Posted by qpen on August 30, 2009
Previously, we discussed Keeping an Idea Book and Writing In A Journal FreeWriting, Brainstorming, Mapping, Incubation, Shaping and Grouping Ideas , Topic Sentences and Knowing How To Outline – today we will be discussing:
Fighting Writers Block
I know this discussion was going to be about Drafting and Revising, however, I felt it necessary to first give some tips on fighting writers block.
If you ever have trouble getting started when the time arrives for drafting (or any other part of the writing process), you are not alone.
When experienced writers get stalled, they recognize what is happening and deal with it. If you run into a writing block, it may be helpful to remember these points:
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Avoid staring at a blank page or screen. Relax and move your hand across the page or keyboard. Write words, scribble, or draw while you think about your topic. The movement of filling paper or computer screen can help stimulate your mind to turn to actual drafting.
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Visualize yourself writing. Many professionals say they write more easily if they first picture themselves doing it.
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Picture an image or a scene, or imagine a sound that relates to your topic. Start writing by describing what you see or hear.
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Write about your topic in a letter to a friend. Relax and chat on paper to someone you feel comfortable with
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Try writing your material as if you were someone else. Once you take on a role, you might feel less inhibited about writing
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Start in the middle. Begin with a body paragraph. Write from the center of your project out, instead of beginning to end.
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Switch your method of writing. If you usually typewrite or use a computer, try writing by hand. If you usually use a pen, switch to a pencil. When you write by hand, try to treat yourself to a good quality paper. The pleasure of writing on smooth, strong paper helps many experienced writers want to keep going.
As you write, seek out places and times of the day that encourage you to write. You might write best in a quiet corner of the library; at 4:30 a.m. At the kitchen table before anyone else is awake; or outside when people are walking by.
Most experienced writers find that they concentrate best when they are alone, working without the risk of interruption. But occasionally, background noise-in a crowded cafeteria for example-might be comforting.
Be sure however, not to mislead yourself: You will not write well or efficiently while you are talking to other people, stopping now and then to jot down a sentence or two.
Also, do not mistake delaying tactics for preparation. You do need pencil and paper (or their equivalent) to write, but you do not need fifteen perfectly sharpened pencils sitting in a neat row.
Next time, we will be discussing: Drafting and Revising.
If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
Posted by qpen on August 18, 2009
Previously, we discussed Keeping an Idea Book and Writing In A Journal FreeWriting, Brainstorming, Mapping, Incubation, and Shaping and Grouping Ideas and Topic Sentences, this time we will be discussing:
Knowing How To Outline
Many writers find outlining a useful planning strategy. If you are working from an outline and make changes in organization as you write, be sure to revise your outline at the end.
An outline helps pull together the results of gathering and ordering ideas and preparing your work. It also provides a visual checklist for your formal or informal outline.
Some writers always use outlines, others prefer not to. Writers who do like outlines use them at various points in their writing process.
For example:
- They may use them before drafting
- They may use them to arrange material
- They may use them during drafting
- Or to keep track of evolving material
- Or while revising to check the logic of an early draft’s organization
Writers who use outlines find that they can clearly reveal flaws such as:
- Missing information
- Undesirable repetition
- Or other digressions from their topic
Outlines can come in different formats:
- Formal outlines
- Informal outlines
Informal Outline:
Outlining using your computer, you can quickly read what you have written, put a symbol near what seems most important-then look over the parts and copy them to your text so you can see them grouped together.
You can shuffle them into several different orders such as:
- Does it matter which part comes first, second, third, and so on”
- Are the parts equally important, or do some seem subordinate to others?
Indenting the subordinate parts to make a rough outline will help tremendously.
Formal Outline
A formal outline follows conventions concerning content and format. The conventions are designed to display material so that relationships among ideas are clear and so that the content is orderly.
A formal outline can be a Topic Outline or a Sentence Outline.
Each item in a Topic Outline is a word or phrase
Each item in a Sentence Outline is a complete sentence.
Formal Outlines never mix the two.
Many writers who use formal outlines find that a sentence outline brings them closer to drafting than a topic outline does.
For example: A topic outline carries less information with the item “Gathering Information” than does a sentence outline with the corresponding term “Gathering information is the first step to being well prepared.”
Formal Outline Guidelines:
1. Numbers, letters, and indentations signal groupings and levels of importance
2. Each level has more than one entry
3. All subdivisions are at the same level of generality
4. Headings do not overlap
5. Entries are grammatically parallel
6. Only the first word of each entry and proper nouns are capitalized
7. Periods and each sentence in a Sentence Outline but not the items in a Topic Outline
8. The introductory and concluding paragraphs are omitted
Next time we will be discussing: Drafting and Revising
If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
Posted by qpen on July 27, 2009
Previously, we discussed Keeping an Idea Book and Writing In A Journal FreeWriting, Brainstorming, and Mapping, today we will be discussing:
Incubation
When you allow your ideas to Incubate, you give them time to grow and develop. Incubation works especially well when you need to solve a problem in your writing
(for example, if material is too thin and needs expansion, if material covers too much and needs pruning, or if connections among your ideas are not clear for your reader).
Time is a key element for successful incubation. Arrange your time to make sure that you will not be interrupted.
You need time to think, to allow your mind to wander, and then to come back and focus on the writing. Sometimes incubating an idea overnight permits sleep to help you discover or clarify an idea.
One helpful strategy is to turn attention to something entirely different from your writing problem. Concentrate very hard on that entirely different matter so that your conscious mind is totally distracted from the writing problem.
After awhile, relax and guide your mind back to the writing problem you want to solve. Another strategy is to allow your mind to relax and wander, without concentrating on anything special.
Open you mind to random thoughts, but do not dwell on any one thought very long. After awhile, guide your mind back to the writing problem you are trying to solve.
When you come back to the writing problem, you might see solutions that did not occur to you before.
Next time we will be discussing: Shaping and Grouping Ideas
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If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
Posted by qpen on
Previously, we discussed Keeping an Idea Book and Writing In A Journal FreeWriting, and Brainstorming, today we will be discussing:
Mapping
Mapping, also called clustering, webbing, or mind mapping, similar to brainstorming is more visual and less linear. Many writers find that mapping frees them to think more creatively by associating ideas more easily.
To map, start with your topic circled in the middle of a sheet of unlined paper, or a blank document on the computer. Next, draw a line radiating out from the center and label it with the name of a major subdivision of your topic.
Circle it and from that circle radiate out to more specific subdivisions. When you finish with one major subdivision of your subject, go back to the center and strt again with another major division.
As you go along, add anything that occurs to you for any section of the map. Continue the process until you run out of ideas.
Mapping can also be used like a subject tree to lay out the logical relationships of ideas to each other.
But many writers seem to prefer to use mapping for discovering ideas already known but not remembered. Use the techniques that suit you best.
Next time we will be discussing: Incubation
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If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
Posted by qpen on
Previously, we discussed Keeping an Idea Book and Writing In A Journal and FreeWriting, today we will be discussing:
Brainstorming
Brainstorming means listing all the ideas that come to mind associated with at topic. The ideas can be listed as words, phrases, or even random sentences
Let your mind range freely, generating quantities of ideas before eliminating some. You can brainstorm in one concentrated session or over several days, depending on how much time is available.
Brainstorming has two steps:
- You make a list, and then you try to find patterns in the list
- You then group your list into categories
Set aside any items that do not fit into groups. If an area interests you but its list is thin, brainstorm on that area also.
If you run out of ideas, ask yourself questions to stimulate your thinking. You might try exploratory questions about the topic, such as:
- What is it
- What is it the same as
- How is it different
- Why or how does it happen
- How is it done
- What caused it or results from it
- What does it look, smell, sound, feel or taste like
These are called Journalists Questions and by using them forces you to approach a topic from several different perspectives.
Next time we will be discussing: Mapping
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If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
Posted by qpen on
Techniques for gathering ideas, sometimes called prewriting strategies or invention techniques, can help you discover how much you know about a topic before you decide to write about it..
Do you find yourself worrying that you have nothing to write about? Often, you know far more than you give you give yourself credit for. The challenge is to uncover what is there but seems not to be.
Let me explain: As you use the various techniques I am about to explain, find out which work best for you and your style of thinking.
No one technique of generating ideas always works for all topics. Experiment. If one method does not provide enough useful material, try another. Also, even if one strategy produces some good material, try another to turn up additional possibilities.
As you use idea-gathering techniques, do not delete material. You never know what you might want later. Save everything on your computer in a “working” or “writing” folder so that you can retrieve it quickly when you are ready to decide which material you might use and in what order.
Keeping an idea book and writing in a journal
Your ease with writing will grow as you develop the habits of mind that typify writers. Professional writers are always on the lookout for ideas to write about and for details to develop their ideas. They listen, watch, talk with people, and generally keep their minds open.
Many writers carry an Idea Book – a pocket size notebook – to jot down ideas that spring to mind. Good ideas can melt away like snowflakes. Use an idea book throughout your daily comings and goings and watch your powers of observation increase.
Many writers, both amateur and professional write in a Journal. Keeping a journal gives you the chance to have a conversation on paper with yourself.
Fifteen minutes a day can be enough-before going to bed, on a bus, etc. you are your audience, so the content and tone can be as personal and informal as you wish.
Unlike a diary, a journal is no merely for listing what you did that day. A journal is for your thoughts. You can draw your reading, your observations, your dreams.
You can respond to quotations, react to movies or plays, or think through your opinions, beliefs, and tastes. Writing is a way of discovering, of allowing thoughts to emerge as the physical act of writing moves along.
Keeping a journal can help you in three ways,
- First – writing every day gives you the habit of productivity. The more you write, the more you get used to the feeling of words pouring out of you onto paper or computer. Thus the easier it will be for you to write in all situations.
- Second – a journal instills the habit of close observation and thinking
- Third – a journal serves as an excellent source of ideas when you need to write in response to a client request or have another type of writing assignment.
Next time we will discuss: Freewriting
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If you would like information on marketing your articles or online business, please visit my other site: UMarketingU.com where you will find marketing ideas, hints and tips. Up to the minute information for your online and offline marketing!
You can connect with me via social media sites at – Facebook – Twitter – LinkedIn – Hellotxt – Dipity.com and Stumble Upon. If you are not signed up…they are free…you will meet a lot of other marketers to communicate with and possibly JV with. Social Networking is on fire right now, so be sure to use it. Note: with Hellotxt.com and Dipity.com you can update all your social sites! I look forward to being “social” with you!
