Photo courtesy of kwerfeldein.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Mary Jaksch of GoodlifeZen.

Do you ever sit down to write a blog post, article or chapter and nothing, but nothing appears in your mind? This is the dreaded ‘writer’s block’. The good new is that if you use the following 15 tips, you will generate more ideas than you need, love the writing process, and never ever get stuck.

I find that some Zen meditation techniques enhance my writing. Most of the problems that arise in the writing process happen when our mind is at war with itself. At those times our creative energy is scattered, instead of being focused in one steady beam.

As writers, we suffer from a split personality. On one side is the Creator who wants to splash wild ideas all over the page and falls in love with every sentence, and on the other side is the Editor who sits there with pursed lips and ticks off the mistakes. It’s really important to keep these two apart! When you’re finding and developing an idea, send the Editor on holiday. When you want to refine what you have written, stuff the Creator into a cage. The first 10 of the following tips will unleash your Creator, the last 5 will give direction to your Editor.

1. Forge your identity. Say, “I am a writer!” Maybe you feel reluctant to say it because you think you’re not good enough? Well, forget about ‘good enough’! A writer writes. Do you write? If yes, then you are a writer. Plaster your home with notices that say, “I am a writer!” Tell people about it. When you next fill in a form, put ‘writer’ as your profession. Thinking of yourself as a writer will boost your confidence and unlock your creativity.

2. Practice fun writing. If you only write to produce something important, your creativity can become stunted. It’s important to schedule time for fun writing practice. Maybe you can earmark just 10 minutes a day for fun writing. After all, even a top pianist still practises scales each day! Here is a simple way to practise fun writing: take a blank page and set a timer for 5 minutes. Write for 5 minutes – without stopping. Don’t think about it. Just do it. The first minute may be difficult, but then your creativity will kick in and surprise you.

3. Find inspiration. The right place to look for inspiration is – everywhere! Keep your creative mind on the alert at all times. Let’s imagine that you write a blog about blogging. Here is how you could use your everyday experience as inspiration. You wake up early in the morning: “Why early morning is the best time for writing.” You take a shower: “How to come up with 20 great ideas in the shower.” You have breakfast: “15 reasons why good nutrition can make you a fabulous writer.” You get into your car: “10 important things driving a car can teach you about writing”, and so on. Not all of your ideas will mature into articles because some may be wacky. But wacky is good! Because anything out of the ordinary can trigger your creativity. Check out this great article on how to keep inspiration alive.

4. Use an ‘everything book’. Ideas are elusive. Get a distracting phone-call and you may forget the brainwave that struck you just before. I use an ‘everything book’ to retain and collect ideas. It’s a notebook which I always carry with me. In it, quotes, ideas, and cooking recipes are all jumbled together. Not only does an ‘everything book’ help you grab that great idea before it disappears, it can be a source of inspiration when you read past entries.

5. Develop a swipe file. Another good idea is to keep a swipe file. This is a folder in which you collect interesting copy that you find. It can be a fine source of inspiration. Skellie has written a compelling post about swipe files here.

6. Prepare your mind by meditating. The best ideas come out of silence. Try starting your writing time with 5 minutes of meditation. Just sit upright in silence. Notice your breath and the sensations of your body. Listen to sounds around you. Let thoughts go. Even such a short time of meditation can turbo-charge your creativity and make you feel alive.

7. Brainstorm a title. Brainstorming a title before you start to write a piece can kick-start and channel your creativity. Write down a whole list of ideas without discarding a single one. After all, ideas breed ideas. When you have a rich collection, select one good-enough title to start with. You can refine it later on. You can find inspiration for titles by reading some of the excellent articles on how to craft titles listed here.

8. Lay out the bones of a piece. Once you have the working title, lay out the bones of your piece. For example, if your title says something like ‘20 Tips on How to Write Better Posts’, write down numbers 1 to 20 under each other. This jolts your creativity into action. Your brain now knows that you expect it to come up with 20 subheadings. Set the total length of your piece and divide it by the number of planned sections. For example, if you plan to write a 1000 word piece divided into 20 ‘tips’, then you know that each ‘tip’ should be 50 words long. As you write the piece, check the wordcount of each segment. As soon as you hit the required length, move on to the next one. This is more efficient than writing a lot more than you need and then having to prune your piece drastically.

9. Leave end and beginning to the last. We can get stuck if we start at the beginning. The beginning is supposed to introduce the theme. But at the start of a writing project we may not know exactly what we’re going to say. So, it’s best to write the introduction later on. Once you have completed your first draft, it’s time to add an introduction and a conclusion. The intro can be short but it needs to say why your theme is important, or to outline the benefits that follow from reading your piece. The conclusion should tie it all together.

10. Invite your inner Editor to have a look. Wait until you have finished your draft, then let your Editor have a look a your work. Remember that the first draft doesn’t have to be good. All you need is a certain amount of words on the page with a focus on a particular theme. Now the Editor is going to shape and buff your piece.

11. Check: Does your piece deliver on the title? The first task of the Editor is to check whether the piece actually delivers what the title promises. If not, you need to either tweak the piece or change the title to fit.

12. Check balance and length. Check whether the segments are reasonably even in length. If they are too long, you can split them into two. If they are too short, you can meld them into one. Look the overall wordcount. Is your piece too long? In that case you need to do a hard prune. If your piece is too short, you need to add more material.

13. Edit each sentence. Read your piece out loud, sentence by sentence. Our ear is much more reliable than our eye in this instance. Weigh up each word. Can you cut it? Can you say it better? Rewriting is the crux of good writing. Sometimes it helps to defer this important task to another time. A break allows us to gain necessary distance from our piece.

14. Check grammar and spelling. A good way to check grammar and spelling is to read a piece back to front. Otherwise our eye tends to skip over mistakes without alerting us. You can find an excellent article on the virtue of good spelling here http://www.vigorouswriting.net/2008/04/new-writing-economy-typos-are-okay.html

15. Read your piece out loud. Now your piece is nearly finished. To make sure it is the best it can be, complete two last tasks: print out the piece and then read it out loud. Make sure you have a pen handy. You will notice things you wish to change and can make notes.

Zen Power Writing means writing with a calm and unified mind. Most writing problems are based on brawls between the Creator and the Editor. When you keep these two aspects of writing separate, it will boost your creativity and bring ease to your writing.

Read more from Mary Jaksch at GoodlifeZen. Mary is an author and Zen master.

Photo courtesy of chelseagirl

“When it comes to facts, I’ll listen to anyone’s facts. But when it comes to opinions, I’m taking my own.” - Andrew Grove (reportedly)

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Clay Collins of The Growing Life.

Good research stands to benefit any writer, and quality research often delineates the line between a quack claim and an insightful argument. Substantive research gives your writing teeth, enhances its impact, and lends your words an air of credibility. Furthermore, good research can be especially indispensible when bucking conventional wisdom or challenging existing dogma. Finally, research can help us develop better parameters around our arguments and help us clarify our own positions.

I’m going to assume that most writers accept the value of solid research, even if they don’t always have the will, knowledge, resources, or time to gather and use it in their own writing. Indeed, personal development writers typically know they can benefit from psychology and sociology research, political writers understand the need for economics and legal research, and fiction writers generally embrace myriad research sources, especially historical sources. The list of possible uses for good research can and does go on and on.

So with the need for solid research established, this article will focus on how to find (on the internet), obtain, and use free and credible research.

Going Beyond Google
Google can be a starting point for finding research, but getting to the good stuff usually requires going much, much deeper (it has to do with Google’s relevancy ranking). The good news is that people willing to go beyond an RSS reader and search engine can gain a competitive advantage over others who lack substantive research.

What About the Science Section of the New York Times and other Popular Periodicals?
The science sections of popular periodicals are good at distilling the essential nuggets of recent discoveries, but these sources generally cover only three or four of the most impressive findings per issue. You may happen to serendipitously stumble across a Times article that happens to be relevant to your writing project, but it’s unlikely.

Scholarly Journals: Where Much of the Good Research is Buried
Each year, university researchers publish hundreds of thousands of articles representing millions of hours and billions of dollars of work. Research articles written by university faculty (i.e. scholarly research) are typically of very high quality. It can take a researcher up to a year or more to collect, analyze, and meaningfully communicate their findings, and the publication process is arduous and competitive.

I hated reading academic journals when I was in college. They were cryptic, pretentious, and hard to digest. They still are, but I’m going to show you how to get needed information without having to first get a Ph.D. But before we go there, let’s first get some bad and good news out of the way . . .

The Bad News
The bad news is that research publications can be prohibitively expensive, and that research universities spend millions of dollars each year on access to academic databases. If an unaffiliated individual wants access to the PDF version of the average journal article they’ll probably have to pay a MINIMUM of $25 USD for something that might not even be helpful. So if you’re not a student, staff, or faculty at a research university, you’re going to have to get a little creative, which leads us to. . .

The Good News
The good news is that “open access” journals and other free research sources are on the rise (for more info see here). Open access journals are available “without financial or other barriers other than access to the internet itself.” Some of these journals require payment on behalf of the author while others are subsidized. As stated by the prestigious Journal PLoS Biology, open access means that “everyone, everywhere can read, redistribute and reuse . . . research without cost.” Open access journals are increasing in popularity and prestige. Public Library of Science Journals (PLoS) Journals, for example, are regularly covered by news companies such as Reuters, BBC, and the New York Times, to name just a few. (Personal note: I recently decided to publish an article in an open access journal, and this decision has lead to increased usage and citations).

Another bit of great news is that librarians at most publicly funded universities (and many librarians at private universities) are willing to help almost anyone who contacts them via phone, email, or chat client, and provide advice on how to find free research materials. Since most large universities have libraries specifically dedicated to the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, respectively, you can manage to find an expert in a given field if you call the right library; these librarians may not be able to email you copyrighted materials, but they often can provide summary paragraphs or give you critical details. Many academic librarians not only have masters degrees in library and information studies, but also a second graduate degree (often a Ph.D.) in their specialty area. I’ve called universities such as Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Georgetown University and always receive help — I’m also never questioned about my institutional affiliation.

How I Look for Research
I’ve found that the best time to look for research is right after I’ve generated an idea for a new article and have specific questions I want answered. To save time, I would highly recommend that you wait until you’ve formulated clear questions before going through research literature. (A reasonable person, however, might disagree with me on this).

Research Sources for Writers
Without further ado, here are some of my favorite research starting points and information gateways:

Free Full-Text and Open Access Journal Directories and Databases

• Directory of Open Access Journals: This is the biggie and includes thousands of free, full text, quality journals. Right now, the directory lists 3,274 journals; 1061 of these journals are full-text searchable at the article level.
• Open J-Gate: Open J-Gate indexes articles from 4377 academic, research, and industry journals. Approximately 2340 of these journals are peer-reviewed academic publications.
• Biomed Central Open Access Journals: Offers a wide array of open access science journals.
• PubMed: This is the #1 place to go on the internet for health & science research of all kinds and varieties (mental health, psychology, psychiatry, pharmaceutical sciences, nutrition, public health, and alternative medicine are among the many topics covered). PubMed can take a bit of time to learn but it’s well worth the effort. Because of a recent law, all research funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health must be deposited in PubMed and accessible to everyone. Not all resources listed in PubMed, however, are freely available, but many of them are.
• Directory of Open Access Repositories: A Large and exhaustive list of open access repositories worldwide.
• FindArticles: FindArticles has article text of about 500 print periodicals with coverage dating back to 1998. It is freely available on the Web.

Abstract Databases
The following resources allow you to access (sometimes) lengthy journal abstracts, although access to the full articles may require a fee. It’s worth noting that several abstracts may collectively provide enough information for your writing piece.

• ERIC: Provides access to more than 1.2 million bibliographic records of journal articles.
• Google Scholar: Easy to use and intuitive, but not exhaustive.
• Acrgricola: Provided by the United States Department of Agriculture, the National Agriculture Catalog provides citations to agricultural literature.

Note: If you find an abstract of an article that you really want but can’t pay for, you can contact the author and request a pre-print copy. I’ve done this on several occasions and usually receive an emailed PDF copy within days, no questions asked.

Reference and Other

• Radical Reference: Run by a volunteer group of politically active librarians who are proponents of freedom of information issues, radical reference will help nearly everyone find information. The reference librarians who run Radical Reference often have access to expensive research databases and can often provide you with the information you need, even if they can’t email you an entire article.
• The Internet Public Library: The Internet Public Library was founded by a class at the University of Michigan’s School of Information. It is now being developed and maintained by a consortium of colleges and universities.

Good luck! And don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

Clay Collins writes at The Growing Life. For an example of how he’s recently used research in his own writing, see Confident Goal Setting: How to Pick Up a Cow, Daily.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

“You can approach the act of writing with nervousness, excitement, hopefulness, or even despair–the sense that you can never completely put on the page what’s in your mind and heart. You can come to the act with your fists clenched and your eyes narrowed, ready to kick ass and take down names. You can come to it because you want a girl to marry you or because you want to change the world. Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page.” - Stephen King, On Writing

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Amy Palko of Lives Less Ordinary and Textual Tangents. Amy is writing her thesis paper on Stephen King and has spent quite some time studying him.

What writing lessons can Stephen King teach us?

You’d think after many years studying King’s fiction and career I’d be well placed to answer. But as I chased round my mind for a list I could share with you here, it finally dawned on me that all other lessons disintegrate, like so many vampires caught out by the morning sun, when compared with the one key lesson I’ve learned and continue to practice daily.

He taught me to write without fear.

You may find it a little strange that, in my search for a teacher of fearless writing, I would turn to an author renowned for manifesting a state of abject terror in his readers. A teacher of fearful writing, perhaps, but not fearless. However, during the last three and a half years that I have spent researching King (reading articles, tracking down old interviews, transcribing archived documents), I’ve been struck time and time again, by his bravery, by his willingness to tackle new challenges and by his approach to writing, often from new and frequently surprising directions.

For example:

• He has refused to stay true to his typecast, and has frequently published work which doesn’t belong to the genre he became famous for.
• He stands up to the literary establishment and demands that his writing is taken seriously.
• He experiments with new media.
• He will try his hand at just about any kind of fiction: short stories, serial novels, comic books, screenplays, e-novels.
• He offers his work up to others for their own creative interpretation.

Writing can be a scary business. Turning up to the page day after day trying to produce something of value, something worthy of both yours and your reader’s attention is often intimidating, sometimes almost crippling. In my own writing I try and choose my words as fearlessly as I can. My touchstones are authenticity, playfulness and audacity, and by keeping these three key words at the forefront of my mind when sitting down to write, I find that I am capable of overcoming my fear of the blank page.

I’d like to finish up with a quote from King’s introduction to the revised edition of The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger. Whilst aimed at young writers who are just starting out, I believe that it can apply to writers both young and old; it applies to all those looking to write fearlessly.

“At nineteen they can card you in the bars and tell you to get the fuck out, put your sorry act (and even sorrier ass) back on the street, but they can’t card you when you sit down to paint a picture, write a poem, or tell a story, by God, and if you reading this happen to be very young, don’t let your elders and supposed betters tell you any different. Sure, you’ve never been to Paris. No, you never ran with the bulls at Pamplona. Yes, you’re a pissant who had no hair in your armpits until three years ago - but so what? If you don’t start out too big for your britches, how are you gonna fill ‘em when you grow up? Let it rip regardless of what anybody tells you, that’s my idea; sit down and smoke that baby.”

So, how about you? Do you consciously try to write without fear? How would you advise another writer to overcome their fear of putting pen to paper? What lessons have you learned about writing from King, or indeed another favourite author?

“I work until beer o’clock.” - Stephen King, on his 9-to-5 workday

Photo courtesy of the trial

“Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation.” - Laurence Sterne

While I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest writer, one of my strengths as a writer is the ability to write in a fairly conversational style.

I might not write like everyone talks, but I write like I talk, and I think it creates a more welcoming style of writing.

Readers are drawn into conversational writing as they are into a good conversation, ideally, and I’ve found this style of writing to be relaxed, fun, and engaging.

Of course, there are as many styles of conversation as there are people, so what is conversational to me isn’t necessarily so to you. So making your style more conversational doesn’t mean following rigid rules or writing like me (or anyone else). It just means that you write as if you’re talking to the reader, instead of using more formal or academic language.

It works well for me. If you’re interested in writing conversationally, here are some ideas that might help.

1. Listen to yourself talk. You can’t write like you talk unless you know how that sounds. You have to develop an ear for your speech, which means paying attention to your speech. Listen to yourself as you talk to others (I know, this can be distracting and lead to some bad conversations). How do you open a conversation? How do you structure your sentences? What kind of words do you use often? Do you speak according to proper grammar, or do you break the rules? Do you use slang? Does it change depending on who you’re talking to?
2. Listen to others talk. It’s helpful also to learn the speech patterns of others, not just yourself. And listen to real-life people, not people in movies or television — you want real conversation patterns, not the patterns that screenwriters write. Ideally the two should be the same, but they aren’t always. I like to eavesdrop or people watch to get good samples of real-life conversation.
3. Read good conversational writing. Find good writers who write conversationally, and study their writing patterns and the phrases and words they use. I’m not the only example — many good blogs use this style, as do many good novelists and columnists.
4. Write as if you’re talking to a close friend. My favorite writing tip comes from Kurt Vonnegut, who advised writers to have a specific reader in mind, and write as if you’re talking to that person. His ideal reader was his sister. Who is yours? If you are talking to the world in general, you’ll probably write more like a speech, rather than like a conversation.
5. Address the reader directly. Instead of writing in third person or to a general audience, you should speak one-on-one with the reader. Note that I said “you should” rather than “a writer should” or “one should”. When you speak to someone, you usually speak to them directly (although third-person sentences can also be used in conversation).
6. Talk in your head as you write. By this I mean say it out loud, to your mind’s ear. You should hear your writing as you’re putting pen to paper or pounding away on the keyboard. You could do this by actually saying the words out loud, with your mouth, but I find that method distracting — it’s much better to have a voice in your head. Good writers often have several voices speaking in their heads. It’s why they’re so crazy.
7. Eliminate formalities. Conversational speech doesn’t follow the rules of formal writing. You can start a sentence with “and” or “but” … you can have run-on sentences from time-to-time, and use ellipses. You can end sentences with prepositions (I do it all the time). I’m not saying you should abandon the rules of grammar altogether, but if faced with a choice between proper grammar and sounding conversational, I will choose conversational. It should be a conscious choice — don’t just ignore the rules, but break them for good reasons.
8. But don’t be too informal. There’s informal and then there’s slang. Uhs and ums aren’t appropriate in writing. Proper punctuation is much easier to read than sentences without punctuation or capitalization.
9. Read it out loud when you’re done. After you’ve written a paragraph, or an entire piece (a post, a chapter, a story), read it aloud. Hear how it sounds when spoken, not just by your mind’s voice, but by your mouth’s voice.
10. If it sounds stilted, change it. When you read it aloud (or in your head as you’re writing), and you hear something that sounds stilted, go back and change it. Make it flow better, make it sound more casual, make it more like speech.

“Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood.” - William Shakespeare

Photo courtesy of striatic

They’re questions that most bloggers will face after they’ve been blogging for a little while and perhaps have evolved or consciously changed their writing style: Do you go back through your archives and weed out the posts that no longer fit your blog’s style? Or do you leave them as a way to show your blog’s growth and evolution?

To cull the archives or not to cull?

Reader Roelant asked me this question the other day:

I maintain a personal website that evolved into a blog, have blogged since 1997, which were my late teen-years. In March 2002 — I considered myself adult by then — I decided not to migrate my older posts when installing (new) blog software. I thought of those posts as childish, unprofessional, etc.

And that’s where the pain is: writing evolves, and some of my older posts just hurt my eyes. But that’s how a weblog works: everything gets archived, everything stays online. Even if the person behind it changes or evolves. So I’d love to see a post on how you would deal with older posts. Is every post you ever written (e.g. on Zen Habits) still online, or have you — later on — removed some of the posts and why? When is a good time to trash, when is a good time to move a specific subject into a blog of its own.

This is a tough question, and I won’t be able to provide a definitive answer, because it really depends on your blog’s purpose. What are you trying to do with your blog? What message are you trying to send to your readers? The answers to these questions will determine your course of action.

I can share what I’ve done with Zen Habits, as this is something I did nearly a year into blogging myself. In the early days of Zen Habits (January and February 2007), I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I experimented with different styles. Long posts and short ones, essays and lists, funny and informative, rants and reviews. Eventually I found a style that I liked, that readers seemed to like, and I ditched some of the styles that didn’t work so well: short posts, rants, a daily tip, etc.

When I looked back into my archives, I was actually a bit embarrassed by some of the early mistakes. I also felt that these posts would detract from the overall message of Zen Habits, and so I took them out of the archives. Did I delete them? Some of them I did, and with others I found a compromise: I just marked them as private, so that only I could see them.

The problem with deleting old posts is that if you have other posts that link to the old ones, you have to go and delete or change all those old links. This was a problem for me, as many of my early posts were interlinked — I actually linked them all manually. So I had to manually delete the links, and that took a long time. For awhile I was getting emails from readers letting me know about broken links, and I had to go fix them. So if you do delete old posts, look out for this.

For Zen Habits, I wanted to send a message of simplicity rather than clutter. That means being consistent throughout, if possible, so I deleted posts that people didn’t seem to enjoy and that only caused clutter. It also made it easier for people to find my best posts, which is always a good thing. I thought it best that if they were going to take the trouble to go through my old posts, they would find my best stuff.

However, not every blog has the same purpose as Zen Habits. Some are more personal, more like a journal than the magazine style I tend to lean toward. That was the purpose of the first blogs, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If your blog is supposed to be a record of your personal journey, then obviously keeping your early posts would be very important. You wouldn’t want to get rid of those early records.

These are just two examples … there are as many variations as there are blogs. I can’t provide an answer for every blog — only my own.

Instead, I’d like to hear from you guys: What are your thoughts on this topic? Should blog archives be decluttered every now and then, or are old blog posts sacred and never to be deleted? How does your blog’s purpose determine your answer? Share in the comments!

Photo courtesy of Seedling-Chaos

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.” - Jack London

No matter how much you love writing, there will always be days when you need inspiration from one muse or another.

In fact, I would argue that inspiration is not just a desirable thing, it’s an integral part of the writing process.

Every writer needs inspiration to produce inspired writing. And sometimes, it can come from the unlikeliest sources.

I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite ways of finding inspiration — some of them obvious, some of them less so. But it’s always good to have reminders, and if you haven’t used a few of these sources of inspiration in awhile (or ever), give them a go.

1. Blogs. This is one of my favorites, of course. Aside from this blog, there are dozens of great blogs on writing and every topic under the sun. I like to read about what works for others — it inspires me to action!
2. Books. Maybe my favorite overall. I read writers I love (read about my current loves) and then I steal from them, analyze their writing, get inspired by their greatness. Fiction is my favorite, but I’ll devour anything. If you normally read just a couple of your favorite authors, try branching out into something different. You just might find new inspiration.
3. Overheard dialog. If I’m anywhere public, whether it be at a park or a mall or my workplace, sometimes I’ll eavesdrop on people. Not in a gross way or anything, but I’ll just keep quiet, and listen. I love hearing other people have conversations. Sometimes it doesn’t happen on purpose — you can’t help but overhear people sometimes. If you happen to overhear a snippet of interesting dialog, jot it down in your writing journal as soon as possible. It can serve as a model or inspiration for later writing.
4. Magazines. Good magazines aren’t always filled with great writing, but you can usually find one good piece of either fiction or non-fiction. Good for its writing style, its voice, its rhythm and ability to pull you along to the end. These pieces inspire me. And bad magazines, while perhaps not the best models for writing, can still be inspirations for ideas for good blog posts. These magazines, as they don’t draw readers with great writing, find interesting story angles to attract an audience.
5. Movies. Sometimes, while watching a movie, a character will say something so interesting that I’ll say, “That would make a great blog post!” or “I have to write that in my writing journal!” Sometimes screenwriters can write beautiful dialog. Other times I get inspired by the incredible camera work, the way that a face is framed by the camera, the beauty of the landscape captured on film.
6. Forums. When people write on forums, they rarely do so for style or beauty (there are exceptions, of course, but they’re rare). Forumers are writing to convey information and ideas. Still, those ideas can be beautiful and inspiring in and of themselves. They can inspire more ideas in you. I’m not saying you have to read a wide array of forums every day, but if you’re looking for information, trawling some good forums isn’t a bad idea.
7. Art. For the writer aspiring to greater heights, there is no better inspiration that great art, in my experience. While it doesn’t compare to the experience of seeing the art in person, I like to find inspiring works of art and put it on my computer desktop for contemplation (Michelangelo’s Pieta is there right now). It doesn’t have to be classical works, though — I’ve found inspiration in Japanese anime, in stuff I’ve found on deviantart.com, in local artists in my area.
8. Music. Along the same lines, it can be inspiring to download and play great music, from Mozart to Beethoven to the Beatles to Radiohead. Play it in the background as you write, and allow it to lift you up and move you.
9. Friends. Conversations with my friends, in real life, on the phone or via IM, have inspired some of my best posts. They stir up my ideas, contribute ideas of their own, and they fuse into something even more brilliant than either of us could have created.
10. Writing groups. Whether online or in your community, writing groups are great ways to get energy and motivation for your writing. My best short stories were done in a writing group in my local college (a great place to look for such groups, btw), as we read out our work to the group, critiqued them and made suggestions. The work of the other writers inspired me to do better.
11. The Pocket Muse. A book full of writing inspirations. Can’t beat that!
12. Quotes. I don’t know why it’s so, but great quotes help inspire me. I like to go to various quote sites to find ideas to spark my writing, turns of phrase that show what can be done with the language, motivation for self-improvement. Try these for a start: Writing Quotes and Quotes for Writers.
13. Nature. Stuck for ideas? Go for a walk or a jog. Get away from sidewalks and into grass and trees and fields and hills. Appreciate the beauty around you, and let the inspiration flow through you. Sunsets and sunrises, of course, are two of my favorite uplifting scenes of nature, and anything involving water is also awesome (oceans, rivers, lakes, rain, rivulets, even puddles).
14. History. It can be unexpected, but great people in history can inspire you to greatness. My favorites include Benjamin Franklin, Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, and other greats.
15. Travel. Whether it be halfway around the world, or a day trip to the next town or national park, getting out of your usual area and discovering new places and people and customs can be one of the best inspirations for writing. Use these new places to open up new ways of seeing.
16. Children. I have six kids, and they are my favorite people in the world (my wife and siblings and parents being right up there too). I love to spend quiet time with them, taking walks or reading. I love to have fun with them, playing board games or having pillow fights. And during these times I spend with them, I’m often reflective, about life, about humanity, about love. I suggest that children, with their fresh outlook on the world, can change the way you view things.
17. Exercise. I get my best ideas most often while running. There’s something about the quietness, combined with the increased flow of blood through your brain, combined with being out in the fresh air with nature, that really stimulates the mind.
18. Religion. Many of you aren’t religious (and many are) but it doesn’t matter much — the great religions in the world have ideas in them that are beautiful and inspiring. I’ve studied some of the writings of not only Christianity and Judaism but Islam, Bahai’i, Buddhism, Taoism, and many cultures with multiple nature gods. I can’t say I’m an expert at any of these religions, but I can say that any time I’ve spent reading the ideas of religion have paid off for me in inspiration.
19. Newspapers. I used to be a newspaper reporter and editor, and I’ve become jaded to newspapers. The news seems like an endless cycle of the same thing, happening over and over again. However, if you know how to look, you can find human-interest stories that are inspiring. Stories about people who have triumphed over adversity. (Edit: I had “diversity” instead of “adversity” here and have now corrected … thanks for the catch, Bill!)
20. Dreams. I’m not very good at this, but at times in my life I’ve tried keeping a dream journal by my bedside and writing down what I can remember when I wake up. Not because I think it’ll tell me something about myself or my future or past, but because dreams are so interesting in their complete disregard for the rules of reality, for their otherworldness and plot twists.
21. Writing journal. I highly recommend this for any writer. It doesn’t have to be fancy, or something you write in every day. Just a plain notebook will do, although a nice journal can be motivating. Write down thoughts and inspirations and quotes and snippets of good writing you find and pieces of dialog and plot ideas and new characters. Then go back to this journal when you need ideas or inspiration.
22. Del.icio.us. This popular bookmarking site is a treasure trove of great articles and blog posts and resources. I don’t do this much, but sometimes I’ll browse through these links to find examples of great writing by others. While you shouldn’t steal these ideas, you can often adapt them to your particular blog topic, or use the ideas to spark new ones of your own.
23. Poetry. How can poetry inspire prose? Through its beauty and flow and style and use of rhythm and play on words. Through its use of language and music.
24. Shakespeare. He’s not the only playwright, of course, but he’s undoubtedly the greatest, and the greatest master of the English language as well. While his writing can be difficult for those not used to the language of his time, a study of even one of his plays pays off immensely. The Bard wrote beautifully, used the largest vocabulary of any English writer, invented his own words, made up interesting phrases that are used to this day, had more puns and twists of words than any writer I know. There is no writer more deserving of our study and more inspirational to other writers.
25. Google. Stuck for ideas? The old standby, Google, has often helped me out. I’ll just search for the topic I’m writing about and find tons of great resources.
26. Freewriting. One of the best ways to get unstuck if you’re uninspired. Just start writing. Anything. It doesn’t matter. Don’t edit, don’t pause, don’t think. Just write and let it flow. You’ll end up with a lot of garbage, probably, but it’ll help you get out of your rut and you might just write some really good stuff among all that garbage.
27. Brainstorms. Similar to freewriting, but instead of writing prose you’re writing ideas. Just let them flow. Speed and quantity is more important than quality. Within this brainstorm of ideas, you’ll most likely find a few nuggets of greatness. One of my favorite ways to get ideas.
28. Flickr. If fine paintings and sculpture inspire you to greater heights, photography of some of the most talented people in the world can show what everyday humans can do if they try. I like Flickr.com, a real wealthy of amazing photography. Just browse through to find some wonderful inspiration.
29. Breaking your routines. Get out of your rut to see things from a new perspective. If you usually take one route to work, try a couple others. If you usually get up, get ready for work, and leave, try exercising in the morning or watching the sunrise. If you usually watch TV at the end of the day, try reading or writing instead. Shake things up.
30. Success stories. Another of my favorites. When I was training for my first marathon, for example, I read all kinds of success stories of people who had run their first marathon. It inspired me to keep going. There are success stories for writing, or anything else you’d like to do, that will inspire your brains out. :)
31. People watching. This is an interesting activity for any writer. Go to a busy public place and just sit and watch people. They’ll amuse you, inspire you, fascinate you. There’s nothing more inspiring than humanity.

“For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.” - Vincent van Gogh

If you liked this article, please share it on del.icio.us, StumbleUpon or on Digg. I’d appreciate it. :)

Leo Babauta: Master Blogger Targets the Writing World 

Photo courtesy of suzerain

Editor’s note: This guest post is from FekketCantenel, dreaded she-raptor moderator from the Zen Habits forums.

I have yet to read an all-dialog novel. In fiction, narration is critical for establishing many elements, including scenery, character appearance, and action.

Despite (or perhaps because of) its importance, smooth narration is one of the hardest skills for an aspiring writer to master. It’s easy to get lost in long, flowery paragraphs of clever prose stuffed with adjectives, adverbs, undecipherable in-jokes, and repetition.

While I believe that narration must be mastered by the individual author, I hope that these tips — hard-learned in my own life of writing — will make the process a lot clearer and a little less embarrassing.

1. Show, Don’t Tell

I think that for a lot of people, this popular and sometimes over-quoted rule of thumb is hard to apply. Here’s my trick: Picture the sentence as if it were part of a scene in a movie.

(To be clear, the motivation behind ‘Show, Don’t Tell’ isn’t to ease the process of gaining movie options — though I doubt it would hurt your chances — but to make it more enjoyable to read. An ideal work of fiction takes place in the reader’s mind as a ‘little movie’, and making this ‘words to pictures’ translation as smooth as possible is one of the marks of a good writer.)

ex. 1. His hair was red and bushy.

This fits fine; you can easily picture a man with red, bushy hair.

ex. 2. He had inherited his peculiar hair color from a long ancestry of redheads.

This doesn’t translate. How would you incorporate that genetic tidbit into a visual medium such as a movie?

There are four ways (that I can think of) to convert this sort of sentence from ‘telling’ to ‘showing’.

a. Dialog

Almost everything you want to establish can be mentioned by some character, as long as you can contrive a conversation in which it’s mentioned.

ex. 3. “George, is that your natural hair color?” “Of course not. The Hildebanks have been fiery-locked since the days of Moses.”

This technique, however, has two flaws. If you’re trying to convert large amounts (say, an introductory narration) into dialog, you may have to write long, brand-new passages of such (and making interesting dialog is a skill in itself).

My first real novel project was 75,000 words long at the end of the first draft. I took a break, read some manuals on writing, came back, and almost tripled the word count to 220,000 words (yes, Harry Potter territory). The biggest source of all that healthy bulk: Turning simplistic ‘this is how it is’ narration into entire scenes of mostly dialog, which, if I do say so myself, made the book much more entertaining. The revision process, however, took almost two years.

The second flaw is that if you’re passing on ‘godlike’ information (in other words, knowledge the characters aren’t aware of yet, such as ‘whodunit’ in a mystery, or in the above case, that George will soon lose all his prized curls in a freak cigar accident), dialog isn’t a logical outlet, since none of the characters can talk about it yet.

b. Thought

If, in your story, you’re not afraid to get into characters’ heads and show their thoughts, then information can be revealed this way. When I visualize these ‘thinking’ scenes, I hear the thoughts as narration.

ex. 4. I can’t wait to tell Matilde about my hair, George thought giddily. I’m sure she’ll be excited to know that scarlet curls have been a signature of my family since ancient times.

This technique carries the same flaws as dialog: large amounts of it can be tedious to write and read, and it’s hard for a character to think about information he or she is not aware of yet.

c. Solidify

Can’t picture it as a part of your movie scene? Put it in, then! Many abstract concepts can be expressed by creating an object or event that carries the same meaning.

ex. 5. As George marched down the regal main hall of his mansion, he noted in turn each of the many portraits of his blaze-headed ancestors.

d. Narration (also called: Cheating)

You can always just throw off all this and have your little movie be narrated. However, I would advise against this unless your narrator has personality.

In my own first book, the main character and first-person narrator is a clever, sarcastic teenage girl (I say with all seriousness that she’s nothing like me) whom I wouldn’t dream of repressing. Should it ever be brought to a visual medium, I want to find a narratress as sardonic and cagey as she.

Note: Did you notice that I never did resolve the “godlike information” problem? That’s because I don’t believe in using such information — unless, of course, I have a godlike narrator (see also, one of my favorite movies, Stranger Than Fiction). If you’ve written a book around disclosing juicy, secret details to the reader, maybe you need to write scenes around said details, rather than simply tossing them into the narration.1

2. Trim Excess Words

I have a rather scary proposal for you. Open up your most recent fiction writing project (well, this tip works for nonfiction, too, I suppose). Start with the first sentence. Take out the first word and read the sentence. Does it still make sense and carry the same idea across? Yes? Then leave it out.

Repeat.

You’ll probably get about two paragraphs in before realizing two things: “This is the most tedious chore I’ve ever done, and I’ve copied from the dictionary,” and “Wow, this is really making a difference.”

I’m not saying you’ll have to check every single word in your novel (although, if you have the patience for it, it would probably do the book a lot of good). All I suggest is that you do a page a day, and that you take notes. Keep track of which words you delete. Look for patterns. Make a list of words you consistently delete, which will narrow down your later searches to a simple Find/Replace.

The motivation? The only people who care about a novel’s word count are publishing company editors and people who’ve actually read War and Peace. Everybody else (you know, all us normal people) want as few words to slog through as possible. Concision (somewhat ironic definition: “Terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few words”) is an invaluable trait and will make your writing memorable.

3. Use Only One Tense

Not only must you being careful not to switch tenses in the middle of sentences, but you must be on the lookout for words that subtly confuse the tense of the sentence. Here’s my list (which only apply in past-tense narration), but I might be forgetting a few.

a. Now

ex. 1. All the pictures and words it had contained were now etched across his memory.

Take a close look at that sentence. Does ‘were now’ really make any sense at all? ‘Were’ is the past-tense form of ‘are’; ‘now’ is about as present-tense as you can get.

The fix is usually to delete the word — it’s rarely even needed. In cases where it indicates a transition (ex. “He was quiet before; now he began to scream.”), require case-tailored replacements such as ‘then’, ‘at that moment’, or ‘suddenly/abruptly’.

b. This

ex. 2. I shrugged nervously, embarrassed at having told a total stranger this stupid little detail about myself.

For me, this one is a repeat offender. Maybe it’s my studies of the Japanese language, but I’ve grown used to the idea of ‘this’ being something within reach (literally and figuratively) while ‘that’ is something distant. In a narrative such as this (see?) one, the events are distant from the narrator (since they’re in the past).

The solution? Almost invariably, simply replace with ‘that’ or ‘it’.

c. These

ex. 3. The most confusing part, to him, was that even as Tep spoke these old, hateful words, his voice was tired and sad.

Mostly the same as ‘this’. Replace with ‘those’ or ‘they’ in most cases.

d. Here

ex. 4. He had not seen another Padaain since he had come to Ausi, but here one was, hunched over as if in pain, teeth gritted.

As with ‘this’ and ‘that’, ‘here’ and ‘there’ define the proximity of the object. Changing to ‘there’ usually suffices, but it might occasionally require more complex replacements or even a complete rephrasing of the sentence.

4. Put the Important Stuff First

Roy Peter Clark wrote of ‘branching to the right’ as the first item in his ’50 Writing Tools’ series of articles on Poynter.org. They’ve since been taken offline and compiled into a book; if you never read the articles, I encourage you to get a copy of the book and memorize it.

He summarized ‘branching to the right’ in this way: Begin sentences with subjects and verbs, letting subordinate elements branch to the right. Even a long, long sentence can be clear and powerful when the subject and verb make meaning early.

ex. 1. Spending the last of his money on a middle-aged black mare, Tep led it out of the stable as quickly as he could.

In the above example, I’ve bolded the verb (‘spending’) and subject (‘Tep’). Notice how far apart they are. This detracts from the power of the sentence, because while you can picture the verb (someone dropping money on a counter, for instance), you don’t know who’s doing it until later in the sentence. This forces the reader to suspend the ‘movie’ in their head for several seconds, which can be jarring in the midst of a good narrative.

ex. 2. Tep spent the last of his money on a middle-aged black mare and led it out of the stable as quickly as he could.

Now the subject and verb are as close to each other as possible, immediately designating both the subject and verb. Everything else in the sentence sprouts from these.

Conclusion
Applying these four tips to your manuscript can have an immediate effect on its readability, but they’re not nearly all that’s needed for a professional-sounding narration. I’ll continue taking notes, and hope to someday post even more.

In the meantime, I hope that these four help you in your writing. Let’s wish each other luck!

Note: The examples for #1 were pulled straight out of my butt. The ones for #3, however, were taken from my own first real novel, The Golden Sands. Wish me luck in its ongoing revision and (hopefully) eventual publishing!

1Exception: Footnotes. Someday, I’m going to write an entire novel featuring hilarious and completely insane footnotes. In other words, I’ll rip off Terry Pratchett.

***

FekketCantenel does occasional proofreading work for HelpPublish.com, and hopes to soon reopen her writing blog, The Homework Never Ends. She is nearly finished revising her first novel, The Golden Sands.

Photo courtesy of 顔なし

“The happiness of too many days is often destroyed by trying to accomplish too much in one day. We would do well to follow a common rule for our daily lives - Do Less and Do It Better.” - Dale E. Turner

There’s a maxim in the Unix programming philosophy that says programmers should “write programs that do one thing and do it well.”

It’s a beautiful philosophy, and one that can be applied just as well to your writing.

I think sometimes we start writing with a fuzzy idea in our heads of what it is we want to write. For that reason, we might procrastinate on writing because we’re not sure what it is we want to accomplish — it’s just a vague, undoable goal (”gotta write my book today”) and that’s hard to wrap your head around.

At the same time, if we do actually tackle the writing, we might be extremely unfocused if we don’t have a clear writing goal for that day. Yet another potential problem is that we might try to tackle too much writing each day, and as a result what we write isn’t our best stuff, or just as bad, we don’t really get much done.

Write one thing today, and write it well. Here’s how.

1. Simplifying your writing. Writing just one thing each day, if possible, will help you to focus your energies and write as well as you can. It keeps you from being overwhelmed, and helps you to remain at peace as you write.
2. Create a clear goal. Instead of saying that you’re going to “work on this chapter” or “write that article” or “write a blog post”, it’s helpful to create a clear goal in your mind about what exactly it is you want to write. Be as clear as possible, and visualize it in your head. For example, instead of “writing that blog post”, close your eyes and either visualize how the blog post will be, section by section, or hear it in your head. Use this visualization to write down a very detailed and specific goal for your writing for the day.
3. Set your goal the night before. It’s good to do the visualization the day before, so that you’re ready to go when you start your day. It gives you time to really think about what you want to write about, to even mull it over in your sleep. If you tend to come up with good ideas while you sleep, you might even want to keep a notebook by your bed so you can jot down ideas before they evaporate. It’s also great to start your day with your goal clearly in mind — it helps keep you focused on your purpose.
4. Focus on something important. It’s not enough to just write one thing well if it’s something that doesn’t really make a difference. Sure, any writing is a good thing, but still, it’s better to use your writing time wisely if you can. So focus on writing something that will have a lasting impact: a high-profile magazine article, your first novel, a blog post that will draw a lot of attention and links. If you’re going to limit your writing, make it count.
5. Block out time. If your life has more in it than just writing (and I think that applies to just about all of us), it’s important that you have a block in your schedule just for your writing. Whether that be first thing in the morning, sometime in the early afternoon, or late at night, it really doesn’t matter. Just make that block of time and don’t let the rest of your life violate that appointment.
6. Pour all your energy into it. When you sit down to write, focusing on something important, with a clear goal in mind … it’s time to put all of your energy into it. Try to block out all distractions, to really put your mind into your writing, to get lost in what you’re doing. This will require at least 30 minutes of uninterrupted time — an hour is better, and two hours are even better than that. Once you’ve learned to pour yourself into your writing, without distractions, with complete focus … it’s a whole other level of writing. It’s wonderful.
7. Be proud of the job you’ve done. If you’ve really focused on doing your writing task for the day, and doing it well, that’s something to be proud of. That’s an accomplishment. It’s something to celebrate! Be sure to bask in the wonder that is doing a job well — and remember this feeling, as it will help motivate you tomorrow.
8. Take time to review this accomplishment. Think about all the steps you took today, when you’re done. What worked and what didn’t? What obstacles did you encounter and how can you learn from it so you’ll get better next time? Is there a better way to do this? What distractions do you need to get rid of? This mental review will help you become a better writer, and will help you master this skill of losing yourself in your writing and doing it well.
9. Prepare for tomorrow. Once you’ve done your little review, start planning for the next day’s work. Again, visualize your writing and write down your goal. Tackle the next day with vigor and joy!

Photo courtesy of heipei

Freelance writing is a wonderful profession — combine the thrill of writing with the freedom of working on your own schedule, and it’s almost a can’t-miss combo. I did it for many years (just stopped in the last couple months) and it was an ideal second job for me.

But whether you want to just earn some extra income as a freelancer or you want to eventually make it a full-time profession, everybody’s gotta start somewhere. And breaking in as a freelancer can be intimidating to newcomers.

Recently reader Erika wrote:

“I was wondering if you had any suggestions about how I might go about querying publishers about freelance proofreading and editing positions. I have been working with an educational publisher on a freelance basis, but they only publish twice a year and I want to branch out to help supplement my income. So far I’ve sent queries out to about five publishers, but haven’t heard anything back.”

That’s a tough question, because as in any field, breaking in isn’t easy. Obviously it can be done, as many other have done before you, but it’ll take some hard work. Here are my suggestions:

1. Find mentors. When I first started out in journalism, I had about 3 different experienced journalists who took me under their wing. I know, that’s a lot of wings to be under at once, but I definitely was helped by their incredible generosity. Later, when I became a freelance writer, I talked to several other freelancers to get their insights and advice. You can make it as a freelancer without a mentor, but there’s no doubt that mentors give you a boost.
2. Cast a wide net. It’s not enough to send queries to just one or two (or even five) publications when you’re just starting out. If you don’t already have a lot of experience, you’ll get rejected a few times. Just expect it, and move on. But to increase your odds of success, send queries as many people as possible — 10-20 would be better.
3. Don’t be afraid to follow up. If you’ve sent out your queries and you don’t hear anything in a week, don’t be afraid to send a follow-up email or call. Don’t nag them too much, but persistence pays off in these cases. It shows that you’re serious and that you are going to do what it takes to get the job done. Be polite and professional in your follow-ups, however.
4. Get experience. Editors want to see experience. If you only have one gig previously, you’ll want to build up more experience. Take on some low-paying gigs just to get more experience under your belt. In the beginning, it helps to have a day job to pay the bills, so that the money doesn’t matter much. Once you’ve had a little experience, you can move to better jobs.
5. Educate yourself. It’s smart to be honest with yourself in the beginning — you don’t know as much as the more experienced freelancers. So instead of despairing, do something about it. There are a lot of great sites on the Internet (besides this one, one of my favorites is FreelanceSwitch, but there are other good ones too). Or read this must-have ebook: How to Be A Rockstar Freelancer.
6. Sharpen your skills. This goes along with educating yourself, but the more you write in the beginning, the better. That’s not just for the experience — writing more makes you better at it. And write a broad range of stuff, from newspaper pieces to various styles of magazine articles to blog posts (guest post for lots of blogs if possible) to newsletters to brochures and more. Experiment with your writing, from different types of ledes to various types of storytelling to humor to emotion.
7. Start a blog. A blog always helps. It’s like a much-improved resume, and shows off your writing/editing skills. Don’t just blog about personal stuff — make it a showcase for your best writing. If you do a great job and grow a readership, it’ll be a launching pad for all kinds of other opportunities.
8. Copy other freelancers. Mimic the styles of others, just for practice. Read a lot of great writers, from fiction to journalists to your favorite magazine writers. Then steal their best stuff and make it your own.
9. Tell the world. When you’re first looking for gigs, it helps to send out an email to everyone you know, from friends and family to business colleagues, letting them know you’re for hire. This helps you to get the word out and might even net you a few jobs. Post it on your blog as well, along with any other forums or social networks you participate in. Don’t spam, but don’t be afraid to tell people either.
10. Be professional. In every interaction with potential clients, with interviewees, with anyone in your field or in a related profession, you need to act professionally. You are building a rep as a pro. Also have a business card (and again, a website or blog) and other ways to show that you’re serious about the business.