Video – My FAVORITE Must Have Book for Writers

When it comes to this writing tool, I’m a rabid proponent that EVERY writer MUST have the J.I. Rodale Synonym Finder on his or her bookshelf.

You’ll see why when you watch this video.

Don’t wait another minute to add this book to your Writer’s Essential Bookshelf. Frankly, I don’t know how anyone writes without a plethora of word choices right there at their fingertips. Do you?

Frank McCourt, A Teacher’s Brush with The Teacher Man

Things are a little grayer all over the world today with the passing of author Frank McCourt, on Sunday, July 19, 2009.  Angela’s Ashes, published in 1996, and the first in a series of memoirs written by McCourt, probably did more than anything in the past two decades to create the heightened desire in writers to preserve and craft their own personal stories. During his years as a classroom teacher in the New York public school system, he “always told his writing students that they were their own best material.” Toward the end of his teaching career and into retirement, he took his own best advice and penned Angela’s Ashes and two subsequent memoirs: ‘Tis: A Memoir, and Teacher Man.

The people who read and enjoyed his books were common folks just like most of us. Some were better off but knew someone–perhaps a neighbor, or their child’s teacher, or their grandparents—who had come from a hard-scrabble upbringing and had a story to tell. Suddenly, everyone wanted to capture their own lives on the page, whether to publish like McCourt had, or to simply create a legacy in words to leave behind for their progeny.

McCourt achieved one of publishing’s highest accolades when he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. But he never lost his humble bearings.

I met him, shook his hand and had an opportunity to speak to Mr. McCourt briefly during the 2001 Florida Suncoast Writers Conference. A gentle teacher man, the same age as my father, he had just presented the opening keynote at the conference. He took my hand, turned it over, and said, “I bet you’re a teacher.” I was taken aback, for indeed I was. In fact, I had just started teaching memoir writing courses the semester before at the University of South Florida.

Because of the resurgence in personal storytelling McCourt had spawned, I’d switched from teaching business writing to creative nonfiction writing classes so I could read stories, like McCourt’s, for a living, and help writers write, and perhaps publish, the books of their dreams.

And I shared that with him. He never broke eye contact, and I locked on him, too, reveling in this brief moment with a mentor, a literary icon.

In his characteristic Irish-laden brogue, he thanked me for carrying on something he started “as kind of a bother.”

He winked, then said, “You know, I sometimes still prefer teaching.  Writing is kinda fun, but on the bad days, it can get you down, ya know?”

I agree, both writing and teaching have their flip sides: good days and bad days, great days and blah days.   Whether we’re the student or teaching from the other side of the desk, both are integral parts of the journey to publishing.  The writer’s life is (or ought to be) a lifelong act of learning and figuring things out, as Frank McCourt’s memoirs attest.

What remains a mystery to me is how the iconic Teacher Man figured out I was a teacher by simply taking my hand in his.

Related articles:

In tribute to Frank McCourt, Whose Irish Childhood Illuminated His Prose, Dead at 78

Frank McCourt from photographer David Shankbone’s perspective

Essential Writing Tool: DBNF

Here’s another writing tool I use all the time.  I borrowed this idea from my days as a time management consultant when I used the DBNF file for prospects who weren’t quite ready to buy.

The DBNF file is the perfect solution for those times when you need to kill your lil darlings (you know… those wonderful passages of prose that just don’t quite fit into the current piece of writing).

You know this is good material but it just doesn’t quite fit here.  Yet, you hate to throw out what it took you at least an hour to create.

Solution: create a DBNF file on your computer.

DBNF Stands for Dead But Not Forgotten.

DBNF is your good writing to use elsewhere.  Another time, another day, another blog post, in another story or vignette.

Cut and paste the ‘not working’ content from the current document.  Create a new Word (or text) document.  Save it with an appropriate file name.  Store all your DBNFs in a DBNF folder.  On the computer, or printed out in a manila folder.

BONUS TIP:

Stuck for something to write?  Revisit your DBNF for a story starter or inspiration for a new piece of writing.

Writers: Have The Guts To Cut

The best advice you’ll ever get comes from Kurt Vonnegut:  “Have the guts to cut.”

Don’t be afraid to kill your lil darlings.  I know it took you a long time to write that passage of prose.  I know you think what you wrote belongs.  And maybe it does.  But maybe somewhere else.

A good writer writes clean and spare.  Every word must do new work.  There should be no clutter in your sentences, no extraneous details, nothing that is not essential to the topic at hand.

Clean, spare writing does not mean you avoid description.  But it does mean cutting:

• repetition
• extra adverbs when one strong verb will do
• adjectives when a precise noun will “show” better

To keep your reader’s attention, avoid wordiness.  Strip your sentences to their cleanest form.

Learn to write tight to write right!

Essential Writing Tool: TK

I love discovering tools that make my life as a writer easier.  I tend to write on the fly and  have way more ideas than I can possibly capture on the page.

I’m not sure where I heard this one, but it’s a writing tool I use every day.

USE TK – Think of It As “To Come”

When you have a section you can’t write now, type TK into your draft. Later, use the Find command in your word processor program to search for TK.

Why TK?

TK is a letter combination not found often ( if ever?) in the English language.  So essentially, you’ve created a parking place for what’s “to come.”  (Okay, I admit, it’s fuzzy logic, but think TK phonetically = to come.)

This tool comes in very handy for those times when you don’t have the data you need.  Or you need to look up a quote to insert.  Or when the timing or inspiration is just not right to fill in the details.

Of course, before posting or submitting your prose to its final destination for publication, be sure to go through your entire document using the Find command to delete all the TKs.

3 Levels of Drafting A New Piece of Writing

Several years ago I attended a weekend spiritual retreat organized by the Omega Institute in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  Some of the notable headliners included Wayne Dyer, Joan Borysenko, James Van Praagh, Loretta Laroche, and  Dr. Brian Weiss.  I enjoyed the presentations by these wonderful teachers, but I’d come for one thing:  to sit at the feet of author Anne Lamott and lap up everything she had to say.

Anyone who has read her bestselling writing how-to book  Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life knows she has a wonderful way with metaphor, and a grand sense of humor.

She tickled her audience that day with her wry wit while teaching us about her recommended 3 stages for writing drafts:

1.  Start with a “down draft.”  Just get it all down.  Write, write, write.  Don’t worry where things might fit in.  Just get it all down before the muse runs away.  Think of the “down draft” as your parking place for ideas, experiences, and memories.

2.  Next, continue with “up drafts.”  Raise your  “down draft” from bare essentials to workable material.  That might mean adding new material, taking things out, moving elements around, shaping the piece of writing toward its publishable form.  Think of the “up drafts” as prettying things up.  This stage of drafting is truly where “writing” takes place and will mean you spend the bulk of your writing time at this stage.  Be okay with “up drafting” 5, 10, 20, even 40 times until you’ve refined your prose.

3.  Finally, attack your prose for the “dental draft”  as you polish and final hone.  During this stage, go deep inside your draft, review every word, every sentence, every paragraph for polishing.

If you’re not 100% certain of your doctoring (or dental) skills, now might be the time to have an experienced editor take a final look.  You’ll want your prose to be bright, shiny and smiling.

Freewriting – Process vs. Product

The concept of freewriting is to allow your words to flow onto the page, uncensored.  Read a prompt, put pen to page, and write.  Don’t stop to think… just write what comes to mind based on the prompt.  Allow whomever you draw your creativity from (the Universe, your Muse, God) to speak to you.  Use the prompt to conjure up sensory details from all 6 senses (see, smell, touch, hear, taste and “feel” emotional connections). Be spontaneous, expansive, and fluid.  Write first thoughts.  Freudian slips are okay, even welcomed, as they often take us where we really need to go.

Writing Prompts (or Assignments)

Writing prompts are intended to trigger your mental archive.  Use them as a springboard from your personal experience into writing.  All of us carry around images, emotions, and feelings that connect to past experiences, current situations, and future dreams.  Allow the prompt to “inform” your writing, but not “define” it.  The prompt may tell you to write something a certain way, but what comes to mind for you is something different.  Great!  Fine!  Write what your creative spirit tells you to write.  Anything you write is wonderful-neither good nor bad, it just is.

Allow yourself to be surprised.  Use the prompt to draw out your creative spirit and allow her writing to show up on the page in whatever form you choose.  Welcome short bursts-small pieces of 100 words, for example, can always grow into big pieces too.  Just get something, anything, written down.

Prompts as Writing Practice

I believe there are two kinds of writing:  writing for process and writing for product.  While the two go hand in hand, I believe what comes first is writing for process.

Consider:  where do you get the seeds for a new piece of writing?  how do you get from a series of thoughts to a fully polished piece that’s ready to send to a publisher?

In my experience, working with prompts and writing practice is a natural stepping stone on the path to publishable material.  Our first step is to write based on inspiration triggered by a prompt, allowing our writing to flow with personalized intention.

I call this “writing for process.”  You may not be able to see where this piece of writing is going, but what you’re doing is tapping into your mental and experiential archive.  You’re getting thoughts and ideas down on paper.  You’re strengthening your writing muscle.  You’re acknowledging your writing voice and personal style.

I believe as writers we need to collect a good sampling of these “writing for process” pieces.  They are the springboards for larger projects and help point us in directions we may not have seen or acknowledged before.

Once you have a collection of “process pieces” you can then begin to shape for publication the ones that interest you.  Here’s where your “process pieces” turn into “product pieces.”  These “product pieces” become the writings that you actively “work on” and polish.  With the “product pieces,” you begin to look for suitable markets, honing and refining to publisher guidelines.

Make Time To Write

1. Set an intention to write. Make it a priority, a gift you give yourself in a container of time for each week.

2. Establish a schedule. Find the time that works best for you, a.m. or p.m. or in between. Just showing up is important. Many successful writers keep an appointment with themselves and write at the same time every day.

3. Use “scrap” time–any little scrap of time will do. Perhaps, your lunch hour, or 20 minutes right after work, an hour before going to bed, early in the morning, while waiting to pick up Suzy from dance lessons or Johnny from soccer.

4. Set a goal for a minimum amount of writing you’ll do each week (ie. # of words, # of pages, # of vignettes started).

5. Get away from distractions. Set aside a place especially for your writing.  Create a writer’s nook or space for writing. OR, go to a place that works for you: the library, Starbucks, a bookstore, perhaps a park where you feel inspired.

6. Ask for what you need from others. When you need time and space, ask for it. Set new boundaries with yourself and others to create the time and space you need.

7. Stop doing those things that don’t serve your writing: watching TV, surfing the internet, playing computer games, solitaire or poker (I know, I’m a drag!)

8. Practice. Practice. Practice. You are creating a habit. Like exercise, establish your personal routine, a routine that works for you. Find your rhythm.

9. Find a writing partner who will act as a sounding board, reader, and friend, someone who will support your writing practice.

10. Reward your successes with new writing tools: pens, notebooks, how-to books, and the like when you’ve met your weekly targets.