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Posts Tagged ‘writing process technique’
Thursday, March 1st, 2012
Starting a writing project without an action plan is like going on a road trip without an itinerary. Some writers prefer that approach. They like to have their writing take the lead, just as the traveler without an itinerary gets her cues in the moment about where and when to stop and explore.
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
- Review research information for supporting data and interview notes for rich quotations
- 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.
Tags: how to write a writing action plan, writing action plan, writing process technique
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Sunday, February 19th, 2012
© 2012 Rose Muenker
Writers can get so wrapped up in their creative flow that they neglect a critical element of the writing process: identifying their readership. Knowing who your intended readers are gives you clarity. When identify your ideal readers, you understand their values, preferences, motivators, concerns and more. This knowledge guides your decisions about style, word selection and other important choices.
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.
Tags: benefits of identifying ideal readership, writing process technique, writing tip
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Saturday, February 4th, 2012
© 2012 Rose Muenker
When you have everything in place for a session of writing yet you can’t get into the flow, take a look at where you are your writing. Check to see if the setting is conducive to writing. Specifically, check to see if your surroundings support or detract from your method for getting into and sustaining a focused writing session.
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.
Tags: where you write, writing location, writing process technique, writing setting, writing space, writing tip
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Monday, January 30th, 2012
© 2012 Rose Muenker
Have you noticed how easy it is for other “priorities” to push your writing project to the bottom of your To Do list? Yes, you want to write the novel that has buzzed around in your head for the past year. Yes, you want to publish two blog posts a week and get your ezine out on schedule. But somehow you just don’t get around to them, or when you do, you’re under such pressure that your creative juices run dry.
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.
Tags: schedule writing appointments, writing process technique, writing tip
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Saturday, January 28th, 2012
© 2012 Rose Muenker
When someone asks you about the novel or how-to book you’re writing, can you describe it in a sentence or two? How about your blog or the special report you offer as a gift for subscribing to your email list? Can you describe what they are about in just a few sentences?
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.
- 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.
- Keeps you on track. When your writing detours into tangential subjects, rereading the theme statement brings you back on course.
- 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.
Tags: how to write theme statement, know your theme, theme statement, writing process technique, writing tips
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