More Advice on Writing

More Advice on Writing

Paul got us off to such a great start with the writ­ing meme that I decided to play, too!

Just to review, his wife tagged him to par­tic­i­pate and the rules are sim­ple and straightforward:

1. List three writ­ing tips; and
2. Tag 3 peo­ple whose writ­ing style you would like to imitate.

One pro­viso, how­ever: There are many writ­ers whose styles I admire, but I do not aspire to “imi­tate” any­one. I have my own style, and am eager to con­tinue devel­op­ing and improv­ing it.

1. Be a Glut­to­nous Reader

Great writ­ers read vora­ciously. They are con­stantly and eter­nally learn­ing from oth­ers’ work, emu­lat­ing rather than imi­tat­ing. Con­tact any writer you admire and ask him/her what he/she has read recently that was mem­o­rable, inspir­ing or for­get­table. I guar­an­tee he/she will respond quickly and thoroughly.

2. Be a Good Listener

Great writ­ers are active, engaged lis­ten­ers with an intense abil­ity and desire to dis­cern nuance, inflec­tion, into­na­tion vari­a­tions and sub­tle hints or sug­ges­tions dur­ing conversations.

3. Write All — Lit­er­ally — the Time

I write in my head. I have actu­ally drafted entire arti­cles for my blog in my head before my fin­gers ever touched the key­board so that when I finally do sit down, the words prac­ti­cally spray out of my fin­ger­tips onto the com­puter screen.

I do the same thing pro­fes­sion­ally. As I move through my day, I am con­stantly think­ing about upcom­ing writ­ing projects, try­ing out approaches in my head and when I begin, phys­i­cally, to write, the same thing usu­ally happens.

Some peo­ple out­line, oth­ers are pro­fuse note-jotters and a few carry around micro­cas­sette recorders into which they dic­tate thoughts and ideas. For the most part, although I carry mind maps with me and uti­lize them in order to keep from for­get­ting key points or pas­sages, I am con­stantly writ­ing and edit­ing — inter­nally. Regard­less of the meth­ods or medi­ums employed, ask any writer you admire and he/she will tell you that the dia­logue is ongo­ing. In fact, some­times it is dif­fi­cult to turn it off.

Although I’m not for­mally tag­ging any­one to par­tic­i­pate, I do want to rec­om­mend that you get acquainted with three extremely tal­ented writ­ers (apart from my Write Stuff col­leagues) whose blogs I read regularly:

• Sandy Carl­son of Writ­ing in Faith
• Vienne of Eaves­drop Writer
• Mimi Lenox of Mimi Writes

Those are my tips. What are yours?

Also pub­lished at Write Any­thing.

Tech­no­rati Tags: Col­lo­quium on Writing

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