Quick Writing Tips

Wasting Time Searching For the Mot Juste

2012-02-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

At what point does it become a waste of time to search for the perfect word?

I spend an embarrassingly large amount of time choosing words in the posts here at QWT. I send each post through multiple edit cycles--each time stripping them down, and selecting, changing and eliminating words. I keep editing until the ideas behind each post are in the clearest form possible.

Don't waste your time like I do. Yes, you should edit your work. But don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Don't let editing and agonizing over word choice delay you from putting your ideas out in front of your audience. Build your body of work first and get it out in the open, even if some portions aren't flawlessly phrased. You can always improve them later.

The point is to get writing, to finish things, and put them out there. And then to learn from the process and improve. Don't wait.

Greed

2012-01-29T11:11:00.000-08:00

We don't normally think of writers as greedy types. But rest assured, they can be every bit as greedy as any Wall Street banker.

Writers can be greedy for other peoples' success. They can be jealous of colleagues who have great book deals. They can be envious of writers with more talent. They can be greedy for critical acclaim, or greedy for the respect of their peers.

They can be greedy by always needing more fans, readers, pageviews, ad clicks, inbound links, search traffic, likes, +1's or whatever other pointless metric that supposedly measures your worth as an online writer.

There's literally no limit to the forms greed can take in writing. You can be greedy by expecting success without having to work for it. You can have delusions of grandeur about the quality of your work, and greedily think you've arrived as a writer--even though you still suck.

You can be greedy by giving up after a few failures or rejections. After all, if your writing career was meant to be, it would have been easier, right? Right?

Worst of all, you can be greedy for ideas and plagiarize material, something we've sadly seen from fallen authors like Chris Anderson, Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin.

At least Wall Street's greed is predictable, and it takes just one form: the desire for money.

No One Reads Past a Crappy First Sentence

2012-01-25T11:11:00.000-08:00

Try for good, strong first sentences.
--Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

Back in 1986 when Natalie Goldberg wrote this, the internet wasn't even a gleam in Al Gore's eye. Today, thanks to Gore's brilliant invention, our collective patience and attention span is a tiny fraction of what it used to be.

That's why, with today's readers, everything rides on your first sentence. Everything. Forget "good" and "strong." If your first sentence isn't amazing, nobody will read you. And it's a dead certainty that no one will wade through several paragraphs of boring text to try and figure out what your point is.

That's why the single best thing you can do to attract today's readers is to strip out everything extraneous. Words, sentences, paragraphs, everything. Get to the point, and make getting there interesting. Write so your readers will want to follow along.

Otherwise they'll leave and never come back.

On the Need for Quiet Time

2012-01-22T11:11:00.000-08:00

If you can't find a time and a place in your current environment where you can concentrate and reflect, you will never arrive at any truly creative ideas.

You simply can't spend your days running from activity to activity, from errand to errand, and expect to come up with anything interesting. And even if just by luck you do come up with something creative, you'll need quiet time to figure out how to express it well.

What I'm about to say is perhaps the single most important piece of advice in this entire blog: If you want to be a writer, you must create extensive quiet space in your schedule. Furthermore, you must also create a physical space in your home where you can use that quiet time. Make that place and this time as important as anything else in your life.

This includes protecting your quiet time from self-induced interruptions, especially from internet-based distractions. That means turning off Skype, Facebook, email, chat, online games or anything else that might tempt you into wasting your precious time.

This quiet, uninterrupted time--and the workspace you've created to use that time--are by far your most valuable assets as a writer. Protect them.

What The Hell Do I Know? Fearing You Lack Expertise

2012-01-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

I often see would-be bloggers and writers held back by the fear that they lack expertise. They believe they don't know enough about a subject to write about it.

This is exactly backwards. When I started my food blog Casual Kitchen, I knew nothing. Just a few ideas about how to cook easy, inexpensive meals at home. And I had no idea how staggeringly obvious these ideas were until much later.

That was the full extent of my expertise when I started my own food blog.

Over the next few years however, I began writing about more aspects of food. I slowly and tentatively pushed into new areas. I started discussing food philosophy, addressing ethical issues surrounding food, and I even wrote about how to invest in the food industry. Some of these posts were failures, but some turned out tolerably well. And of course the entire point is the act of writing about things I didn't know taught me what I needed to know.

I am now a minor authority in the world of food blogs because I wrote all of that content. I stumbled through it ignorantly. And now, ironically, I more or less know what I'm talking about.

"Not knowing" is the reason why you should write, not a reason you shouldn't.

On Being Kind To Yourself

2012-01-15T11:11:00.000-08:00

If you aren't kind to yourself, you ain't gonna last long as a writer.

This is a subject that deeply resonates with me, because I'm convinced that almost all of my writing sucks. And when you're convinced your writing sucks, well, not only are you not being kind to yourself, you're pretty much guaranteeing yourself a life of misery and inadequacy.

What's all the more shocking is how incredibly easy is it to make utterly false, unfair and cruel comparisons with our writing. We compare ourselves, unreasonably, to history's greatest authors. We compare ourselves unfairly to well-known authors who employ teams of editors to help them punch up their prose.

Worst of all, we compare ourselves to ourselves. To an ideal that we may never reach, or to the best writing that we wrote in our past. And so on.

Are any of these comparisons fair? Or logical? Can everything you write be the best thing you ever wrote?

Don't suffer needlessly. Be more kind to yourself than that.

The Fundamental Insecurity of All New Writers

2012-01-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

You talk constantly at Quick Writing Tips about how we should strip down and simplify our writing. But won't I lose style points if my writing is too stripped down? Won't I sound--I don't know--too simple?

This, in a nutshell, is the fundamental insecurity of most new writers. New writers are afraid to say what they really want to say, so they cloak it in complex prose. It seems more impressive, more intelligent--and there's comfort and safety in that.

Except that your "comfort" comes at the expense of your readers. After all, they're the ones forced to decipher what you should have said more simply.

Rather comforting your ego and worrying about whether you sound too simple, worry about this instead: if you strip down your language and discover your ideas aren't all that insightful after all, wouldn't you rather know that before you click publish?

Now, at least, you can work on the right thing: improving your ideas until they're ready for public consumption.

How Fancy Should My Writing Be?

2012-01-08T11:11:00.000-08:00

When writing fails to communicate it's usually an act of omission. In other words, it's the things we don't do--when we fail to edit sentences carefully, or fail to clarify an awkwardly phrased idea--that cause our meaning to be unclear.

Sometimes, however, poor communication is an act of commission. A common example is when writers deliberately impede their readers with complex sentences and fancy, florid language.

Are you trying to sound extra smart? Or is what you've written just not all that insightful, and you're trying to hide that fact behind lots of big words?

I've been as guilty as anyone. When I look over my writing from my university days, all I see are semicolons and compound sentences written by a painfully insecure and intellectually arrogant English Lit student. The idea of using simple, declarative sentences was laughable to me back then. Or more likely terrifying.

Have the confidence to say what you want to say with less. Strip things out. Don't hide your ideas behind ornate prose. Let your ideas show themselves.

Don't make your readers work to understand you. Make it impossible for them not to understand you.

Meaning to Write

2012-01-04T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'd love to write but...

I don't have time,
I have kids,
I have a really hard job that takes up a lot of hours each day,
I spend too much time watching TV or looking at Facebook (congrats on your honesty).

Go ahead and feel free to use any or all of these reasons for not writing. Except for that last one, they are all excellent excuses.

I'm totally serious. Go right ahead. You can even use a whiny tone of voice if you like.

But please, admit to yourself the real truth: you actually don't want to write. If you really wanted to write, you'd write.

You don't really want to write. Accept it. Or else prove me wrong.

The next time you reflexively make an excuse for not doing something you've always wanted to do, please think about this post.

QWT Is Taking a Short Break

2011-12-25T11:11:00.001-08:00

Quick Writing Tips is taking a short break for the holidays. I'll be back with a brand new post on Sunday, January 4th.

In the meantime, enjoy this list of 2011's best and most popular posts here at QWT. Enjoy!

The Top Dozen of 2011:

1) A First Draft That Sucks

2) Pissing Your Life Away On People Who Are Wrong

3) Two Simple Steps To a Steady Writing Habit

4) How to Deal With Self-Doubt

5) An Easy Technique to Heighten Your Authority in Informal Writing

6) Four Ways to Reach a Flow State for Writing

7) How Do I Know if I Have Enough Ideas to Sustain My Blog?

8) Maintaining an Effective Writing Schedule

9) How to Handle Negative Comments

10) Bias (see also: More on Biases and Fallacies)

11) Excuses For An Unimaginative Life

12) Why Reading the Newspaper (Literally) Makes You Ignorant and Broke

Want More Ideas? Change Your Setting

2011-12-21T11:11:00.000-08:00

Even if you've succeeded in creating an ideal space for writing in your home, there are times when you'll need a change of scenery to feed your creativity.

Take your laptop to a local coffee shop, or try working in your local library. Watch the people there, pen in hand. Look for dialog ideas, new character tics and traits. Watch young people and old, housewives and businesspeople. Watch the scruffy screenwriter dude on the other side of the room--yep, the guy who's doing the same thing you are.

Or take a spiral notebook and a pen to a private and idyllic place outdoors. Sit alone on the grass and soak in the inspiration. Nothing puts your mind into a creative and eloquent state like the natural world.

If you're looking for new ideas, inspiration--or better still, character ideas--sometimes you just have to get out of the house. Look for new ways to see things, and it will help you find different ways to say things.

One last point: you might find that the place where you're most productive isn't your home at all! Better to find this out sooner rather than later. This is why it's important to tinker with your setting every so often.

Don't Let Your Ideas Die With You

2011-12-18T11:11:00.000-08:00

What if I fail? What if my writing is boring and nobody is interested in reading it? Or worse, what if people read my ideas and laugh?

I've heard dozens of writers and wannabe writers ask various versions of these questions, all oblivious to the irrelevance of what they were asking.

Your internal hangups about failure, and your worries about being embarrassed have nothing to do with the quality of your writing or of your ideas. Nothing.

What good are your ideas if you refuse to share them? Don't lose the opportunity to expose your ideas to a broad range of readers for fear of a little criticism or embarrassment. And please remember, the simple act of regularly completing articles, poems, short stories, or any kind of writing and putting those works out there is exactly what helps you improve your craft.

It has never been easier to put your work out into the public domain, and there are several blogging platforms, from WordPress to Blogger to Tumbler to LiveJournal, that are free and laughably easy to use.

Sure, go ahead, worry about looking dumb or being embarrassed. Hide your ideas. Gradually, they'll fade away and disappear. They'll be forgotten. And so will you.

Seriously, what kind of doofus would choose that option?

Don't let your ideas die with you. Put them out there, come what may.

I'd like to extend a grateful thank you to Irene Kehler at Loving Vancouver for inspiring this post.

Supporting Yourself While You Write

2011-12-14T11:11:00.000-08:00

A big problem with writing for a living is how hilariously little money you make. An example: my wage as a writer over the past three years averages out to maybe $0.50 an hour.

Unless you're both incredibly lucky and talented, you're not going to make much money in this business. And so it's a simple and obvious reality that you'll have to think carefully about how, exactly, you will support yourself as a writer.

And how you respond to this specific problem will say a lot about your determination to write. Will you use it as an excuse or as a delaying tactic, and allow a solvable problem to keep you from achieving your goals?

Or will you choose solutions? Will you ruthlessly reduce your expenses so you don't need as much money? Or ruthlessly reduce your other commitments so you can create time to write in addition to your job that pays the bills?

Best of all: How about using a combination of both of these tactics to get yourself in a financial position where you can reduce your paid work obligations and dedicate still more time to writing?

Don't let money be just another thing stopping you. Solve the problem creatively and constructively, and get back to work.

Meaningless Existential Writing Questions

2011-12-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

What should I write about? Why do I write? Am I a good writer? What am I doing trying to be a writer? What does it all mean?

Okay, on some level these questions have meaning. But then again, they don't. They're just pointless questions that delay and distract you from sitting down to write. And that just delays and distracts you from the practice you will need to become a better writer.

Less talk, more write. Stop asking unanswerable questions that interfere with your writing. And with all that extra writing time you'll free up by not asking so many existential questions, you might improve to the point where the "am I a good writer?" question becomes irrelevant.

What do you do when you're cornered and dispirited by these thoughts and questions? Use them. Channel them into writing. Write about your fear and emptiness, write about all your struggles with writing. Use these topics for practice. And improve.

Excessive Detail

2011-12-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

"In 1788, when Andrew Jackson, then a young man of twenty-one years who had been living in the Carolinas, still a virgin country, came into Tennessee, a turbulent place of unknown opportunities, to enforce the law as the new prosecuting attorney, he had the necessary qualifications for the task."

This appalling paragraph, which I've brazenly stolen from the The Harbrace College Handbook, is a perfect example of how run-on sentences and excessive detail can destroy a reader's will to live.

At the risk of destroying my own readers' will to live, let's deconstruct this awful sentence in order to forever avoid writing in this way:

a young man of twenty-one years is both redundant and irrelevant.

who had been living in the Carolinas contains a compound verb--a no-no in good writing. Use who lived instead.

still a virgin country leaves me scratching my head. Why is this bizarre phrase even included? What does it mean? Most importantly, who cares?

The phrase a turbulent place of unknown opportunities ought to be in a photograph next to the dictionary entry for purple prose. Delete it.

to enforce the law as the new prosecuting attorney is also redundant, although fortunately not entirely irrelevant. As the new prosecuting attorney is sufficient.

he had the necessary qualifications for the task should be replaced with he was qualified.

Let's look at the book's corrected version, which is better but still terrible:

In 1788, when Andrew Jackson came into Tennessee as the new prosecuting attorney, he had the necessary qualifications for the task.

Yes, this version is vastly improved. It's tighter, it uses the rule of three with some modest effect, and it contains less irrelevant and redundant information. I didn't lose my will to live after reading it. However, it's still boring, and it contains pointlessly trivial information.

Which leads me to the most important insight of all: please have mercy on your readers, and don't subject them to bland and boring writing that provides no value.

Wanting What You Have

2011-12-04T11:11:00.000-08:00

You have the writing talent you have, and you have the skill level you have. And at this moment, you have the technical capabilities that you have.

You have to be grateful for this, while at the same time you have to be hungry enough to keep practicing in order to improve. People don't come out of the womb writing like Hemingway. Therefore, don't be greedy--or insecure--about your current abilities. Be grateful for them, accept them, and work with them. Use them. And improve them, relentlessly.

PS: Yes this is a blog about writing, but you can apply this idea to any discipline: painting, singing, dancing, running, tennis, yodelling. Nobody comes out of the womb yodelling or playing tennis like Hemingway either.

The exceptional book How To Want What You Have inspired this post.

Awful Sentences

2011-11-30T11:11:00.000-08:00

Not without reason is it said that no one who is not conscious of having a sound memory should set up to be a liar.

--"On Liars" from Michel Montaigne's Essays.

I crashed into this awful sentence last year while reading Montaigne's Essays. I've gone over it more than fifteen times and I still haven't a clue what it means.

I don't care if Montaigne is one of the 16th Century's greatest thinkers. What kind of douchebag uses two double negatives in the same sentence? How could anyone do this to their readers and keep a clear conscience?

Write like this at your peril. I don't care how smart you think you are, no one should have to waste their time and mental bandwidth deciphering your writing. Go over every single one of your sentences and make sure each says exactly what you mean it to say. And then do it again to catch the sentences that you missed the first time.

No reader should be abused by arrogant sentences like this.

Why Your Books are Worthless

2011-11-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

What is the value of a book sitting on your bookshelf?

In my opinion, it has no value whatsoever. None.

Honestly, are you really going to reread it? You might answer a genuinely truthful yes for 5% of your books. Perhaps the real reading nerds out there could say the same for 10% of their books.

That means the vast majority of us could give away 90-95% of our books and never miss them.

Think of the waste that implies. Hundreds of books in your home, pointlessly collecting dust, going unread for years. Or decades.

It gets worse. The books on your shelf aren't just going unread by you--no one else is reading them either. Roll that over in your mind for a moment. When a book sits on a shelf and collects dust, the insights in that book are lost to everyone. Wouldn't those books have considerably more value if they were in someone else's hands?

That's yet another reason to give them away.

Bulletproof Excuses

2011-11-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

Do you have kids? Go ahead and feel free to use them as an excuse for never writing. Nobody will second guess you. Hey, your kids have to come first, right?

Do you have a stressful, time-consuming job? Yep, you can use that as an excuse for not writing too. It's an excellent excuse. It makes you seem hard-working, and everyone will understand how you're just too worn out at the end of the day to write anything.

Hey, and if you have kids and a stressful job, you can combine them into a bulletproof excuse for not writing. Nobody will ever call you out on that one. You'll seem so responsible, with all your priorities lined up perfectly.

All you have to do is come up with one or two conveniently bulletproof excuses that no one will criticize. Yep, go right ahead: silence that tiny part of your brain that's still trying to get you to be a writer, an artist, a musician, a poet, dancer, composer, or any of a million important art forms that are far more important than your unremarkable, and poorly organized, day-to-day life.

Well done.

Don't Be So Hard On Yourself

2011-11-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

There's only thing worse than wasting time: wasting still more time worrying about the time you've already wasted.

You simply cannot afford to tolerate beating yourself up--over your writing, over your work ethic, over the fact that you procrastinated all day today. That time is gone. Don't waste any more time worrying about time you'll never get back.

Instead, take those pointless minutes you would have spent being angry at yourself, and start something new. Just write a few bad sentences. There might be an insight there, a germ of a good blog post or short story. You never know.

Sure, there also might be nothing of value at all in what you've just written. Whatever. At least you've pulled yourself out of a cycle of self-criticism. Give yourself credit for that, and keep writing.

The Em Dash

2011-11-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

How often do you use the em dash in your writing?

If you use it, you most likely overuse it. And at my food blog Casual Kitchen, I'm as guilty as anyone. What's worse, I don't even use the official punctuation--I never did figure out the CTRL+SHIFT+something combination to make an official em dash--so I substitute two hyphens instead.

Think of the dash as a comma--on steroids. It indicates a longer pause than a comma--a more substantial break between ideas. You can use it to set off a clause or a parenthetical thought--but a with more emphatic break than you'd get by using mere commas.

What's the problem--the real problem--with the em dash? It's this--when you emphasize everything, you emphasize nothing. And therefore your impact--if your writing had any to begin with--is ruined.

Pissing Your Life Away On People Who Are Wrong

2011-11-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

We will never run out of people who are wrong on the internet. Never.

And if you find yourself spending too much time debating (or worse, correcting) other peoples' views and statements on Facebook, Twitter or elsewhere, the solution has to begin with you.

You are wrong.

You are wrong to allow yourself to get angry or distracted about political or social issues--even issues you feel incredibly strongly about. Why? Because your anger distracts you from your own creative pursuits.

You are wrong to engage in pointless one-on-one discussions when you can apply that time to writing something that could impact hundreds, thousands--or even millions--of readers.

Unless these conversations specifically further your personal creative pursuits, they are nothing more than pointless writing exercises. They don't hone your craft, they distract you from your dreams.

Trust me, I'd give nearly anything to have back all the hours I've wasted repeatedly relearning this lesson.

Train yourself to avoid arguments and debates. Tune them out. Save your mental energy and channel it into more meaningful activities. Don't allow yourself to be distracted.

Snark Kills

2011-11-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

Have you ever watched TV shows like The Best One-Hit Wonders of the 80s, Worst Celebrity Breakups, or other shows featuring people making snarky comments about content created by others?

Why do these show grab viewers? Because they satisfy two of humanity's guiltiest pleasures: nostalgia and making fun of things. These shows combine both and spoon-feed them to viewers. After a while, though, it becomes painfully clear how empty this content really is. It's all snark. And snark isn't creative or original, it's imitative. And destructive.

It's so much much easier to create derivative content with a snarky tone than it is to create inspiring, original work. And today, with a media driven to create cheap and easily-made content that grabs viewers, snark is everywhere. Worse, it is impacting our culture in every way.

Look across all of history's greatest books or history's greatest movies. You won't find a single example of snark. Why do you think that is?

Don't be tempted. Don't settle for sarcastic meta-content. Create something original instead.

Avoiding Compound Verbs

2011-11-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Compound verbs aren't always bad, but they can lead to wordy and limp writing. Here's a particularly egregious example:

If he had cheated on his exam, he wouldn't have been able to graduate from college when he had wanted to.

This sentence does three things wrong. First, half of the words are unnecessary. Second, readers will stumble over each compound verb form. Third, the "if/then" nature of the sentence makes it unclear what is actually happening.

To fix this sentence, replace each compound verb with a one-word verb:

If he had cheated changes to He cheated
he wouldn't have been able to changes to he couldn't
he had wanted to changes to he wanted

The final change I'd recommend is to change the entire sentence from a hypothetical event to an actual event, which will eliminate the distracting "if/then" structure. Remember, hypothetical things don't really happen, and your readers will stumble when you force them to consider, simultaneously, two possible versions of reality.

Instead, just give them one version in the simple past tense. It will be simpler, clearer and far more forceful:

He cheated. And couldn't graduate from college.

Yes, the original sentence had more nuance and a different meaning. It's more qualified. But qualified writing bores and has no backbone. Writing should never be hypothetical.

Impressionistic vs. Fact-Based Criticism

2011-11-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

There are two categories of critical comments you'll receive as a writer or blogger: impressionistic criticism and fact-based criticism.

The first kind is the worst. Impressionistic criticisms result when one of your readers has an attack of narcissism and asks "what does this mean to me?"

The most pathetic example of this kind of criticism is when a reader skims your post, takes one sentence from it and responds to that sentence only in the form of a scathing comment. Comments like these can be safely disregarded, or handled with a condescending response. My personal favorite is "please reread the post."

Fact-based criticisms, on the other hand, are an objective response to what you've written. A fact-based criticism is based on the reader asking "what does this mean objectively?" You should crave these types of criticisms because they help tighten up your future writing, and they help you make your arguments more coherent and compelling.

Narcissism can be found nearly everywhere these days, and it should never be tolerated. Make your readers respond to you on a factual level. Don't indulge them, especially if they refuse to use basic reading comprehension skills.

Once again:

Fact-based = What is it objectively?
Impressionistic = What is it to me?

Hey, Twitter May Not Be As Dumb As You Think!

2011-10-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, everybody mocks Twitter for being a black hole of narcissism. But I have a confession: using Twitter has taught me a surprising amount about writing.

Here's an example: when I tweet a link to one of my posts at Casual Kitchen, I build my tweet around one of the most forceful and engrossing lines from the article. I choose the best line from the post, a line that will grab readers and make them want to read.

But wait: if that one line is so forceful and engrossing, and if it really grabs readers, why didn't I lead with that line in the first place? This single insight has made me reshape and reconfigure countless articles.

Another example: How difficult is it to convey an insightful thought in 140 characters?

Forget all the truly vapid tweets (e.g., Look everybody @ what I 8 2day! So delish!). What I'm talking about is how to ask a provocative question or make a provocative statement that invites similarly provocative responses.

You have to boil down your thoughts severely, use carefully selected words that are clear (and short), and limit the scope of what you say to a bare minimum.

Imagine if we were to edit everything we write with that same discipline and care.

These are two extremely useful ideas I've learned from Twitter. What about you?

Keeping At It

2011-10-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Most of my posts are stupid.
My content isn't good enough.
There's no way anything I write could be useful to anyone
Why do I even bother to post anything at all?
Nobody reads me.

Tell me you've never thought these thoughts and I'll tell you you're lying.

But here's another thought to consider: Did you know that everybody else out there thinks these thoughts too?

That's why most of the other bloggers out there will quit. They'll give up in a haze of frustration, discouraged that no one reads them and nothing they write matters.

But not you. You will keep at it. You will take advantage of the fact that nobody reads you, and use that window of obscurity to practice your craft. And when you do get noticed, you'll be ready with truly great material.

Writing With Emotion, Writing Without Emotion

2011-10-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

How do you write emotionally about a subject, but yet distance yourself from that emotion so you can state your ideas clearly and cogently?

This question comes from a fellow writer who runs an exceptional blog about domestic violence. Most of what she writes comes from a place of strong emotion. She writes about her experience escaping an abusive relationship, she shares private and intense aspects of her emotional life, and she shares advice for readers in similar situations who are looking for help and guidance.

Strong emotions inspire us, and they can create in us an irresistible compulsion to write. And one of the great wonders of writing is how the words simply flow out of us when we're in a deeply emotional state.

But here's the problem: persuasive arguments, rich vivid prose and well-crafted sentences--the things that enable your readers to understand and embrace your ideas--are created from a place of calm logic, not from a place of emotion.

This is one of the most difficult and counterintuitive aspects of writing. You can compose text while emotional, but you should never edit and perfect that text until you can approach it objectively.

And that's where time comes in. Let your text rest for a while: a day, several days, or in rare instances, weeks. That passing time enables you to step back and carefully assess the strengths and weakness of what you've written, and to make corrections and adjustments as needed.

Yes, this sounds cold and logical. But remember, your primary task is to reach your readers. You must communicate your ideas and feelings in the clearest possible way, so your readers can feel your emotions too.

This post is gratefully dedicated to Taz at Climb the Rainbow.

How To Improve Your Reading Speed, Comprehension and Recall

2011-10-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a quick and easy exercise you can do before you read that will significantly improve your reading speed, comprehension and recall:

Attention Exercise
Before you begin any reading task, close your eyes and take a deep breath.

With your eyes closed, spend 15-20 seconds thinking about these two questions:

What is my purpose for reading the item in front of me?
What goals do I want to achieve by reading this item?

This exercise not only relaxes and focuses your mind, it also puts you into an efficient and purposeful reading state.

A note to cynical readers: If you have a negative reaction to the idea of doing a brief exercise like this, or if you think doing this exercise might turn pleasure reading seem too much like work, I have a question for you: What is the point of reading something if you're just going to forget it?

How to Remember Everything You Read

2011-10-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

There's no greater waste of time than to read something... and then forget all about it.

What good are the ideas you get from books and articles if you can't remember them long enough to put them to use?

The techniques I'll share in this post have dramatically increased my ability to recall the concepts, ideas, facts and details of what I read. I hope you find them useful as well.

1) Keep a reading notebook to record each book you read.
Write down the title, author, a few key salient details about the book, and one or two sentences of what you liked or didn't like about it.

I keep a simple, inexpensive composition notebook in which I've recorded every one of the books I've read over the past fifteen years. Whenever I go back and look over the brief comments I've made on any book, all of the memories of the material come flooding back. Just a few minutes' effort of jotting down some key details of a book can practically guarantee you'll never forget it.

2) Review your reading notebook 3-4 times a year.
The simple act of writing down a few details about a book is valuable enough on its own, but it is the periodic review of these details that permanently engraves that book into your mind. I flip through my reading notebook about every three months, spending a few minutes reviewing my past few years' worth of reading. This minor exercise, which takes perhaps ten to fifteen minutes in total, literally burns your reading memories into your brain. Even after years have passed, you'll still be able to recall detailed information from the books you've read.

More importantly, this review process gives you a periodic opportunity to think about dozens of books across dozens of disciplines--and that means cross-fertilization opportunities. This will be the source of some of your best and most original ideas.

3) Start a reading blog.
Why not keep your reading notebook in virtual form by hosting it on a blog or on your website? Blogging can put in you in contact with other readers who can provide their own reactions to the books you've read, or provide you with ideas for further reading. These conversations will further nail down into your brain the memories of what you've read.

4) Take notes while you read newspapers and magazines.
Did you read the news this morning? Quick: tell me the key details of five articles.

The fact that this is a difficult task (and it's a difficult task for almost everyone) should be enormously disturbing to you. What greater waste of time is there to read something seemingly important--and then not have any idea what you read just hours later? How can that information ever be valuable to you?

No more wasting your time every morning. Instead, take notes when you read all newspapers and magazine. Yep, as silly as this sounds, take notes. You will increase your recall and your comprehension dramatically, and it will cost you a bare one or two minutes per article of extra time.

Which is more useful: spending 30 minutes reading the paper and vaguely remembering one or two articles two days later, or spending 40 minutes reading the paper and taking notes--and remembering almost everything?

5) Take notes while you're surfing the internet.
If you think your recall of information from newspapers and magazines is poor, you ain't seen nothing yet. Our recall of material on the internet is considerably worse. Perhaps it's the amuse-bouche nature of information on the internet, or the fact that our attention and mental focus are simply lower when staring at a computer screen, but we remember only a tiny fraction of the material we read on the internet. The rest? Gone and forgotten.

Here's another example where you can use a simple notebook to help you increase your recall by several orders of magnitude. Just jot down the author, title and one or two salient details. Note that this minor activity will provide a secondary benefit of showing you exactly how much non-directed websurfing you do.

One final note. If for whatever reason you're too sheepish or embarrassed to take notes while reading or surfing the web, please get over yourself. Your mind and memory are far more important than your ego.

A First Draft That Sucks

2011-10-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you're dreaming about someday writing a book, I have a trick question for you. I'm betting it will sound familiar to long-time QWT readers:

Which is better: a first draft that sucks, or an idealized first draft that doesn't exist?

Believe it or not, most people choose the latter. It's just... easier.

All new writers must embrace the ugly truth: most of their first draft writing will be terrible. And knowing this, they somehow must figure out a way to keep writing.

All first drafts suck. Get over it, adjust your expectations, and accept the truth of what you're doing: you are going to complete a first draft that sucks, and then you will revise and improve that draft until it doesn't suck.

Your expectations must remain low when writing first-draft copy. Stay grateful for whatever you write, regardless of quality, and don't put pressure on yourself.

Remember, writing that sucks can be improved. You can't do anything with writing that doesn't exist.

The Greatest Writing Lie of the Internet Era

2011-10-09T11:11:00.000-07:00

Your ideas are more important than grammar, spelling or typos.

This is the most arrogant statement ever made about writing.

How intellectually shoddy is it to make your readers stumble through grammatical errors and spelling mistakes? Do you think your credibility is so great that readers will overlook these?

Maybe that's why nobody reads you.

Ideas are of course important. But writers should never be so narcissistic to think that their readers should have to suffer to get to their ideas.

Don't confuse the insight here. No one says you must spend months copy-editing a blog post before publishing it. Infrequent, stray errors and typos are a normal and reasonable occurrence in all writing. The question is, how many typos are too many? At what point does poor grammar repel readers?

If you're at all unsure of the answers to these questions, make one more editing pass through your work. Then press publish.

Do the Research

2011-10-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

One of the key reasons Ernest Hemingway is a compelling author is because he writes with the authority of someone who was actually there.

The retreat and collapse of the Italian army in A Farewell To Arms (Hemingway's best novel in my view) was vivid because it contained a level of detail that could only come from an eyewitness. Likewise, The Old Man and The Sea and To Have and Have Not gained immeasurably thanks to his intimate knowledge of the people and environs of Cuba and Key West.

In short, Hemingway did his research. It may not have been "research" in the academic sense, but it was serious and deep research nonetheless.

Barbara Kingsolver also does immense research for her novels. In any other author's hands, The Poisonwood Bible would have been an overreach. The setting and historical backdrop--the Congo in the 1950s--would have been too exotic for almost all authors describe believably.

Kingsolver's research wasn't limited to place names and descriptions. She tied in contemporaneous political events, included vivid details on the flora and fauna, and even incorporated linguistic details into her story. Even her lesser-known works (Prodigal Summer comes to mind) contain agonizingly well-researched details on the insect and mammal life of Appalachia, all of which which add to the realism of her writing. I've read only four of her novels, but Kingsolver strikes me as the kind of author who has never taken a research shortcut in her life.

It goes without saying that you should never write about a subject unless you know it well. What's less obvious is even when you do know a subject well, you probably don't know it well enough.

Do your research, and then do more research. Just one mistake will reveal to your readers that you don't really know what you're talking about.

Wasting Your Sabbatical

2011-10-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

Unless some additional questions come in from readers, this will be my final writing sabbatical post. If you haven't yet seen the previous posts, they are here, here and here. Also, if you'd like me to address any specific issue or question related to this or any other topic, feel free to leave a comment or contact me by email.

Quick Writing Tips readers know that talk is cheap. Our habits, attitudes and actions are what have real currency.

So when it comes to taking a writing sabbatical, forget about what you say your plans are. What are you actually going to do during this potentially life-changing time?

Will you fall victim to procrastination? To distraction? How much of your sabbatical will you waste?

That's why it's so important to prepare. Create a clear plan. Set your writing goals in advance. Do a one-week dry run beforehand so you can get a sense of what your day-to-day life will look like. Think about the new habits you will want to build and the old habits you will want to break, and get started building or breaking them ahead of time.

And when your sabbatical begins, you'll be ready.

For many writers, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to fulfill a dream. Remember why you took this sabbatical in the first place: to write. Make the most of it.

My Own Sabbatical Simulation

2011-09-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

With all the recent posts here at QWT about writing sabbaticals, I thought readers might find value from my own experiences with a sabbatical simulation.

Those of you who know my background from reading Casual Kitchen know I retired from a 13-year Wall Street career in mid-2008. Essentially I was planning a permanent sabbatical, and I hoped to spend the majority of my post-Wall Street career writing.

Of course, it's one thing to dream about quitting your job to write. It's another thing entirely to figure out if you actually enjoy day-to-day rhythm of writing, every day, for hours at a time. So, about six months before my hoped-for quit date, I took a one-week vacation to "try out" my new life.

I even did a "pre-pre-sabbatical" the week before my week off: I spent a couple of days mapping out a realistic routine for each day, my goals for the week, how much material I might be able to write, and so on.

Also, in the days leading up to the week off, I took care of some minor household details so I could dedicate an even higher percentage of my time to writing. I took care of the monthly bills ahead of time. I did several days' worth of cooking. I even tried, with mixed success, to get a bit more sleep than usual in the days leading up to my week off.

I did all of these things so I could focus all of my energy and brainpower on writing.

And I learned a lot. It turned out that some of my writing goals were too ambitious, Others weren't ambitious enough. I became more mindful of some of my procrastination habits. And I discovered that I needed to do a better job resisting various sources of daytime distraction--a problem we solved by cancelling cable TV.

Thanks to this trial run of my sabbatical, I was able to discover (and more importantly, fix) most of these problems in advance. It saved me weeks of productive time once the real thing started.

Before Your Writing Sabbatical

2011-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

A quick suggestion for anyone looking to take a writing sabbatical. A few months before it begins, schedule a one week vacation and treat it like the first week of your actual sabbatical.

Consider it a sabbatical simulation--a dry run. Use it as a form of reconnaissance to help you figure out the most effective way to spend your days when the real thing starts.

Remember, a sabbatical is a precious thing. For many, it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to achieve your writing dreams. You must be ready to make the most of it. The last thing you want to do is waste valuable creative time navigating unexpected problems.

Set an ambitious writing schedule for your "dry run week" and see whether you stick to it. See how much you actually write, and then extrapolate from that to help you figure out reasonable writing output goals for your real sabbatical.

Also, use this week to test out other habits and practices that can maximize your effectiveness. For example, you might want to tweak your exercise schedule, your sleep schedule, your diet or your mealtimes.

Finally, find out what unexpected distractions you might face--and face them down now. Don't wait until it's too late to discover that you're the type of person who wastes time in direct proportion to the time you have to waste. Instead, conquer any time-wasting or procrastination habits before your sabbatical starts.

The research you do during your pre-sabbatical simulation could save you weeks--or months--of productivity when the real thing starts. Put yourself in a position to make the most of it!

How to Manage the Financial Side of Your Writing Sabbatical

2011-09-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few readers have asked for more thoughts on the financial impact of taking a writing sabbatical.

First of all, understand that money is extremely important--even to writers. For those of you who disagree, I recommend reading A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf. The blindingly obvious truth: you will need to save enough money in advance to pay all your expenses during any unpaid sabbatical leave.

If your response to this is a pathetic excuse like I don't have that much money, then you are not a writer. You are an excuse-maker.

Start saving. Save six, eight or twelve months' worth of expenses. Better yet, save even more, just in case you get too used to not working.

If your response is I can't save that much money, then once again you are not a writer. No one should take you seriously.

If you truly see yourself as a writer, then you should already understand the idea of simplifying your life to create time to write. Many of the activities that distract us from our writing (e.g., cable TV, shopping, buying and accumulating stuff) cost money, so cutting them out of your life has a dual benefit--it enables you to write more and it enables you to save more. (PS: feel free to substitute any activity that's important to you in place of the word "writing.")

Money is a tool. It empowers writers.

And your goal to save money so you can afford a sabbatical is just as important as what you write during it.

The Writing Sabbatical

2011-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

There are certain realities to modern professional life. Included among them is the truth that few of us have the mental bandwidth to handle more than one or two significant projects in our lives at any one time.

Thus it may not be a realistic option for you to try and take on a major writing project in your spare time while working at a time-consuming and draining job.

I guess you better forget about writing then--it's just not realistic. Yep, time to give up the dream.

Kidding!! Come on, readers of this blog know better than to give up that easily.

The solution is to take a sabbatical from your job.

Six months should be ideal--not only is it a standard sabbatical length, it's enough time to make an enormous dent in even the largest of writing projects.

And don't tell me your boss, or your spouse--or your bank account--won't let you take the time off. These aren't real reasons, they're excuses.

You are either a writer or you're not. Real writers don't tolerate excuse-making in themselves or in others. They shut up, set goals and write. Stop with the excuses and figure out a way to make it worth it for your boss and your colleagues to allow you to take time off.

And if you can't convince them, quit your job.

Finally, if you have a spouse or partner who won't "let you" take time off to write, perhaps you should seriously rethink that partnership. Should you tolerate a relationship with someone who isn't interested in helping you achieve your dreams?

The Importance of Blogs and Blogging

2011-09-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

"Blogs. They're so narcissistic."

Ironically, this statement is far more narcissistic than any blog could ever be.

Here's why: I have a friend who writes Climb The Rainbow, a blog about domestic violence. It's based on her personal experiences of being in--and eventually getting out of--an abusive relationship. This blog has changed peoples' lives, and in several instances it has directly helped people escape from abusive relationships.

Yep, blogs are narcissistic all right.

The exact opposite is true. Blogs connect people. They enable people to share experiences through writing--without the interference of the publishing industry. They help people find others facing similar problems and challenges.

And since blogs and blog comments can be anonymous, they help like-minded people discuss sensitive but important subjects that would otherwise be off-limits in the real world.

My friend with the domestic violence website wouldn't have been able to process and overcome her challenges without her blog. She wouldn't be able to share her story. And her readers would have suffered for it.

How can you help your readers when you write for your blog? How can you be a positive influence like this?

Wait, you don't have a blog? That's pretty narcissistic, don't you think?

This post is gratefully dedicated to Taz at Climb the Rainbow.

How to Deal With Self-Doubt

2011-09-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you're visiting this blog for uplifting, soul-raising advice on how to handle your self-doubts with writing, please do not read this post. You will be scarred for life.

For the rest of you, let me share three harsh truisms:

1) You are supposed to suck when you first start writing.

2) Your first drafts are supposed to suck, and almost all of them will.

3) Many of the things you will write in the future will still suck, no matter how good you get at writing.

This is just how it is. Expecting to write perfect copy at any stage of your creative process is delusional, and expecting not to struggle with this craft is narcissism. What's so special about you that you should deserve to have no difficulties writing?

Get used to sucking and get over yourself. You simply cannot allow self-doubt to stop you. You owe it to the world to say what you must say--and the world can just stick it if it doesn't like it.

An Easy Technique to Heighten Your Authority in Informal Writing

2011-09-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

You don't have to use a formal writing style to write with authority. Consider this passage from my food blog, Casual Kitchen:

Both meals are roughly equal in volume and have similar satiety factors, which means you could eat either one and feel equally full for about the same length of time. Yet one breakfast has nearly three times the calories of the other. Betcha can't guess which.

This passage has an extremely casual tone, and yet it still conveys a fair amount of authority. Why?

First, it's tightly written, with few needless words. Second, it teaches the reader something, albeit in a conversational manner.

But there's a third reason this passage sounds authoritative, and it centers around the verbal contrast of the technical-sounding phrase satiety factor and all of the casual-sounding writing around it.

That verbal contrast heightens the weight of the passage. The quick use of the term, immediately followed by a clear and brief definition, suggests the author has an easy and approachable confidence in his knowledge.

This is nothing more than a rhetorical device, but it works. You welcome the reader with your friendly tone, but then show your authority by explaining, in conversational English, complicated sounding concepts and terminology.

Look for this device in articles and in the media. It's a surprisingly common technique and it's easy to imitate.

And one final note to keep my readers cynical: please keep in mind that this is just a device. Just because a piece of writing conveys authority doesn't mean the author deserves it.

Making Your Readers Suffer For Sport

2011-09-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

One of the many divine paradoxes in our political formula is the double valence of democracy. This word, its declensions, its synonyms, carry positive associations well up in the sacred range. Deep in your medulla, warmth glows from everything democratic. Yet at the same time, we have a related family of words, such as politics and its declensions, which seem to mean exactly the same thing - yet reek of heinous brimstone.
--From the Unqualified Reservations blog

This is the lead paragraph of a post at a political philosophy blog. Stop laughing for a minute and tell me, in all seriousness, what's wrong with the above text?

I can arrive at at least three things, and if you see more examples, let 'er rip in the comments. Writing like this should not go unpunished.

1) Never use deliberately exclusionary language.
What could possibly be the purpose of using pretentious words like valence and declensions in the above passage other than for the writer to advertise his genius? Thanks Ezra Pound, you've convinced us you're really smart. But what are you saying?

2) Don't be incomprehensible.
Even an extremely intelligent reader, assuming he makes it past double valence, will need to read this passage at least four or five times before it will begin to make sense. If your readers even so much as slightly stumble while trying to understand you, you have failed to convey your ideas. What we've got here is a profound failure to communicate.

3) Don't make your readers suffer.
The first rule of writing is never make your readers suffer. The fact that this writer defies this rule so appallingly suggests that he may be a sadist.

Prose like this simply repels readers. Unless you enjoy being resented and unread, do not write this way.

Log Your Activities

2011-08-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

The biggest factor in your output as a writer isn't the amount of time you spend writing. It's how effectively you use your time.

Thus if you want to be a productive writer, you should have an accurate sense of how you spend that time.

That's where a daily time log comes in. By logging your time over a sample period of a few days or a week, you can find out precisely how you allocate the hours of your day.

You'll to be shocked by what you find. Most of us hold delusionally inaccurate perceptions of how we spend our days, and it's both sobering and exciting to see how much surplus time really have, especially when we deliberately reallocate it to more useful pursuits.

You'll also discover a wonderful side-benefit: the very act of logging your time causes you to be far less wasteful with it.

The process should be as simple as possible: Use a simple paper notebook or a text file on your computer, and record your activities in half hour chunks all day.

Do this exercise as accurately, honestly and dispassionately as you can. Record the time you spend on time-wasting activities as carefully as you record the time you spend on more important things. The point of this exercise is not to judge yourself--the point is to gather data to help you make the best possible use of your time.

Remember, what gets measured gets controlled. Measure your time and you'll control your destiny as a writer.

Noun Verbification

2011-08-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Don't tase me bro!

Sentences like this explain why grammarians suffer.

Of course, the verb to tase is a textbook example of a verbified noun. A strict grammarian would prefer shocked by a taser or subdued by a taser instead.

Unfortunately, both substitutes are wordy and unwieldy, and neither improves upon the original. It's also questionable whether tase is even incorrect. After all, common usage allows the words gunned and knifed, both of which are examples of verbified nouns.

So what's the rule? There isn't one--at least not a clear one that shows the boundary between proper grammar and sounding like a tool. You must rely on your own ear.

"Many nouns have lately been pressed into service as verbs. Not all are bad, but all are suspect."
--Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

What a First Draft Really Is

2011-08-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

A first draft is a piece of writing that sucks.

This is the most liberating insight of writing. When you find yourself getting hung up by your internal editor while you write, or when you feel discouraged while revising your first-draft prose, consider:

1) How delusional is it to expect flawless writing to burst forth from your brain on your first try?

2) Wouldn't it be unnatural if your work didn't need several editing passes before being ready for public viewing?

3) Why would you expect your first draft to be perfect, or even remotely good?

All first drafts suck. Get over it. And the next time you sit down to write, recognize the truth of what you're about to do: you are going to write a first draft that sucks.

Then shut up and write.

How to Craft a More Casual Tone In Your Writing

2011-08-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

The following brief passage from a personal development blog yields an excellent example of how to replace formal and stiff writing with a more casual and conversational tone:

Procrastination is a solution to a short-term problem, even if it is a bad solution. As long as we do not have a better solution we will stick with the one that we have.

This sentence is grammatically correct, but the formal tone and convoluted style simply isn't suitable for blogging. Consider something like the following instead:

Procrastination is a bad solution to a short-term problem. And until we find a better solution, we'll stick with the lousy one we have.

Notice the differences:

1) I rewrote the first sentence to make it simpler and more direct.

2) I omitted several needless words to improve the flow of the sentence, including the long series of little words in the second sentence (As long as we do not have) which I replaced with the more direct until we find.

3) I added the word And to the beginning the second sentence for a more conversational tone. This is improper style for formal writing, but it's perfectly suitable for casual writing.

4) I added a contraction (we'll) and used the highly casual word lousy to make the tone still more informal.

The result, while not perfect, is easier to read and considerably more casual in tone.

Style is often a matter of taste, and there may be levels of informality that you'd prefer to avoid. For example, you might consider the word lousy to be inappropriate. It's okay if this is your view--simply choose another word and move on. However, I hope it's clear to all that if you write in an excessively formal tone you will always struggle to find readers.

This post is gratefully dedicated to Maria Machon.

The Evolution of Language and the Constitution

2011-08-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The preamble of U.S. Constitution provides a particularly striking example of the evolution of American English. In the sentence above, note the the ornate language, the unnecessary and irregular capitalization, and the British spelling of the word "defense."

If this many peculiarities appear in just the first sentence, imagine what else is buried in the rest of the document.

For one of the best (or worst, depending on your politics) examples of idiosyncratic language, see the Second Amendment, a statement so oddly written that our legal system is still wrangling over what it means. If you're looking for the ultimate example of why careful editing is important, the Second Amendment is it.

We've all seen how rapidly elements of the English language can change. Entire vocabularies of slang, for example, arise and die off in just a few short years. But it's still a shock to read the downright odd language of our own government's founding document. As Yogi Berra might say, the 1700s were a long time ago.

How to Develop a Healthy Cynicism of the Media

2011-08-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

My last several posts have contained strong undercurrents of deep cynicism and distrust of the media. Just in case you didn't notice.

I believe this cynicism is healthy--and adopting it as a permanent mindset is easy: all you have to do is two things:

1) Read a few general media articles about subjects in which you have advanced technical knowledge.
2) Laugh at the staggering inaccuracies.

Try it. Look for an article on your specific area of expertise in any newspaper or general magazine. See how the subject matter is grievously oversimplified. See how important facts and issues are ignored, misstated or rendered misleadingly. And see how everything is written in a convincing, compelling and authoritative tone.

That tone is the key. When you see this tone in articles where you don't have expertise, your instinct is to assume the writer deserves authority. Hey, it's the newspaper--they're supposed to know these things.

However, once you've read a few articles where you know the subject matter far better than the writer--and where you see obvious mistakes and oversights--this authoritative tone becomes hilarious. And sad.

Now, put yourself in the place of a non-expert reading that same article. He believes he's learning from an authoritative source, but what he's really learning is a mixture of facts and errors that he will mistake for knowledge.

What he's learning is reducing his knowledge, not augmenting it. But he'll never know.

Balance

2011-08-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

A few words about the concept of balance in journalism.

It's an old and deeply untrue claim that journalists are fair and impartial.

However, one way journalists can present the illusion of fairness is to balance out quotes, opinions and viewpoints from one side of an issue with statements in support of the other side. This is why most news articles tend have a familiar "on the one hand/on the other hand" tone.

But the important question, a question every skilled meta-reader knows to ask, is who decides which sides are presented? Even more importantly, are the two sides presented the only sides that exist?

So-called "balanced journalism" often takes the form of forcing a two-sided prism onto a multiple-sided debate. Worse, the two sides shown to readers might have been selected for disturbingly unrigorous reasons--like which sources called the reporter back before his deadline. (PS: Keep that in mind if you'd like your side to be one of the two sides presented)

This two-sided prism can also make an issue appear up for debate when there is no debate. A stylized example: Let's say the New York Times runs an article about teaching evolution in schools, and the article prominently quotes some religious crank in Kentucky who thinks the earth is 6,000 years old.

Note that the Times consistently runs condescending articles about cranks in the Midwest who think the earth is 6,000 years old. But the existence of this guy in the article gives him--and his views--a perceived authority that he doesn't have. Worse, it gives readers the difficult-to-dislodge impression that a substantial number of people in Kentucky think like he does.

The reality, however, is that this isn't how people in Kentucky think. This is how New York Times readers think people in Kentucky think. The media simply reflects our misperceptions back at us.

To me, this is one of the primary sins of the major media outlets. They choose the issues, and they choose the sides of those issues. And their readers believe they are being informed when in reality they become more ignorant.

Don't quietly ingest what's in the media. Ask why it's there, and think carefully about why it was rendered for you this way.

Writers, remember: you will never write with any subtlety if you cannot perceive it in what you read.

Meta-Consuming the Political Media

2011-08-07T11:11:00.001-07:00

The Democrat says:

Rush Limbaugh is a total jerk. Did you hear about what he said on his show the other day? I can't believe that guy has an audience. Who are the losers who could possibly stand listening to him?

The Republican says:

Keith Olberman is a sanctimonious blowhard. He should have been fired for failing to disclose that he gave money to Democratic candidates during the election. Of course that stupid liberal channel he's on brought him back after only two days. What a biased bunch of jerks.

Let's set aside the obvious truth that these people will never comprehend each other, and instead ask a simple question. Why not?

Because they only hear about each other through the filter of their own chosen media source.

For my liberal readers: Have you ever listened to more than a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh's radio show--and done it with a sincerely open mind? No? I didn't think so.

For my conservative readers: Have you actually quietly and calmly watched Olberman's show? Or Rachel Maddow's show? Heck, you could have doubled their viewership, which would be a nice act of charity. No? Never? Yep, no surprise there.

Thus each of you only hears the other side's most extreme comments, as rendered by your own media. Think about for a minute. Of course they sound idiotic.

I assure you, as much as you don't agree with Limbaugh's, Beck's or Olberman's politics, the impression of them that's given by "your" media is nothing like the actual reality of their shows.

This is why you must listen to both. You must. You cannot let the media you've chosen choose what you hear.

Otherwise you indulge in the most dangerous form of ignorance: Thinking you think for yourself.

How Do I Know if I Have Enough Ideas to Sustain My Blog?

2011-08-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

Nobody wants to start a blog only to run out of ideas three weeks later.

If you're thinking of starting a blog, here's an easy test to help you decide if your subject area will keep you engaged over the long term: Sit down with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, and start writing down titles for blog posts. Just titles. Don't stop until you've written down every title idea you can think of.

If you can come up with forty or fifty decent title ideas with relatively little effort, then you have a truly sustainable subject.

Bonus tip:
You can transform this list of titles into a surprisingly large store of content by using the essay test technique: Set a timer (10-15 minutes per post is usually a good length), and pound out a quick, unedited first draft of a post. When the timer goes off, move on to the next title.

Do this for 1-2 hours per day, working systematically and relentlessly through your list of titles. In a matter of just a week or two you'll generate a massive amount of usable first-draft content.

When To Use Commas, Semicolons, Hyphens and Dashes

2011-07-31T11:11:00.001-07:00

Dear QWT: How do you know when to use commas, hyphens or semicolons?

This is an exceptional question without a definitive answer. However, there are a few general rules of thumb you can rely on to help you decide which punctuation to use where.

1) Commas
Commas are used in four general instances:

a) With conjunctions, which are two-part sentences connected with and, but and or:

We walked to the store, but it was closed when we got there.

b) To break out lists of items:

Tom, Dick and Harry were all interested in learning about polyamory.

Note that you do not use a comma before the and.

c) To set off a parenthetical idea or phrase:

Mario Vargas Llosa, the author of Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2010.

d) To delineate a prepositional phrase:

While walking down the street, he was accosted by a group of nymphomaniacs.

2) Hyphens
The correct term for this punctuation is a dash (hyphens are used to connect words in phrases such as he was in a semi-conscious state). The easiest way to think of a dash is to consider it a comma on steroids. Use it to emphatically set off a parenthetical or prepositional phrase.

One piece of advice on dashes--don't overuse them or they will lose their impact.

3) Semicolons
Long-time readers of Quick Writing Tips know never to use semicolons because they enable complicated, confused (and quite often bad) writing. If I had the power, I'd permanently ban all semicolons.

But if you must use a semicolon, please use it correctly. That is, use it between two complete and closely-related sentences:

It's almost midnight; we can't make it to the bar before last call.

Humor Versus Stridency

2011-07-27T11:11:00.001-07:00

Let's say you wish to persuade your readers to consider and adopt your views on an issue. Further, let's say it's an extremely controversial issue--like gay marriage, welfare policy or some contentious political dispute.

Which of the two following modes of persuasion would you consider most effective?

1) A strident post with an activist tone that harshly criticizes opposing views.

2) A humorous post that makes your case using a funny or ironic anecdote, or that pokes fun both at yourself and the opposition.

If you answered #1, you are wrong. Dead wrong. That approach only works with people who already agree with you. Go right ahead and preach to the converted, but whenever any new visitors show up to your church you should be locked away.

If you want those who don't agree with you to consider agreeing with you, the easiest way is to make them laugh. Don't take yourself so seriously, and help your audience do the same.

Laughter helps readers set aside their egos. It puts them in a place where they're more likely to consider facts and ideas that contradict their existing beliefs. Stridency just makes people put up their defenses and tune you out.

If you can make your readers laugh, they will keep reading. If you're strident or argumentative, you will subvert your own message, and you will repel any reader who doesn't already agree with you.

Talk about a pointless exercise.

Which Will You Choose?

2011-07-24T11:11:00.001-07:00

Imagine you've had a hard day. You're tired. You got home from work much later than you expected, and you're sitting down to a cold dinner. You eat and then look up at the clock and see that it's 10 pm. You're exhausted.

But you're on a 30 day trial of writing every day for a minimum of 30 minutes, and you haven't done your 30 minutes of writing yet today.

What do you do?

How you answer this question tells me whether you're a real writer or not. It tells me whether you should be taken seriously.

And that's why, when your mind and your ego tell you to blow off today's session and go to bed, you ignore them. You cease the internal dialog, set the timer and sit down to write. And you grind out a writing session without expectations or attachment.

That's a writer who should be taken seriously.

How to Handle Negative Comments

2011-07-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

That snarky putdown that appears on your blog. The commenter who seems to have nothing better to do than to systematically disagree, obnoxiously, with every point in your latest article. The attention-span challenged reader who skimmed the post and wrote a critical comment that doesn't even relate to what you wrote.

These are the vampires of the online writing world. They suck energy out of you and make you second-guess even your best ideas.

Three thoughts:

1) For the truly negative comments that have no redeeming value: recognize that there are condescending pricks out there who get off on criticizing others. If you receive a harsh and unfairly critical comment, recognize it for what it is, smile and move on. Don't allow your brain to fire any more neurons about it.

2) Not everyone's opinion carries the same weight. The person commenting may have no expertise whatsoever on the subject you've written about. Assess the value of the comment: if there is no "there" there, repeat the instructions from tip #1 and don't let your brain fire any more neurons.

3) At times a negative comment may indicate that you've miscommunicated your ideas. This can be extremely valuable criticism. If the commenter misunderstood what you wrote, then perhaps you need to re-evaluate your article for clarity, or perhaps you unknowingly implied or suggested ideas that you didn't intend.

It's also entirely possible that this commenter misunderstood you because he or she didn't actually read what you wrote. In that case, repeat the instructions from tip #1 yet again. If a reader isn't willing to fire any neurons before commenting, you shouldn't fire any neurons in response.

Selecting Real Consequences For Your Deadlines

2011-07-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

We've already talked about how making an artificial deadline can be an enormously helpful tool to get you to increase your writing output, and how it can drive you to feats of godlike productivity.

But your deadlines--and the consequences for not meeting them--need to have some teeth. What types of consequences motivate you to meet a deadline? A reward? A punishment? The loss of some privilege? Try some of these ideas to help your writing sessions become far more productive:

1) If I fail to reach my daily writing goal on any day this week, I'll cancel cable TV for the following month.

2) If I complete my manuscript by the end of the year, I'll reward myself with a vacation to Hawaii.

3) I intend to publish one completed blog post per day for the next month. On any day that I fail to reach this goal, I will let a friend--to whom I've already given my password--post a brutally embarrassing status message on my Facebook page.

That last idea might seem ridiculous to you, but I know of one person who used it to great effect to help her reach a highly useful goal. Sometimes the most motivating consequences are the really negative ones.

Readers, what types of consequences have you used for motivation? Share your ideas in the comments!

Why Reading the Newspaper (Literally) Makes You Ignorant and Broke

2011-07-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

In the year following March 2009, the month that the stock market hit its absolute bottom, The Wall Street Journal--a bastion of pro-business journalism--was tirelessly and relentlessly negative. Nearly every article, every investing think piece and every business story in this paper was bearish, pessimistic and downbeat.

Twelve months later, by March 2010, stocks had risen by some 60%.

If you had the singular misfortune of reading this newspaper strictly for its information and perspective, there's no way you would have invested any new money in the stock market at any time during that year.

Thanks for nothing, guys. Thanks for nothing.

What's more interesting, however, is why the Journal was so negative.

Here's the insight: a newspaper, even one created to help readers make forward-looking business decisions, can't tell you what will happen. It can only tell you what has happened. Moreover, the editors of that newspaper impose a perspective on readers as they decide what to write about and what not to write about.

As it turned out, the editors of the Wall Street Journal had formed their own little consensus--a deeply incorrect consensus--that things were bad. Really bad. And literal readers of the paper absorbed that perspective.

This is why reading the newspaper strictly on a literal level will separate you from your money. Had you meta-read this newspaper over that year, you would noticed a total dearth of positive, bullish articles, and a near-universal consensus in the media that things were terrible.

That would have told you to invest.

More on Biases and Fallacies

2011-07-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

Bias can take many pernicious forms, all of which lead you away from true insight. As both a writer and as a reader, you'll want to understand as much as you can about every type of bias our brains can use to trick us. Here are a few of the most important ones:

Narrative Bias: Assuming that there's a logical explanation for something--or even an explanation at all.

If you've ever been at a job interview and explained the progression of your career, you've engaged in an act of narrative bias. Some of us believe that there's a pre-planned logic to our careers, the rest of us know that we're just backfitting a story after the fact.

Survivor Bias: Judging the members of a sample by looking only at the sample members you are able to see.

A typical example: the existing universe of investment funds has a collective performance record that looks much better than it really is. Why? Because the mutual funds with the worst performance were all closed down and removed from the sample. Ignoring this bias can be costly in more ways than one.

Outcome Bias: Judging a decision by information known after the outcome, not by the information available at the time the decision was made.

Decisions in war, politics, economic policy and investing are often judged years afterward by people armed with information the original decision-makers never had. Is it fair to judge them this way? Not really.

Causality Bias: Thinking two events that occur together cause each other (also known as post hoc ergo propter hoc).

This bias crime occurs constantly in media articles about medical studies and health reports. Showing a link between certain foods and a higher cancer risk tells you nothing about whether those foods actually cause a higher cancer risk.

How to Meta-Read the Newspaper

2011-07-06T11:11:00.001-07:00

Several readers have asked for some more tips on meta-reading to help them consume media on more than just the informational level. In this post I'll share tips on meta-reading the newspaper.

Let's start with the front page. Regular, factual-level readers will approach the front page of a newspaper by skimming some of the headlines, selecting one or two articles, and then reading them at face value.

Meta-readers approach the front page a bit differently. First, they'll skim all of the headlines, asking why those articles are there. They will also match those headlines against their own context of what's going on in the world, and spend a few minutes thinking about what's not on the front page. Why did the editors choose the stories they did, and why did they give them prominence?

Let's move on to the articles themselves. Informational-level readers simply read them, as will meta-readers. But the meta-readers also do more: they read on an interpretive level, asking questions like the following:

Why did the author of this article lead with the statements he did?

Who is quoted, and why? Which quotes are prominent and which are buried--and again, why?

What is the tone of this article? Is it positive, negative, authoritative, condescending, incredulous? Why does it have that tone? What does this imply about the article's credibility?

What facts are missing from the article?

Is the author biased or uninformed in any way? How can you tell?

What logic errors or factual mistakes are in the article?

Do there appear to be any edits or cuts in the article that disrupt its meaning?

What is the nature of any alternative views presented in the article?

What misleading interpretations might the author be layering onto this story? What's his angle?

Where are the facts and where are the opinions in this article? Does the reporter distinguish them? Does he even know to distinguish them?

Are there unstated opinions or viewpoints that are assumed by the article? Which opinions or viewpoints, and how do those assumed views impact the article's overall conclusions?

Admittedly, this is long, brainbending and intimidating list of questions, but a meta-reader naturally and instinctively considers all of them while reading.

It's not as hard to do as you'd think. Quite frankly, if you've made it this far into this article, you already grasp the concept of meta-reading to a level far beyond the average readers' comprehension.

Keep the above questions in mind the next several times you read the news. Feel free to print this post out and skim the list of questions before and after you read. You'll quickly build a natural habit of asking them in real time while you read, and before long, you'll easily out-sophisticate our supposedly highly-sophisticated media industry.

Most of us grew up assuming newspapers, journalists, reporters and others in the media had the authority they had for a reason. The real truth is these "authorities" are often just as biased and ill-informed as the rest of us. Keep that in the front of your mind whenever you consume information.

Finally, keep in mind that this is a blog about writing. The entire point of meta-reading is to help you write more effectively. You will never be able to write with any nuance or subtlety if you cannot perceive it in what you read.

The Hardest Meta-Questions You Can Ask When Reading

2011-07-03T11:11:00.001-07:00

There's an extra subtlety to some of the meta-reading questions that I discussed in my last post. Let's take one more look at this series of questions that we asked the other day:

1) What facts and evidence does the author include?
2) Do you find those facts and evidence persuasive?
3) Why or why not?
4) What facts does the author leave out, and what might the exclusion of those fact imply?

It's one thing to answer the first three of these four questions--you can simply observe and think about the facts and evidence in an article. However, it's another thing entirely to observe facts and evidence that aren't in an article.

Said another way, the first three questions simply ask you to look and think--anybody can do that (although, sadly, few do). But the last question assumes much more: it assumes that you know enough about a subject that you can see what's not there.

This is an entirely different level of subject matter sophistication. And most of the time, quite honestly, you won't know enough about a given subject to answer this question.

Don't worry. Once again, the fact that you ask the question in the first place--even if you can't know the answer--puts you on a level of media consumption far above the average reader. More importantly, you eventually will develop this level of expertise on most subject areas if you keep asking this question as you read.

A few more examples of sophisticated cross-checking questions that you can ask while meta-reading:

1) What logic errors or factual mistakes are in the article?
Just as with knowing "what's not there" in an article on a given subject, you will have to know a subject well to identify errors in an article.

2) Does the information in this article conflict with other available information?
Assumes you've read at least a few other articles on the subject from different vantage points.

3) Does the work appear to be balanced when it actually isn't?
Assumes you already know that there are standard biases that people hold in a given subject area. For some people the idea that bias exists everywhere in the media is standard obviousness. For a surprising number of readers, however, this is a revolutionary insight.

4) Are there unstated opinions assumed by the article?
An extremely subtle question. In order to "see" an assumed and unstated opinion you must have close knowledge of that opinion.

5) Does the article represent consensus thinking?
Another subtle question, one that's particularly useful for content on investing and the stock market. How can you tell whether something is consensus thinking? You'll have to have some sense of what everybody else thinks about the subject. How can you get this sense? By making a practice of reading widely and paying attention to the waxing and waning of sentiment for various topics.

Essentially, each of these meta-reading questions assumes the reader has enough knowledge to be able to cross-check the author. How do you get to a level of knowledge so you can ask--and answer--these questions? Keep reading. And pay closer attention to what you read.

These are true subtleties of meta-reading, and they add so much to the pleasure of reading that the mere act of asking them makes even bad articles a delight to read. There's nothing quite like reading an article while simultaneously ticking off the biases, preconceptions and mistakes of the author.

And for any readers who consider these meta-reading exercises a waste of time, let me say this: If you cannot perceive these blind spots when you read, how can you possibly protect yourself from them when you write?

Meta-Reading

2011-06-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Almost all adults, even highly-educated ones, consume information passively, and primarily on a factual level. Readers of this blog, however, know that there are deeper ways to read a text or listen to a broadcast, and they instinctively consume media on a meta-level.

What does the phrase "consume media on a meta-level" actually mean? It means to ask questions of what you read while you're reading.

Here are a few examples of standard meta-reading questions:

What facts and evidence does the author include? Do they persuade me? Why or why not? What facts does she leave out, and what might the exclusion of those fact imply?

Is the article or book I'm reading insightful or predictive, or is it backward looking? Does this information conflict with other information on the same subject?

Does the author have intellectual or emotional blind spots or baggage on the subject? Do she have an axe to grind? Is the work biased? Or more perniciously, does it appear to be unbiased when it actually isn't?

These are just a few examples, and note that there is no right or wrong answer to any of these questions. A biased and angry book by a baggage-laden author may still contain useful insights. You'll simply be more savvy about the nature of that book's information.

Sadly, few people ask these questions--and for that matter, few people know these questions even exist. It's a disturbing truth that helps explain much of humanity's gullibility.

And the quality of our media suffers gravely for it.

Insight Versus Information

2011-06-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

Most of us read the wrong things for the wrong reasons.

The value in reading isn't in the information we get. There's already too much information out there to read anyway, so the idea that "more information is better" has become a cruel lie. Anyone who submits to this lie will be quickly overwhelmed by information overload.

Information doesn't provide value. Value comes from insight.

And the amount of insight you have is inversely proportional to how much information you ingest.

Insight comes from reading something slowly, closely and carefully. It comes when you earnestly read things with which you disagree. Ironically, almost nobody does this in our culture, which is why we're so deeply polarized, both intellectually and politically. We'd rather steep ourselves in confirmation bias.

Is what you're reading providing you real insight? Is it giving you original thoughts and ideas? Or is it just giving you more data to shovel into your brain--so you can forget it later?

Neutrality Bites

2011-06-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Whatever you do, don't be neutral in your writing. Take a stand, make a strong argument for it, and for heaven's sake don't use verbal qualifiers. Don't adopt a neutral tone, don't adopt neutral positions and don't make neutral statements.

Neutral doesn't make people think or react. Neutral doesn't encourage people to take action. Neutral doesn't add to the collective wisdom.

Nobody wants to read anything neutral.

If what you're writing makes you cringe a little bit, if it seems a bit too forceful and you find yourself hesitating to publish it, consider the idea that this might actually be powerful writing that will impact your readers.

It might very well piss a few of them off too, and that's okay. It's better than squandering the world's precious time on another boring, inconsequential and neutral article that says nothing.

Wordy Verb-Noun Combinations

2011-06-19T11:11:00.000-07:00

Each of the following verb-noun combinations should be replaced with a single word:

have discussions (replace with discuss)
make a decision (replace with decide)
have a preference for (replace with prefer)
give assistance to (replace with assist, or better yet, help)
undertake studies (replace with study)
make revisions (replace with revise)
take action (replace with act)
in agreement (replace with agree)
take into consideration (replace with consider)
take under advisement (again, replace with consider)

Unnecessarily wordy phrases lessen the force and precision of your writing. Don't use two or three words when a single word will suffice.

Pointless Writing Exercises

2011-06-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

You'll find no shortage of books and classes on creative writing that encourage you to do various writing exercises--usually in private in your writing notebook.

"Choose a setting and describe it." "Flesh out a character." "Describe a feature of someone you know in vivid detail." And so on.

If this is what you really want to do with your time, and you believe these exercises will improve your writing, go ahead. Have a field day.

I consider them waste of time. To me, it's pointless to spend hours filling some private notebook with fragmentary writing exercises when you can get far more value by putting actual completed work in front of an audience.

Here's the problem with writing in your notebook: the only person who can give you feedback is you. And knowing how harshly most of us judge ourselves, that feedback is probably going to be negative. Soul-crushingly negative.

Forget all that. Instead of randomly choosing dumb writing exercises, why not complete a full work of writing from beginning to end and publish it on your blog? Do that a few times and you'll get real experience that lays bare your strengths and weaknesses as a writer.

Or are you too afraid to see your weaknesses laid bare?

Fine. Go back to writing in your notebook then.

Thinking in Simple vs. Complex Sentences

2011-06-12T11:11:00.000-07:00

Most of us needlessly complicate things when we write--especially when we write about subject areas where we have significant expertise.

It's as if you can't pull yourself out of your own subject matter to see it with your readers' eyes. Your ideas are understandable to you, but to your readers your ideas are needlessly complex.

The cure for this tendency is simple: write your first draft exclusively in simple, short sentences. If any thought or idea comes to you in the form of a compound sentence, break that sentence up immediately.

Later you can always add in complexity, vary your sentence structure and so on. The irony, however, is your writing probably won't need it.

One final thought. There are only two reasons to increase the complexity of a sentence: to better convey your meaning, or to improve the rhythm and cadence of the text. If you complicate your writing for reasons other than that, you're just showing off.

Ideas should never be cloaked. Start with simple and direct language and you'll make life easier--both for you and your readers.

But, But.... This Is My Style!

2011-06-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

Some writers can't help themselves and instinctively fight back whenever anyone suggests they make adjustments to their writing style.

They argue that their style is their style. Not only do they refuse to change it, they consider it inauthentic to do so.

I'm sorry to say this, but these are the anemic excuses of a college-level writer. All writers should cultivate a range of writing styles and voices, depending on the requirements of their writing task and the needs of their audience.

Yes, we all have our own writing voice. But is clinging defensively to that voice more important than helping your readers understand you?

More On Book Reviews

2011-06-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few follow-up thoughts from my last post on writing book reviews:

1) By no means do you have to have any unique skills or abilities to write a book review. You only need to be able to read--and the fact that you're here indicates this isn't a barrier for you.

2) Feel free to start informally. One idea: after the next book you read, write up a few thoughts, post them on Amazon.com and see what you learn from the process. There's no need to make this into an intense, time-consuming exercise.

3) Eventually, I'd recommend setting up your own book review blog. I have my own, which I've creatively named What I Just Read. You can set something up on Blogger in a few minutes.

4) It can also be an income source. Include affiliate links from Amazon to the books you discuss, and you'll provide an extra convenience to readers who may want to make a purchase. In return you'll get a few percentage points of the revenue from any sale.

5) Finally, you may even attract an audience of readers who share your interests and can recommend still more books to you.

Readers--If you have your own book review blog or reading blog, please share the URL in the comments below!

The Art of the Book Review

2011-06-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

Would you like to improve your skills at reading and writing?

Then write reviews of the books you read.

There's no better way to tighten your thinking about a novel or an author. What was the book about? Was it any good? Why or why not, specifically? What themes and concepts struck you, and why? What were the book's strengths and weaknesses?

When you read a book with these questions in mind--knowing in advance that you're going to share your thoughts in public--you will read that book on a far more comprehensive level. You'll extract more value out of it.

With non-fiction, a book review not only helps you analyze the book, it helps you hone your own rhetorical skills. Was the author biased in any way? How? Were there gaps in his argument or in his evidence? Did he persuade you, and will he persuade others? Why or why not?

Do this for ten or twenty books and it will transform how you read. You'll no longer be a passive reader, but an active one. You'll take your reading comprehension and your critical thinking skills to a new level. And you will remember everything you read.

Finally, for those readers who are thinking I don't have time to waste writing stupid book reviews, consider this: when you read a book and forget most of it within a few weeks, how much time does that waste?

Excuses For An Unimaginative Life

2011-05-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another post for any of you out there who want to create something of your own, but claim you're too busy and can't find the time:

Can you tell me, with a straight face no less, that you don't have the ability to dedicate a mere 30 minutes a day to a specific creative project?

You mean to tell me you'd rather spend that time the way you've always spent it--on your everyday life? How's that going for you?

Are you really that unimaginative?

If you take tiny steps towards a clearly defined goal, and take those tiny steps relentlessly, you will accomplish that goal. It doesn't matter what the goal is: a novel, a new blog, a short story collection, a collection of music compositions, a series of one-act plays. Whatever discipline or passion you choose, it will get done.

Define your goals clearly and take action--every day. Remember, these are your life dreams. Why aren't you more relentless about them?

Avoiding Intensifiers

2011-05-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

Our last post discussed the writing crime of using intensifier words (such as so, very, more, really, truly, etc.) together with binary descriptive words (pregnant, bankrupt, unique and so forth).

Who am I kidding? The real crime is using any of these intensifier words at all. No writer worth a damn clutters up his sentences with flaccid words like very, totally, absolutely, definitely, completely or highly.

These words demonstrate nothing more than a writer's limited vocabulary.

Omit all needless intensifiers. Use one fitting word, not two or three ill-fitting ones. Your prose will sound forceful and direct, and your readers won't underestimate your intelligence.

Can You Be Totally Unique? Intensifying Already Intense Words

2011-05-22T11:11:00.000-07:00

Never use intensifiers with already intense descriptive words.

His design was totally unique. I'd never seen anything like it.

A design is either unique or not. There is no degree of unique. Thus the phrase so totally unique is painfully redundant.

Words describing binary conditions should never be accompanied by descriptive words like such, so, very, more, really, completely, totally, a little bit, and so on.

Another example:

He was out partying late last night, so he was really exhausted at work the next day.

In this forgettable sentence, the phrase really exhausted is redundant. Exhausted is sufficient.

Other words that should never be accompanied by intensifiers:

pregnant
incorrect
wrong
dead
redundant
bankrupt
impossible

Leave these words alone. Let them work in solitude.

Bias

2011-05-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you want to be a truly informed media consumer, always keep your eyes open for bias. It's everywhere, even when you think you don't see it.

And I'm not just talking about simple political bias, which is the most obvious and serious form of bias in our media. I'm also referring to:

Intellectual bias -- "experts" tend to reject ideas or solutions from outside their discipline.

Scientific bias -- the idea that hard science always proves things conclusively (examples: the debate on global warming, or that butter is healthier than margarine).

Confirmation bias -- we seek out information consistent with what we already believe, and ignore or disregard information that challenges what we believe.

To those of you who think you can control for these biases (or more laughably, to those of you who think you don't have any biases), I'll say this: The most dangerous biases are the ones we think we don't have.

Finally, for a surprisingly balanced discussion of media bias, as well as quite a few hilariously embarrassing stories about famous newscasters, I recommend Bernie Goldberg's excellent book Bias. It will change how you consume the news.

Resolute Writing

2011-05-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

It is worse to be irresolute than to be wrong.

This paraphrased wisdom, yet another gem from Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, is a textbook example of the sheer arrogance--and truth--of William Strunk's philosophies of writing.

Every writer must understand that something said decisively in a clear and confident voice sounds far more "right" than something said indecisively and without confidence--regardless of the facts and evidence.

Yes, you need facts, figures and evidence to back up your assertions. But once you've laid down a solid foundation for your argument, say what you want to say forcefully. And at all costs avoid namby-pamby, qualified language.

If you cannot write resolutely, don't write.

Languishing in Obscurity

2011-05-11T11:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, nobody reads you. Hardly anybody reads me. And if you dwell on this too much, you can get damn depressed at the pointlessness of it all.

But here's another way to think about obscurity: languishing in obscurity puts you in excellent company. J.S. Bach languished in obscurity for nearly a century after his death, until Felix Mendelssohn helped bring his music to the masses. Van Gogh languished in obscurity and insanity until decades after his death. My favorite science fiction author, Philip K. Dick, spent his life in poverty, unread and ignored.

And you think you should be rich, famous and read by millions right now?

Get over yourself. And get back to writing.

On Trying

2011-05-08T11:11:00.000-07:00

How hard will you try? How much disappointment and discouragement are you willing to tolerate on your journey to becoming a good writer? And how much criticism are you willing to hear, from others and from yourself?

In short, how much punishment are you willing to absorb?

People are born with varying amounts of talent. But we all can choose our actions and our habits. We can choose the number of hours we put into writing. We can choose whether we let criticism or disappointment stop us. We can choose whether we allow ourselves to quit.

Very few people are truly prepared to own these choices. But our choices, and the extent to which we take responsibility for them, determine whether we become successful writers--or failed ones.

Luck

2011-05-04T11:11:00.000-07:00

This whole writing business is totally unfair.

Mediocre writers get their mediocre books onto the bestseller lists, while unbelievably talented writers languish in obscurity. Mediocre bloggers get hundreds of comments on some inane post about what they ate last week, while you pour your heart and soul into your blog and get four pageviews a day.

In The Winner-Take-All Society, some people capture rewards monstrously out of proportion to their talent or ability. That's your reality. Accept it.

The key ingredient, however, is luck. And luck is democratic. Anybody can have it.

That's why you must put your work out there. Put yourself in a position to take advantage when luck comes to you. Write as much as you can and make it as good as you can. Be ready.

Fear of Unoriginality

2011-05-01T11:11:00.000-07:00

My wife Laura's greatest fear is the notion that her ideas are unoriginal. That everything she writes, and everything she ever hopes to write, has already been said by someone else. And said better.

Readers, what ideas can you suggest to help her overcome this fear?

My gut view: no matter how widely you've read, it will never be enough to know for sure if some idea you think up has already been thought up.

Thus it doesn't really matter. Just shut up and write. Stop with the delaying tactics and the existential worry. Just put stuff out there, and let it be as original--or as unoriginal--as it turns out to be. You might surprise yourself.

Overwriting

2011-04-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

Rich, ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating.
--Strunk & White, The Elements of Style

Which authors do you treasure for their direct, plainspoken writing? And which authors write in prose so dense and dandified that you can't even get through their books?

In fiction, the rules on overwriting are unwritten and flexible. But in non-fiction, the rules are strict and clear: If you want readers to take the time to digest your ideas, never obscure them with fancy, ornate prose.

If you're one of the few writers who realize they have an overwriting problem, the solution is simple and painfully familiar to regular readers of this blog: Omit needless words.

Go over your text and cut out every word you possibly can. And then go through it again and cut out more. Then, go over it one more time and cut out still more words, just for good measure.

The process can be painstaking, but the cure is worth it.

First Person Overkill

2011-04-24T11:11:00.000-07:00

How many times do you use the nouns and pronouns I, me or my in your writing?

A simple tip that will make your work appear far less narcissistic: systematically eliminate these words. A quick and easy fix is to substitute second-person references (you, your, yours) for all first-person references. This is an ideal solution if you want to write with a deliberately informal tone. For something more formal, use the third person (he/she/they, him/her/them, his/hers/theirs) instead.

Either way, make what you're writing about the reader, not about you.

This isn't a cure for narcissism, but it does treat one of the key symptoms.

More on Giving Back to Writing

2011-04-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Think about all the people in your life who inspired you to write. The teachers from your school days who taught you the craft. The friends and family who gave you encouragement. Think about the journalists who helped you ask new questions, or the bloggers who made you stop and think about the world in a new way. Think about all the novelists, biographers and short story writers who have inspired you with their work.

All of these people helped you improve and none of them expected anything in return. So what can you do to repay them?

How about helping others improve?

Can you pore over a friend's manuscript, helping him with details and plot points?

Can send another blogger constructive feedback? Or assist a new blogger in a formalized program like Adopt-a-Blogger?

How about starting a blog that shares all the things you've learned about writing?

I started Quick Writing Tips to give back to the writing community. What will you do?

Why YOU Are Not a Narcissist

2011-04-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

I often rail against narcissism here at Quick Writing Tips. I do it because there's so much self-centered junk out there that it drowns out the writers saying something worthwhile.

But don't let the fear of being narcissistic stop you from writing. Don't let it become another obstacle between you and your goals. If you're reading this blog--and specifically, if you're reading this post--you will never have to worry about narcissism in your writing.

Why? Because this problem only happens to writers who never think about it.

If you are honestly concerned about your writing being narcissistic, then by definition you are not. A true narcissist would never conceive of worrying about his own narcissism.

The fact that the idea crosses your mind is sufficient to protect you.

Capturing the Momentum

2011-04-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

Every aspect of writing is subject to momentum. Everything. The number of posts you publish, your tendency to have a consistently large (or consistently small) daily output or writing, the number of truly creative ideas you think up, the number of new readers you will attract this year, and so on.

Remember, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Therefore, when you're "in motion," keep pushing! If you're having a great writing session, keep on writing. Don't cut it short. When the words are flowing, keep them flowing. Stay in motion.

The hard part, always, is getting started. Once you've done that, once you've succeeded in sitting down and actually starting to write, the battle is won.

The Unforgettable One-Liners of Groucho Marx

2011-04-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

Who are you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?

Groucho Marx's best quotes still resonate as hilariously today as ever.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

Why are these one-liners so funny--and so memorable? Because every one is a misdirection play. These quotes wrong-foot the reader. They fake him right out of his socks.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.

Now that we've already seen the quotes of Yogi Berra, here's yet another model you can follow when you craft your own perfect turns of phrase.

One final Groucho quote for those of you hoping someday to publish a full-length book. I recommend memorizing it for irony's sake:

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Choices

2011-04-06T11:11:00.000-07:00

Imagine this scenario: You get up early on your day off to write. You've prepared perfectly: last night you went to bed early, right after putting together a clear, itemized list of writing goals you'd like to achieve by noon the next day.

Saturday morning rolls around, your alarm goes off, and instead of snoozing for another hour, you get right out of bed. You go directly to your computer and start writing--without checking email or doing any undirected internet surfing first. Soon, you're in a deeply focused flow state, typing away.

A few hours later, you look up. You've finished every single one of your goals, and it's only 9:00am!

What do you do next?

As I see it, you have two choices:

1) Quit. Give yourself a break. Knock off for the day and feel proud that you accomplished so much so quickly.

2) Keep going. You're in a highly productive state, and so you must take full advantage. You could have an outlier day of massive writing output.

Let me congratulate you on setting clear goals and getting up early to tackle them. That alone sets you apart from the dilettantes. But if you need help choosing between these two options, you clearly need to rethink your priorities as a writer.

On the Poison of Perfectionism

2011-04-03T11:11:00.000-07:00

Which is better:

1) The bad novel you actually wrote, or

2) The idealized novel that you thought about a lot, talked to your friends about, planned out in detail, but never really got around to writing?

One more question: which of the two will teach you more?

Look, when you finally finish that manuscript, it will most likely suck. Be ready.

But at least it will exist.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The act of completing something--even if it's terrible--will teach you a hell of a lot more than nattering endlessly about something you'll never write.

Isn't it hubris to hold back, never publish anything, and expect to improve as a writer?

Helping Other Writers

2011-03-30T11:11:00.000-07:00

If you're a writer who has found some success at attracting readers, I have a question for you: How can you help others along the same path? What can you do to give back to the writing profession?

Here's what I do:

1) Dedicate a few minutes every few days to leaving comments on blogs and websites I consider useful and thought-provoking--but aren't yet widely read.

2) Run a regular links post on my blog to bring attention to good material on other sites (I do this with my Friday Links series at Casual Kitchen, my food blog).

3) Send occasional emails with feedback and encouragement to authors or writers I enjoy reading.

Early along in Casual Kitchen's history, a couple of high-traffic blogs linked to some of my best posts. Those seemingly minor acts of support helped me get in front of thousands of new readers.

I've been trying to pay it forward to other bloggers ever since.

Readers: what do you do to help other writers? Share in the comments!

How to Cultivate Unconventional Thinking

2011-03-27T11:11:00.000-07:00

We already have enough conventional ideas in the world. A standard example: our political media contains only two types of people: those from the left and those from the right. Most of them say the same things all the time. When was the last time you read about a genuinely new, creative and nuanced political idea?

Or take sports writing. Which would you prefer: an formulaic article covering obvious details of a game, or an article that teaches you new nuances of a sport you thought you knew well?

The writers who embrace unconventional ideas stand out and get read.

But how do you become an unconventional writer?

Sadly, you need to start by reading as much conventional information as you can. This will tell you what not to write and how not to think, and it will help you map out the boundaries of existing consensus thinking. Then, make a practice of writing about things beyond those boundaries.

Hardly any of the information out there is interesting, new or genuinely useful. If you can cultivate an unconventional voice as a writer, you will find readers--lots of them.

Wasting Your Readers' Time

2011-03-23T11:11:00.000-07:00

Of all the possible crimes of writing, wasting your readers' time is the worst.

Before you click "publish" on some post about what you ate for breakfast, is it worth considering whether what you've written is useful to humanity?

Before you tweet the contents of your darling son's diaper, is it worth considering that people might read it--and then wish they could "unread" it?

It's an admittedly quixotic pursuit to try to purge the world of time-wasting, narcissistic writing. But we should all consider the idea of spending a minute or two mulling whether what we write is actually worth being read. If it isn't, then we owe it to the world to spend time improving it until it is worth being read.

One final irony. If you merely consider this idea on a routine basis, you most likely won't waste your readers' time. And by definition you won't be a narcissist.

On Getting Your Plurals Right

2011-03-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

Another quick and efficient way to vaporize your credibility with an audience is to make basic mistakes with pluralization.

A few examples:

Neither of them were at the concert. (Neither was)

None of them are old enough to drink. (None of them is)

Each of them were incorrigibly greedy. (Each of them was)

The number of graduate degrees he has are very small. (The number is)

The media has altered our perception of politics. (The media have)

The data was inaccurate. (The data were)

The last sentence is yet another example of the evolution of English. Strictly speaking, "data" is the plural of "datum" and thus should take a plural verb. But it's increasingly common to see the grammatically incorrect version used in written and spoken English.

Don't Be Such a Spelling Nazi

2011-03-16T11:11:00.000-07:00

A few readers disagreed with my recent post on eradicating spelling errors. Their argument boils down to this statement: We live in a modern era where ideas have more importance than the mere spelling of words.

I still disagree. If your writing is soaked in typos, you'll make your readers trip, stumble and fight off distractions just to get to your ideas. Does this help you get your ideas across? Does it help you persuade?

The spelling errors you deem unimportant are in reality an enormous barrier between you and your reader.

Don't make your readers' lives more difficult. Meet them halfway.

What's your opinion?

Vague Modifiers

2011-03-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

How often do you use the following words?

so
so that
so much
so much so that
such
such a

These words magnify or emphasize the words around them, but they do so in a trite and meaningless way.

Bob was so beautiful that the girls couldn't get enough of him.
Kathy was such a beautiful girl.

Neither of these sentences say anything. They tell--they don't show. Worse, they tell forgettably. Bob may be beautiful, but how? And why? What exactly is beautiful about him? You haven't revealed a single detail about Bob, and therefore the reader cannot possibly understand or imagine him.

Two more examples:

It was a hard exam, so much so that no one passed.
The exam was so hard that no one passed.

How was the exam hard? Why was it hard? How do you feel about how hard the exam was? Neither sentence offers the reader a clue about these important details.

Avoid these words like the plague. They signal a lazy and unimaginative mind. Give a better explanation. Make it more real. Make it more memorable.

PS: I'm guilty of using these words too (but please, no comments about my lazy and unimaginative mind). In fact, if I could ask my readers a favor, I'd be grateful if you would call me out any time you see me use a vague modifier. Here's to hoping you can help me break my own bad writing habits.

Fearing That There's Nothing New Under the Sun

2011-03-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
--Ecclesiastes 1:9

A common misinterpretation of this bible verse is that all of the good ideas have been thought up already.

This is pure bullshit. It's been bullshit for millennia, since long before Ecclesiastes was written, and it will be bullshit long after.

Everything you write is new.

Even if you borrow, copy or even outright steal ideas, you'll still combine, illustrate and articulate them using your unique voice (this excludes plagiarism, obviously). The fear that we'll only think up unoriginal ideas is just another fear that keeps us from writing.

The real crime is letting this fear stop you from putting your work out there.

For Your Readers' Sake, Run Spellchecker One Last Time!

2011-03-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

Spelling errors are like polio.

They should have been completely wiped out by spellchecking software, just as polio was eradicated by vaccines. But sadly, out there in the jungles of bad writing, you can still find atrocious cases of misspelled words.

Spelling mistakes are a sign of a shoddy and lazy mind. They signal a writer's utter disregard for his audience. And only the most derisive author lacks the decency to spend twenty seconds on a quick spellcheck before putting work out in front of readers.

Even basic blogging sites like Blogger have built-in spellcheckers. Use them. Don't maul your credibility.

Actually, You ARE In the Mood To Write

2011-03-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

"I'm not in the mood to write."

Of all the arrogant and ignorant excuses for not writing, this one is the worst.

Why is it arrogant and ignorant? Because you are presuming what kind of writing mood you're in before you can be in a position to know.

Here's a thought. What if you think your mental state isn't conducive to writing, but it really is?

I've begun writing sessions with an angry and bitter mind, thinking there's no way I'll be able to write. Yet within seconds of sitting down, I'm pouring myself out on to the keyboard. I've also begun writing sessions in what I thought was the perfect mental state to write, and found myself sitting there with no ideas and nothing to show for it.

The point is you usually won't know in advance whether you're in the mood to write. Worse, it's presumptuous and arrogant to think you can.

Just sit down to write. If it's doesn't work after a few minutes, that's okay. Give it just a few minutes more, and then permit yourself to quit. Don't miss out on a productive writing session because of your presumptions.

Two Simple Steps To a Steady Writing Habit

2011-02-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

Let me share with you a preposterously simple two-step writing technique which has boosted my confidence, cured me (mostly) of procrastination, and helped me build a habit of writing consistently:

1) Set a goal of spending a minimum of 30 minutes every day writing content.
2) Keep track of the days you meet and miss this goal.

That's it. Just mark an "X" on your calendar each day you reach the 30 minute minimum. I recommend using the most prominent calendar in your home, so when you succeed or fail, you and everyone else you live with will know. If you don't write, you don't get an "X."

You'll find that the simple act of keeping track of the days you write and don't write is weirdly motivating. Your habit of writing (or not) is right there in black and white for you and everyone else in your household to see. More importantly, once have a string of X's going, you aren't going to want to break your streak.

This technique is an excellent cure for procrastination, and it takes away much of the pressure of writing. Hey, you only have to sit down for 30 minutes--how hard can that be? It's just not a big deal. And every so often, one of those no-big-deal 30-minute writing sessions turns out to be an amazingly productive, flow-based experience that lasts for hours.

Once again, it's only 30 minutes. If your writing session turns out to be nothing but pure frustration, you can quit the instant your 30 minutes is up.

You'll always have a mix of good writing sessions and bad writing sessions. The point of this exercise is to make sure you have writing sessions at all.

Nobody Cares

2011-02-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

Nobody cares about your writing. And it's freeing and empowering to know this.

Nobody's watching for your failures. Nobody will notice that nearly everything you write--at first--will be mediocre crap.

Therefore, you can write whatever you want, however you want. Write as if you're singing in the shower, or as if you're dancing completely alone. Write as if nobody's looking!

It's liberating to know that nobody cares. You can write to your own personal standards. You can take enormous risks and make even bigger mistakes. You can practice, learn, grow and get better.

Don't give up. Keep writing and keep improving.

And then, gradually, readers will care.

Labels and Loaded Language

2011-02-20T11:11:00.000-08:00

Certain words and phrases evoke strong emotional responses, and effective writers use these words and phrases as tools of covert persuasion.

1) The death tax is the most unfair of all taxes.

2) History has shown that trickle-down economic policies never work.

What's intriguing about both of these sentences is the deliberate use of emotionally charged labels. The phrase "death tax" sounds macabre, ghoulish and deeply unfair. Likewise, something called "trickle-down economics" sounds so effete that, hey, it can't possibly work.

Readers attach meanings to these terms without necessarily understanding them. After all, nobody really knows exactly how or why trickle-down economic policies don't work, we just have a confidently-held sense that they, well, just don't.

Guess what? You just persuaded your readers of something without them even realizing it.

Is it insulting to your readers' intelligence to employ phrases like this? Yes. That's why you have an obligation to be ethical when using labels and loaded language.

As a reader, however, you have an even greater obligation: to recognize labelling when it's used against you. Never allow yourself to be persuaded against your will.

Four Ways to Reach a Flow State for Writing

2011-02-16T11:11:00.000-08:00

I've already discussed the mental state of flow, in which your writing productivity and output can soar. But how do you enter this priceless mental state? And more importantly, how can you stay there?

1) Give yourself an optimal environment. Your writing workspace must be quiet and protected from interruption.

2) Give yourself time. Allocate an open-ended block of time to as many of your writing sessions as you can. Don't expect to enter a flow state if you need to quit after thirty minutes.

3) Eliminate all potential distractions. Turn off your phone. Close down any programs on your computer that might disrupt your focus. That means shut down email, chat, additional browser windows, and so forth.

4) Finally, focus your mind. Before you start your writing session, close your eyes. Take three slow, deep breaths, and spend three or four minutes visualizing yourself working in a flow state. Think in detail about your subject. Imagine yourself, as vividly as you can, working effortlessly in this optimal state.

Readers, what suggestions would you add?

Maintaining an Effective Writing Schedule

2011-02-13T11:11:00.000-08:00

The most important thing about setting a writing schedule isn't whether you keep to it. It's whether you avoid beating yourself up the times you don't keep to it.

Let's be realistic: nobody can stick to a fixed and rigid writing schedule all of the time. Be sure to leave room to for flexibility when planning out your writing schedule. And leave room for iteration and adaptation once you start following it.

Reward yourself if you meet your daily goal ahead of plan, and be sure to give yourself a big reward when you meet your goals over a series of consecutive days or weeks. The point is to establish a sustainable habit, not to get down on yourself and get discouraged.

We're only human. It's in our nature to goof off and procrastinate from time to time, and it's also in our nature to fail sometimes when we shoot for ambitious goals. Don't beat yourself up for it.