Confident Writing

As we all get to write, some more so than others, this is good advice:

I was writing the other day about 'telling it in ten', my (current) top tip for confident writing. The gist of it was learning to stand back from your writing and identify the key message - which should be tellable in ten words or less. One of the comments on this post reminded me of one of the most important elements of this strategy. How can you tell when you've got to the point? How will you know?

Well, you'll feel it somewhere inside you. When you read or write the words that get to the heart of the matter - you'll be able to sense it. This isn't a rational, intellectual reaction. It's a physical, physiological sensation.

I don't know if it will be bubbles of excitement in your stomach or hair rising on the back of your neck. I don't know if you'll notice that your fingertips start itching to type, a or if you'll be aware of a shiver that runs over your arms... I don't know how you'll feel it - but I know that you will.

Yes, not a quantity, a feeling! Yes, Joanna, I agree with you. Read the remainder of the posting here.

Joanna returning from vacation (as I head out) has these thoughts upon her return:

Writing helps us to make sense of it all. Vacations provide a great opportunity to be still, to be away, to change perspective, to take stock. Words and ideas tumble out when we're away. But making sense of it often needs to wait until we come back - and writing it down is surely the best way of starting to fathom what it means.

Read the remainder of her posting here. If you haven't taken vacation yet, now you have some tips. If you have, then perhaps one or two of these can be put to great use.

If you do any writing, you should consider adding this site to your RSS Reader of choice, stay in touch with Joanna and become a more confident writer!