Escaping the tyranny of “someone else” 
Excuses, excuses. We can all come up with ones for not writing. The ones that I hear the most, and which make me want to scream, involve “someone else”. Mainly:
I can’t write this. Someone else knows more about the subject than I do!
Or:
Someone else can do a better job of writing this than me.
These excuses are paper thin. They’re just a way of avoiding a tough writing project, and avoiding any inevitable criticism. But those excuses should never hold you back. Here’s why.
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Lessons in writing from song
I can’t think of anyone who doesn’t enjoy a good song. A good song can be relaxing and uplifting. It can also offer a few lessons in good non-fiction writing. Like what? Here are three:
Tell a story: A good song does this. With one or two exceptions, so does a piece of non-fiction. You want to keep that story as interesting as possible. Conflict, humour, a fascinating person or situation. And as in fiction, your story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Use language and dialogue or quotes (real, not made up) to give the story a bit of extra life.
Use a hook to grab attention: A good lyric does just that. It makes you listen a little more closely. Sometimes, a hook in a song doesn’t make sense — just listen to the King Crimson song “Sex Eat Sleep Drink Dream“; the lyrics are strange but you’re compelled to listen. You can’t get away with that in writing, though. Your hook will be a well-crafted turn of phrase, an image, or a sudden twist in the story.
Make sure it all flows: Think of every good song that has stuck in your mind. The lyrics flow from verse to verse, as do the instrumentals. Writing should be that smooth. Bumpy writing — with weak or sudden transitions and meandering passages — don’t cut it. They bore readers, and can leave those readers confused. Pay attention to segues between sections and paragraphs. Keep your writing tight, but not at the expense of making it less descriptive.
Google Docs adds templates
And lots of them — over 300. You can take a peek at them here.
The templates are a mixed bag. Some are decent, most are just blah. Not a whole heck of a lot in there for the writer, but I’m sure that you can modify any of the templates to suit your needs.
Using a template is simple: just select New > From template in the main Google Docs window. From there, you’re taken to the template gallery. Select the one that you want to use and do your thing. What I’ve been doing is starting out with a template, and saving it in a folder called Templates. That gives me easier access to the template when I need it.
Have you tried the templates in Google Docs? If so, share your experiences by leaving a comment.
Writing better reviews
I wrote a lot of reviews in the early part of my freelance writing career. Mostly software and gadgets, with the occasional book thrown in there for good measure.
What I enjoyed about writing reviews was the challenge. I had to balance a lot of contradictions. I needed to be objective but judgmental. I needed to present an opinion, but one which I formed through work and not preconceptions. On top of that, I often needed to impart that opinion in a short space. On top of that, I got to play with some interesting toys and to read books that I normally wouldn’t have.
After writing all of those reviews, I learned a few lessons and internalized a few guidelines. Here are the main ones.
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Posts may be a bit far between over the next few days
As the title says …
I’m breaking in a new laptop (you can read about the beast here). On top of that, I have a bunch of deadlines and tasks related to my business that I need to tackle over the next couple of days.
That said, I’ve got a few longer posts planned for this space and a new weekly feature. Stay tuned.
Pricing your corporate writing services
Money. It makes the world go ’round. It keeps you comfortable. It doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure can rent a little. All of that stuff. So why do many writers (myself included) feel awkward about pricing their services, especially to corporate clients? Don’t look for the answer here; I’m still trying to figure it out myself.
Paul Lima, though, brings some much needed sanity to this whole affair. He’s written a great blog post on how to price corporate writing, editing, and training services. He puts it very bluntly:
I don’t give a hoot what the client expects to pay. I give a hoot about what I expect to earn. And the only way I can earn what I expect to earn is by knowing my hourly rate.
Lima has a simple formula for calculating his rate for a project: estimate how long a job will take and multiply that by his hourly rate.
And what if the prospective client doesn’t want to pay that much? Lima writes:
If I think a job is going to take 20 hours to complete and based on that I issue a quote for $2,500 and the client is only willing to pay $500, then I am better off spending time looking for better paying gigs.
Knowing when to stop
While she denies it, my wife is a very good writer. Before she put her writing career on hold to go back to school (and to do a bunch of other things) a few years ago, she was starting to crave out a decent career as a freelancer. Her work was solid, flowed well, and was always an interesting read. On top of that, she wrote both non fiction and fiction.
Her main problem was that she’d write something, be not quite happy with the results, and completely remold it. In some cases, what was a perfectly good (and often better than that) piece of writing would lose whatever charm and spark it had before the rewrite. This was especially true of her fiction.
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Advice for writing better headlines
Whether it’s an article, a blog post, or marketing copy, a strong headline helps grab the reader. Writing a good headline is tough. Doing that consistently is a lot tougher. As you can probably tell, I still haven’t mastered that skill.
This blog post from 37 Signals offers some excellent advice on how to write better headlines. The post looks at some examples, ranging from a (now defunct) airline and a Web hosting provider, as well as from a handful of articles and blog posts. You’ll definitely come away with something after reading this post.
Words and phrases to avoid
Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important?
— An unnamed writer for the Krusty the Klown Show
I’ve been in a bit of a testy mood this last week. A variety of reasons for that, but I’ve managed to keep it under the surface. Well, at least for the last couple of days. Little things, though, have set me off. Mainly words and phrases that I’ve heard and read recently, ones that have always grated on me.
In my current mood, these are more than minor irritants. And, as someone who writes for a living, these words and phrases offend my delicate sensibilities.
Like what? Here are a few:
All-time high/greatest/etc.: Unless time has ended (and no one’s told me), or that company/field of endeavour has ceased to exist, then nothing is all-time.
Free gift: Isn’t every gift you receive free? I know, I know. Some gifts do have strings attached, but …
Functionality: I cringe whenever I read or hear that word. What does that word mean? Features? Functions? I still haven’t figured that out, and I’ve been a technical writer for a long time.
Synergy: Unless you’re talking about Larry Fast’s electronic music project, I never want to hear that word applied to business or relationships. Or anything else.
Proactive: Is there such a thing as being antiactive?
Paradigm: I wish that word would just shift away.
Squaring the circle: The only time this sort of metaphor has come even close to working was in the title of the documentary Kings of the Square Ring.
I could go on, but for the sake of my mental health I won’t.
Are there any words or phrases that you find particularly annoying? If so, leave a comment.
Confusing your readers
There’s nothing worse than prose that confuses. Good non-fiction writing is supposed to explain, clarify, entertain, and educated. The same can be said for fiction, too, I assume. But sometimes writing just confuses readers.
This post looks at the ways in which you can confuse your readers. Chances are you’ve read examples of writing like that. You may have even been guilty of it at least once in your career.
Two writers come to mind when I think of confusing prose: Michel Foucault and Buckminster Fuller. Both had some very interesting ideas (Fuller more so in my opinion), but their writing was so dense and convoluted that following their threads of thought became impossible at times.
My advice? When I feel that my writing is becoming long and convoluted, I go back to basics:
- Keep it simple: short, punchy sentences, one idea per paragraph, and short paragraphs.
- No fancy language: keep the terminology simple, and use common words. If jargon does crop up, explain it as clearly as possible.
- Break things up: use bullets and headings to ensure that there’s not just a long flow of text.
- When in doubt, axe it: be ruthless when editing.
How do you handle a situation like this? Feel free to leave a comment.