365 Stories In a Year (and a whole lot more)

When you are getting ready to write, first think through what you really want to say, then outline your piece before you begin to write. In addition make sure you know who you are writing to. If you are no clear on our audience, you are wasting your time writing.

Rewriting your article or book is the single most important part of writing. This is where you take a first draft that is okay and make it marvelous.

Rewrite logically, looking for compatibility, grammar, headings, style, etc. and making sure all of these are directed at what your reader wants, not what you want.

There are two widespread myths about writing that are equally insidious.

The first is that writing should be easy, that the first draft is enough and that publishing will easily follow.

The second is that writing is so hard most people cannot do it.

The truth, of course, is in between. Basic writing is rather easy. All you [...]

When you write, always keep one thing cler in your mind: your reading audience.

Your writing must reflect their needs and wants for it to be effective. Always ask: Is that the way my reader will understand?

You may finish a draft of your book only to discover that it doesn’t work as well as you wanted it to. In that case, go back to the beginning and do your avatar exercise again. You may be able to salvage some material from your draft but don’t count on it.

Your outline is the most important part of your book. When you create an outline in detail, you are thinking deeply about your subject.

It is good to this process with another person close to your project for maximum impact, perhaps a coach or mentor.

At times, particularly in a non-fiction book, graphics will tell your story much better than words. You’ve often heard the old saw that a picture is worth a thousand words. It’s true.

In your book, look for opportunities to insert graphics in place of blocks of type. Your reader will susally get and remember the information [...]

Always create a complete avatar of your reader before you write. The longer your piece the clearer the avatar must be. This way you will know exactly who you are writing to.

The truth is you edit until it is done, not until it is perfect. Even in professionally published works you will at finds errors. I found some names misspelled in a book I am reading now.

However, editing is meant to make the book readable. Yes we want to catch asmany errors as possible but at [...]