10 of the Best Posts/Articles on Writing/Blogging from the End of 2007

I'll close out 2007 with a top ten list of the best writing/blogging posts/articles I found in this final week of 2007. No particular order though--this is just in the order I found them. I've included a quote from each post. Check them out and glean some tips to improve your writing and enhance your blog as you enter the new year.

Bob Bly exhorts us to be more specific in our wording in 277% Better
"The rule in writing is that when you compare something, you have to say what you are comparing it to."

Brian Clark presents The Best of Copyblogger in 2007
"So, if you missed anything from 2007, here’s a second shot at it."

Bob Bly, this time from Early to Rise, asks, Is Donald Hall Insane?
"The problem with perfection is twofold. First, if you are a perfectionist you will be unproductive. Second, the market usually is not willing to pay for perfection.

Excellence, yes. Perfection, no."

Deborah Ng explains How to Tell if You’re Spreading Yourself Too Thin
"Don’t spread yourself too thin. Take some time to reflect on how your work is affecting you and your family. If it’s not all good, you may need to cut back."

George Beahm encourages us to dream big, drawing from a personal experience.
"If your so-called friends take you to task for thinking big, remember this: It’s only because they think small and can’t imagine succeeding themselves. So go out and prove the naysayers wrong!"

Anne Helmond at Blog Herald is trying to decide: To Blogroll or Not to Blogroll
"Blogrolls are a personal index of blogs that need attention. I am currently neglecting my blogroll and have a hard time letting go of it because it seems such a standard feature of the blog."

Dr.Mani Sivasubramanian, in a guest post at ProBlogger, passes on Lessons for Bloggers From The ‘Death of 2007′
"We often sacrifice today for a brighter tomorrow. We postpone gratification and enjoyment so that we may multiply it in the future. Sadly, sometimes, we put off the important things - until it’s too late.

Death reminds us to live in the here and now. Do the things that matter today. Be wary about what you give up for a pay-off down the line… it just might be something far too precious to risk."

Melissa Donovan assesses 2007: Freelance Writers’ Year in Review
"More importantly, are you earning a living wage? Everyone wants more money, but at the very least, you should be able to cover your own basic living expenses. If you’ve been freelancing for awhile and still can’t manage to pay all your bills, then it’s time for a serious overhaul."

Randall Stross writes in the New York Times about How to Lose Your Job on Your Own Time HT to SunOasis Joblog
"In the absence of strong protections for employees, poorly chosen words or even a single photograph posted online in one’s off-hours can have career-altering consequences."

Lori Widmer explains her Delicious Dilemmas
"Isn't it great to be faced with choosing between jobs? It's great in that you suddenly feel financial security creeping back into your life. It's not so great when you're really facing it and hoping you don't choose unwisely."

That's it for 2007, folks.
Happy New Years.
coram Deo.

Almost Everything in Life is Negotiable--Even for Freelance Writers.

It's hard to realize when you first start out freelance writing, but almost everything from pay rates to deadlines is negotiable on some level. New writers often take whatever rate per word or project any publication will give them, and immediately agree to whatever deadline is proposed--even if the pay is well below what they should truly get and the deadlines are so compressed that their life becomes unnecessarily chaotic.

Certainly, if you're just starting out and building a portfolio and a client list, you should be willing to accept lower-paying projects and short deadlines; your main goal is to establish your credentials at this point. Don't take on assignments for $3 articles, though.

However, I bet many writers who do have significant experience still generally accept the conditions set forth by their clients, with little to no negotiation for better pay rates or flexible deadlines. Now, don't be so hardcore in your negotiations that you constantly lose clients, but certainly recognize that, as James Chartrand of Web Content Writer Tips says, "everything is negotiable and...the first price is never the final price."

In a post on why he chose a particular person to contract with, entitled 11 Tricks Brian Gardner Can Teach You to Attract New Clients, Chartrand's fifth trick is on negotiation. He says, "I worked five years in a corporate Purchasing department. I know that everything is negotiable and that the first price is never the final price. (Bonus tip: If your first price is your final price, you need to rethink your pricing strategy.) I also know that if you never ask, you never receive. Brian quoted a rate and we bargained a bit to something that suited us both."

Once you've established a track record of quality writing and meeting deadlines for your clients, you've earned the right to negotiate for better pay, and perhaps more reasonable deadlines. Be smart; don't just decide it's time to up your rates and then simply declare that you need a raise; despite your successful track record, going about negotiating the wrong way could cost you regular clients.

Tom Chandler of The Copywriter Underground has some pointers to help you negotiate wisely. Chandler's post, How to Negotiate Copywriting Fees Without Turning Into an A**hole: A Nine Step Short Course, begins:

"Most clients accept a copywriter’s proposals without problem, but a few clients want to negotiate.

When I was starting out, some clients - knowing I was new - negotiated hard, and got me cheap. Others negotiated more work than they paid for.

Most distressing was the fact that I didn’t know what was happening.

I was losing the negotiation battle.

Finally, I picked the brains of a top salesperson. What he taught me was invaluable."

Of Chandler's nine negotiating tips, I especially like #1 "Confidence is Critical" and #5 "Never Give Up Anything Without Getting Something." You must believe your skills truly merit the market rate (or above) and ensure that there's a true give and take--if you give something, make sure that you get something equal in return.

Being able to successfully negotiate in any area of life is an extremely valuable skill, and the fact is that most things in life are negotiable to a point. You could revolutionize your finances by learning to negotiate.

Debt-slayer Dave Ramsey says in a recent post for quick & simple, "You must learn to negotiate everything. For people who want to take control of their financial lives, the days of impulse buying are over, and the days of negotiation are here for good. If one store has an item you want for one price, but you'd rather buy it at another store, take proof of the cheaper store's price to your preferred store and ask if they'll sell it to you for the better price. Make sure they know that while you'd rather buy from them, you are prepared to buy at the other store. Unless they want to lose your business, they'll deal." Check out the whole post.

If you commit yourself to learning how to negotiate wisely and commit yourself to regularly doing it, you can not only improve your personal finances, but you can land better-paying and more flexible projects in your writing career.

You will probably feel uncomfortable when you first begin negotiating, but remember that most everything in life can be negotiated and probably ought to be.

HT to Michael Stelzner of Writing White Papers for pointing out the posts by Chartrand and Chandler in his Top 10 Blog Posts for Writers (The Best From The Best in 2007!).

Update
I found a great post on negotiation by Daiko at Get Rich Slowly. In the post, Asking for a Better Financial Future, he lists 10 financial situations in which you can negotiate, such as getting your bank fees waived, credit card rates reduced, a department store discount, and netting a pay raise at work.

Again, so much in life is negotiable; so many of us neglect to take advantage of it, though much of the rest of the world does. This topic of negotiation is really piquing my interest and I'm planning on doing more in-depth posts on how to negotiate, what you can negotiate, as well as gathering other top resources on the subject. Learning to negotiate and actually doing it can revolutionize your life; I plan on developing the skill for 2008 and look forward to saving money on purchases and increasing my work pay.

Do NOT Write for $3 an Article. Unless...

Courtney Ramirez of Web Writing Info has a post up entitled How Low Can You Go? $3? She writes, "The wahm.com writing message board was all a flutter this week when it was leaked as a “secret source” for cheap labor in an outsourcing report. People popped out of the woodwork looking for content to be written for a whopping $3 per 500 words."

She adds, "I can’t really blame the buyers for wanting to find rock bottom prices on their content. When you’re building sites to flip, the lower you keep your costs, the better. I also can’t blame new writers for wanting to find work and thinking that $3 per article is all there is out there."

Well, if you write an article for $3, you should only do it once, for the same reason why you should only write an article for free once--to get a published clip with your byline. After all, getting paid $3 is essentially the same as doing it pro bono.

Last year, I wrote a roughly 700-word article for free. I did it so that I could get a published sample with my name on it; I then used the sample to bolster my credibility in pitching myself for paid jobs. I've only done that once, and I don't envision doing it again. Nor will I waste any time writing an article for $3.

Since my one non-paid article, I haven't been paid less than $40 per article, often quite more than that. Now, that's not big-time stuff, and I'm sure there are people who will say that's a waste of time too. Well, at least for now, if I spend no more than two hours researching, interviewing, writing, and rewriting an article for $40, that's still $20 an hour and it didn't take much of my time.

But $3? If you consider yourself any kind of professional writer, or even an aspiring professional writer, don't waste your time. Write one of those articles, get a published clip, and then start pitching yourself to significantly better-paying publications. You'll never be able to write enough $3 articles to add up to any significant money. Forget it. Instead, take that time, and armed with your one published clip, market yourself and pitch solid queries to local niche publications. If you're truly any good, you should be able to catch on with someone who might not pay a lot, but will pay a lot more than $3.

Bottom line: if you're regularly writing articles for $3 each, you're not a professional writer, nor can you really consider yourself a paid writer. You're better off delivering pizzas or waiting tables, and making a lot more money, relatively considered.

So, don't write for $3 an article unless you want your first published clip. If so, get it and move on. Use that clip to market yourself until you get better-paying writing jobs. Heck, you're better off writing posts for your blog and building that up so you can make money off the ads.

Write to Inform, Not to Impress

Many writers, especially newer ones, will receive a school assignment or paid project and think they have to get out the thesaurus and jazz their essay or article up with a lot of words they really don't know that well but that sound intelligent and impressive.

They might use words such as inexorable, veritable, expedite, ameliorate, and clandestine. All this does is to bog the writing down with boring copy while making it less clear, smooth, and understandable. Let's find better and simpler replacements for each word.

Inexorable: determined, unstoppable.
Veritable: real, true.
Expedite: speed up.
Ameliorate: improve.
Clandestine: secret, hidden.

Source: Dictionary.com

While these replacements are certainly better than the original words, often you're better off just eliminating the word--I think it's very rare that the word veritable merits use; it's usually just pretentious filler and its replacements don't add much either.

I got these few often worthless words from George Orwell's essay, Politics and the English Language. He lists a whole bunch more. His essay has been one of the most helpful guides to writing I've ever read. I frequently refer back to it.

As I constantly say, write to be understood. If you have something worth saying and your writing is easily understandable, then your readers will be impressed.

Eliminate Redundancy from Your Writing.

Bob Bly has a great short post up today on redundancy in writing. He lists some frequent redundant phrases:

"armed gunman … living survivors … RAM memory … foreign imports … past history … stupid idiot … new innovation … consensus of opinion … add together."

Let's look at a few of these.

"armed gunman"--Obviously, if someone can be called a gunman, then they were armed with a gun. It's redundant, unecessary, and weak writing to use two words which mean the same thing.

"foreign imports"--If something is being imported from another country, then of course it's foreign.

"past history"--If something happened in the past, then it's history. You're insulting your readers by writing this stuff, as well as boring them.

I'll add a few:

"your very own personal website"--"Your", "own", and "personal" all mean the same thing. Just use one of them to make your point; instead, write: "your website."

"they were screaming loudly"--I don't know how you can scream quietly; if you're screaming, then you're being loud. Better to write, "they were screaming."

Redundant writing is lazy writing, and lazy writing is lazy thinking. Stop it.

As Bly writes, "Redundancies add needless words and waste the reader’s time."

How Much Time Should Professional Writers Spend Blogging?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Tim Ferriss, star blogger and author of The 4-Hour Workweek, recommends posting no more than two to four times a week (although, lately it looks like he's posting more frequently than that); he prefers to post twice a week, focusing on quality over quantity. His reasoning is that it takes an average of three days for a post to really penetrate the blogosphere, and by letting truly quality posts stand for several days, he can generate more comments per post, enhancing the popularity of his site. In an interview with Darren Rowse at Pro Blogger, Ferriss says, "if I post just infrequently enough (for me, once every 4-6 days), the comments add up on each post, making the site look very popular, and rss subscriptions spike. If I post too often, it doesn’t look popular (since posts get pushed down and comment-count is low), so it is actually better for my site to post less often!" His approach seems to be working--his last five posts have accumulated 50, 57, 43, 47, and 114 comments each.

Strongly arguing against that perspective is Deborah Ng of Freelance Writing Jobs, number two on Michael Stelzner's Top 10 Blogs for Writers for 2007/2008. She writes in a guest post on Performancing.com, entitled, How Often Should You Post?, that daily posting makes a blog more successful. She says the reduced frequency that Ferriss and others advocate is insulting to readers and decreases your traffic and revenue while increasing the same for your competition. Ng says, "The best trafficked blogs are those that post often, meaning several times per day....So don’t post often. Meanwhile, other blogs in your niche will post once or several times a day and that’s where your traffic will go."

I don't think Ferriss has been blogging as long as Ng, who runs several blogs and clearly knows what she's talking about, but Ferriss is an expert at reductionism, reducing things to their essence and finding what really works and what doesn't, and spending time on only those things that really matter. He is the author of a book entitled The Four Hour Workweek, after all.

However, whether frequent posting or minimal posting leads to high traffic and increased revenue is a different question altogether than the one that may matter most for professional writers. Unless you make most of your income directly from your blog (through advertising or direct sales), you're probably much better off spending 95% of your time actually working on projects that you get paid for and marketing your services when you're not actually writing. Spend the remaining 5% on your blog as a side enterprise or hobby that may begin to reap significant results over time. But your main focus should be on what is actually paying you money right now, and you should look to enhance that.

Bob Bly, one of the best known copywriters there is and the inspiration for this post, argues this as well in a post entitled, Bly’s Theory of Blogging.

He says, "I am obsessed with not wasting time and being as productive as I can. After all, my income is directly linked to my ability to produce quality work at a rapid rate. This November will mark the 3-year anniversary of the launch of this blog, and the experience has led me to Bly’s Theory of Blogging and Personal Productivity, which states: '“Personal productivity is inversely proportional to time spent blogging.”'....the more time you spend blogging, the less work you get done."

Here's the quote that really jumps out at me, what he calls Bly’s Rule of Blogging Time:

“Anyone who blogs more than 10 minutes a day — or more than an hour a week — is spending way too much time reading and writing on blogs.”

Bly does what he advocates--he generally posts only once a week, very short, to-the-point posts based off one clear idea or question. His blog is also extremely simple: it's basically just black text on a white background. He's not looking to monetize his blog with Adsense or that type of thing. Certainly, he doesn't need to, as he's already perhaps the world's most famous copywriter. His point is still well-taken, though. You should spend most of your time on what actually works, what brings a real return on investment and do the other stuff in your spare time.

Newer writers still trying to build their credibility and client list might protest that they have much more free time than Bly has and they need to find a way to market themselves so blogging is a great, forward-thinking way of doing it. There's something to that, but honestly, I think it's an easy way out, the path of least resistance--what new writers should probably be doing, instead of blogging and reading other blogs and commenting on other blogs and brain-storming ideas for their latest blog post, is what many writers hate doing--cold-calling for leads non-stop. That doesn't necessarily mean phone-calling; you can email pitches and queries directly to editors. The point is, instead of passively writing your thoughts (however insightful they really may be) and posting them, you should be consumed with doing what really brings results.

I know that I have gotten all of my writing clients from directly contacting the editors--I simply emailed them and gave my best marketing pitch. Lately, as I've caught the blogging bug, in my enthusiasm for creating my new blog, I've let working on my blog take up time that should have been spent on writing articles I contracted for and marketing for new business. Now, I am getting the articles done on time, and done well, but I could have knocked the projects out much more quickly and used the extra free time to directly market. That's what Bly is getting at and Ferriss, too, when he talks about the 80/20 principle in his book, the idea that you should spend 80% of your time on the 20% of things that actually net results, and eliminate the 20% of things that contribute to 80% of your problems or wasted time.

So, writers, by all means blog. Just don't spend too much time doing it, UNLESS you are, or are planning to, make most of your income directly from your blog, as it appears Ng is doing. Rather, use it as a tool, a small one, that can enhance your much more productive direct marketing efforts. Ferriss got me thinking about this approach, but Bly's views as well as a comment from a relative, really smashed me in the face with the truth.

I'll keep blogging, but only after I've completed all my paying projects and my marketing goals for the day.

4-Hour Workweek Author Tim Ferriss Tells Us How to Blog Better

I read the 4-Hour Workweek this past summer and was riveted. I've since read it several more times. There's tons of info out in the blogosphere on the book and Ferriss' ideas, so I won't go into them here, but I did want to share this post from his own blog.

The Top 5 Uncommon Timesavers for Bloggers/Writers (Plus: Video of Me Kissing a Hairy “Coo”)

You can ignore the kissing video--I only watched it halfway through--because the focus here is on his blogging tips. Ferriss is ruthless about saving time and only doing the things necessary to get the maximum benefit from the minimum effort. I agree with that concept, so here are Ferriss' five blogging time savers:

1. Decide how you're measuring success before writing a post. What's your metric? Form follows function.

2. Post less to be read more.

3. Define the lead and close, then fill it in.

4. Think in lists, even if the post isn't a list.

5. The best posts are often right in front of you or the ones you avoid.

I really like 1 and 2, especially 2. Some highly successful bloggers post several times a day, while others like Ferriss post maybe two or three times a week.

Explaining time saver 2, Ferriss says, "Based on input from close to a dozen top bloggers I've interviewed, it takes an average of three days for a new post to propagate well in the blogosphere. If you write too often, pushing down the previous post and its visibility, you decrease the reach of each post, run the risk of increasing unsubscribes, and create more work for yourself....Quality, not quantity, is what spreads."

I'm sure other top bloggers disagree, but I think Ferriss is onto something here.

Ferriss goes into more detail on each time saver in his post. Check it out.

Sometimes It's Not It's. It's Its.

Lately, I've noticed several writers misuse the contraction "it's" when they should have used the possessive pronoun "its."

A typical such sentence might read, "I drink water because of it's healthy properties." The sentence should read instead, "I drink water because of its healthy properties."

The difference is in the apostrophe--you use an apostrophe (it's) as a contraction, as shorthand for "it is" and omit the apostrophe (its) when used to show possession. People get confused about this because when using a proper name showing possession, it is correct to use an apostrophe. For example, it's right to write, "We loved John's book." You need the apostrophe between the last letter of John's name and the s. It's different when using its, though.

Here's how to know for sure which you should use, "it's" or "its":

Use "it's" when you mean "it is."
Example, "It is cold in here." It's fine to shorten it to, "It's cold in here."

Use "its" when you mean to describe something.
Example, "Its cold temperature bothers me."

A final test

If you still don't know which to use, replace "it's" with "it is" in the sentence and see if it makes sense. If it does, then use the apostrophe; if it doesn't, omit the apostrophe.

Example:
"I like it's flavor." Replace "it's" with "it is" to check for clarity.

Result:
"I like it is flavor." Clearly, this makes no sense. Thus, you should use "its", the possessive pronoun, because you are describing why you like the food.

Correct version:
"I like its flavor."

Check out the top ranked hit on Google search for the word "it's." The author, Craig Kaplan, has a post entitled It's "its"! and has been revising it for eight years running now. It's a good explanation because of its simplicity.

The Best Writing Advice I Ever Received

I've written the past few days on what I believe are the two most important ways to improve your writing:

1. Read often
2. Write like you speak

If that's all you do--read regularly and write like people actually talk--your writing will necessarily improve. These two principles are the foundations of any effective writing and are the starting points for beginning writers.

Many experienced writers probably adhere to the two principles by nature; for them, what becomes most important happens to be the most beneficial writing advice I ever received, which was: be concise. Don't write more than you need to clearly make your point. Once you've said what you need to say, and only that, quit writing.

I learned that in a college prose writing course. I remember my professor marking out passages on my papers as redundant and saying that I should eliminate them. I was irritated, thinking that those passages added depth to my main points. As the class went on I came to see that he was right. What really helped me get it was one of our class textbooks, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph Williams. The book is now in its ninth edition, with slightly different titles as it continues to get updated. Buy any edition though--it's the best book on writing I have read yet, more helpful for me even than Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace is for more advanced writers. If you're still new to serious writing, get Strunk and White's book; if you're fairly seasoned, get Joseph Williams' book.

I think it’s in his lesson on concision that Williams advocates eliminating metadiscourse--writing about writing. It’s similar to the admonition to “show, don’t tell.”

Wikipedia has a good definition of metadiscourse:

“Metadiscourse is also a function of grammar in which a word, or group of words, functions to comment on what is in the sentence. It is, usually, an introductory adverbial clause. It is any word or words that is included within a clause or sentence that goes beyond the subject itself, and often examines the purpose of the sentence or response from the author. Metadiscourse within grammar can include phrases such as "frankly," "after all," "On the other hand," "To our surprise" and numerous phrases.”

A couple examples

Metadiscourse version: “To sum up, I truly believe that the best course of action we could take is to leave early.”

Concise version: “We should leave early.”

Eliminating the metadiscourse cuts this sentence from 19 words to four, and the resulting sentence is much more forceful, clear, and direct, thus more effective, and ironically, more stylish. Clear, persuasive writing is always the most stylish writing there is.

Metadiscourse version: “In the final analysis, however, you must keep in mind that the audience expects to see a quality show.”

Concise version: “The audience expects to see a quality show.”

The concise version cuts 11 words and makes the point quicker and clearer. To some writers, this might sound like simplistic writing, and they might prefer more ornate, lengthy discourse. If you want to bore or confuse your readers, go ahead and ignore the lesson on concision. When I really got it that concise writing is good writing, my writing improved and my grades went up.

In his third rule of clear English, George Orwell captures the idea of concise writing well:

“If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.”

The whole point in writing anything is to get your message across as clearly as you can; the more concisely you write (the fewer words you use), the more likely you will be to succeed. Being concise also forces you to focus on exactly what it is that you’re trying to say; it sharpens your thinking as well as your writing. So, when you write, be concise.

The Number Two Way to Improve Your Writing--Write Like You Speak

A few days ago, I wrote that the best way to improve your writing skills and style is to read more. Well, it's time for the second best way to enhance your writing--write like you talk. You may have heard this advice before, but it really is revolutionary once you begin to do it.

A lot of writers, in particular college students and business professionals, try to write more intelligently and attractively than they need to. Ironically, they end up not doing much of either. College students are trying to impress the professor, so they use large words that may not really fit in with what they're writing about; some business professionals write reports and presentations with such stilted language because they think that by using, again, large words, as well as a dispassionate corporate language, they're being right in line with the standards in their field. They often are, but those standards are absurd. Some of the worst, most boring writing I've ever seen was from business majors writing up semester-ending projects. It's not really their fault, though--they think that high-sounding, droning-on writing is what's "professional." It's not though.

Let's look at some made-up examples.

"This second chart shows how the 3rd quarter earnings of the company increased at a great rate due to the accelerated output of their new and improved customer response implementation process."

No one speaks like that. Rather that sentence should read more like this:

"As the second chart demonstrates, the company significantly increased its earnings in the 3rd quarter due to a greater emphasis on customer satisfaction."

I cut the sentence by eight words and cast it more in the active voice. I could actually cut more words and sharpen it even more, but I think you get the idea. Write it like you would say it.

Another example.

"I do believe that the most important action that could be taken to improve customer satisfaction is to truly engage customers by establishing a significant relationship with them through extended attention to what motivates them to take a particular stance in correlation to the company."

Change that to:

"Let's really pay attention to what our customers say they want from us."

Whether it's reports, press releases, letters, memos, etc., there's only one thing you really want to accomplish with your writing--persuade someone of something. The clearer your writing is, and thus, the easier it is to understand what you're actually saying, the greater your chances of succeeding.

Scott Adams of The Dilbert Blog has a related post, The Day You Became A Better Writer. He says, "Business writing is about clarity and persuasion. The main technique is keeping things simple. Simple writing is persuasive. A good argument in five sentences will sway more people than a brilliant argument in a hundred sentences. Don’t fight it."

Bob Bly does too, with a post entitled, Do You Write the Way People Talk? Bly says, "To me, that means using the language your readers would use when talking about the same subject you are writing to them about."

Let's throw George Orwell in there as well. His Six Rules of Clear English, taken from his essay, Politics and the English Language include:

"Never use a long word where a short one will do."
"If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out."
"Never use the passive where you can use the active."
"Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent."

Read Orwell's entire essay. He gives several really bad pieces of writing, some from college professors, and tells us why those pieces are so bad.

The point is to write similar to the way you would speak. There's no magic or cosmic law that dictates that as soon as you start putting your words on paper, all of a sudden you have to fancy it up and make it sound more intelligent than it really is. No. You have one purpose in writing anything, and that's to get your message across as clearly and persuasively as you can.

How do you know whether or not you're writing like you speak? Single out a passage of your writing and read it out loud in a conversational tone. Better yet, read it to someone sitting right next to you. Ask them if they clearly get what you're saying. As always, revise as necessary.

In With the New, Out With the Old

This is a guest post from Phillip Hines of the Tidewater Sports Report.

A few hundred years ago, it was not uncommon for people of all ages to piece together their own daily journal. Writing simply about their day, jotting down their thoughts and feelings, and releasing built up energy was a valuable activity for the average person to participate in. The idea of daily journals and diaries in the traditional sense in the average American household is past its time. However, here comes the 21st century surge of the internet and its promising interactive programs.

Because of blogs such as this, the art of writing has increasingly become much more common than some would think--reflecting the old journals of the past, replacing the old with the new. Blogs are quite popular across the United States, and this is apparent with a simple Google search, at which point several personal and business blogs will appear. Ranging from personal updates to news to politics, writing in good fashion has returned, only in a different way. At one time, technology was taking away from the academic scene in America, with citizens viewing television broadcasts and fiddling around with new gadgets. However, the internet with its endless possibilities is now changing things. Blogger.com is a terrific source for up and coming writers. While blogs serve whatever purpose one wants, many use it as a free marketing tool to promote themselves. Regardless, the majority of posts on blogs maintain quality and decent grammar.

Let's really open up to the idea of blogs. Not only do they produce and enhance more intelligent writing, they also build up the skills of the readers who view blogs.

The Number One Way to Improve Your Writing--No Actual Writing Involved.

Want a simple way to significantly improve your writing skills? I'll tell you what it is--but you've got to really start doing it. It's very simple and probably way too overlooked.

As a writer who has had some success--I'm regularly getting published and paid--I've realized what has most benefited my writing ability has nothing to do with any actual writing exercises or rules.

Here's the best tip I can give you for becoming a better writer: read. Read widely, and read often. If you take the next month off from writing--don't write anything--and just spend it reading as much as you can, I assure you, when you resume writing, your prose will improve. You may not pick up any specific writing tips during your hiatus, but through regular reading, you will naturally begin to really get a feel for what smooth and effective writing is, provided of course, that you read quality material.

I'm not even suggesting you read "how to write better" books. If you do, I recommend The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White to start with. But, honestly, any type of books will do; read the newspaper, read popular blogs, read the backs of cereal boxes. The point is, start reading on a regular basis.

I've always been a huge reader...when I was around eight years old, I was addicted to the Hardy Boys series, and as I moved into my teens, I read tons of baseball magazines and books. I read Sports Illustrated magazine and the local sports page constantly. Now, I read my favorite magazines, Men's Health and Men's Journal each month, as well as Modern Reformation every other month. I've always got a book going. Right now it's Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity. I frequently pick up a magazine and scan it for interesting articles whenever I'm in 7-Eleven or Walgreens; I'm there to get a snack or some medicine, but if I pass the magazine rack, I usually stop and read for a few minutes.

I actually don't write a great deal on a constant basis--I spend far more time reading than I do writing. When it comes time to actually write, though, because I've read so much, the words come so much easier to me. I think regularly reading good authors spurs your brain to begin naturally recognizing familiar ways of wording things and arranging ideas.

It's the old idea that if you want to be successful, study those who are successful. But like I said, it's not so much the particular strategies that you learn--it's the natural broadening of your vocabulary and enhanced ability to detect good writing from bad.

One last tip--read things you enjoy reading about. Don't get on your reading plan and start reading something you find really boring and try to plod on just for the exercise. It may backfire. Read authors or subjects that really excite you and your natural enthusiasm for what you're reading will enhance the experience so that you will retain what you've read.

Want to be a better writer? Then stop writing for a little while and just read.