The Confident Writer Series: 1 – The Mental Games We Play

dreams creativity

This is the first in a series of four posts about developing confidence as a writer. 

Dashed hopes. Broken dreams. What ifs. Regrets. Wasted potential.

These are the things that writers’ nightmares are made of.

If you’re like most budding writers, you know all too well about the fears and doubts that creep into your mind during the process of creating.

Not only is it frustrating, but even worse – fear and doubt can wreak havoc on your confidence and…

• Keep you from starting something new.
• Intimidate you into scrapping a perfectly valid project.
• Stop you from releasing your work out into the world.

“Confidence cannot find a place wherein to rest in safety.” — Virgil

 

What Are You Made Of?

 

While the rest of the world may think of writers as meek intellectuals, you and I know that creatives (at least those who persevere) are fearless and pretty damn tough when it comes right down to it. They step out into the spotlight and bare it all for the world to see. Figuratively, of course.

Even so, you may view your fears and doubts about your writing as weakness, or even a lack of talent – but you’d be wrong.

 

Somewhere in the Middle Lies the Truth

 

The fact that you experience doubt and fear during the writing process may actually be a sign that you’re on the right track because you’re taking risks and pushing outside your comfort zone. If you don’t stretch yourself, you don’t grow – plain and simple. And when you stretch, it can be scary, so a certain amount of fear is actually a healthy part of the process.

On the other hand, it’s difficult to grow if you have so many doubts that it undermines your confidence. Without the confidence to push on, you risk stagnation.

You need to find that productive zone somewhere between ‘productive fear’ and ‘confidence-wrecking doubt’.

 

10 Mindsets for Confident Writing

 

The trick is to find a level of confidence that lets you experience that useful ‘creative discomfort’ but avoid stalling out due to your fears and doubts.

The development process takes time, but here are 10 mindsets you can easily adopt to help you build confidence in your writing.

 

1: Know your reasons for writing.

A good deal of confidence comes from clarity. And one of the most important things you need to be clear about is why you’re writing in the first place. Ask yourself…

  • What do I want to achieve by writing this?
  • What is my goal with this piece?

You’ve probably heard the advice ‘Start with the end in mind’. That’s what we’re talking about here. When you begin writing with a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your work, you’re starting from a place of clarity and confidence.

 

2: Realize it’s a process.

Just like everything else in life, developing confidence as a writer is a process. Processes force us to grow – and growth always takes time and effort.

When you accept the fact that the Writing Fairy isn’t going to show up and whack you on the head with the ‘famous writer wand’ – you’re on the right track.

Devote yourself to constantly learning and growing – and for cryin’ out loud, learn to enjoy the process.

 

3: Quit quitting. Really. Quit it.

You’re going to get rejected. You’re going to get criticized. You’re going to get frustrated in some way at some point. But once you’ve fully committed to being a writer, remove the word quit from your vocabulary.

The only acceptable time to quit is before you fully commit. When you go all in, stay all in. When you tough it out and see your projects through, your confidence will grow.

 

4: Keep your goals realistic.

Since we’re in agreement that becoming confident as a writer is a process, let’s also agree that we can’t be perfect right out of the gate. For that reason, keep your goals realistic for where you are at this point in time. Set your goal to write the best work you possibly can at this point in your development.

When you set goals you can’t reach from where you are today, it’s like throwing fuel on the fire of fear and doubt.

When you set and achieve realistic goals, it’s more like throwing fertilizer on the seeds of confidence. Sow more than you stoke.

Shoot for better than last time… every time.

 

5: Don’t expect universal acceptance.

No matter how good you are, someone isn’t going to like your work. You may as well swallow that pill right now. Any great author you can name throughout history had their haters – so why should you be any different?

Being aware of this fact is liberating. It allows you to brush off confidence-destroying thoughts like “What if people criticize my work?”

You know what? No matter what you do, someone will – so why give that any consideration, time, or power?

Remember that you don’t need to please everyone – you just need to please the right ones.

 

6: Forget about finding your ‘voice’.

I swear to God that if I have to read one more post on ‘finding your voice’ I’ll delete the entire internet. I mean it. My finger is on the button.

But seriously – your voice is simply the real you. It’s not an Easter egg that’s under a couch somewhere that you can just find one day if you look hard enough.

The real you comes out when you write more and become more confident in what you’re doing. Focus on that and trust that your voice will show up as your experience and confidence grows.

 

7: Keep your mental state somewhere between Pollyanna and self-deprecation.

The way you talk to yourself about yourself matters. You have to find a realistic happy medium. Many emerging writers seem to live in one of two extremes.

Extreme 1: Negative self-talk.
“I’m no good. I stink. Why would anyone read my stuff?”

Extreme 2: Fluffy, bunny-hugging, unicorn-chasing unrealistic positive affirmations.
“I am the next Pulitzer Prize winning author. I am the best writer anywhere!”

Neither extreme serves any purpose other than to ultimately deliver yet another blow to your confidence.

Being negative about yourself sets you up to fail before you even start.

And stuffing your head with crazy, lofty goals when you’re still developing sets you up to fall short of those goals. Keep your self-talk positive but realistic.

Don’t put yourself down… or up on a pedestal.

 

8: Take compliments humbly – but not too humbly.

While your self-talk is important, so is what you actually say out loud to others about your work.

Humility is a good thing, but be cautious of how you respond to compliments. How do you respond when someone says, “Hey – I loved that piece you did! It was incredible!”

It’s very easy to reply, “Really? I was so nervous about that one. It never felt right to me. You didn’t think it was too (whatever)?”

When you do that, not only are you having internal confidence problems, but you’re implanting your doubts about your work into someone else’s mind. If you tell others that you lack confidence in yourself – they will likely share in your doubt.

Instead, try: “Thank you. I’m so glad you liked it. I appreciate that.”

Spread confidence, not doubt, in your work.

 

9: Select your influencers wisely.

Be careful who you hang out with.

Ok, so I might sound a little like your mother on this one, but let’s all fess up: Mom was right more often than not.

When you associate with negative or whiny people you tend to absorb and duplicate their negativity. Likewise, if you choose to associate with supportive, positive people you wind up emulating those qualities.

Find other writers with positive attitudes to associate with. Form an unofficial support group of people who support and promote each other – or join a more formal mastermind group. It’s a wonderful thing to have people who are a positive influence in your corner.

 

10: When you crash, make sure you find the Black Box.

I’m not going to tell you that you should enjoy your failures. That’s crazy. No matter how you slice it, failure sucks. But when it happens, instead of wallowing in it, the right thing to do is begin sifting through the rubble to find at least one actionable lesson.

When a plane crashes, investigators immediately look for the ‘black box’ which holds all the data they need to find out what caused the crash. The box helps them identify critical problems they can correct in the future to prevent similar disasters.

Somewhere in the wreckage of each writing failure is your black box data that will provide you with the causes of that failure. Use that information to boost your confidence by adjusting or eliminating things that didn’t work for you in the past.

 

It’s All in the Application

 

I keep one of my favorite quotes pinned to the wall in my writing space so I have no choice but to see it when I write.

“There’s a world of difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it.” – Bill Phillips

So you know 10 mindsets that will help you build your confidence as a writer. Now it’s up to you to actually use them.

Please do me (and yourself) a favor. Apply these mindsets to your writing. Make them part of your process. You’ll find that over time and with practice, your confidence will begin to grow.


It’s your turn to share! In the comments section, tell me what your biggest confidence issues are as a writer – or how you’ve overcome confidence issues.

Coming in Part 2:
The next post in this series features an interview with prolific blogger and Amazon best-selling author Danny Iny. Danny’s advice on becoming more confident leads somewhere you might not expect. Don’t miss it.

 

About the author:

Gary Korisko writes about The Art of Genuine Influence on his blog RebootAuthentic.com. Download his free eBook, How to Alienate All The Right People – a real world guide to breaking away from the herd and doing something special.

Image: Girl with Butterfly courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

Scene Stealers: Plotting Fun

Would You Like To Plot Some Fun?

Would You Like To Plot Some Fun?

Welcome to Scene Stealers, our series of writing prompts designed to flex your creative muscles.

We’re thrilled that so many of you are participating in our writing prompt series. (Read the other Scene Stealers here and add one of your own.)

 

In case you’re not familiar with Scene Stealers, here’s how it works:

  • We set the scene
  • You steal it, make it your own, and
  • Share your creation in the comments section of this post

Of course, it’s perfectly fine if you don’t want to share your work, but we hope you’ll do the exercise anyway.

 

The ground rules:

 

  • You must begin your story with the exact wording we provide.
  • Your story must be 350 words or less.
  • Your work must be original and not previously published.
  • WTD provides an encouraging and safe environment for writers to grow and learn from each other. We’d love you to comment on other people’s submissions in a friendly and supportive manner.
  • We reserve the right to delete any comments or entries we deem inappropriate and those that do not meet the specifications above.

This month’s installment is designed to help you plot a fun story.

 

Scene Stealer #11

How to combine a baby crocodile, a magnet, 3 lettuce leaves and a notebook to make a story? Here goes:  

 

Now steal this and make it your own.

We can’t wait to read what you come up with, so please add your submission to the comments section of this post.

 

Team Write to Done

Image: Plotting Fun courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

How Miniskirts Will Make Your Prose Sexier: The Golden Rule of Length

Would You Like To Make Your Prose Sexier?

Would You Like To Make Your Prose Sexier?

Way back in 8th grade, I learned a lesson that changed the way I write.

Learning how to write five-paragraph essays — our first such essays ever — our class was debating how long they should be. Suddenly, our teacher started laughing.

“They’re like mini skirts,” she laughed. “Long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep it interesting!” When it comes to length, I follow this rule.

And like my “Golden Rule of Writing” and “Second Golden Rule of Writing”, this guideline tells you, the writer, how long your blog post, essay or novel should be.

Because most rules are just that: rules.

  • “Make it shorter.”
  • “Cut words!”
  • “Cut sentences!”
  • “Cut paragraphs!”
  • “Cut pages!”

Cut, cut, cut!

But some sentences need more words, some papers need more paragraphs, and some arguments need more support. The rule should read: “Don’t waste words.” Or, for writers of fiction: “Don’t bore your readers.”

Or my new golden rule of writing length: Your writing should be long enough to cover everything, but short enough to keep it interesting.

When you’re reading what you’ve written, ask yourself two questions:

  1. Does your blog post, novel or essay cover everything? Does your essay support your argument? Does your novel finish the story?
  2. Is your blog post, novel or essay too long? Has it stopped being interesting?

When it comes to length, this is all you need to know. But I’ll elaborate.

 

How should you write?

 

Many books and blogs on writing advise us to write like Hemingway (concise, limited sentences) and avoid writing like Henry James (long, wordy sentences).

But great writing spans Shakespeare, Dickens, Hemingway, Joyce, Salinger…and James. Each used a different style to write in their own brilliant way.

We should write like ourselves.

Mostly, we just need to know our audiences.

I once read on a writing blog that all blogs should be written for the reading level of an 8th-grader. But academics have criticized my blog as not being academic enough. Then again, since my brother and I write about foreign policy, art and military affairs, our audience expects complexity.

Your writing style and writing length depend on your audience. So know your audience, and write for them.

Tips:

  • Cut unnecessary words from paragraphs. What constitutes unnecessary? That’s up to you, but go through your writing near the end of the editing process, and cut extraneous words.
  • Study the writing of writers you admire, and study their writing length, punctuation use and word choice.
  • Don’t fear the long paragraph, sentence or word, but ask yourself: does it work?

 

Blog Posts

 

My brother and I have a rule: blog posts cannot exceed 1,000 words. We chose this length because way too many blogs we read blow past this threshold. (We tend not to finish reading those posts.)

During our first year of blogging, our posts averaged about 500 to 600 words per post. Over the past year, we’ve started averaging 700 to 800 words per post. But then something interesting happened:

Our blog posts got way too long.

Writing a series on a possible war with Iran, my brother had so much research that his posts regularly clocked in at 1500 to 1700 words long. So we trimmed words and cut extraneous paragraphs. We turned one 1500 word post into three different posts. By splitting up the posts into two or three pieces, each one stayed short enough to keep the reader’s interest, but long enough to cover each idea.

This exercise forced us to look at length, our topic sentences, subject matter and style. It forced us to re-examine our writing length. By focusing on our core ideas, we wrote shorter, more focused posts.

Tips:

  •  In general, on the web, shorter is better.
  •  With no editor and no page limit, bloggers can just write and write and write. Avoid this temptation.
  •  Does your blog post have multiple ideas in it? Consider splitting up the post.

 

Guest Posts and Articles

 

You may have noticed something about this post: it’s about 1200 words long. Which seems long, for a post on length.

But it isn’t. We know, because we’ve written for Write to Done before. Articles range from 800 to 1500 words. The recent post “The Non-Google Research Tool That Makes Writing Easier” was 1500 words long.

Second example: while I was editing this post, I read this guest post on Mary’s editing process. I immediately went back to this guest post and edited it down. Know your audience — the blog, magazine or journal you’re writing for — and write to their guidelines.

Tips:

  •   Read the style guides of publications.
  •   Look at published guest posts and articles, and figure out what their average word count is.

 

Essays

 

Have you ever read Bill Simmons? This prolific sports/culture writer regularly writes 4000+ word columns. His “Book of Basketball” spans 800 pages.

But it all works, keeping the basketball-obsessed reader engrossed throughout. And I’ll tell ya, I’d any day prefer 800 pages of great prose to 400 pages of great prose.

What can we learn from Bill Simmons? That long works too. Simmons packs his books with facts, details and anecdotes that keep you flipping the pages. He has so much great information and opinions to share that his essays, blog posts and books can afford to go long.

Tips:

  •   Do your research. Great research enables longer essays and articles.
  •   Pack your essays and blog posts with information and facts.
  •   Always be open to cutting. Even though Simmons’ Book of Basketball is a great read at 800 pages, he’s talked about cutting entire chapters out of the book.

 

Novels and Memoirs

 

Lately, I’ve noticed that every memoir I read feels about 100 pages too long. After a certain point, I feel like the author has said everything they needed to say.

I was afraid I was becoming too “21st century Twitter” impatient. But then I read Jonathan Franzen’s 700 page epic “Freedom” and loved all 700 pages. My co-blogger just read Dickens’ The Olde Curiosity Shoppe, and loved all 600 pages of that still immensely readable prose, even though Dickens padded his novels with extra chapters because he got paid by the word.

So what’s the lesson? Keep it interesting, especially if you’re writing a memoir. Just like an essay stops being interesting if you don’t have compelling facts, anecdotes and research to back it up, your novel or memoir stops being interesting if nothing happens. Or if the characters remain flat.

Keep your novel or memoir moving forward. When the story stops moving forward, end the book or close the chapter.

Tips:

  • Take your first draft, and cut it by 10%. I got this rule of thumb from Stephen King’s “On Writing”. Try it, but don’t be hemmed in by it.
  • Learn to cut excess words. You can only learn this through practice. Reread your writing, and question the purpose of every word you use.
  • Read regularly. By doing so, your word, sentence and paragraph lengths will grow…in a good way.

 

What word lengths are you comfortable with when you write or read different genres? Do share in the comments below!

 

About the author:

Eric Cummings writes about art and philosophy for On Violence, a blog on military and foreign affairs written by two brothers–one a soldier and the other a pacifist. Find him on Twitter, @onviolence.

Image: Mini skirt courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

The 6 Most Important Lessons Of Marketing

Do You Apply The 6 Most Important Lessons of Marketing?

Do You Apply The 6 Most Important Lessons of Marketing?

1) Follow up.
2) Follow up.
3) Follow up.
4) Follow up.
5) Follow up.
6) Follow up.

 

How do I know this to be true?

 

Because recently we launched a book on Membership Sites. As is the norm, we give the best price to our members at 5000bc. We also let them know about the product much in advance. They read it in announcements, on the forum etc.

So what price would your members choose to buy the product at? The lowest possible price or a higher price?

 

You’d be surprised at what you find…

 

The logical mind would say that people buy the product at the lowest possible price. But that’s not true. Yes, many members do pick it up at the member’s price. But at least 15% or more pick up the product/service/workshop at a higher price.

 

Now why would they do that?

 

We can’t say. And neither can you. Maybe they weren’t convinced. Maybe they didn’t read the earlier emails. Maybe they were on vacation.

The maybes don’t matter.

What does matter is that a reasonable number of buyers (and we’re still talking members here) do buy at a higher price, and at a later date. Which means that if we didn’t follow up, those sales may not have happened.

And this little insight shows you that if your closest, tightest band of followers aren’t paying that much attention after being reminded over and over again, how will the rest of your audience react?

 

Yup, you got it right!

 

The rest of the audience is more skeptical, more distant and so logically, they would react much more slowly. The less connected your audience is to you, the more they’d hesitate to buy your product. So if you don’t follow up, you miss the chance of getting a sale from this audience.

But that’s not all.

 

When you miss out on a sale, you don’t just miss out on one sale.

 

I recently bought a series on “How to draw trees, How to draw skies” etc. I bought that product about three weeks ago. Yesterday, I bought some more products from the same instructor. What are the chances that I’d buy the second series if I had not bought the first?

It doesn’t take much to guess that you don’t get to second base, unless you slide to first.  And yet, the first would have never got my interest if it wasn’t for the consistent follow-up.

 

Which is fine in theory, but how do you follow up without being a pest?

 

 

Well, it depends. There are several ways of following up. The most effective way is to be direct and to the point. That means an email that says: “Announcing the book on XYZ…” is going to get far more response than anything else you can send to your list.

The single announcement that is pure sales and nothing else will get a far greater open rate than any other email. Yes, it’s sales-y, but customers want to buy from you. So if you have something to sell, they want to see it.

 

But continuously being direct and to the point isn’t the best of ideas.

 

If you keep pummeling someone with sales offers, they’ll soon tire of you and stop paying attention, no matter how great your offer. You can, however, follow up with other methods. E.g. a book excerpt. Or a few client testimonials embedded in your weekly newsletter. Or an interview in which you talk about your book.

As you can tell, there are many ways to follow up for a single product.

You don’t want to do them all at once. The mistake that rookies make is that they send out the excerpt, the testimonials, the interview etc. – all in one email. So now, what do you have left to send to your list when you want to follow up? Not a lot, huh?

Keeping the follow-up sequence ready is pretty darned critical. And yes, make sure you create this sequence well in advance.

 

In advance?

 

Yes, in advance. When you first sell a product/service, all your cylinders are firing. You may be exhausted from having put together the product, the sales sequence and so on, but that’s the time when you’re most focused on your product.

If you create the entire sequence — at least six follow-up steps, you’ll get those follow-up steps out the door on time. If you don’t, you’ll get distracted with taking a break or launching something else, and your existing product will get bounced to a black hole on your to-do list.

 

So follow up:

 

1) Follow up many times. Six is a good starting point.
2) Even your best customers don’t pay attention the first time, or even the fifth time.
3) A great starting price is often not incentive enough. Your best customers are likely to buy even when the price rises, so keep at it.
4) If your best customers are not paying attention (ahem!), guess how much more work you have to do for the rest of your customers.
5) So it’s one sale. Nope, it’s not. If you don’t make this one, you miss out on future sales as well.
6) You can indeed follow up without being a pest — provided you plan your sequence of follow-ups.
7) If you front-load all your follow-ups in one email, you have nothing to follow-up with. So space them out.
8) Plan and put the follow-ups in place at the time when you’re most exuberant (and yes, most exhausted). It may not make sense to work when you’re so fed up of everything, but once the moment passes, it will be even harder to set up any sequence at all.

 

That’s it.

 

You now have the 6 most important lessons in marketing.

Unless you follow up 9 or 10 or 15 times.

 

How many times do you follow up with your list when you have a product or service for sale? Share in the comments below!

 

About the author:

Sean D’Souza is a writer, marketing guru and expert on sales psychology. To read more articles by Sean, and get a very useful free report on “Why Headlines Fail”, go to PsychoTactics.com

Image: Marketing lessons courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com

 

How to Write Your Best Post Ever – Part 3: Editing

Does Your Best Post Need Editing?

Does Your Best Post Need Editing?

If you’d like to write the best post ever, you need to do three things:

Plan it.

Write it.

Check it.

 

The first post of this series was about how to plan your posts. Your plan is about what you want to say in your post.

In our example, the essence of what you wanted to say in your post was: by taking care of just 5 things (nutrition, exercise, sleep, work and relaxation), people can lead a healthy life.

You then followed six steps to flesh out your plan into all its component parts.

 

The next post of the series was about how to write the post you planned. Good writing is all about writing for the audience. You focused on what would make your audience care.

You then followed seven steps to write the post you’d planned.

 

In the last part of the series, we’re going to check the post you wrote.

 

Part 3: Editing

 

Sometimes, people will read a post a number of times to ‘check’ it. This is good. If you allow long-enough breaks (at least 24 hours) between two subsequent ‘checkings’ you will probably spot a couple of mistakes you did not catch the last time you checked.

But there’s a better way to check your post. A more effective, more efficient way that will help you achieve your goal of writing your best post ever. Each time you check, check for one thing only.

Before you begin checking your post, read through your plan (Step 1 in How to Write Your Best Post Ever – Part 2: Writing).

Then, think for a few minutes about who you are writing for and what will make them care. Suppose you’re writing for busy professionals over 40. What will make them care is that being healthy will give them more energy, make them more productive, and help reduce the niggling aches and pains they get from stress.

Now that you’ve re-oriented yourself, you can start checking your post. Follow the steps below in order.

Remember, to edit your best post ever, each time you read your post, check for one thing only.

 

Follow These Six Steps

 

Step 1: Check for balance.

  1. Are your introduction, middle and conclusion balanced? Typically, you’d want the introduction and conclusion to be no more than 10% each of your post, leaving 80% for the middle.
  2. Have you given equal weight to the points in the middle? Nutrition, exercise, sleep, work and relaxation must all be explained in relatively equal depth in your post. If, when talking about sleep as an essential element of good health, you quote an example of how someone functioned so much better with 7 hours or more of sleep than with less, have you quoted examples or research or case studies in each of the other elements of good health as well?

 

Step 2: Check your paragraphs.

  1. Read what you’ve written. Every time you see a new idea, make that the beginning of a new paragraph. Examples and anecdotes can be in the same paragraph or in a new one.
  2. If you find that a paragraph is too long, see where you can break it up to create two or more paragraphs.
  3. Vary the length of your paragraphs to prevent visual and mental monotony.

 

Step 3: Check your voice.

Is your voice appropriate for:

  • The topic?
  • Your audience?
  • Your style?

For instance, when you talk about nutrition, you might say:

“Nuts are an important source of healthy fats. They contain trace quantities of minerals that are vital for proper body functioning and which are better absorbed when they are ingested as food rather than as food supplement pills.

It pays to be nuts about nuts, eh?”

This last sentence is your voice making itself heard. Whether it works or not depends on your topic, your audience and your style.

If the tone of your post is professional and caring (remember, you’re writing for busy professionals over 40), the sentence sounds awkward. It sounds forced and false, and the post is probably better off without it.

If your audience hears you saying the words, it might not sound so bad. Because some things sound nicer when said than read. But in writing? You might not be able to carry it off.

Consider that you might have written your post while in some zany mood, but once the mood passes, you will cringe at having included this sentence.

The written word leaves a mark, so you want to be as sure as you can be that it’s a mark you can live with once your mood has passed.

 

But sometimes your voice can help you connect with your audience. You might write:

“If you don’t already eat nuts regularly, adding them to your diet can seem like too much trouble, but it doesn’t have to be so. It can be as easy as adding nuts to your grocery shopping list. Once you buy the nuts, you can add them to recipes or eat a few as a snack. It’s as simple as that!”

 

Here, your voice comes through clearly in the first sentence. But this is a friendly, I-understand-your-situation, you-can-do-it voice. This is a wonderful voice, and readers feel connected to you. They want to ‘hear’ more of you.

Be conscious of your voice, and tone it down or turn it up, depending on what you think your audience needs to stay connected.

 

Step 4: Read your post aloud.

Read your post aloud. Nice and slow and clear. And loud. (Yes, I’ve said that twice now.)

Mark everything that sounds wrong. Mark everything that reads wrong.

After you’ve read the entire post, fix everything you marked.

 

Step 5: Rest.

By now, you’ve accomplished a lot of work. It’s time to rest.

Please rest for at least 24 hours. Don’t read the post – even for pleasure!

 

Step 6: Check your GPS.

Use your GPS to ensure you’re headed in the right direction.

Since G, P and S stand for different things, you’ll be performing this step 3 times – once for G, the second time for P, and finally, for S.

 

G = Grammar and Usage

Here are some of the elements of grammar you’d want to check.

 

1.       Are your sentences grammatically correct?

Maybe you changed the sentence: “Dr. XYZ says…” to “Experts at the American Medical Board …”, but missed changing “says” to “say”.

 

2.      Are parts of the sentence correctly placed?

When talking about sleep: “He slept at midnight in Paris.”

There’s something not quite right about it. It would be much better (and clearer) to say: “In Paris, he slept at midnight.”

 

3.       Have you mixed your tenses?

“Most people feel they don’t sleep enough, but decide they will sleep more.” Ouch! The present tense has morphed into the future tense, and this sentence reads strangely.

Here’s the correct sentence: “Most people feel they don’t sleep enough, but would like to sleep more.”

 

4.       Are your prepositions in the right place?

Prepositions describe the relationship of a noun to another word in the sentence.

“Eat at the table”: this says eat with your food on the table.

“Eat on the table”: this says eat while you are sitting on the table.

Two completely different meanings, you’ll agree.

 

5.       Are you using too many adjectives?

Adjectives describe nouns: “The rejuvenating, revitalizing, immunity-boosting qualities of restful sleep…”

Adjectives are like make-up. A little, used judiciously, is good. Too much has the opposite of the effect you are aiming for.

Using too many adjectives is a sign of lazy writing. Your writing should be able to make its point without leaning on adjectives.

 

6.       What about adverbs?

Adverbs describe verbs: “Eating quickly is harmful for many reasons.”

Adverbs are also a form of lazy writing. Try to look for more powerful verbs instead. “Gulping down your food is harmful for many reasons.”

 

7.       Check your usage.

Many things sound alright when said: “Jumping off of a cliff while tied to a rope may not be everyone’s idea of relaxation.”

But that is verbal.

When writing, you might want to change it to the more universally accepted form: “Jumping off a cliff while tied to a rope may not be everyone’s idea of relaxation.”

 

8.       Watch out for common culprits: very, really, and, well – and whatever else is personal to you.

If it’s “very important” that you “really like” “X and Y and Z” and “well, A and B as well”, your reader will find it difficult to get your message. These words are so over-used that they have almost lost their ability to add impact.

Everyone has favorite words or phrases. Do you start many sentences with “so”? Do you use the word “just” or “only” quite often? If yes, your post will benefit from removing these words.

 

 

P = Punctuation

  1. Does each sentence end with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark?
  2. Does each sentence begin with a capital letter?
  3. Are quote marks correctly placed?
  4. Is there one space between words and after each punctuation mark?
  5. Should a comma be replaced by a semi-colon or a colon?

 

S = Spelling

  1. When you write for your audience, the decision of which spelling convention you will use is already made. Broadly speaking, you could choose British or American spelling. If you use British English, for instance, you will spell ‘colour’ and ‘realise’. American spelling, on the other hand, will give you ‘color’ and ‘realize’.
  2. Beyond this, there is almost infinite variety. You might use Australian English or Singaporean English or Indian English or Mexican English or …
  3. Spell check won’t help you if you want to talk about ‘lead poisoning’ but write ‘led poisoning’ instead. You need to check your spelling consciously.
  4. You also need to check if you have spelt the names of people and places correctly (if you’re using them).

 

The list above is an indication of elements you need to check. There is an ocean of detail I haven’t gone into. You can also find useful information by clicking on the links below:

 

You have finished editing your post! Your GPS has brought you to the end of your journey. But before you get off the road, you need to see whether you’ve done 3 things:

  1. Did you read your plan?
  2. Did you keep your audience in mind, focusing on what would make them care?
  3. Did you follow these six steps in order, checking each time for only one thing?

If not, please go back and do this. You are so close to the finish line – to writing your best post ever. It would be a shame to sabotage your post after having put in so much work.

To understand how important this is, imagine if I were to begin checking the grammar, then punctuation and then spelling for this paragraph. I might end up with a paragraph like this:

“Good health is very (good catch) essential if we want to lead a full life (missed this one – there should be no space between the word and the full stop). There are many ways you will (missed this one!) can be helthy healthy.

When doing brain work, it is best to concentrate on one thing at a time. And planning, writing and editing your best post ever definitely counts as brain work.

To edit effectively, each time you read your post, check for one thing only.

And with that, you’re done editing your post!

 

Let’s pause for a moment and take a deep breath. Your GPS has brought you to your destination.

You’ve just written your best post ever. Congratulations!

It’s probably been a lot more work than you bargained for when you set out to write your best post ever:

  • Planning each element of your post.
  • Writing, keeping in mind your audience and what would make them care.
  • Editing, reading your post over and over again, checking each time for one thing only.

All that remains is to press “Publish”. You can do so confidently. You’ve given this post everything you have. And it will repay you a thousand times over as your readers find value and connection with you.

Another thing: this is your best post ever – till now. Nothing prevents you from making the next one another ‘best post’.

The best thing about writing your best post ever is that as you keep repeating the process, it gets easier and takes less time. And you write a lot of best posts ever!

 

What do you find most difficult to do in the editing process? Or do you have a few tips to make it easier? I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below!

 

See also:

How to Write Your Best Post Ever – Part 1: Planning

How to Write Your Best Post Ever – Part 2: Writing

 

About the author:

Vinita Zutshi is a writer, editor, storyteller and parenting coach. She is also Guest Post Editor at Write to Done and Content Editor at A-List Blogging.

Image: Editing your post courtesy of Bigstockphoto.com