Are you writing an article, book, ezine or series of blog posts? If you’re wondering where to start with your writing project or how to get back on track—and stay on course—this is the workshop for you!

The Writer’s Compass Workshop gives you proven techniques that will help keep your writing progressing smoothly from start to finish.

Click here for all the details.

Reference materials and writing equipment are the tools of the writing trade that make the writing process effective and efficient. When you have them handy, you save yourself from a lot of wasted time and motion. When you don’t have them handy, you risk putting your writing in a frustrating and wasteful stop-and-go pattern.

Before you start a writing project, take an inventory of the reference materials, tools and equipment necessary to complete it effectively. Your needs can be as basic as an inspiring journal and favorite pen to chronicle your travels or as technical as voice activation software to “write” your first draft.

Reference Materials

Which reference materials do you frequently use? Organize them on your desk or computer for easy access. Perhaps you have a favorite online dictionary. If so, have it up on your browser.  Or perhaps you have a list of the words that you tend to misspell or misuse. Keep it handy, especially for the revision stage of your writing.

Here’s a reference materials checklist to get you started on your customized list:

• Dictionary (print or online)
• Thesaurus (print or online)
• Grammar and syntax reference materials (print or online)
• Glossary of terms relevant to your topic
• Reference articles or links to them
• Research notes
• Interview notes and quotations
• Theme statement for this writing endeavor
• Storyboard or outline
• Character descriptions

Before each writing session, gather the reference materials needed to minimize interruptions to your writing flow.

Writing Tools and Equipment

Many writers use different tools and equipment for different stages of their writing process. For example, some write their first drafts longhand. Their tools and equipment for this stage are a notebook or tablet of paper and their preferred writing instrument. Others write everything on a computer.

Likewise, some writers dictate everything from ideas to drafts and final manuscripts on a recorder or voice activated software, which they later have transcribed. Other writers print out their drafts so they can read and revise them in print form before they do revisions on a computer.

What tools and equipment do you use for the different stages of the writing process? Be sure you have exactly what you need when you need it. And be sure your equipment is set up to support your efforts. For example, if you will be using your printer, make sure it has paper and sufficient ink.

Conclusion

The writing process technique “Gather Your Writing Resources” is simple and basic but easily overlooked. When you take a few minutes to gather your writing tools and equipment and make sure they are in working order, you will help your writing process flow more smoothly and productively.

Although the act of writing is a solitary process, writers greatly benefit from interacting with other writers and from soliciting the support of writers and other professionals. Here are several ways to get helpful support with your writing endeavors.

Writing Support and Critique Groups

Before joining a group, find out their primary purpose to make sure it aligns with your needs. Their primary purpose may be to create a space for writers to connect, recharge their creative juices, and share their successes and troubles with the writing life. Or their primary purpose may be to provide a forum to get other perspectives  on your writing through candid feedback and critiques.

Check out the local resources for writing support and critique groups in your area. Places to look include online forums, Meetup Groups, and postings on coffee shop bulletin boards.

Workshops and Classes

Writing workshops and classes provide the opportunity to deepen your knowledge and hone your skills in a specific genre or topic, such as writing query letters, book proposals or novels.

Writers who attend workshops and classes derive many benefits. Among them are creative stimulus, professional instruction and feedback, the accountability of assignments, interaction with like-minded students, and the opportunity to stretch and expand as a writer in both new and known areas of expertise.

Many locales offer in person writing classes and workshops through adult education programs, libraries, community colleges, and writing associations. You can also find a breadth of virtual classes and workshops online.

Writing Coach or Mentor

Hiring a writing coach or mentor can greatly advance your writing goals, especially if you seek accountability and professional guidance with a specific project. In addition to providing professional knowledge and expertise, a writing coach is your confidante. Because of this relationship, you can ask “dumb” questions without feeling embarrassed, openly share your writing obstacles and setbacks, and proudly share your successes.

A writing coach also holds you accountable to your chosen deadlines, and helps you tackle your writing obstacles, stay motivated, and  move steadily toward accomplishing your writing goals.

To find a writing coach, ask other writers for recommendations, consult the directories of writers’ associations and organizations, and search online.

Conclusion

Having a writing support system helps you hone and advance your writing skills, knowledge and expertise.  Through participation in writing classes, coaching, and support or critique groups, you gain many benefits, including motivation, accountability, and  feedback on your writing.

Writing without a plan can work, especially when deadlines, lack of structure or balancing your writing with other life priorities are not an issue. But most writers need and want to know how they are going to do their writing. They want an action plan to measure their progress and keep them moving forward.

How to Write a Writing Action Plan

Although action plans vary with each writing project, the following steps will help guide you when you prepare yours:

1. Create a master Writing Action Plan document. Avoid having parts of it in different files and location. You want to be able to refer to your action plan easily and at any time.

2. Set a completion date. A target date or deadline helps you stay motivated.

3. Identify the project’s key stages. For example, if you are writing an article, these stages  may include:

• Identifying the theme or angle

• Identify the sub-topics

• Review research information for supporting data and interview notes for rich quotations

• Write the first draft

• Do revisions

• Edit

• Get feedback

• Revise based on feedback

• Do the final editing and proofreading

• Prepare the final manuscript

4. Assign target dates for completion for each key stage of your project. Like the completion date, these interim target dates will keep you motivated.

5. Assign specific dates to review your progress. Put these dates on both your calendar and your action plan. Depending on your writing endeavor, you may decide to review your progress daily, weekly, biweekly or monthly.

6. Review your progress. Compare your progress with the action plan target dates. At each review, identify the successes and obstacles you have had and determine whether the target dates need to be moved up or pushed out.

You may discover that some tasks take less time because you have more expertise in those areas. Likewise, you may discover that other tasks require more time than you had expected. Adjust them as you go, ever mindful to hold close to your original overall project completion date if possible.

Conclusion

Before you jump into your writing project, determine how you are going to take it from concept to completion.  To stay focused and on target throughout your writing process, create a writing action plan with a completion date, specific tasks with their interim target dates, and scheduled reviews.

How to Identify Your Ideal Readers

Your ideal readership is composed of the types of people you want to read your writing. Think about who would be enthralled by your novel, who would be helped by your how-to book or article, or who would be attracted to the products and services on your website. What are their hopes and fears? What are their problems, issues and concerns? What are they passionate about? What motivates them?

Although it is easier to see the relevance of these answers to educational and promotional writing, such as how-to books and website content, it also applies to fiction. For example, novelists choose the amount of explicit detail to include about crime scenes, romantic encounters and the like based on their ideal readership’s interests, preferences and sensitivities.

The Benefits of Identifying Your Ideal Readers

Identifying your ideal readers results in several big benefits. First of all, you capture the keen interest of the people you most want to read your writing. Because you know who they are, you are able to write as if you are telling your story or message directly to them. The result? Readers become engaged with your story or message because they can relate to it. They become eager to continue reading and to tell their friends about what they read. You gain a loyal reader and a promoter.

Another benefit is clarity. Your writing process becomes more fluid. You are able to make your choices about style, tone, degree of detail and similar key elements before you begin writing instead of in the midst of writing. And with that, your writing gains consistency.

Identifying your ideal readers also improves the quality of your writing. When you write for “any and all readers,” the writing tends to become bland, disjointed, disorganized, and inconsistent in tone and style. But when you write for your ideal reader, your writing flows smoothly and naturally, revealing your unique writer’s voice.  That in itself is worth identifying your ideal readers.

Conclusion

When you identify your ideal readers – the people who you want to read your story or message – you gain several huge benefits, among them engaged readers, clarity, consistency and improved writing quality.

So don’t feel discouraged with your writing project if you feel confused, overwhelmed or upset. You can move beyond it with the right combination of thought, action and support.

The 3 Weeks of Inspired Writing teleseminar series helps you do exactly that. During the 6 sessions, participants:

• Set realistic, meaningful goals
• Take inspired action
• Get feedback and support
• Learn and apply various writing techniques
• Celebrate each success — no matter how small — along the way.

The program starts Tuesday, February 21, 2012. Get all the details and register here. Come join us and get inspired!

The environments we live and work in have a great impact on our feelings, energy level, and productivity. Some ambient qualities, such as the noise level and air quality on an airplane, are out of our control. But most environmental qualities can be modified and adjusted to create an inspiring writing setting. Among them are the location where you do your writing and the ways you customize the immediate surroundings of your writing location.

Choose Your Writing Location

Where do you write? Do you do all your writing at your home office desk? You may discover you need to choose different locations for different steps in your writing process. For example, when I am doing the creative step of writing the first draft of a feature article, I get out of my home office. Its distractions — the phone, neighborhood noise, and constant reminders of other tasks needing attention – interrupt free-flowing creativity.

For the creative step of writing a first draft, I go to a coffee shop. While the frenzied activity, conversations and noise of a coffee shop may totally distract other writers, for me, all that buzzing is white noise. I do my most creative and productive writing in coffee shops. Other writers might find that their best place for creative writing is a library, park or other setting.

In comparison, for the other steps of my writing process, including revising, editing, proofreading and formatting the final manuscript, the home office works well.

Compare how well you do different steps of your writing process in your current setting(s). If you find your energy lackluster during certain steps, test doing them in a variety of places until you find the locations most effective for you.

Customize Your Chosen Writing Location

Optimize your chosen location for focused writing. First, take a sensory inventory of it. What sounds, sights, or smells might aggravate you while you write? Some possibilities are clutter, certain smells and conversations. Then minimize their impact.

For example, if papers are strewn across your office, organize them to reduce the clutter. If coffee shop conversations and other background noise affect you, wear noise-cancelling headphones. Or if your chosen writing place is the park and the smell of fresh-mown grass irritates you, schedule your writing outings for non-mowing days.

After you eliminate or minimize aggravations, claim the space as yours. Spread out your writing tools the way you like. Enrich your setting with your personal writing fetishes, if you have any – using a favorite pen, putting a fresh-cut flower in a bud vase, wearing a lucky hat or neck scarf. And then settle into your inspiring setting for some focused, fulfilling writing time.

Conclusion

To make sure your surroundings enhance your writing time, choose locations that support the specific writing step you are engaged in. Then minimize any potential aggravations and claim your space by adding your personal touch.

When you take these measures, you will create an inspiring setting for creative and productive writing.

If this happens to you, take a look at your schedule. Have you slotted time in it for your writing project? Writing projects require unhurried, focused time scheduled for the days and hours that fit best into your lifestyle. If those days and hours coincide with the times you feel most creative, all the better.

Set Writing Appointments

Take a look at your lifestyle and writing process. Then determine what writing schedule works best for you. Are you more creative and productive when you write at the same time and days every week? Or do you accomplish more when you set aside a day exclusively for writing?

For example, if your goal is to publish two blog posts weekly, the best option may be setting aside an hour every Tuesday and Thursday to write and publish a blog post. Or the best option may be to set aside a day every month to write eight posts and schedule them for publication.

Honor Your Writing Appointments

Once you have scheduled your writing time, honor it. Treat it with the same respect you give appointments with your client, CPA or doctor.

The unexpected, of course, does happen. Your boss or client may require your immediate attention. Your child may come down with the flu. When the unexpected pulls you away from your scheduled writing time, don’t cancel your writing appointment. Reschedule it, preferably for the same day. Hold to your commitment to fulfill your goal for that specific writing appointment.

Conclusion

To ensure that your writing projects do not get edged out by other professional or personal items on your To Do list, schedule writing appointments. Choose times when you are most productive and creative and that also fit your lifestyle.  Once you have set your writing appointments, honor them.

When you schedule writing appointments and hold your commitment to them, you enable your writing projects to move smoothly and steadily to successful completion.

If you can describe them in 25 words or less, congratulations. You have this writing process technique nailed. You know the theme of your writing project. But if you can’t describe what you are writing clearly and concisely, you are inviting confusion, frustration and procrastination into your writing life.

Your Theme Statement

The theme statement of your writing project is the touchstone that keeps your writing focused and on track. Written in a couple sentences totaling around 25 words, it describes the essence of your writing project’s topic. Every decision you make about what material to include and what to omit is determined by its relevance to your theme.

For example, the theme statement of this article is: This article describes the key writing process technique “Know Your Theme.” It describes how to write a theme statement and the benefits of having one.

This one is 25 words. It could be a few words longer or shorter, but 25 is a good word count to aim for. The point is to be concise and to distill the subject into its essence.  The essence of this article’s topic is the definition and benefits of the key writing process technique, Know Your Theme.

In summary, a theme statement is a concise description of the subject of a writing piece, stated in approximately 25 words.

Benefits of Knowing Your Theme

Here are the key benefits of distilling your theme into a statement of about 25 words.

1. Clarity. This helps you plan which material to include in your writing piece and also helps you fine-tune any research and interviews you do.
2. Keeps you on track. When your writing detours into tangential subjects, rereading the theme statement brings you back on course.
3. Wards off procrastination and other energy-zappers. Reading the theme statement before each writing session gives you focus, and that makes it easy to decide what to write next.

Conclusion

Before you start your next writing project, write a 25-word theme statement that distills your topic into its essence. Then keep your theme statement handy. Read it before each writing session, and refer to it when your writing goes off course or you need guidance about what to write next.

When you use this writing process technique–Know Your Theme–your writing will flow smoothly and steadily toward successful completion.

Benefits of Knowing Your Purpose

When you know your purpose, you have a clear vision of why you have taken on this writing project. That well-defined reason guides you, inspires you and restores your resolve when problems occur. Knowing your purpose is essential regardless of the length or type of writing. It applies whether you are writing an article, how-to book, ezine, novel, daily journal, family history, special report or series of blog posts.

What is the purpose of your writing project? To provide solutions to help others live happier lives? Guide you through self-discovery? Enhance your professional credibility? Document your family history? Keep in touch with your clients? Chronicle your travel adventures?

How to Use the Know Your Purpose Writing Process Technique

At the start of each writing project, ask the question, Why am I writing this? Then write down your reason and keep it in sight as a constant reminder.

To reinforce this writing process technique, say your reason out loud each time you sit down to write. When an obstacle pops up before or during your writing session, restate your reason for doing this writing project. This helps push you through the stops and starts of writing a first draft. It gets you to your desk when you would rather take a nap. It shakes you out of doubts about being good enough or smart enough or knowledgeable enough.

Make Your Purpose Compelling

The more compelling your reason, the more it will inspire you to keep charging forward. This becomes especially important when a major obstacle, such as a financial setback, veers you off course. If you find that your reason is not strong enough, start peeling back the layers to find the why beneath the why.

For example, if documenting your family history is your writing project, your reason for writing it might be that the research intrigues and entertains you. That why, or reason, keeps you skirting around and leaping over most obstacles. But when a huge problem blocks your path, you need to dig deep and uncover the why beneath the why.  In this case, the why beneath the why might be to leave a legacy for your grandchildren and future generations.  This reason is more compelling. It takes on greater purpose.

Conclusion

When you know the purpose of your writing project – your compelling reason – before you start and keep reminding yourself what it is, your writing will flow, skirt hurdles, and climb over any big obstacles that block your way.