Energize Your Writing and Increase Your Output
- Posted by Essays Blog in Essays Blog |
- March 4th, 2009 |
- Comments
Every writer can benefit from a contemplate of the effectiveness of their individual writing process. You can compose more and you can compose better by making any adjustments in your writing strategy.
Recently one of my writer friends complained about their declining morpheme output.
“I drop more time at the computer than I ever did before and I’m just not producing like I old to,” she griped.
After disbursal a day in writing conferences coaching my struggling novice writers, my response came without conscious cerebration on my part: “Tell me about your writing process.”
“My what?” She asked.
Ah-ha!
I regularly coach my beginning writers about how to develop their own personal writing strategy or process and as a educator of writing I entertain mine quite often, but the more I cerebration about it the more I realized that experienced, professional writers rarely drop time talking about this critical element.
What a mistake!
It is easy to believe why. Many of us are simply also busy writing to believe overmuch about the actual process. We have deadlines to meet, assignments to pursue, and pitches to create. When we do drop time with other writers our interactions typically fall into III categories–seeking admiration for our achiever, input for our end product, or escape from writing.
Many writers also accept their writing process for granted and simply follow the old adage–if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But what happens when it does break down as it did with my friend? If you don’t believe your own writing process so you can’t fix it. And just like many of the machines in your life, regular maintenance checks just might prevent a major breakdown in the future.
My friend’s problem was easily identified and solved once we actually affected her writing process and writing life. Yes she was disbursal more time in front of the computer but she had lost a big chunk of her prewriting time due to changes in her home life. Once she appreciated that problem she was able to make adjustments to her agenda and she is perception her daily morpheme count rising back to her old levels.
So how is your writing process?
Many writers shy the constituent as it brings back fearful memories of a rigid artifact forced on them in school. That is not what I deprivation to talk about at all. Frankly, I always instruct my students that thither is no much as abstraction as the writing process.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe we each have our own individual writing process, I just don’t believe in the one-size-fits-all identify strategy that many writers were force-fed. Just entertain it. How could thither be just one writing process–every writer I know is an individual with different strengths and weaknesses and personality traits. Every writer is wired differently from every other writer. That is one of the things that makes reading much a pleasure. It follows real logically so that every writing process should differ just as every writer differs.
Having said that I should point out that although the actual attribute and form of each writing process is individual to the single writer thither are certain constants:
~ Generating ideas and choosing a focus
~ Organizing those ideas
~ Writing
~ Revising
~ Editing
The amount of time you drop on each arrange of the writing process varies according to the writer and the chore and this is especially accurate for me. Many writing tasks are so familiar to me that I drop real little time choosing a focus or organizing my ideas so I can leap compose into writing. On the other hand I often generate four or more pages of fiction in about an hour at the computer because I drop a lot of time generating and organizing my ideas before I sit.
I have exhausted years honing my personal writing process and know that the block I actually drop the least amount of time is writing. I have learned to let my creative juices flow and not to anxiety about much petty concerns as grammar, syntax, and morpheme choice. I rarely act a moment on organization or paragraphing. I just let the words flow finished my fingerstips until I have emptied my budget. So I hit economise and print, tidy up my papers and set them aside.
Revision is unremarkably the lion’s apportion of my writing process. It may accept me cardinal or III drafts to reorganize and attribute a piece until I am choice to apportion it with others. Depending on how difficult and/or complex the case so I may need to loop back finished brainstorming, organizing and writing to improve my project. I may make a few minor adjustments to grammar or spelling or syntax, but primarily I concentrate on the larger issues of focus and development and organization.
When I am finally slaked my article, chapter, or essay is employed as a entire so I begin the actual editing process of cleaning up morpheme choice and syntax and any other divagate problems that have been overlooked. I unremarkably drop only one draft on this actual process.
If you are capital about improving your writing quality and productivity so you need to drop time analyzing your personal writing process. You might be amazed by what you learn–and I know you can put the knowledge to good consume.