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What Holds You Back From Writing?

March 31, 2009 1 Comment

You’ve decided to write something. You sit down to write and what happens? Do you go blank? Do you get writers block? Or, maybe you’re like me and you have so many ideas you can’t choose one.

Just this morning I’ve penned 5 writing ideas and I have 2 from yesterday, plus a draft in the back-end here at my blog. Those are just on ‘writing’ topics and do not include other ideas I want to write on in fitness, health, etc.

One problem I find is wanting to write in my own voice. This is not the same as finding your voice in fiction writing. I mean I want to write straight out of my head–which is rarely ever grammatically correct.

I began this post March 26 and saved it to drafts, which gave me 2 posts in draft.  I now have about 15 topic ideas jotted down for writing.  Several years ago I was writing 10-12 hours a day.  I burned out and took a rather long hiatus.  I’m now having trouble getting back to a regular routine with writing.  I begin writing and soon get hit with more ideas and then find it hard to focus on the topic at hand.

It’s not really writers’ block that holds me back, it’s writers’ overload.  Some days it’s easy to just ‘pick a topic’ and go with it, other days it’s quite difficult.

What do you do in these situations?  Do you suffer writers’ block or writers’ overload?

Filed Under Discussion, writing tips Tagged With writers block, writers discussion, writing tips

What is Punctuation? A Form of Trickery?

March 30, 2009 Leave a Comment

Do you ever think about what punctuation is or its purpose?  Sure, we all use it, or we should, but it generally gets left to its own self; meaning we blindly put little marks in our writing that we think are correct.  The comma, for one, is way over used.  I’m guilty of this myself.  In fact, if I don’t pull out  The Elements of Style, on a regular basis, I stick commas everywhere.

According to the dictionary, punctuation is a system of inserting marks in writing to organize the written language and clarify relations between words.

we dont seem to give punctuation as much thought as earlier writers did in fact punctuation wasnt even used much until about the 18th century although the earliest written material weve discoverd with punctuation is dated back to 9th century bc

And there you have a paragraph with no punctuation or capitalization.  Was it difficult to read?  It was difficult to write because some uses of punctuation have become habit.

Punctuation we don’t use on a daily basis can be very tricky.  For this reason we need to stay on top of our writing skills, keep those  rules fresh in our minds and actually practice writing with correct punctuation.

I listed Strunk and White’s, The Elements of Style, earlier.  It’s one of the best books ever written for a writing aid.  Another great little book is, Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

If these books aren’t in your writers toolbox–Get them!  I find that I need to pull them out daily.  In The Elements of Style, Roger Angell says, “Writing is hard, even for authors who do it all the time.”


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Strategies for Planning Your Writing

March 20, 2009 Leave a Comment

Sometimes it helps to create order before you begin writing.  You should decide a few things before you begin:
1.  Who are your readers?  What are your readers looking for?  What do they know or want to know?  What opinions do they have?

2.  What is your purpose of writing?  What do you wish to accomplish in your writing?  Are you writing an article, a story, a novel, a college paper?  Do you want your readers to smile, think or agree with you?  Do you want them to understand something?

3.  How can you narrow your focus?  Which slant would best fit your purpose for writing?  What points would most appeal to your readers?  What details would engage or persuade them?

Most effective writing is centered or unified around a main point.  All your sub-points and details should be relevant to that point.  Even if you are writing books for pleasure, your story will have one central theme or point and all the details or scenarios that your characters will go through should lead up to that one main point or conclusion.

Some writers have the ability to sit down and begin writing without a plan.  Most of us require some sort of structure.  Having a plan can help you write better material by helping you focus on the main point.  It helps you stay on topic.

Patti Stafford

Filed Under writing tips Tagged With patti stafford, planned writing, writing, writing content, writing tips

Writer’s Overload and the Grand Slam Plan of Plans

January 15, 2009 Leave a Comment

Most writers will tell you about writer’s block and how devastating it can be–to their ego and their pocketbook. But what about writer’s overload? Or maybe writer’s overload is an underlying cause for writer’s block.

I have overload (and lack of planning). There are so many topics that I want to cover and when I sit down to write–I can’t choose. So in a sense maybe it could lead to writer’s block, because if you can’t choose, you can’t write and if you can’t write–you must be blocked.

I do not suffer from a lack of things to do. I suffer from “what to do”. I know, prioritize. But it’s all a priority isn’t it? So which do you decide to be the highest priority? Do you base that on money? Passion? Or something else?

I try to use freewriting when these circumstances arise. Days like today however, cause me to feel guilty if I freewrite when I have so much of that “to do” I should be doing.

I read a good piece of advice recently, “Plan your day or it will plan itself”. I’ve been thinking on that a lot and for the most part I have some sort of schedule laid out–but I haven’t actually planned anything. At 6:00 a.m. my schedule tells me to “write”, but it doesn’t tell me what to write. It should state things like, “finish the deck piece”, “start the parenting piece”, “post a recipe on the food blog”. Instead, it says, “write”. It sounds real good in theory, sort of like the Nike deal, “Just Do It”, but it leaves too much to the imagination and too much to be led astray with.

Imgine it. You’ve dreamed of being a writer most of your life. You finally get the chance to follow your dream and work on making a career for yourself as a writer and the best you can come up with in your scheduling is… “write”. Yea boy, that just gives you tons of direction doesn’t it?

Defining your plans down to the letter will help you acheive a better, more productive day.  At first it seems odd to write out every little plan, but there will come a day when you’ll need a definite plan of action.  Try to add more than “write articles” to your calendar today.  You’d be surprised what you can do when there’s a big plan.

Filed Under Feature Tagged With tips for writers, writers tips, writing tips

Reading To Be A Better Writer

January 15, 2009 Leave a Comment

All writers will tell you to write tight or solid when you’re writing material.  Regardless of whether it’s a book, web content, or articles.  You’re building your career and it needs to be the best it can be.  Your lively hood is based on the strength of your writing.

 

But one area that isn’t touched on as often is reading.  To be a better writer you have to read what others have written.  Look at why their material is published, what makes them good enough to get published?  Reading is just another part of studying the craft.

 

So what should you be reading?  Everything, anything and again, everything.  Newspapers, reviews, articles, comics, medical papers, science fiction, mainstream, romance, mystery, reference guides, what your competition has written, directories–any written word you can find.

 

When you read outside of your genre or things you wouldn’t normally read, it often sparks you own creative juices.  It can give you clues on how to write better, how to write tighter.  It will increase your vocabulary and use of words.  For this reason I always have a dictionary handy.  I have a collection of them actually.

 

And another good tip, the next time you curl up with a good book and your partner asks you why you aren’t working–you can honestly say, “I am.”

Filed Under Feature Tagged With better writing, improve writing, reading, writing tips
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