The Doctor is IN!

I don’t like to write…

May 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I always startle my students by announcing that I don’t like to write. I think they probably assume: Surely a writing teacher must just love to write!

I do not like to write because writing is hard work, including writing a blog. But like so many other writers, I love to have written. I also like the fact that through writing, I can deliver helpful information to others.

Here’s what happens when I sit down to write: I immediately have writer’s block. As I preach in my classes, one antidote to writer’s block is getting compulsive about my task. So I set my timer for one hour; chain myself to my desk (well, not literally); and write until the bell rings. Then I reward myself by biking to the gym so I can work out.

When I return to the my writing task again, I repeat the “chaining” event and treat myself again when I am done.

Corny? Yes. Effective? Yes. You’re reading this, aren’t you? I’ll do anything necessary to bribe myself to do what I must. And when your comments and feedback roll in, I’ll be glad I made the effort.

Prolific author Judy Blume shares her thoughts on how writing is like a puzzle: “I’m a rewriter. That’s the part I like best . . . once I have a pile of paper to work with, it’s like having the pieces of a puzzle. I just have to put the pieces together to make a picture.” But you must have the pieces of writing BEFORE you can put them together into a bigger document!

What are you waiting for?

Filed Under: Business writing, Prewriting, Technical Writing, Writer's block, Writing process

How is painting like writing?

February 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why is painting like writing?

While painting what seemed like miles of baseboard and trim in my condo, it occurred to me that a painting project is like a writing project: Both involve a process.

My painting process  required the following steps:

  1. Deciding to paint; then assembling tools and equipment (paint, brushes, tape, newspapers, sandpaper); then taping and preparing the surface for the paint
  2. Painting
  3. Stepping back to look at the painted product, now dry, in a different light to see if I missed any spots
  4. Touching up whatever I missed, sometimes repainting a whole section
  5. Final touch-up and clean-up (removing tape and newspapers, scraping any stray paint, cleaning myself and my tools)

Writing projects require a similar process:

  1. Prewriting: deciding to write, brainstorming my ideas, outlining a coherent path through my often-chaotic brainstorming
  2. Drafting: Letting my ideas flow on paper without censoring or stopping to revise or rewrite
  3. Stepping back to look at the written product to see what I might have missed or what I should change (I often ask others for their opinions at this stage)
  4. Revising my writing to improve it, sometimes rewriting a whole section
  5. Editing and proofreading what I hope is the final product

No painter would consider skipping that first step in the painting process, yet many writers skip the first step and plow right into drafting without enough planning and preparation. When I write, as when I paint, I find that time spent on planning and preparing makes the project flow more smoothly.

To extend the metaphor:

  • My baseboard and door-painting project could have been overwhelming, like writing a large document can be. To avoid “painter’s block,” I divided the project into manageable chunks. I paint all the trim and doors in one room each weekend. Likewise, I divide large documents into sections and tackle them, a section at a time. Chunking painting and writing may not be as efficient as tackling the entire project at once, but dividing the work into chunks means I am more likely to do the divided work.
  • I don’t like to paint, but I like to have painted; likewise, I don’t like to write, but I like to have written.
Filed Under: Communication, Prewriting, Technical Writing, Uncategorized, Writer's block, Writing process Tagged With: ,

How to plan (prewrite) your holiday!

December 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you’ve taken one of my writing classes, you recognize the value of planning your document before you plunge into writing. One tool that we writers use to help us plan our writing is a “cluster,” in which we brainstorm all our ideas onto paper.

Here’s a great example of how to plan (cluster) your holiday.

My thanks to Susie Horvath of Kraus Andersen for sharing this great cluster.

Happy Holidays to you!

Filed Under: Business writing, Prewriting

Twelve tips that will help you communicate more professionally in 2010: Three great words to use more often

January 3, 2010 By 1 Comment

Years ago, I taught Business Writing at a male maximum-security prison in Minnesota. At the end of the quarter, one student asked, as he was leaving the room for the last time: “What is good writing, anyway?” ZING! I realized then that my grade for the class would have been an “F” for “Failure to Communicate.”

From that point forward, I have defined in the first hour of any writing class that I think good writing is Complete, Consistent, Clear, Concise, and Correct, and it must be all five of these in any given communication. We’ve all known people who were overly Complete in violation of being Concise. On the other hand, parents of teens know how Concise a teen can be at the expense of Complete, Clear, or Correct when communicating with an adult:

“Where did you go?”

“Out.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

(“Nothing” in this context might mean, “I totalled the car” or “I toilet-papered Brittany’s house,” events which only reveal themselves through communication with the police or other parents.)

So as this new year begins, I’ll write once a month about tips I usually teach in my Technical Writing and Business Writing classes that help everyone communicate better. This month, we’ll consider three words that will help your communication.

Of course, three great communicative words you should always use freely are, “I love you.” Yep, those are great words.

But I’m thinking of these three words: “Tell me more…” For example, if your boss asks you to write a report on the XYZ issue and you have no idea what to write, ask, “Can you tell me more about what you want in the report?” Or if your child asks, “Where did I come from?” instead of launching into a detailed description of human reproduction, you might ask, “Can you tell me more about what you want to know?” (The answer may be, “Well, Tommy came from Chicago. Where did I come from?” Bingo! You just saved yourself  The Talk , if only for the moment.)

I had a boss once who varied the “tell me more” phrase by saying, “Help me understand…” Steve’s communication skills validated employees, because those words implied that he really wanted to know what we really wanted to tell him.

When you use phrases like these to get as much information as you can before you write any document, you’ll be much more Complete in all your communication.

Filed Under: Business speaking, Business survival, Business writing, Communication, Personal observations, Prewriting, Public speaking

Wolfram alpha computational knowledge engine

July 31, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Check out a new resource on the Internet: www.wolframalpha.com, a computational knowledge engine that quickly returns a lot of information on any topic you throw at it.

I typed in “Emma,” my dog’s name. I found out that Emma is the top female name for US births, with 18,587 people given that name each year (based on 2008 births). The average person named Emma is 7 years old. The frequency of naming children “Emma” was lowest in the 1970s, highest in the 1880s, and headed up in this decade.

Who knew?

Imagine how useful this engine might be for important questions! To quote the site:

“Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.”

This site would be very useful in prewriting, for example. You could do quick research on your topic, avoiding having to open a lot of Google links.

Thanks to Camille Walker for the tip to look at Wolfram Alpha’s site.

Filed Under: Business speaking, Business writing, Communication, Prewriting, Technical Writing, Technology for writing, Writing process

Two weeks off and back at it

March 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Did you know I’m writing a book on Marketing Bingo? Did you realize that my 25 blogs on Marketing Bingo were the prewriting for that book? I wrote 5 blogs a week for 5 weeks on marketing tips that I have learned, for a total of 25 chapters that I now have in draft form. What a treat! Here’s what I learned:

  • A blog is great for thinking about your audience. I’ve always written in journals, but that is so much more private than a blog. The blog may be less public than the book itself, but at least I’m thinking about you, my audience.
  • Having a deadline, even self-imposed, is marvelous. There were many nights when I sat, exhausted in front of the laptop but compelled to post to the blog (and after I read some of those entries, I realize that evenings are not my best writing opportunities!) Never mind: I have a draft, I have a draft, I have a draft of my book!
  • Your comments were so helpful (and I wouldn’t have had those comments in my journal, would I?) Thanks for staying with me.

The blogging experiment was so successful that I will continue, five blogs a week, to write the introduction and conclusion to the book. Stay with me. I’ll be in print by May! Thanks for reading, and for being there.

Filed Under: Business writing, Marketing, Prewriting, Technology for writing, Writing process Tagged With: , ,