Writing

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5 Tips to Reclaim Your Power to Write

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So many of the adult business writing students I've worked with have complained to me of an inability to write -- a mental block. Fact is, there's NO ONE who can't be a writer. If you've dreaded writing and avoided it for days, months, or years: Don't give up! All you need to do is get back into the habit. Click here for a quick graphic to get you back into an easy routine of writing. Use it for 30 days, and you will blow life's breath into your own identity as a writer.

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The Best Writing Advice I Ever Got

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A writer friend of mine posted an old infographic on her Twitter account last week: "10 Writing Tips from Stephen King's Book: On Writing -- A Memoir of the Craft."

Before we go any further, here's the most important link I can provide you. Seriously, if you're a writer (or want to be), buy this book. Because if you're a writer, you need this book. (It's not just for fiction writers.)

And here's a link to the infographic my friend posted on Twitter. Although I have to warn you that this whole blog post is dedicated to what I consider to be the most important piece of advice from King's amazing book. Funny enough, it's NOT on the infographic.

The best writing advice I ever got -- right here in Stephen King's book -- is simple, but not always easy. "Just tell the truth." (It's from page 158 of the original trade paperback version.)

Just tell the truth. Think about that. This is advice from Stephen King, the most famous horror writer in the USA. You mean he's been telling the truth in all those scary books??? Randall Flagg (from The Stand) is REAL?

No, of course not. But if you've read The Stand, you'd have to agree that Randall Flagg is believable. In fact, the realness of King's characters has always been my favorite thing about his novels. Whether they turn out to be good people, bad people, real people, or illusions, they all have true character. They are all people. This is because King follows his own advice and tells the truth about his characters. He finds them inside himself.

He also tells the truth in this book, in a more conventional way. It's part personal memoir, part writer's guide, and part philosophical treatise. As always, his writing is warm and personal. This is what makes it so easy to read and so useful.

It's true that my own career is that of a business writing trainer, not a fiction writer. But the advice to "just tell the truth" is as important in our world as it is in King's world. Just tell the truth by writing in your own conversational vocabulary. Just tell the truth by focusing on the most important aspects of your message. And certainly, just tell the truth by (yes) telling the truth in all the writing you do in your workplace.

Telling the truth in these ways builds your credibility in your readers' eyes. And it is your credibility that will ultimately persuade your readers of your ideas.

Let me know below what you like best about On Writing. Or, if you have any questions about business writing, you are welcome to leave them here. We'll be checking back. (-:

 

Dear Teacher: Here's Why Individual Writing Conferences are Worth Your Time

Earlier this month, Edutopia published a brilliant article by a high school teacher named Jori Krulder. You can find it here: 5-Minute Writing Conferences.

Ms. Krulder lists the process she uses, step-by-step, for meeting with 30 students over the course of their writing projects. I immediately noticed that these were steps I could follow myself, even though my students are adult learners and my classroom is now online. Indeed, the majority of this article is devoted to explaining her process -- that alone is a good reason to check it out.

But it's the last few paragraphs that changed me. See, Ms. Krulder got some positive results she'd expected; but she also got a huge one that she hadn't expected. Here's what she has to say about them:

"With individually targeted instruction, students were more likely to pay attention to and apply the ideas they learned from the conference. This was immediately apparent in the improvement in scores between the original and revised essay drafts. (Expected.)

"I was able to communicate my feedback to students much more clearly than I had through my previous brief and often illegible comments on their papers. (Expected.)

"Students were able to ask questions about writing that they were unable or unwilling to ask in front of the class. Because of this, I better understood how to improve my writing instruction. (Expected.)

"An unintended consequence of conferencing with students was a marked change in the culture of my class. It seems obvious to me now, in retrospect, that talking with each of my students and listening individually to their needs would improve our relationships, but with the day-to-day demands that teachers face, it’s easy to forget the immense value of just a few minutes of connection." (WOW! Not expected, but great!)

I have already added individual writing conferences to the Power to Write online program. Yes, this means that class sizes will necessarily be smaller than they could be without those conferences. But I'm convinced that the bonds that develop among our students and with our instructors will at least double the value our students receive from the training. And isn't that the most important thing?

Can a Tribe Help You Become a Better Writer?

Everyone knows that a support group almost always helps those of us doing the hard work of learning a new skill. Over the years, many of my writing students have asked if the same thing is true for them.

Well, there's good news (actually, great news) and there's bad news about that.

Let's get the bad news out of the way first: the actual process of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and transcribing your ideas into written words is by its very nature a solitary activity. As a matter of fact, this is a simple truth that holds some potential writers back from exploring their talents. It's so quiet! (They say.) It's so lonely! (They exclaim.)

But this challenge is easily overcome the minute a writer becomes willing to spend a little time and make writing a habit. This is actually the first job we tackle in the Power to Write online training program. We ask our students to write 2-3 pages, longhand, every day for a couple of weeks. These pages are not meant to be great writing, or even about any certain topic. And certainly, these pages are never shared with anyone -- not the instructor, not other students, not anyone. We ask only for a daily brain dump -- like in a journal. Our students inevitably find that once they have opened this door to their written ideas, the solitary aspect of writing is no longer a debilitating problem for them.

Now, on to the good (errrr, I mean...) great news. Yes, a writing tribe can help you in many ways.

It is ONLY the original act of getting your words onto a page that must be a solitary act. Once the ideas are there, a support group -- your writing tribe -- of other students and instructors can serve you in so many wonderful ways. Obviously, they can help you edit. But they can also identify with your struggles and successes and reassure you that you're right where you're supposed to be. They can often serve as "research assistants" about topics that you need to know more about, and they can laugh with you as you all improve your skills together. Perhaps best of all, that tribe can improve your own sense of self-worth by giving you the opportunity to help others in the same ways.

So many aspiring writers attempt to develop their skills in a vacuum. They attend single-day seminars that cover the entirety of the writing process, but leave no time for actual writing, let alone the development of a writing tribe. Or they subscribe to an online writing program that doesn't have a writing tribe -- or even personalized instructor input -- included in the curriculum.

Don't be afraid to both develop your writing skills AND find a writing community. Your skills will grow faster and you'll make at least a couple lifelong friends and/or business associates.

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Not an Artist? Need a Storyboard for Your Video Project? No Problem!

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As many of you know, I'm in the process of developing an online video training program to teach business writing skills. Sadly, it's been a longer process than I hoped -- there's a lot of organizing that needs to be done. What scenes do I want to show? Are there some locations I could use (besides a training room) that would make the course more interesting? In what order should I present the learning? How much of it should be screen captures of a slide show? I've come up with hundreds of these types of questions!

A friend, seeing my accelerating distress had a recommendation: "Why don't you storyboard it? It'll help you get it out of your head and into a format -- AND you'll feel like  filmmaker." 

HAHAHA. I am not an artist. I am SO MUCH not an artist, I became a writer instead.

"Oh, no, you don't have to be an artist," he said. "Try StoryboardThat."

What a discovery! You really don't need to be an artist to use it; you just drag scenes, characters, text bubbles -- just about anything you could need -- into frames of a storyboard. Once they're dragged in there, you can adjust poses, colors, perspectives. And the choices of scenes and characters are limitless.

This picture shows you the categories of characters and a fraction of the Medieval characters that are available across the top (because the second frame of my storyboard was what I worked on last). In the first frame, you'll see my attempt at showing myself in a classroom. (I was lonely, so I moved my dog in, too.)

And funny enough? I DO feel like a filmmaker. I'm so excited to use this tool to get that online business writing program built.

Speaking of which: if you were wanting to learn business writing online, what are the two most important topics you would want to be sure were included in the program? Leave me a comment here and let me know.

By the way -- StoryboardThat lets you build two storyboards per week for free. They also offer paid subscriptions if your needs are greater than that. Happy filmmaking!