Manage Your Writing

This week: Build a prototype

Once, while training at a manufacturing site of a Fortune 100 company, I had trouble persuading my trainees to stop revising and editing while they were drafting. They insisted, "Here, we work hard to get it right the first time."

I realized that these managers saw me as just a crazy consultant who was clueless about their strong quality-oriented corporate culture. But for once, I knew what to do. The plant where I was working made printers, so I asked the managers to tell me the story of how their company developed and manufactured a new printer model.

They proceeded to describe an elaborate planning process, culminating in the building of a prototype. At this point in their story, I interrupted. "And you make sure to put the company's nameplate on that first printer?" I asked. "And you make sure to have the color of the finish just right? Because you're eventually going to sell it, right?"

The managers laughed. "Of course not," they said. "That printer is a prototype. It's not built to sell; it's built just to test."

"Ah ha!" I gloated. "So you don't do it right the first time. Because you know you won't sell the prototype, it doesn't have to be perfect. Making it perfect--with the right nameplate and paint and all--would be a huge waste of time and would distract you from the more important features that have to be tested."

Please understand; such flashes of insight are rare for me. But that day my trainees had given me a powerful new metaphor. A draft is a prototype. It's not the final product. It's not written for the reader. It's written for the writer. It's "quick and dirty." It's written to test. It's written to see if it does what it was designed to do.

This week, when you write, make sure you build a prototype. By doing so, and by then testing it, you'll be sure of having a better final product.

This week: Turn off your monitor

This month marks the third anniversary of the Manage Your Writing blog. Because only a few current subscribers were with us in our first few months, I'm occasionally going to recycle what I think are the best early posts. This is one of them.

Most business writers try to edit, sentence by sentence, as we draft. We let our "Internal Editor" get in the way of our "Internal Writer."

We can write more efficiently and effectively if we give ourselves permission to write quick-and-dirty drafts, and edit them later.

This week, as an experiment, turn off your computer monitor while you're drafting. You'll learn what it feels like to draft without editing, and you'll be more able to turn off your Internal Editor even when your monitor is on

This week: Try "TK"

Cory Doctorow has published a great article, "Writing in the Age of Distraction." Though he's a science-fiction writer, his advice is good for us business writers as well. For example--

Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't. Don't give in and look up the length of the Brooklyn Bridge, the population of Rhode Island, or the distance to the Sun. That way lies distraction — an endless click-trance that will turn your 20 minutes of composing into a half-day's idyll through the web. Instead, do what journalists do: type "TK" where your fact should go, as in "The Brooklyn bridge, all TK feet of it, sailed into the air like a kite." "TK" appears in very few English words (the one I get tripped up on is "Atkins") so a quick search through your document for "TK" will tell you whether you have any fact-checking to do afterwards.

This week, take Doctorow's advice: draft without stopping to look anything up. When you come to a place where you need a fact, just type "TK." (I've been told it means "To Come," but with less common initial letters.) Your draft will be better as a result. Then when you revise, search for "TK" and get what you need. 

There are other good tips in the article too.

(Thanks to Lifehacker for the lead.)

This week: Ignore the prattle

Natalie Goldberg advises:

It is important to separate the creator and the editor or internal censor. . . . If the editor is absolutely annoying . . . sit down whenever you need to and write what the editor is saying: give it full voice--"You are a jerk, who ever said you could write, I hate your work, you suck. I'm embarrassed, you have nothing valuable to say, and besides, you can't spell . . . ." Sound familiar?

She continues, "The more clearly you know the editor, the better you can ignore it. After a while, like the jabbering of an old drunk fool, it becomes just prattle in the background."

This week, pay special attention to your Internal Editor. Listen for its voice. Then realize that it's just prattle in the background, and begin to ignore it.

This week: It's Not Brain Surgery

Novelist Robert Cormer has said, "The beautiful part of writing is that you don't have to get it right the first time, unlike, say, a brain surgeon."

This week, as you write, remember that a draft is a prototype, not the final product. It isn't written for a the reader. It's written for the writer. It's written to test. It's written to see if it does what you planned it to do.

This week: Pay no attention to your thumb

I heard once about a psych-out technique to use if you're playing tennis against a tough opponent. After watching your opponent warm up, you say to him or her, "As I've been watching you, I've finally realized how to improve my backhand. It's the way you hold your thumb. How do you do that exactly?"

Unless your opponent is on to you, he or she will probably say, "Gee, I don't know. I've never thought about it."

"Well, think about it," you say. "I'll really appreciate any advice."

Then you start the match. If your opponent has fallen into your trap, he or she will be focusing on that thumb, perhaps for the first time--not on the ball, not on the net, not on the lines on the court. And this fact may give you the edge you need.

That's how drafting works. If, while you draft, you're focusing on spelling, punctuation, grammar, and the hundreds of other things you can (and should) fix later, then you won't write as clearly and coherently as you could. This week, pay no attention to your metaphorical thumb. You'll play a better game.

This week: Draft quick and dirty

The great editor Maxwell Perkins once said, "Just get it down on paper, and then we'll see what to do with it."

This week, take that advice. Draft quick and dirty. If you don't know how to spell a word, just approximate; you or your spell-checker can fix it later. (And please, please, don't let your word-processing program highlight misspellings while you draft.) If you don't know which of two words to use, use them both; you can decide between them when you look at your draft again at the revising stage. For now, just get comfortable with the idea of doing it wrong the first time.

In the end, you'll be a more efficient and effective writer.

This week: Write without thinking

Don Marquis, American journalist and creator of the characters Archy and Mehitabel, said, "I never think when I write; nobody can do two things at the same time and do them well."

That's a good practice to follow. Do your thinking at the planning stage of your writing process, then again at the revising stage. In between, try to draft without "thinking." That is, try to turn off your inner critic (I call him or her the Internal Editor), give yourself permission to be "wrong," and draft as thoughtlessly as you can. Then, and only then, go back and think!

This week: E-mail yourself

At LifeClever, Chanpory Rith has posted a great trick for getting around writer's block.

"If writing stirs a panic attack in you," Chanpory writes, "try this: start with an email."

Why? For five reasons:

1. It's convenient.
2. You feel less pressure.
3. You're more conversational.
4. You're more concise.
5. You can get feedback quickly.

Chanpory has more to say about each of these reasons.

So this week, whenever you're stuck, just open your mail program, click "New Message," and write a message to yourself. I've tried it. It works.

(Thanks to Lifehacker for the link.)

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.