on your computer:
Odyssey requires you to use technology to produce content, so now that you have finished step one, go ahead and get your computer running so that you can start writing.
2. Procrastination at its finest:
We all know that this is going to happen. The second step is to come up with ideas of what to write about this week...and then four hours pass by and you still haven’t come up with an idea yet. Oh well, it’s just Monday, right? I have two more days; I can write my article TOMORROW. Tuesday rolls around and you are now piled up with even more school work than yesterday. Well, I still have another day, so I’ll just do it TOMORROW!
3. The due date rolls around:
Uh Oh, it’s Wednesday again. You check up on your article to see that MUSE decided to delete content, ruin formatting and make things very complicated.
4. “Brain food”:
It would be silly to write an article without having FOOD! Try to create a meal that only takes a few minutes to prepare because we all know you will eat on forever and never get the job done. Also, note that step four includes going to the restroom and scrolling through Instagram and Snapchat. Now, you’re fully ready to write.
5. Blank
So...now what? Everyone at one point goes blank when they are about to write their Odyssey article.
6. Get inspired:
It is impossible to write an Odyssey article without getting inspired on the internet. Make sure you do that before you start to write your article!
7. Write a title:
Now that you have some idea of what you want to write about, it’s time to think of a title. Titles are one of the most stressful and important part of writing because no one bothers reading your article if your title sounds boring! If you made it this far into the process, congratulations! Now it’s time to move on to your main content.
8. Write your article
Now that you have your title, you need to write your main content. Give no forethought to grammar, flow or organization. After you have finished writing your article, check for grammar and spelling mistakes through Grammarly, a program that fixes your grammar in minutes.
9. Call the editors:
There’s nothing in the world that these rockstars cannot fix. They are absolutely amazing and will help you publish the best article yet!
10. Relief:
Finally you have submitted your article and now you just wait for the publication! And then this cycle occurs again.
