Words on a page

Writers are human. Like everyone else, we’re susceptible to laziness and malaise. It makes working take a back seat to … well, just about anything else.

But there are times (many more than we care to admit) when we need to get a job done quickly. Why? We’ve let a deadline slide due to overwork or by succumbing to the dubious joys of procrastination.

Getting back on track isn’t easy. Getting yourself going sometimes takes a carrot, and sometimes takes a stick. If you find that panic and dread of a looming deadline are holding you back, you need to choose the stick. In this case, that stick is timed writing.

The idea behind timed writing is pretty simple: give yourself a limited amount of time, and a specific number of words to write in that time. Say 400 words in 30 minutes or 1,000 words in an hour.

Once you’ve done that, get a timer. Well, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a timer. It can be a stopwatch, a wristwatch with a timer, or even just an hourglass. From there, block out all distractions — music, radio, TV, the Internet, your mobile phone — and start typing.

You might not reach your goal at the end of the period of time you set. But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’ve gotten words on to the page (or the screen). And that can give you the momentum to keep going.

The great thing about this technique is that it’s not only useful for starting a writing project, but also finishing one. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I’ve got a few hundred words to go and for whatever reason just can’t push myself to write them. By giving myself 20 or 30 minutes to write those words I’ve found that I can get the job done. If nothing else than because I hate the sound of a timer going off …

Update: I just remembered that TextRoom, my favourite distraction-free editor, has a timed writing feature. I’m going to put that feature through its paces in the coming weeks. You can read more about TextRoom here. You might also be interested in a somewhat humorous Web application called Write or Die.

Photo credit: Jake Hellbach from Photoxpress

There are people who have a very simplistic image of the writing process: start at the beginning and then work your way through to the end. Often, the process flows just like that. But not always.

There are times when I find myself able to quickly write the beginning and end of a piece, then work on the parts in between. Or, as I described in a previous post, I assemble a bunch of what seem like disparate paragraphs into a cohesive whole.

There are times, though, when I just can’t get a handle on the introduction and the conclusion to what I’m writing. I have a topic, theme, and angle. But the beginning and end just aren’t coming out in the way that I want them to. I know more than a couple of writers who’d just stop work until they could craft the intro. When you’re facing a deadline that’s not always an option.

Why not start from the middle instead?

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For years, I never gave keeping a journal much thought. At various times in my life I tried keeping one, but charting the excruciating minutiae of my life was almost as bad as those year-end letters that many people send or post on the Web. Boring? Yes. Self indulgent? A tad.

My problem was that I was looking at journaling in the wrong way. Like blogging or microblogging, journaling doesn’t have to a record of what you did during the course of your day. And like blogging and microblogging, it can be a useful activity for writers.

How? The way in which I look at journaling now is more as brainstorming than recording my thoughts and feelings. It gives me a chance to let loose and write in an unstructured way. There’s no pressure to produce something publishable. I can try out ideas and techniques — sort of like a crude version of free writing. It’s relaxing and can be fun.

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How often do you find that you have an idea for a non-fiction writing project, but are only able to chip away at it bit by bit? If you’re anything like me, then it’s too often.

You might find that with projects like that, you write in bits and pieces — a few sentences or paragraphs here and there — and never get anything finished. You have chunks of writing, but can’t really pull them together.

But if you look to the world of technical communication, you’ll find a solution to this problem. One of the hottest trends in that wacky world is topic-based writing. And it can help you pull together all those chunks of content that you’ve been pecking out into something tangible.

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I’ve written about going analog (writing using pen and paper) in this space before. And I’ve had to revisit that technique again recently.

Over the last week or so, various concerns and circumstances have made sitting in front of the laptop or netbook to write somewhat tough. A little tougher than usual. Strangely enough, none of those concerns have had to do with my various writing assignments. Just goes to show how life gets in the way of work …

To get around these obstacles, I’ve had to change my approach. Here’s what I’ve been doing:

1. Digging out a spiral-bound notebook or a legal pad (I still have a few lying around the house)
2. Grabbing a pen and retreating into the basement
3. Writing furiously in the notebook or on the pad
4. Editing what I’ve written
5. Going back to a computer and typing what’s in the notebook or on the pad

By going analog, I’ve been writing faster and in some ways a bit more fluidly. The ideas are coming out fully-formed and in just about the final form. Really, the only thing I’ve had to contend with is my handwriting — bad at the best of times, nigh illegible at times when I’m writing quickly.

There’s been an addition benefit to doing this: by going through a particular notebook, I’ve found some notes that I can incorporate into the script for an upcoming presentation.

Photo credit: click from morguefile.com