Tag Archives: Uplifting writing

4 Lies That Are Keeping You From Writing a Book

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There is a book inside you.

There has to be. Why else are you reading a post about writing a book?

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Getting that book out, of course, is the extremely difficult part. The words don’t come out as we imagine. The time to write shrinks as life gets busier.

And so many questions vex us — so many lies that we tell ourselves to avoid the challenge ahead.

But you have to write your book. It’s one of the greatest driving forces in your life.

4 Lies That Stop You From Writing Your Book

Before you can get started, you have to confront and reject the four lies that have probably been keeping you from writing the book of your dreams. Tackle these lies head-on, and replace them with the truth:

1. It has to be long

How long should a novel be? Is there an exact number of words or pages for it to be a success?

This question can certainly stop us in our tracks. The idea of writing a novel always seems enormous, like climbing the world’s tallest mountain.

Yet there is no rule about how long the book has to be. That’s up to you.

Sure, there are genre-specific suggestions about word counts. The good news is that most of them are lower than you might think! Especially if you are a new author, agents and editors want to see how much story you can tell with fewer words, saving on publishing costs.

There is no absolute book length that works. Of Mice and Men is 30,000 words long, while A Game of Thrones is 300,000.

It’s up to you and your creative process, so don’t let false expectations and fear tell you that your book won’t be long enough to count.

2. I have to have the story figured out

This lie is a crippling one. It demands perfection even before we’ve started.

Yet it is impossible to know exactly how our stories are going to go before we’ve written them. Every attempt at a story runs into surprises and roadblocks. Our plans, no matter how exhaustive, always fail to materialize just how we thought they would.

This is completely natural — and it’s really, really good!

Yet our inner perfectionist makes impossible demands. It suggests that deviating from your plan is somehow failure.

But this is a lie! Creativity is deviation from the plan! It is finding solutions when logic and order don’t work!

So while it is extremely wise to have a plan, and know where your story is generally going, don’t give up on your book dream just because you haven’t created it yet!

3. I’ll start but I won’t finish

My favorite Shakespeare play is Macbeth, which features one of my favorite storytelling devices: the self-fulfilling prophecy. By resisting the witches, Macbeth brings about his own tragic doom.

Unfortunately, this trope extends into real life, especially with artists like us. We long to create, but fear that we lack the discipline or talent to finish something good.

So we give up before even starting. Hence, the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don’t let this lie seduce you. It  is especially seductive because it delivers a sense of false control: “If I don’t start, then I won’t fail,” the thinking goes.

To fulfill your dream of writing a book, you have to commit to finishing, no matter what. Even if you fall off the wagon for a season, you can still get back in the writing groove.

But you have to get started first.

4. No one’s going to read it

This is similar to the previous lie because it speaks a prophecy that we fulfill on our own. “No one’s going to read it, so I just won’t write it,” we think to ourselves.

What a tragic lie! Our struggling self-confidence produces tangible failure, all by doing nothing!

We can’t know who’s going to read or buy our book yet. We just can’t. By the time we’ve finished writing it, our life situation will have changed because time rolls on.

I will say this, though: Very few people actually fulfill the commitment to write a book.

Most hem and haw, mumbling about “wishing” and “someday.” Very few actually do it.

By writing a book, you will attract readers to yourself, especially if you serve those readers along the way.

One popular way of writing a book is to blog it, as Andy Weir did with The Martian. One chapter at a time, he posted to his website and slowly gathered a following. While he is certainly a rare and privileged case, it shows how giving and serving with our writing can solve our readership problem.

Commit to Your Book

There’s a book inside of you. That’s why you’re on this website, looking for help with your writing.

So commit.

Whether it’s 100 words a day, 500, or 1000, commit to working on your book every day.

Join a community, like a local writer’s group, Becoming Writer, or the 100 Day Book Program. Hold yourself accountable by joining other writers with a similar dream as yours.

But whatever you do, own the reality that you are a writer with a dream. There is a book inside of you that is longing to be written. It won’t be easy. It never is.

But it is beautiful and totally worth it.

So commit to your book today, and begin the journey that will change your life forever!

Have you committed to writing your book? Share how you’re keeping up with your commitment in the comments below!

By David Safford
Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

 

Style Guides: Essential Writing Resources for Professionals

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When we’re writing, we run into a lot of technical issues. Where do the quotation marks go? When is it correct to use a comma? How should titles be formatted?

Some of these questions are answered by the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. But other questions are not addressed by grammar: there’s no official rule for how to format a title.

We writers need trusted resources that we can use to resolve all these issues, especially if we want to produce work that is both grammatically correct and stylistically consistent.

That’s what style guides are for. Style guides answer grammatical questions and provide guidelines for consistency.

What is a Style Guide and Should I Use One?

A style guide is a manual that establishes rules for language (including grammar and punctuation) and formatting. Within academia, these guides also provide standards for citations, references, and bibliographies. Many disciplines have their very own style guides, such as the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.

These manuals promote proper grammar and ensure consistency in areas where grammar is unclear. Style guides answer all those burly writing questions that are absent from the rules of grammar: Did you use a serial comma in the first paragraph, but leave it out in the third? Have you used italics in one post to refer to a book title, but in another post used quotation marks?

Basically, a style guide is an all-purpose writing resource.

If you’re serious about writing, then you should definitely use a style guide. Since a style guide’s primary function is to render a work consistent and mechanically sound, every project will benefit from its application. That includes creative writing, freelance writing, and blogging!

In many cases, a style guide is not only appropriate, it’s mandatory. If you’re writing for submission, it’s a good idea to check a publication’s submission guidelines to see if they require writers to use particular style guide.

By establishing standards, a style guide will help you streamline your work. Once you are accustomed to using a particular set of guidelines, the writing process will flow more smoothly, because you won’t have to stop and deliberate on grammar and style. Your readers will be pleased too, since inconsistency causes confusion.

Which Style Guide Should I Use?

There are lots of different style guides, from the The AP Stylebook to the The Chicago Manual of Style. Which one should you use?

In many cases, the matter of which style guide to use is not up to the writer. As mentioned, publishers will provide guidelines explaining which style guide is required.

Most newspapers adhere to The Associated Press Stylebook on Briefing on Media Law (often called The AP Stylebook), whereas a small press publisher might ask you to use The Elements of Style (often referred to as Strunk and White). Professors and teachers generally require students to use the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition.

What about freelance writers, bloggers, fiction writers, and everyone else?

writing resourcesThe most popular style guide for general use is The Chicago Manual of Style, and this is also the style guide commonly used for manuscripts (i.e. novels and anthologies). Many other writing guides are based on Chicago or will defer to it for any areas of style that they do not specifically address. It covers formatting, includes rules for good grammar usage, and provides a roadmap that ensures your work is mechanically consistent.

For general use, Chicago is by far one of the best writing resources on the market, and for me, it’s been one of the best investments I’ve made for my own writing career.

Do you use a style guide, and if so, which one? Are there other writing resources that you can’t live without? Share your favorites in the comments.

By Melissa Donovan
Source: writingforward.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing

Tone in Writing: The Uplifting Tone Your Writing Needs to Reach Your Readers

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Do you write a blog? Mentor other writers? Parent a tiny version of yourself?

Then you’re a coach!

While you may not work in a classroom or on the field, odds are you practice some form of teaching and coaching that impacts the lives of others. You might even be doing that right here at The Write Practice—if you’re in a writing group giving feedback and sharing your critique with other writers, you’re a writing coach.

And since you’re a writer, you might blog about it, consider blogging about it, or write books and other content designed to help people.

Being a know-it-all, I’ve always assumed I was a good teacher and coach. I’ve often taken that attitude into blog posts and book chapters, and then wondered why I received negative comments and feedback.

I’m learning a tough lesson about successful teaching and coaching: Tone is everything.

Because if we coach with the wrong tone in writing, we might not be coaching at all, but driving our readers away!

Don’t Be Mean, David!

Last year, I wrote a book for my subscribers called The 10 Reasons Quit Your Book.

The idea behind the book was to hit writers where it hurts: the lack of response to their work.

As a writer and teacher of creative writing for over ten years now, I have a pretty good idea why some stories work and other stories do not. I’m not perfect by any stretch, but I’ve failed enough times (and seen others fail) to know what makes a reader think, “Meh.”

I shared 10 Reasons Readers Quit Your Book with a fellow writer and judge of last year’s Winter Writing Contest. She enjoyed it and found its teaching useful, but shared a critique that really struck me.

“Your tone,” she wrote, “is rather negative, and this might deter readers.”

In other words, my tone in writing was mean.

And it would almost certainly turn readers off to my message, and to me.

Tone in Writing: The Coach’s Dilemma

I’ve found this to be a challenge with all kinds of “coaching.” How do we identify failure in our readers while encouraging their success?

It’s a tough balance. Most of our readers are probably failing at something that we are not (we may be struggling, but not nearly as much as our readers are).

But your success is the reason you’re writing the coaching post!

  • You’ve lost weight, but your reader is still struggling with diet/exercise.
  • You’ve made a million dollars, but your reader is still living check-to-check.
  • You’ve mastered story structure, but your reader doesn’t know why structure is so important.

See how this gap between master and student can lead to an alienating tone?

This is especially hard because online coaching isn’t relational. We often don’t know our readers personally. Instead, they’re often busy browsers with five minutes to absorb our words of wisdom. If every one of those words isn’t carefully designed to empower them on to victory, we will almost certainly alienate them, probably through a “negative” tone.

So how do we adopt a tone in writing that won’t alienate our readers? What tangible step can we take to achieve this?

The answer — and how simple it is — will amaze you.

3 Steps to Employ the Power of “You”

The secret to mastering a “welcoming” and “positive” tone is in our careful use of pronouns.

In education, teachers use “gradual release” to help students master a new subject. In short, it works like this:

  • I do (model)
  • We do (guided practice)
  • You do (independent practice)

In our coaching, we need to use the same structure, but with a few twists.

1. Start with first-person singular

First, always begin your coaching with first-person examples, using “I,” “me,” and “my.”

This is especially true when giving non-examples, or examples of failure.

One thing I did right with 10 Reasons was begin with an example of my own glaring failure. Then, throughout the book, I referred back to it as a reminder that I am far from perfect and have failed at the concepts before.

This is a great way to build trust with your reader before launching into the concept you wish to coach.

2. Teach the concept in first-person plural

Then, teach the content or concept using the first-person plural: “we” and “us.”

Put yourself alongside the student. Be with them and let them see themselves as on the winning team while learning.

There is a huge difference between a learner who is “below” and a learner who is “with.”

When a student is allowed to see the teacher fail, recover, and pass on this hard-earned knowledge, it makes a world of difference. That is why it’s wise to lead from a humble position, seasoning our role as Coach with the reality of our Humanity.

Then, and only then, can you deploy the trickiest of pronouns: “You.”

3. Use “you” positively

Be positive and patient with “you”

“You” is a powerful word. Unlike “we,” which subtly brings the reader into our midst, “you” keeps the reader separate and alone. It is the most dangerous pronoun, and we are wise to treat it with great care.

Unfortunately for me in 10 Reasons, I wasn’t so careful.

“Non-examples” are often fun stories to tell. They are examples of failure — easy to laugh at, difficult to empathize with. And in 10 Reasons, I often used the pronoun “you” in those non-examples!

In even the most vanilla of moments, associating “you” — who is our precious reader — with anything negative can have a powerful and discouraging impact.

And my tone in writing came off as negative, as a result. While my fellow judge pressed on through the book, I can’t count on a stranger to do the same.

So in my revision of 10 Reasons, I’m choosing to wait until the time is right before unleashing this tricky pronoun.

At the end of each chapter, I reveal the “Story Secret” that leads to success.

Only here, once the bad examples and negativity have passed, do I use “you.”

Your readers want to get better. They want to win. 

And they’ve come to you not just for content, but hope. Give it to them by casting them as the hero once you’ve finished the harsher points of teaching.

Trust me: This works! I’m about three chapters into my rewrite of 10 Reasons, and I’m noticing incredible differences in the overall flow and feel of the book.

Wait until the end, and wait until “you” can be positive.

We have to be patient with “you,” and only use it once the time is right. Otherwise its coaching power will turn negative and scare our valuable readers away.

Don’t Be Cynical

One final thought on tone must be mentioned, and it has to do with negative humor.

When giving non-examples, it’s often fun to use clever imagery and go for the laugh. Yet in coaching, readers aren’t reading our work for the humor (unless you’re Jon Acuff); they’re reading because they’re hurt, they’re failing, they’re struggling, they’re vulnerable — they’re any number of things that make them a little uneasy.

Put simply, they’re fragile.

So take a lighter approach to humor, especially when incorporating humor into non-examples; we might end up making fun of our readers’ failures without knowing it!

I’m also guilty of writing with a “tough love” tone, using bold words and blunt syntax, thinking of myself as a hard-talking football coach.

Yet most of my readers (creative writers) don’t want a football coach — they want a monk with publishing credentials!

Therefore, despite our zeal for great storytelling, we need to lead our readers with the gentle hand of a mentor, not the sour yell of a frustrated coach

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What Do “You” Think?

So as this post on coaching comes to a close, let me ask you: What do you think? Are pronouns, especially “you,” really so powerful?

You may have already noticed, but I largely refrained from using the word “you” until now.

Up until this point, I’ve extensively given personal examples of failure and recovery. I’ve also delivered my core principles — primarily about pronouns and tone words — in the first-person plural.

“We” are mastering this together. This will help “us” reach “our” readers better.

Probably the most important thing a coach can realize is that learning never stops. I will always be a learner. The moment I finish writing this post, I will go back to my role as a learner, reading other great posts at The Write Practice.

It’s also wise to remember that our readers can offer us more than we think. I’ve often found something in the comments of my posts that challenges what I’ve written, or asks a question and exposes a flaw in the way I taught a concept. This is a good thing, a beautiful thing, for a coach to receive.

Humility is perhaps the powerful quality of a great coach, whether they’re a writing coach or a coach of any other kind. A great coach realizes that it is through failure that he or she learns, and humbly passes that on to his/her community. Great coaches are great teammates and learners, and don’t consider their wisdom something to be lorded over others.

So what do you think? Do you want to be a great coach and impact many lives around you?

I know I do. And I’m confident you do, too.

Have you ever had a coach, or coached someone in something you’re good at? How did they or you adopt a helpful tone? Let us know in the comments.

By David Safford

Source: thewritepractice.com

Visit us at First Edition Design Publishing