Declutter Your Writing
Recently I came across a book on decluttering called Clutter’s Last Stand by Don Aslett. Although it was published the year I graduated from high school, the advice is as relevant now as it was then. More so for me, since I’ve managed to accumulate so much clutter since then. Reading books on decluttering is sort of a hobby of mine. It’s a great alternative to actually doing it. This one is different.It actually motivated me to let go of that bowl I’ve kept in a box for two decades and those travel books that I got before I had...
read moreWant to write fast? Slow down!
Post by Scott VanVoorhis I don’t care whether it’s a business memo, a marketing pitch or an article. In order to write fast, and, even more importantly, to write effectively, you first need to take a step back and consider the landscape. As a veteran newspaper reporter, I became known around the office as a fast writer. The compliment puzzled even as it pleased me – I am a barely passable keyboard monkey. But my colleagues were paying attention to the number of stories I was producing, not how I clattered away on the keyboard. My...
read moreSometimes you just drive to drive
I’ve suggested that you need to make a map when you are writing. Often, this is true, especially when you are stuck or when you are pressed for time. There are times, however, when you don’t want to follow a map. You just want to hit the road and see where it takes you. It’s good to do this in writing too. I don’t recommend it when you are on deadline or if you are working on a piece for a very specific project. But in order to improve your writing, sometimes you should write just to write. You will be surprised at what you find....
read moreWhat was your favorite thing?
I don’t expect everyone to like everything I write. Heck, I don’t like everything I write. The problem comes when you can’t quite figure out what’s wrong or worse when the person for whom you are writing just doesn’t like it. The trick to fixing it is to figure out what’s gone wrong. Is it the grammar? Is it the fact? Is it the set up of the document? Sometimes the person (or you) won’t quite know. Sometimes they’ll say it’s “just bad.†Don’t get discouraged. It may not be true. A different person might think it’s...
read morePete and Repeat were out in a boat
My brother used to torture me with this little rhyme: “Pete and Repeat were out in the boat, Pete fell in and who was left?†Being the gullible little sister, I’d obligingly say “Repeat,†which he, of course, would do. Over and over and over. In writing it’s easy to fall into repetition, getting stuck using the same words repeatedly throughout a piece. As the writer, you’re concentrating on the big picture and trying to tell the story. It’s easy to tune out the number of times you’ve used same word. After all, you know the...
read moreWhere’s the GPS for writing?
It’s easy to get lost when you are writing. You often start out okay having at least a sense of where you want to go. You know about how many words you need. You know roughly what you want to say. But this is just a picture of where you are headed. How are you going to get there? Take a lesson from the road. You wouldn’t hit the streets with just a photograph of your destination. You get a map. This works for writing too. The big difference being that you can’t Mapquest it or plug it into GPS, you have to make this one...
read moreYou do not suck
There will come a time when you are writing – for some it happens every time – when you are absolutely 100 percent sure that what you are writing is complete garbage. This especially happens when you are writing something long or something very important. You will hate it. You will wonder why you thought you could write in the first place. You will wonder why on earth you agreed to write this article/blog post/white paper. You will wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier to work in a fast food restaurant. I am going to tell you...
read moreWhat to Write?
Writing is hard enough when you know what you are supposed to write about. But what about when the field’s wide open and there are no parameters – like when you have a blog, for instance? Or, you’re in charge of the company newsletter? Where do you start? Staring at that blank screen is intimidating. It’s like being in a candy story with just $1 to spend. You want to make sure you make the right choice! Far from fostering creativity, having that much freedom can actually stand in your way. Having guidelines, limits and parameters...
read moreFun with words
When it comes to words, I’d like to think I know a lot. I went to college. I read. I write for a living. And yet, there are so many words of which I have never heard. These are English words, words that I could be using. Certainly my listener might look at me perplexed, but perhaps in the right context they would flow easily into the conversation and capture the subtlety of some nuanced thought I am trying to express. For instance, we could talk about my neighbor, a virago obsessed with her lawn and a lack of pity for a pooch who must...
read moreLearn to roll, eat a roll, play a role
Homophones. We should all have learned long ago that special list of words that sound the same and yet are spelled differently and have very different meanings. But that was a long time ago, so sometime in the flurry of writing, the wrong word quietly sneaks in and settles down unobtrusively in a sentence. Perhaps you forgot the difference. Maybe you never knew. More likely, you are thinking about the overall story and message and your brain is focused on other details. This is where a good editor comes in handy. This would be a living,...
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