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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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)

Don't Think. Act.

How many times have you wanted to sit down and write the book you've always wanted to write, but instead you simply thought about it for days, hours, even years. How long have you been waiting for inspiration? As a novelist and former journalist, I know better than some, less than most, that the inspiration comes in the doing. So, I want to finish editing the climax of my novel Earth, and I can't because I tell myself I don't know how.

Well, of course I don't know how if I just sit and think about it. That's just not the way writing of any kind works. If you do the actual process of writing, you will be inspired. If you sit and think about it you will be frustrated. It's just that simple.

So, I take out the chapter, the climax on Earth, and I just start. Sentence one. Page one. What could make this sentence better? Sentence two? Paragraph one? And slowly I start to build steam and all these huge epiphanies are propelling me through the story on wings of fire. I'm soaring! I'm dreaming I'm flying over Earth the novel, over the chicken coop, the fenced off yard for the baby cows, over the house, the family working the land, and further, I'm flying across the ocean to a place where the ancestors of that family lived and I'm seeing them, and I'm witnessing the climax from a much higher and greater perspective.

And it was all because I just opened the document on my laptop and looked at it. How many hours did I sit around waiting? Days? Months? How many? Too too many.

My policy now: don't think. Act. From action comes inspiration. Only then do the muses show up, line up to propel you on your way...

The same can be said for any kind of book, from memoir to a self help business book on leadership. Inspiration comes in the doing, not in the pondering! www.theliteraryexecutive.com