Getting Situated: Creating Your Ideal Work Pattern

Hemingway made sure he wrote no less than 500 words a day, every day.  Faulkner always drank whiskey when he wrote, while Balzac is known to have sometimes consumed more than ten cups of espresso per day while he was working.  Thomas Wolfe allegedly preferred to write while standing up.  Getting sloshed while working will not make you the next Faulkner.  Still, you may find that you’ll produce better, more effective work under certain circumstances.  Here are a few suggestions for creating the best writing conditions for you:

Tune In or Tune Out

Some people need absolute silence in order to work. Go into a quiet room, shut the door, and even turn on a fan or a white noise machine to reduce ambient noise.

Some people prefer to have a little company while they work, perhaps with some inspiring music, or just the soothing murmur of a turned-low TV.

Whether noise is bothersome or helpful, you can easily manipulate your environment to suit your needs.  If you are working in public, headphones can offer gentle background noise or mask the hustle of your surroundings.

 “”

Easy on the Eyes

Your mother’s admonition that you’ll “strain your eyes” if you try to read or write in dim light is really just an old wives’ tale.  In fact, you’ll no more strain your eyes trying to work in dim light than you would strain your ears if you try to listen really hard.  However, dim light will make you have to work a little harder to see.  So, make sure you have enough light for you to comfortably see what you’re doing.  Many modern laptops come with backlit keyboard options. Just check your manual to see if yours has one, and how to turn it on.  It comes in handy if you want to work on an overnight airplane flight, or while your spouse is trying to sleep next to you.

Comfortable Creativity

Speaking of sleeping, I prefer to write while in bed, propped up against lots of pillows, with my computer on my lap.  If my body is comfortable, my mind is able to concentrate on the work at hand.  But perhaps other writers might find themselves too comfortable in my preferred position and may wind up drifting off to sleep.  So, perhaps try sitting up at a desk or a table, back straight, feet flat on the floor, hands poised above the keyboard at the ready.  It may take some trial and error, but you’ll find your most comfortable writing position, probably somewhere in between my cozy-in-bed style and Wolfe’s standing up.

All the great novelists will admit to at least one little habit that binds them to their work, which makes it their own.  Joan Didion says that: “when I’m near the end of the book, [I] sleep in the same room with it. . . . Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it.”  But before you get to those really personal idiosyncrasies, you have to start the basic creature comforts of writing.  And once you satisfy your sensory needs, your thoughts will turn inward and you’ll find yourself doing what you set out to do: write.

Show, Don’t Tell: Avoiding the ‘Information Dump’ in Fiction

The key to good fiction is giving your readers a reason to keep going — little mysteries and mini-conflicts that add suspense and create tension. After all, if you feel like you know everything about a character in the first few pages, is there any real reason to waste time finding out what will happen to him?

Here’s what I mean:

Pete works at a pharmacy. He’s in his mid-20s, and he loves Asian cuisine and professional wrestling. He lives with his mother, but he wants to move out on his own when he saves up the money. He likes a girl at work named Myrna, but he’s afraid to ask her out on a date.

This is critical stuff: We have hints of a few conflicts: Pete is shy, but he’d like to go on a date with a coworker. He wants his own apartment, but he can’t afford it right now. And, we know a little about his interests and goals. But, it’s dull, dull, dull. It’s an information dump — in a rush to introduce Pete, we’ve put our readers into a coma.

This one’s a little better:

Pete set down his plate of teriyaki and stared at Myrna from across the break room. Even dressed in her white, polyester lab coat, she was stunning.

I wonder if she likes wrestling, Pete thought. I’ve got two tickets to next week’s match. Maybe I should just ask her out. Just as friends. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t even afford my own place — who wants to go out with a guy that still lives with his mother?

Myrna looked up and met his gaze. Pete snatched a newspaper and opened it to a random page, trying to look casual. That’s when he saw the advertisement: “Wrestlers needed for amateur match. Saturday night. First prize $5,000.”

The hints of conflict in the first version have become specific questions: Will Pete ask Myrna on a date? Will he put on tights, get in the ring, and win first prize? Focus on showing — revealing details through a character’s speech, thoughts, and actions — rather than simply telling the reader what’s important.

Three Writing Prompts to Get Your Fingers Flying

Even the world’s greatest musicians practice daily and spend time warming up before performances.  As a writer, you, too, need to work your creative muscles with some exercises designed to challenge your creativity, stretch your limits, and rev your writing engine.

Spend no more than ten minutes on each of these prompts.  Set an alarm to snap you out of your writing frenzy, and then take a look at what you’ve created.  It could be trash, or it could be treasure.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s practice.  But it’s pretty fun practice.

 “”

Your Ideal Reader

Every writer has a target audience, whether you are writing marketing material to a specific demographic or a novel you want your father to love. Take a few minutes to describe your target audience, working your way to your one ideal reader.  Is it a he or a she?  Is he reading while sipping a mocha latte?  What does he want to know; what’s important to him?  Does he tend to wear the same belt every day, even if it doesn’t match his outfit?  If you create your ideal reader in your head, you may almost feel like you are writing for just that person, and your copy will take on a great personal tone.

In Your Mind’s Eye

Select a random picture from a magazine or even from your family photo album.  Now try to recreate that picture in words.  Describe not only what you see, but what you sense. If there are people, what are the thoughts going through the people’s heads?  Is there drama? Tension?  If it is a nature scene, get the reader to feel the sand between their toes, hear the rustle of the wind through the leaves, or shiver in the clammy mist that rises from the wet grass.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, a thousand words should be worth a picture, right?

Word Game

Find a thesaurus and randomly choose five words.  Now, whatever words you’ve got, try to write a short piece that uses all of them.  It’s a writer’s challenge that inspires some serious creativity and some very interesting short stories!

Prevent Procrastination: How to get the job done without waiting until the last minute

Writers are known procrastinators. Whether we’re afraid our ideas won’t be good enough, or we’re waiting for inspiration to strike, we tend to set ourselves up for stress by waiting until the last-possible minute to begin serious work on our projects.

But it is possible to break away from this pattern.

Whether you have an internal email to write, a blog, or a white paper, these tips can help you break free from the pain of procrastination.

Always keep the main idea in mind. No matter the size of a project, refuse to let it overwhelm you. In one sentence, write down the purpose your text will serve. Keeping the main premise of your task in mind will keep you from venturing off onto unrelated tangents and/or becoming distracted. And the fewer the distractions, the faster you will finish.

The end is in sight. It always helps to visualize the end product…especially when you are working on a large project. Take it one word at a time always keeping in mind that each word written is one word closer to the end.

Just do it already. Stop regurgitating all of the excuses as to why you haven’t started yet, and simply start writing. Lucky for us, we can have first, second, third, and tenth drafts in the writing world. Even if your grammar and spelling aren’t perfect the first time around, the important thing is to just get something — anything — down on paper.

Reward yourself for a job well done. Everybody loves rewards, and what better way to motivate yourself than by knowing you can savor a glass of red wine, enjoy a round of golf, or shop ‘til you drop after meeting your deadline.

Lose the “I Work Better Under Pressure” mentality. This is one of my personal favorites. Instead of reminding ourselves that putting off an unwanted project until the last minute really makes us want to pull our hair out, we justify it with this overly used devil of a saying. Stop thinking this way, and just get to work.

You just may find that a project without stress is much more enjoyable than “working under pressure.”

Redundant and Repetitive

There is a lot to be said of brevity. Shakespeare wrote somewhat ironically through the mouthpiece of the long-winded Polonius in Hamlet that “brevity is the soul of wit.”

And William Strunk reminds us in Elements of Style that “A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.”

Excellent copywriting should be brief and vibrant; take care to remove any unneeded “filler” words and phrases. It is important to look for these filler words that drag your copy down, making them dull and redundant.

One example of redundancy that rings clear in my mind comes from my elementary school grammar class: “I was home alone, all by myself.” Unless you’re using this sentence to create a character or style specific to your work, this is poor writing. To say that “I was home alone” necessarily implies that I am “all by myself,” making the second half of this sentence useless from a copywriter’s standpoint.

But what about those common phrases that can be easy to overlook – is something “absolutely essential,” or is it simply “essential?” “Basic fundamentals” are either “basics” or “fundamentals,” both able to stand alone quite nicely. Now consider “past experience,” “new innovations,” “qualified expert,” and “postpone until later” – there are better, briefer alternatives to all of these phrases.

A little hard-nosed editing will rid your copy of these superfluous filler verbs. In summarizing this already much-too-long blog about brevity, remember the words of Thomas Jefferson:

“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”

Silencing the “Editor Within”

One of the most difficult parts of writing – even if you write all day, every day – is learning to ignore your internal editor when you’re working on a first draft.

Even now, as I start writing, I can hear the nagging voice of doubt that makes it difficult to put words on paper. My particular voice of doubt looks a bit like my ninth-grade English teacher: She’s got a sour expression on her face, and she’s wearing necklace made of little wooden apples. She knows everything. She hates experimentation. She stands behind me, reading over my shoulder and shaking her head. She makes little noises of disapproval as I work; the tap of my fingers on the keys punctuated every so often with notes of discouragement:

“Oh, you can do better than that, can’t you?”

“Well. That’s not very interesting, is it?”

“I just don’t get it.”

Writing, well, isn’t always easy. Fighting the urge to engage in too much self-editing is even harder. There’s nothing wrong with having high standards. But, if you fret too much about getting it right the first time, you’ll wind up with a migraine and a blank page.

Maybe your first draft is dreadful. So what? Throw it away, hit the “delete” key, bury it in the backyard in a shallow grave – whatever makes you feel better. And keep going. Experiment a little. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.

You’ll have plenty of time to revise and let your internal editor go crazy after you’ve gotten your ideas written down. But, when you’re trying to write a first draft, you have to ignore her and concentrate on what you’re trying to say and how you’re trying to say it. You can’t grow as a writer until you learn to stop worrying about perfection.

In Other Words . . .

When you work with words every day, it’s not always easy to keep your vocabulary fresh. I’m a word junkie. I’d like to think that I’m a formidable Scrabble opponent. I even have one of those dorky word-a-day calendars on my desk. But, like any other writer, I occasionally slip into a word choice wasteland where mediocrity rules and the most compelling adjectives I can come up with are absolutely mind-numbing: perfect; beautiful.

Yawn.

Good writing is about more than just stringing together a sentence or selling a widget. Good writing should grab the reader’s attention and make them want more, whether you’re writing ad copy, a financial newsletter, or even a blog entry. Precise, interesting words make or break your prose.

Invest in a good thesaurus. Use it. End of story.

After all, why settle for perfect when you can be unblemished, flawless, or unsurpassed?

Who wants to be merely beautiful? Personally, I’d rather be alluring or fetching.

“Irregardless” Is Not a Word

Sometimes when trying to achieve a fun, casual tone in writing, especially important in many marketing and sales projects, it’s usually best to write the same way we talk, right?

Wrong. Our speech is riddled with poor grammar and misused words because we don’t have the advantage of editing our words as we speak (but wouldn’t that make the world a much better place?). We become accustomed to hearing words and phrases improperly used and incorporate them into our writing – but, even though these words, phrases, and poor grammatical structures are acceptable in speech, they are dead giveaways of poor copywriting.

So when writing an article, the word “restauranteur” kept showing up in red on my spell-check program. I didn’t understand the problem until my editor corrected me – the proper word is “restaurateur.” If I had been speaking, I could have faked it. But when mistakes are written on the page in black and white, they appear larger than life.

A good example of a phrase that is commonly misused in speech and then transferred into writing is “for all intensive purposes.” What exactly is an “intensive purpose?” That phrase makes no sense at all – the correct phrase is “for all intents and purposes.”

And then there’s my number one pet-peeve of all time, and a telltale sign of poor, uninformed writing: should of, would of, and could of.

When speaking, we often use the contractions “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve,” which sounds like we are saying “should of, would of, could of.” In fact, because they are contractions, the correct usage is should have, would have, and could have.

With a thorough background in grammar and some careful editing, these mistakes can be avoided. Spelling, grammar, and correct usage are the essential building blocks of polished writing. Be sure to watch out for those homonyms, most spell-check programs won’t pick them up. If you don’t know the difference between affect and effect, or when to use to, two, and too, try an internet search and brush up on commonly misused words.

And no, “irregardless” is certainly not a word, no matter how often you hear it in usage. “Regardless” is a better term – and correct … look it up!

The Art of Asking Questions

After completing my first feature-length article, I received a mini-lesson on the art of asking questions in your writing to keep the reader’s interest. In order to be effective and engaging, each paragraph should begin and end with a question – not literally, of course – a sort of literary catapult that moves the reader, and the writing, forward.

For example, take this sentence:

When I arrived at my guest house, a special turndown present of olive oils, vinegars, and recipes nestled in my down pillows. It was signed by Chef Jean Lauzeral.

Now, these are solid sentences. They are grammatically correct and portray complete thoughts. They have subjects, verbs, and periods at the end. But are they engaging? Do they conjure up a question or a motivation in the reader’s mind? Not really.

“”

A better opening would be:

Chef Jean Lauzeral’s gifts a signature keepsake to all of La Via Notte’s visitors – and it’s not served with dinner. When I arrived at my guest house, I discovered a special turndown present: Nestled in my down pillows was a ribbon-wrapped gift of olive oils, vinegars, and recipes.

See the difference? Instead of flat out stating what happened (“When I arrived at my guest house …”), there is an added element of suspense. The reader must question: What is the chef’s special gift? Why doesn’t it come with dinner? The reader doesn’t solve the mystery until late in the second sentence, when they discover that the gift is a basket of oils, vinegars, and recipes. Notice that these sentences seem to be more descriptive – adding details like “signature keepsake,” “nestled,” and “ribbon-wrapped” help vamp up the sentence. Adding these details and elements of mystery help propel the story along, piquing the interest of the reader.

Let’s try another example.

Weak:
Steeped in the wine country traditions of France and Italy, LaVia Notte offers unpretentious American cuisine that embraces organic ingredients from the farmers in Napa Valley and Northern California, while beautifully complementing the varied bounty of the local vintners. And at La Via Notte Ranch, wine is king.

Better:
But despite his rich menu and generous spirit, it is not Chef Lauzeral that reigns supreme at La Via Notte’s Lakehouse. It is wine that is king.

While certainly more of an art than a science, good copywriting should always try to engage the reader by offering them tidbits of information, essentially leading them to read on. Think of it like that old horse-and-carrot trick.

Beat the Block

In the world of writing, writer’s block is an inevitable beast even the most valiant of writers must take on. After all, writing full time is not for the faint of heart. Luckily, there are a few tricks of the trade to keep the brain functioning and the creativity flowing even when the ugly beast is breathing fire in your face.

1. Turn the computer screen off. Sometimes, the brain can get caught up in “rules” of writing…grammar, spelling, punctuation. Typing with the screen off can be an easy way to set yourself free from the restraints of your sixth grade English teacher’s nasty rules since you won’t be able to see any “mistakes” made while typing. Focus on putting down good content so when it comes time to see what you’ve written, the writing will be full of substance, not rules.

2. Change up the scenery. Take your laptop outside on a sunny day. Sip an espresso at a local coffee shop. Or simply move to another room in your house. Whatever you do, change it up. We all know routine can become stagnant, and a new scene gives your thoughts the freedom to explore new territory.

3. Forget the norm. Change your font color…and font for that matter. Who said that writing had to be boring and plain old black and white? Choose a font and/or color that’s representative of your mood and personality. Feeling frustrated? Write in bold red. Happy? How about yellow cursive? The point is, get away from the norm and you might just find a favorite new way to get the word out.

4. Make an outline. Writers can often become overwhelmed by a large project. Outline the main aspects of your work, then go back and begin to flesh it out with details. Developing an outline organizes your long work into workable and attainable pieces making the writing process seem a lot less daunting.

5. Draw a map. (This is the outline for the visual learner.) Remember making idea webs in junior high English class? Well, you’re not too old to get back in the habit. Start by circling the main idea in the middle of your page, then branch off with relevant subject matter and branch again with supporting details. Pretty soon, your ideas are thoroughly represented visually on a page, and the writing process becomes so much easier.

6. Keep a list of ideas. As a writer, pen and paper are your tools, and you should never be without them. Keep an ongoing list of topics and ideas, writing them down as you think of them. This way, your idea well will never run dry.

Have another way to beat the Block? Share with us. We’d love to hear your ideas.