Manage Your Writing

This week: Don't be afraid

Journalist Gene Fowler once said, "Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead."

What Fowler is describing is, of course, writer's block. We've all had it. And at its root is fear, the fear of not "getting it right."

To overcome writer's block, we need to follow Frank Smith's advice (emphasis mine):

Do not expect the writing to come out right the first time. Do not be afraid of the possibility that what you write will fail to live up to your expectation, or those of the schoolteacher on your shoulder. Anything you write can be changed. Anything you write can be thrown away. You have nothing to lose.

This week: Take a break

This week, take a break from trying to "manage your writing." Relax, and have a happy holiday season!

This week: Keep the simple simple

Brad Shorr publishes a great writing blog, Word Sell. Something he said today got me thinking:

It takes an extraordinary person to take something simple and keep it simple, let alone take something complicated and make it simple.

Many of us know that when we revise something we've written, we should look for ways to simplify it. But many of us don't know when to let well enough alone.

This week, when you revise, stop and ask, "Is this word, sentence, or paragraph simple and clear enough already?" If so, don't revise it for the sake of revising. And especially, don't revise it to impress your reader by using more complicated language. Write to express, not impress.

Don't dodge the bullets

Daphne Gray-Grant, in her always-useful e-newsletter, Power Writing, says that bullets work because they

• Add structure and organization to your writing
• Provide many compelling entry points for skimmers and scanners
• Help simplify information (for the reader and writer)
• Emphasize main points
• Improve comprehension

Daphne provides some other good tips on bullets, although I follow a slightly different convention from the one she recommends. I use a colon to introduce a list only when the introductory sentence is grammatically complete. If it's not (as in my introductory sentence above), I leave the colon off. In short, if I could put a period, then I can put a colon.

(I picked up that habit from the Chicago Manual of Style, which I use in a copyediting course I teach. But there's absolutely no reason why business writers should follow it.)

Software for the mind

Roy Jacobsen, at Writing, Clear and Simple, has posted a lovely meditation on David McNally's comment that "Language is software for the mind."

The whole posting is well worth reading; I'll quote only its last two paragraphs:

The words you use, either written or spoken, can have powerful effects on your audience—if you use them carefully and skillfully. Whether your goal is to inform, to persuade, to call for action, or to entertain, your words and your stories can be powerful. They can be powerful, because language is software for the mind.

Learning how to write that software well is well worth the effort.

This week: Leave out the parts that readers skip

Elmore Leonard, author of Get Shorty and other hugely successful books, was once asked why his books were so popular and easy to read. Leonard answered, "Simple. I just leave out the parts that readers skip."

This week, when you start revising, imagine yourself as your reader. What parts of the message would you skip?

Leave them out.

Mapping for writers

Many business writers (I occasionally among them) use "mind-mapping" to generate content and structure for documents. I devote two pages to mind maps in my latest book.

The Bootstrapper blog has just listed more than a hundred mind-mapping "tools, resources, and tutorials." If you're already a mind-mapper you'll surely find additions to your toolbox. If you're not a mind-mapper, you'll surely find some great ways to start.

(Thanks to the Mindjet Blog for the link.)

This week: Take as many swings as you need

Playwright Neil Simon has written, "In baseball, you only get three swings and you're out. In rewriting, you get almost as many swings as you want and you know, sooner or later, you'll hit the ball."

OK, we business writers can't always take as many swings as we want. But we can almost always take more than we think we  can. Isn't that important e-mail message worth another five minutes of your time? If so, don't click "Send" as soon as you've drafted it. Keep it for a few minutes, or a few hours. (One trick is to not fill in the "To" line until after you've revised. That'll keep an unrevised draft from getting away from you.) Then come back and spend five minutes on it. Maybe do that again. Maybe again.

This week, take as many swings as you need to hit the ball out of the park.