I’m pretty confident most of you know how to write a decent sentence: subject–predicate, noun–verb. However, when it comes to getting fancy, ambiguity can happen. And you can confuse your readers to boot.
Let’s take “only,” “both . . . and,” and “either . . . or,” for example. Where do you put them? And why does it matter?
For writers, as well as athletes, there’s nothing like being in the zone. Distractions fall away, time disappears, and your work seems to write itself. Unfortunately for most writers, being in the zone is rare—instead of inspiration, we feel dread; instead of knowing, we feel lost; and instead of excitement, we feel anxiety.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. In fact, according to the research of Susan Perry, Ph.D., there are several concrete writing techniques and practices that can actually make finding inspiration and “getting into the zone” an everyday occurrence.
Why do readers suddenly have the attention spans of gnats?
It’s easy to blame writers and suggest their quality of work has declined, but I contend there’s a growing evil sucking attention away from the page. This villain takes many forms.
I hold responsible the brilliant innovators, creators and storytellers of our generation for producing the most competitive market place for readers’ attention that the world’s ever seen. Fewer and fewer people can make it through an entire page before departing and plugging back into their easy-to-consume content outlets.
This new reality means you must write smarter than ever to seize attention and audience engagement. You must be calculated in how you connect with readers.
Whenever someone asks me what I do, I always say the same thing: “I’m a writer.” It’s what we all say.
It’s a simple statement, the typical one-word description of who we are and what we do. But for me, the word “writer,” by itself, just doesn’t do it justice. The dictionary definition of a writer is “A person who writes books, stories, or articles as a job or regular occupation.” True? Yes. Basically, to the rest of the world, what we do? Yes.
But that definition still isn’t complete. The truth is, we’re much more than writers.
When Joe Bunting invited me to contribute a guest blog post to The Write Practice, I was thrilled. After all, this is a thriving community of dedicated writers hungry for craft discussion. It’s a writing coach’s dream come true. What is not a dream, however, what is in fact a writer’s worst nightmare, is when your creativity fails to flow, when despite your best efforts the words fail to come.
When your tried-and-true writing process fails you.
What do we do when our writing practice unexpectedly goes off the rails? When writing feels like the worst thing in the world?
