Writing Discipline

The single most important aspect of being a new writer is setting and sticking to a regular writing discipline. To fully engage the process of writing, one must be doing it regularly, in a room of their own, without interruption.

What does a writing discipline mean?

It means setting the same time each day, the same days each week, to commit to the writing process.

The writing time can be used for all sorts of writing activities, not just writing words on the page. During my writing sessions, my focus is fully on my novel and what nurtures that novel, reading biographies, watching related films, reading about how to improve characterization, meditating on the next plot twist. In other words, the writing discipline doesn’t have to be just about the physical act of writing. For example, I am working on Air, my second novel. I lived in Japan, and the setting is Tokyo. So, I’m reading two books during my writing time right now, one is a nonfiction book on weather and wind currents, so I can feel the theme of Air in my bones, and the other is a biography of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito, during whose reign the novel is set.

I work with women executives who have small children, who have to be creative in finding a regular, sustainable writing discipline. One goes to a coffee shop on her lunch hour to write. The writing progresses in direct proportion to the time you give to it, but even one hour a day regularly can result in the rough draft of a book in a year or two.

I write fiction from 8 until noon, Monday through Friday, and have done this for 15 years. I schedule my work commitments from 1-5 p.m., and have changed my life to accommodate this writing schedule. By scheduling the same time every day for years, I have an almost Pavlovian response when I sit down to write. It is as if all the information I need is being held until the moment I face my novel on the computer screen. As soon as I begin my daily writing, I tap into this information and the writing flows.


Even if you do not want to become a full-time writer, but only want to write a book, setting a regular writing discipline is the only way to finish it in a timely manner, or truly to finish it at all. The process is a long and difficult one and it’s easy to give up.

I suggest clients write for a year, and keep a journal of their progress each day. At the end of the year, they can look back and see that, for example, they were productive for three months, and less productive for a month while they took an unconscious break. Or they note that during certain times of the year when their work schedule is simply too busy, they were writing less. One can learn from this yearly cycle, adapt to it and harness it.

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Writing Tip: Use Active Voice

At some point in the history of modern business, someone decided passive voice sounded professional. It doesn't; passive voice actually comes across as someone trying to sound professional. A good writer can spot these wannabe's for miles.

Always use active voice and strong verbs.

Bad: "Your report was recommended to me by my boss, Alex Stern."

Let's turn the sentence around and have the subject of the sentence take the action.

Good: "My boss, Alex Stern, recommended your report."

See if you can't swap out run-of-the-mill verbs for more vibrant verbs.

Bad: "I was asked questions by the Board about my proposal."

First, let's make it an active, not passive sentence.

Better: "The Board asked me questions about my proposal."

Now, let's use the real verb in the sentence.

Best: "The Board questioned me about the proposal." (I changed the second last word, "my", to "the" because the repetition of me and my weighed the sentence down.)

Write in active, not passive, voice, and use strong verbs and watch your writing sing.

Writing Tip: Be yourself

Long gone are the days when we had to write business letters and other communications in ridiculously formal language.

"Pursuant to your last correspondence, related to the aforementioned Wingate project..."

Unless you're using legal language for legal reasons, such communication sounds contrived, and frankly, unintelligent. It sounds as if you're trying to compensate for an inability to communicate on a normal level.

Be respectful, but be yourself. Instead of the above, put the information in "normal" language.

"I'm writing to you in response to your last email about the Wingate project..."

By writing this way, you more quickly gain the trust of the recipient, who feels you're not trying to pull a fast one through fancy language. You communicate more clearly, and you don't have to spend so much time writing the letter to make it sound "official". Just be yourself. Be formal if you need to be, but use your own voice.

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Writing Tip: Collect Information

To begin writing anything, start first with compiling the information you'll need. This is such an obvious step, but one many people overlook. It's much easier to begin your rough draft if you have the facts, the figures, the research at your fingertips.

I recommend to all writing clients to read the information first before beginning to write. Even if you've already read the information; begin again by re-reading.

For example, as a journalist, before I wrote an article, I'd collect vital information: written interviews with interviewees, factual research and previous articles written on the subject. I began writing an article by re-reading all this information. It made the rough draft write itself.

If you don't have any information, if you're writing a personal article about your own expertise, you can still google information on the subject written by other people to help generate ideas.

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Organizing Thoughts While Writing

Most writers I coach have a problem organizing their ideas, first into pages, then into chapters. It's understandable -- if you're dealing with a 300-page book, there are a lot of ideas to get down.

My advice: write chronologically. If it's a memoir, that's easy. Begin Chapter 1 with your first day on the job, or go back further and begin with your relationship with your successful father and what he taught you. Upon revision, you can go back and change the order to be more clever. But for a rough draft, it's so much easier on you as a writer to get it down in chronological order.

What about a business self-help book? How does the chronological rule apply? First, look at each chapter as a theme. With a book on management, some themes might include "Hiring" and "Morale" and "Retaining staff" and "Training". Think, could these be seen in a chronological way? Does hiring fall before training? Morale before retaining staff? Even themes can be chronological.

Then, when you're writing chapters, begin at the beginning. Let's say you're writing a memoir; you've come from humble beginnings and now you're CEO of your own wildly successful firm. Begin at the beginning means a chapter on humble beginnings. That's great, you say, but that encompasses years, how do I boil it down? I ask all clients, what story from your youth or early adulthood sticks in your mind? What story do you seem to tell over and over? What event seems to exemplify "humble beginnings"? This event from your youth is sticking in your mind because it is full of character, setting, theme; it is full of pathos. Write it down and go from there. Work chronologically forward. The entire book could simply be a chronological compilation of such stories from youth to present.

Whatever the book you're writing, think chronologically. Every book needs a thorough revision process, and during revision you can play with the order for dramatic affect. The first draft is known as the rough draft. Don't sweat the rough draft. Just get the words out of your head and onto the page. The easiest way to do that is to keep it simple, to keep it linear.

Even if you're not writing fiction, read Stephen King's book On Writing for more insights into the writing process.

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The Artist and the Businessman

“The artist and the businessman should cultivate every opportunity to teach and supplement one another, to cooperate with one another, just as the nations of the world must do. Only in such a fusion of talents, abilities, and philosophies can there be even a modest hope for the future, a partial alleviation of the chaos and misunderstandings of today.”

-Walter Paepcke, quoted in Barry Hoffman's "The Fine Art of Advertising" (New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang, 2002)

Forbes: The Power of Stories

A couple of years ago, Forbes magazine ran an article (see below) on how powerful storytelling can inspire staff and change the way the world views a company. I cannot agree more. I think all of life is a story, told well, told poorly or told not at all. The stories we tell affect the way people treat us, the way they understand us, and even the way they understand themselves. I think how stories are told changes lives, changes the world.

Think of your day up to this point. When you came into work, did someone ask: How was your night last night? How was the drive in? Did you get that report done? Answering the person is telling a story. You can befriend them with the story, put them off with the story, drone on and bore them with the story -- but no matter what you do your story will have an impact, even if in only a small way. Think of the nightly news, even that is just a series of stories told from a certain perspective.

The Forbes' article focuses on examples of how powerful storytelling turned companies around. The only thing it failed to mention was this: some business leaders are natural raconteurs, but many are not. Some business leaders are born with an innate ability to tell a simple story, not one with spin, not one that's self serving -- that sort of storytelling puts everyone off. They're able to see human pathos in the everyday and speak to that. They're able to grasp the soul of a situation and convey it.

But there are others who cannot. Still, I believe anyone can learn basic concepts of storytelling. How to convey what you mean in words that will be understood. How to speak to the soul of your mission, your passion, your work or your life.

(http://www.theliteraryexecutive.com/)

From Forbes.com
The Power Of Stories
John Kotter 04.12.06, 2:00 PM ET

New York - Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best--and change--from hearing stories that strike a chord within us. The dry academic tomes I wrote very early in my career were earnest reflections of the research I conducted, the analysis I applied and the conclusions I drew. And they had few readers, mostly other academics. I learned along the way and started including more and more stories in my work. My later books were read by many more people than my earliest work.
As I look around me today, I see that too few business leaders grasp the idea that stories can have a profound effect on people. The gestures made (or not made) by leaders can turn into the stories that powerfully affect behavior.
Leaders who understand this and use this knowledge to help make their organizations great are the ones we admire and wish others would emulate. Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.
When Lou Gerstner became IBM's (nyse: IBM - news - people ) CEO, the company had become bureaucratic and inwardly focused. Early on, stories about Gerstner poured out of the executive suite, and everyone in the company realized in short order that things would be different. For example, at a first Divisional meeting, where managers were accustomed to presenting great reams of overhead projections, Gerstner turned off the projector and insisted they all just talk. This story flew across the organization. Very quickly, having the best slides stopped being among the criteria for success at the company.
Sam Walton was famous for the stories told by and about him, especially those that featured his visits to his stores. In one instance, he heard a customer complain to a clerk that the fishing rod he had bought at Wal-Mart Stores (nyse: WMT - news - people ) had broken. "Mr. Sam" walked over to the fishing rod section, got an identical rod, gave it to the customer and deeply apologized. Stories like this helped build the kind of culture that allowed the firm to succeed wildly.
The stories that a company broadcasts about itself can also have a powerful impact on customers, shareholders and employees. Consider two companies in the same industry, facing the same environment, that have chosen to tell very different stories in their corporate advertising campaigns.
Exxon Mobil (nyse: XOM - news - people ), despite worldwide concern about the adequacy of the remaining supply of oil and the threat of global warming, maintains its public stance as a petroleum company. By comparison, BP (nyse: BP - news - people ) conducted an intense campaign, which ended with the tag line "BP: Beyond Petroleum." The company has very publicly proclaimed itself to be an energy company, "acting on the challenges of climate change, energy security, new sources of energy and our carbon footprint."
The difference can have a real impact. For which company would the brightest engineering graduates from MIT, Cornell or Stanford most likely want to work? Which company's employees are more likely to defend the company to their next-door neighbors who are angry about oil prices and oil company profits?
It is important that executives ask themselves these questions: What are the stories that define us in light of our customers, employees and shareholders? And are these the stories we want to tell--and have others tell about us? If the answer to these questions is "No," then you must start taking the actions that will replace the old stories. Your success depends on the honesty and integrity of your actions as well as on the emotional impact they make. The cynicism created when the "stories" are proved to be false or misleading can be extremely damaging.
Stories can be negative as well. Recently, Delta Airlines (nyse: DAL - news - people ) tried to impose wage cuts on its work force. The story came out that executives were doing so while buttressing their own pay and benefits, citing the old excuse about needing to keep executives from deserting the (sinking) ship. This did not save the company from failed negotiations with angry employees and, ultimately, resulted in widespread condemnation in the press. Finally, it became clear to Delta's executives that they too needed to make some sacrifices, but it was too little, too late. Employees had constructed their own story from the facts of the case. The company is still in difficult negotiations with its pilots and still in bankruptcy.
In contrast, many of us remember the story of Lee Iacocca reducing his own salary to $1 while asking his employees at Chrysler for sacrifices that ultimately turned around and saved the company.
I think of myself as a life-long learner, so lately I have been applying what I have learned about stories to my own work. As a result, many more of the people I want to reach--leaders at all levels in organizations around the world--are reading and acting on ideas I have developed. My more recent books include Leading Change, The Heart of Change, and, coming in September, Our Iceberg is Melting.
I am always looking for stories that will shed light on how companies define themselves--for better or for worse. When shared with others, such stories can have an enormous impact on how well we move forward in the changing world around us. If you have a story to share, please let me know about it. You can e-mail me at JKotter@hbs.edu.
John P. Kotter, a renowned expert on leadership at the Harvard Business School, has been the premier voice on how the best organizations actually "do" change. His bestseller, Leading Change --with an actionable, eight-step process for implementing successful transformations--became the change bible for managers around the world. For more on Kotter's books, visit the Web site for his new book, http://www.bettermanagement.com/keycode.aspx?keycode=532194