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Write
Better And Faster Using Your Creativity!
by Avish Parashar
When
writing, the blank page (or these days, the screen) can be the most
daunting thing in the world. Whether you are writing an article,
essay, term paper, short story, screenplay or novel, staring at
emptiness knowing that you have to fill it all by yourself is overwhelming.
Michael Chrichton, author of Jurassic Park and many other best sellers
said, "books aren't written - they're rewritten."
Keep this in mind whatever you may be writing. Most people find
the task of editing and re-working material much easier than creating
it in the first place. This leads to 2 important points when writing
a first draft:
1)
Be ok with your first draft being awful! The goal of draft 1 is
quite simply to get it done. Too often writers stare at the blank
page and try to put together words, sentences, and paragraphs in
their heads that will be nearly perfect. Give yourself permission
to write terribly and your first draft will flow onto the page much
more freely and effortlessly.
2)
Don't stop! Immediately after you've written what you know to be
a bad sentence or paragraph, the urge to re-work it right then can
be very strong. This is especially true if you've never played around
with this style of creative writing. Just acknowledge that you wrote
a bad paragraph and know that you will return to fix it later. Just
keep writing so that you finish. Remember that the goal of draft
1 is to get it done! If you can commit to adopting these two attitudes,
being willing to be awful and not stopping, you will increase the
speed with which you crank out your first drafts immensely.
This
sounds simple, and it is, but it's not always easy. You may have
to go against years of training and conditioning. Here are a few
ideas to help your writing flow out of you:
1)
Turn off all distractions. Usually when I sit down to write I have
to close my web browsers and email. The temptation to pause at the
end of a paragraph and surf for a minute or two or check and respond
to a quick email may be too strong. Take stock of what your particular
distractions are. Do you leave the TV on and put half of your attention
on that? Do you have other work up on the screen that you switch
to whenever you feel "stuck"? Turn them all off, and commit
to focusing on flowing.
2)
Start! If I had a nickel for every time I spent more time putting
off writing something than I did actually writing, I would probably
be able to retire already. Sometimes we make the task so large in
our heads that we forget how quickly we can finish things when we
get to it. I'll confess, I put off writing this article for about
2 weeks.
Once
I committed to starting, I knocked out draft 1 in about 30 minutes...
If starting at the beginning is daunting, start in the middle.
Start
with what's easiest so you can build up some momentum. An important
rule to remember in just about anything, but definitely in anything
creative, is that there is no one right way. Find out what works
for you, and do it! I write pretty linearly, so I'll start at the
beginning and work my way through. That doesn't mean you have to.
Do whatever it takes to just start.
3)
Think of answering questions. Writing a piece explaining something
can seem a little tough, especially if you don't spend a lot of
time lecturing or teaching. However, we all answer questions everyday.
It's how we as humans converse. If you're having trouble writing
or getting started, try to ask yourself some questions. For example,
for this article I took some questions I received from my online
question form (located here: http://avishparashar.com/askavish/)
and just answered them.
Primarily, I took the question, "how can I use my creativity
to write better?" and answered it.
What
question are you trying to answer in your piece? Admittedly, this
technique doesn't work as well for fiction, but I find it helps
my non-fiction writing immensely.
4)
Commit to output. Set a goal for yourself that is just a little
bit out of what you might be comfortable doing, but still within
what you think you can do. People often set goals that are either
too big or too small. If you set a small goal to write one paragraph
a day because that's what you are comfortable with, that may work,
and you may get your piece done after a veeeeerrrryyyyy long time,
but you are not growing and improving that way. On the other side,
many, many people overreach and say, "ok, I'm going to bang
out this 5 page paper right now." No wonder they procrastinate...
Once
again, find what works for you, but make sure you set goals that
are big enough to get your job done and keep you growing, while
realistic enough to get you to start writing (remember idea #2 above...)
For me, I commit to finishing draft 1 of a shorter piece when I
start. For longer pieces, I commit to writing for 20 minutes continuously.
It's amazing how quickly pages pile up even in that short time frame.
It's also amazing how I used to say to myself, "today I will
sit for one hour at my computer and just write." I probably
said that to myself everyday for 4 months.
Can
you guess how many times I actually sat for an hour at my computer
and wrote? That's right, a big fat 0 times! 20 minutes is enough
for me to produce what I need to, while being within my reach to
do.
These
ideas can be applied to any kind of writing, whether it's articles,
non-fiction, blogging, or any kind of fiction (did you know that
Stephen King almost never outlines his work? He starts with a character
and a premise, and just flows and lets the story take on a life
of it's own. I figure if it's good enough for Stephen King it's
good enough for me! For more on that, read his non-fiction book,
"On Writing.") The key really is to tap into your creative
flow. I go into how to do this in much greater detail in my e-book
"Supercharge Your Creativity!" The book covers how to
tap into, develop, apply, and supercharge your creative powers.
Once you start to let your creativity flow, your writing speed should
immensely increase (at least, the speed at which you fill an empty
page with draft 1 will increase). You can find out more and purchase
the e-book here: http://www.avishparashar.com/trk/sycad.asp If you
are interested in using these techniques to create an e-book of
your own, I highly recommend "How to Write and Publish Your
Own E-Book...In As Little As 7 Days" by Jim Edwards. I own
it, and I use it to help me create my products. The premise of this
e-book is (surprise, surprise!) that you can create an e-book in
7 Days. To be totally honest, if you want to pump out a book in
7 Days, you would have to commit to doing little else those days.
Still, the book has some nice ideas on picking a topic and niche
and some good advice on how to get the book written. His recommendation
when it comes to writing the first draft mirror what I have said
in this article (which is why I like it, I suppose) - start writing
and keep flowing. I think if you combine the creativity development
work I explain with his ideas on creating a book, you could create
your own very nice e-book in a short period of time.
For
more info on "How to Write and Publish Your Own E-Book...In
As Little As 7 Days", visit: http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=158905
Whether you write your own e-book, or write the great American novel,
or just want to write your school papers faster, your creativity
will be incredibly helpful to you. I hope this article has given
you some great ideas that you can use - now stop procrastinating
and start writing!!
Avish
Parashar has a refreshingly unique approach to speaking and training:
identify the fundamentals of success and then give people the tools
to implement those fundamentals. Avish's approach can be deceptive;
it's fun, funny, interactive, engaging, entertaining, and ridiculously
simple. Success isn't complicated, it's simple. So visit the web
site to learn more about the "Ridiculously Simple Ideas That
Everybody Needs and Nobody Uses." Learn More: http://www.avishparashar.com
Free Creativity Mini-Course: http://www.avishparashar.com/creativity-free-minicourse.html
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