In the past few months, I’ve been doing a lot of housekeeping on my site, blog, and email list. I’m using new vendors, and have been exploring different ways to present my blogs.

One new thing I’m trying is affiliate marketing, which means that if you buy (or sometimes even just click on) one of the products I’ve linked, I get a small commission at no extra cost to you. I figured: Most of my posts have between 3 and 7 links to books and products I personally recommend. I might as well leverage a few of them to cover the not insignificant costs of maintaining my blog and website. This translates to more free, valuable posts for you!

And I can’t think of anything better than writing about how to get published…

Writing myself out of a rut

Like you, I have times when I simply don’t feel like writing – or even getting out of bed. How much more fun to curl up under the covers with a book and a cup of tea!

Speaking of reading in bed, I recently finished Kingdom of the Blind, part of the Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny. She is one of my very favorite contemporary authors. She is brilliant. I highly recommend her books.

During this same time period, I hadn’t felt like writing at all. In fact, I don’t feel like writing today, either. (Sound familiar?) However, Louise Penny has given me beautiful inspiration, and I thought I’d share it with you.

It starts with 2 words

A few years ago, Ms. Penny lost her husband. She didn’t feel like writing ever again. Yet after taking some time off, she continued writing her Armand Gamache series, to the delight (and relief) of her millions of fans. The following is what she wrote as an afterword to Kingdom of the Blind. I hope her exceptionally personal and inspirational words will help both me and you sit down and write every single day.

A funny thing happened on my way to not writing this book.

I started writing.

The truth is, I’ve known since I began writing [the first book in the series] that if [my husband] died, I couldn’t continue with the series….

How could I go on when half of me was missing? I could barely get out of bed.

I told my agent and publishers that I was taking a year off. That might have been a lie. In my heart I knew I could never write [the series] again….

But then, a few months later, I found myself sitting at the long pine dining table, where I always wrote. Laptop open.

And I wrote two words: Armand Gamache

Then the next day I wrote: slowed his car to a crawl

And the next day: then stopped on the snow-covered secondary road.

Kingdom of the Blind was begun…. I wrote…with relief. That I get to keep doing this.

Louise Penny on getting published

Here are some highlights from Ms. Penny’s fantastic piece on what to do once you finish your manuscript. (You can read the entire piece here.)

• [Get] a reference book called The Writer’s Guide to Editors and Agents. It…often has very helpful chapters on getting published, writing synopsis etc.
• Make sure your book isn’t just written, but polished. You won’t get a second chance with these people.
• Spend time trying to find an agent first – an agent will get you a better deal, find a good fit for your book with the right publisher, get foreign rights sold.
• Give yourself every chance to succeed. Edit, polish, do your homework, prepare – plan as though the rest of your life depend on it…. Now is a time to remember who you are, and this magnificent thing you’ve done for yourself. And not ever sell it short.
• Finish the book. Most people who start books never finish them. Don’t be one of those. You sure don’t want to be lying on your death bed regretting you didn’t finish the book.
• Read a lot.
• Read books on writing and getting published…. If this is your first time writing a book why would you assume you know what you’re doing?
• I suffered from writer’s block for many years…. What cured me was a sudden realization I was taking myself way too seriously. And that I was trying to write the best book ever published in the history of the world. And if I didn’t, I was a failure.
• I decided instead to…write what I loved to read. And to people the book with characters I’d want as friends…. They don’t have to be attractive, kind, thoughtful. But they do need to be compelling.
• Be true to yourself. Write what you want even if friends and relatives think you’re nuts.
• Be very careful who you show the first draft to…. You need supportive, encouraging, thoughtful readers. People who’ll offer critiques in a kind and constructive way and who understand the difference between truth and opinion.

***

My next post will be about writing general statements, such as “One should…” and “If one’s tie is caught in a vacuum cleaner….” Special thanks to my dear subscriber UC for the idea. If you’d like to suggest a topic for one of my posts, please do so! I’m all ears. Email me at Deena@BulletproofWriting.com.

Thanks for reading; it’s great to be back!! And in the meantime, remember what Louise Penny said, and…

I’m starting today not wanting to write at all, but I’m pushing myself and sticking to my schedule just as I tell you to do! It’s not always easy.

I got a lot of positive feedback from my last post, “Grammarly, Stepford Wives, and Mediocrity.” I still owe some of you replies to your wonderful emails. Don’t despair; you’ll get them soon.

Let me know what other subjects you’d like me to cover in future posts; this blog is for you!

Too much trash

I’ve been reading a mix of modern classics, novels, and trash this past month, but I’m getting tired of the trash. What a waste of time. I was given a set of six ebooks (cozy mystery series) in order to write a review, but they’re so bad that the only way to describe them is inedible. I mean, I’ll usually read anything, but this is just too painful. Here are the books’ main sins:

• Shallow, undeveloped, and inconsistent characters
• Canned dialogue and situations
• Poor, confusing, unrealistic plots lacking essential information
• Embarrassing spelling, grammar, and editing mistakes

These issues seem to be rampant in self-published ebooks. Granted, quality is uneven, so it’s best to get a free sample from Kindle before purchasing. (Sometimes, the first book in a series is free, so there’s no monetary investment if you end up hating it.)

I suspect that many of these books are the fruit of members of book clubs and writers’ groups. I think both book clubs and writers’ groups are great, but I wish people would take more time to “sharpen the ax” before they start cutting down the tree.

This month’s good novels

I’ve also read some really great books this past month. The first was The Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri. She won a Pulitzer for this one. I’ve read other books of hers, and she is an outstanding writer. It is a total pleasure to read her. I generally don’t care for short story collections, but The Interpreter of Maladies is a happy exception. I strongly encourage you to get your hands on any of Lahiri’s books.

The biggest surprise this month was Anybody Out There, by Marian Keyes. Apparently, it’s the 4^th book in a series, but the author does such a good job of weaving things together that I had no idea. I wasn’t confused for a minute, and none of the background information felt like a non sequitur. Some series can be confusing if you haven’t read them in order.

I was convinced the book would be just a fun romp, but I was happily mistaken. It’s very well-written, and it had me both on-the-floor laughing and tearing up. It’s both a sad and a hopeful book, and well worth your time if you are in the mood for a novel. I was blown away by how Keyes crafted each character and kept them consistent. The plot was realistic, and Keyes added just the right amount of caricature to some of the personalities to keep things hopping.

I don’t think men would enjoy this book.

I also finally read my first Ken Follett novel, Eye of the Needle. I’m a fan of spy thrillers, and enjoyed it on this level. The historical aspect of the novel (World War II, and the allied attempt to fool the Germans with regard to the D-Day landings) was fascinating, but I didn’t like many of the main characters.

Valuable writing advice from Ken Follett

As I was tooling around the internet for information on Ken Follett, I found a fascinating Masterclass on his website. It’s full of information about writing and publishing a novel. I don’t agree with everything he says about how to write a book, but there were some gems, which I will enumerate below.

One must keep in mind that even though Follett is a bestselling author, he’s no Jane Austen (who is, surprisingly, his favorite dead author; his favorite living authors are Stephen King, Richard North Patterson, and Lee Child, which has to tell you something). Nevertheless, here’s some great advice, especially for novelists:

The basics

• The basic challenge for the writer can be very simply explained – it is to create an imaginary world and then draw the reader into that imaginary world.
• I want to entertain you. I want you to be thrilled or moved to tears or scared and I definitely want you to be on the edge of your seat all the time, wondering what is going to happen next.
• I’ve failed dreadfully if you have to read a sentence twice to figure out what I meant.
• You can almost always find a way to improve just about every sentence that you’ve written.

Sharpening the ax

• As an aspiring writer, you should certainly start by writing an outline…. The outline says chapter by chapter what happens in the book and it contains potted biographies of each of the characters.
• It is far easier to correct your mistakes if you write an outline than if you sat down and wrote, ‘Chapter One’ at the top of a piece of paper and started writing.
• Writing an outline also concentrates your mind. It is good to carry on reading a lot at this stage…. When you are reading other books, you will see how other writers have handled [your topic] and you’ll see the problem from different angles.
• You should also show your outline to other people…it will be bruising if it’s going to be any use to you.

Writing the outline

• A basic idea [i.e., what the book is about] is something that can be said in one sentence.
• I write down my one sentence on a piece of paper and I try and make it two. I elaborate more and more…before too long I’ve got three paragraphs, a page, two pages and so on as I constantly rewrite and tease out the story.
• I begin to imagine the people in the story, where they came from and what their motivations are. I think about how they will approach [a] problem.
• [C]reate interesting characters and show how their lives are devastated by a series of events, how they fight against adversity and how they triumph.
• [A]sk yourself questions all the time about these people that you have created and the problems they are confronted with…you must always ask…what are they afraid of?
• [A]lways be aware of raising the stakes.
• I finish up at the end of the [outline] process with between 25-40 typed pages [because he keeps elaborating on it]…. Typically there will be a first draft outline, a second draft outline and a final outline, so it would twice go through the process of being shown to a number of people.

The first draft

• The toughest part of the whole process is going from the outline to the first draft…. Putting flesh on the bones is the hardest imaginative work in the whole process.
• There is a rule which says that the story should turn about every four to six pages. A story turn is anything that changes the basic dramatic situation. It can change it in a little way or change it in a big way.
• If you’ve got two story turns in four pages, you are going too fast and are not drawing the full drama and emotion out of each scene.

The second draft

• When the first draft is complete, I show it once again to [other people]. I get them all to make notes.
• I don’t edit my first draft. I don’t put the first draft on the screen at all…. I key every word in again because that forces me to reconsider every sentence.

Notice how the section entitled Writing the outline has the most nuggets, with The basics and Sharpening the ax tying for second. This is not a coincidence, and should tell you something about where you should be putting your energies before you type “Chapter One.”

***

In my next blog I’m going to revisit brackets. I’m currently working on a project that is bracket-challenged, and thought the issue begged reviewing.

And remember to let me know what else you’d like me to cover in future posts!

Until then,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

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I’ve been wanting to review Grammarly.com for accuracy, helpfulness, and ease of use. How can it be so popular when almost every business blog I read is full of embarrassing writing mistakes and typos that reflect the writer’s apathy? In fact, so many blog owners actually come right out and say that writing mistakes don’t matter!

Nothing can take the place of a live human being writing raw and editing hard. However, Grammarly might be a worthwhile crutch aid when you’re just starting out and want to discover what Artificial Intelligence has to say about language and grammar.

With this in mind, I wrote the first draft of this post on the Grammarly app. Let’s see how I (and it) measure up.

User-friendliness

The Grammarly app itself is easy to use. For people with a free account, the app checks only spelling and critical grammar issues. Those with a Premium account ($12 per month if you pay yearly, $30 per month if you pay monthly) get a whole lot more, including the following:

• advanced grammar check
• insulting language check (LOVE this)
• parallelism alerts
• vocabulary enhancement suggestions
• plagiarism detector
• word choice suggestions according to genre
• awkward words and sentences
• checking for unnatural phrasing

The Grammarly app lets you set four categories: audience, writing style, emotion, and intent. I’ve set this post as being geared toward a general audience, with an informal writing style, and containing “mild” emotion. The intent of the post is to describe (as opposed to “inform,” “convince,” or “tell a story”).

How’m I doing?

Up to this point, my first draft scored between 91 and 98 percent (it changes frequently). This means that it was better than 91 to 98 percent of all other Grammarly users’ writing. On the Flesch reading scale, however, it scored only a 56, meaning it could be read by someone with at least a 9th-grade education. For a general audience/informal writing style/mild emotion/intent to describe-type article, the app says to aim for a Flesch score of between 60 and 70 – which gears it to the average 8th grader.

The additional writing issues Grammarly found in my first draft were word choice (3 violations) and wordy sentences (2). The only problem is that I have to get Premium in order to find out which words they want me to replace, and which sentences are too wordy! The app also suggested very politely to “consider adding a comma” after “Flesch reading scale” (see previous paragraph). Thanks, guys.

Stilted writing

I found that I was writing a bit unnaturally on the Grammarly app, as if I were looking over my shoulder, worried I’d write something Grammarly didn’t like. Obviously, that is no way to write; your piece won’t come out sounding normal, and your own unique voice won’t shine through.

One way to prevent this while you’re using the Grammarly app is to hide the Assistant function until you finish the entire piece. That way, you won’t constantly be checking your writing performance. You can enable it when you finish. Another way is to write your piece on a simple Word document, and copy and paste it into the Grammarly app after you’re done.

By the time I finished writing the first draft of this post, I was at 93 percent on the Grammarly text scale and 64 on the Flesch scale. I still had 2 unnaturally long sentences, but ended up with 5 word choice problems!

Grammarly also gave me 4 incorrect suggestions from the “alert” function, which I was able to flag as incorrect. Take that, O machine! Artificial Intelligence isn’t (yet) perfect, and honestly, I hope it never will be.

My final score

Everything you’ve read so far is the final draft of this post. I plugged it into the app, and I ended up with a score of 95 on the Grammarly scale and the same 69 on the Flesch reading scale. But I now have 8 “word choice” issues and was slapped this time with 3 wordy sentences.

Why Grammarly?

Grammarly could be a nice crosscheck for high school and college students, sort of like a sophisticated Spell Check. It might give a bit of reassurance before one’s essay or book report goes out into the big, wide world. It also might be a nice app for those who have a lot of business emails to write and are unsure of their spelling or grammar skills. Likewise, people for whom English is not their native tongue can get quick and dirty help. They might be able to save themselves embarrassment when trying to impress potential bosses or love interests.

But beware: All except one of the suggestions from the alert function turned out to be inappropriate (their word, not mine). For instance, “5 word choice problems” was flagged as needing a hyphen, as in: “5-word choice problems.” I might have word-choice problems, but I certainly don’t have choice problems that are 5 words long.

Another thing to think about is whether you want to engage with the original or the Cliff Notes. In today’s world, many if not most people would rather just barf anything out on the page and get the servant (i.e., Grammarly) to clean it all up. I despise this attitude, but acknowledge that it’s pretty prevalent and not worth the diatribe I was just about to deliver.

Worst case scenario

One of the fears I have with regard to Grammarly is that it will ultimately dumb down the youngest 2 or 3 generations even further than they’re already being dumbed down as we speak.

What’s more, I hate to think of Grammarly becoming the mandatory final station that everyone will stop at before their writing disembarks into the world. Will there eventually be a cessation of creativity, uniqueness, and choice? Would e.e. cummings score only 25 percent on the Grammarly scale? Is literature on track to becoming one gigantic Stepford wife?

For me, it’s also a moral issue. Like, why would someone want to stay mediocre? Doesn’t everybody want to master as many skills as possible – including excellent writing and perfect spelling and grammar? Wouldn’t you want to gear your diction to someone more sophisticated than the average 9th grader? It seems that the only skill some people want to master these days is how to be “good enough” with the least amount of exertion possible.

***

The thing is, I’m preaching to the choir.

You wouldn’t be reading my blog if you weren’t interested in being a better-than-just-mediocre writer. And I love you for it. I support you and admire you. You are swimming upstream in a sea of smooth sailors.

Keep up your excellence!! And keep reading my blog. You are part of the small but mighty tribe of those who want to be the best version of themselves. And remember,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

I hope you’ve started the year off with a bang and not a whimper. My latest accomplishments: wrote a new weekly schedule with hubs and commissioned someone on Fiverr to create gorgeous slides for my course, “Wake Up Your Prose: Description Unpacked.” I’m really excited about launching the course, and I think you’ll be impressed with the professional design and the fabulous (if I do say so myself) content. And I promise great audio!

In the old beta course I had 60 slides, and in this new premium course I have over 160 slides, plus a lot of new material and expanded supplementary workbooks. If you take the course, I know you will see a marked improvement in your writing as a whole, and in your description skills specifically. You can get on the waiting list here (no obligation to buy). And watch out for launch details coming soon…

Tailor your schedule according to your needs

As far as my new schedule, I noticed that I haven’t been disciplined enough with my day. As a result, I’m not using my time as wisely as possible. Don’t get me wrong: I get A LOT accomplished, because I’m fast. But I need to work smarter, not harder – and certainly not faster.

As usual, hubs had to practically drag me to the couch and sit me down. First I wrote out everything I need to do in a week: freelance editing projects (including looking for more gigs), BulletproofWriting, exercise, emails, household stuff, spiritual stuff, finishing a course I’m taking, lunch, and leisure time.

One of the blogs I read and love suggests doing things in 90-minute time blocks. Since I need a lot of breaks as well (#undiagnosedADHD), my husband built them into my schedule. Basically, my day looks like this: work-break-work-lunch-work-break-work. On average, I’m working 6 hours a day. I’m finished every day by 4:00 pm, which means I have the entire late afternoon and evening to do whatever I want. I work Sunday through Thursday (Sunday is like Monday where I live), so if I’ve been “good,” I have Fridays off.

Photo by gjbell

For some of you, a schedule such as this will work; for others of the non-ADD variety, you will be fine with longer work periods and will need fewer, and shorter, breaks. You might even be able to finish your workday earlier than I.

The bottom line is that it’s worth considering creating some sort of schedule for yourself, based on your personality, your responsibilities, and ability to sit for either long or short periods. Your schedule will evolve and you will need to tweak it, but just having something all prettily typed up and right in front of your face will be both calming and motivating.

Help is on the way

I came across two fantastic spreadsheets you can download for free, from Primoz Bozic, of the blog I love and mentioned above. One is called the Lean Review Dashboard, and in a nutshell it consists of doing a 20-minute assessment of what you want to achieve this year, building 3 milestone levels for each achievement, and doing a 2-minute review every week. It looks like it will be a lot of fun to use. The other is the Writing Tracker, which, unbelievably, tracks your writing. It includes columns such as date, length of writing session, mood, word count, and more. Both spreadsheets look really good, and I can’t wait to fit them into my new schedule!

Books I read

Guess what? I actually stopped reading a book in the middle! How liberating is that?

There’s no law that says we have to finish every book we start; I think it’s a throwback to our childhood, when our parents told us to finish everything on our plate, or made us finish our current knitting project before we could start a new one.

What I didn’t finish

The book I didn’t finish was The Piano Tuner, by Daniel Mason. Basically, it’s about a piano tuner who goes to Burma in 1886 to…wait for it…tune a piano. I was almost halfway through the d— (it means darn, I promise) book, and the protagonist was still in transit.

But it’s really my own fault for even opening the book in the first place, as I have a rule: If, anywhere on the cover, the book is described as “luminous,” run away as fast as you can.

What I did finish

The biggest winner I read since my last post was Charms for the Easy Life, by Kaye Gibbons. What a brilliant writer! It wasn’t a comedy, but I found myself intermittently laughing out loud to the point where I couldn’t breathe for a few seconds. Gibbons is so incredibly real. I’m almost positive I read and loved a couple of her other books about 20 years ago, and I’m definitely planning to get ahold of them at the used bookstore; they’ll be worth (re)reading.

The rest of my reading list these past 2 weeks has been pretty much a balance between good and good trash. The interesting thing is that I read 2 books by authors I love, but didn’t like the books. One was Welcome to Hard Times, by E. L. Doctorow (“good”) and the other was Surprise Me, by Sophie Kinsella (“good trash”). I found Welcome to Hard Times too cruel for my taste – I don’t deny that I’m in denial about how horrible the Wild West was; and I thought the plot of Surprise Me was kind of stupid. So many of these “lite” books revolve around a misunderstanding which threatens to destroy a relationship, but disaster is averted at the last minute and harmony reigns again. It’s a pity these authors can’t come up with a different conflict and denouement.

I also read The Snow Gypsy, a soon-to-be-released novel by Lindsay Jane Ashford. It wasn’t bad. The background of the book is the Spanish Civil War and its effects on those who lived through it. I’m fascinated by the Spanish Civil War, and now I’m eager to read more about it.

A book I read constantly

I was lucky enough to receive the latest edition of The Chicago Manual of Style as a gift (the result of an Amazon screw-up); it’s an editor’s most valuable resource. I’m enjoying having a hard copy version of it on my desk, and refer to it frequently. Their online edition is terrific, and is often but not always a time-saver. You can get a 30-day trial subscription to the online version here. The yearly subscription is $39. I believe that all writers should have this publishing bible close at hand.

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Please let me know how setting your schedule went, and if you like to work in long or short blocks of time. Make sure you carve out a generous session for your daily writing!

Hey, it’s time for my break. I’d better get off the computer; hubs just got his whip out (not). Until next time,

Happy writing!
Deena

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com
Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

Created by Rawpixel.com – Freepik.com

I hope you are keeping to your writing schedule now that it’s winter in the northern hemisphere and the end-of-the-year madness is in full swing – wait; you don’t have writing schedule? Oy!

Writers need to write.

It’s always best to write first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. That said, some people prefer the afternoons or evenings, so do what’s best for you. Regularity (the same time every day) and consistency (6 days a week) is what you’re aiming for.

How to create a realistic writing schedule

Start with 5 or 10 minutes, and work your way up to 15 or 20, then half an hour, then 45 minutes, etc. Find the right amount of daily writing that is comfortable for you and stick with it.

If you have no current project (called a WIP – work in progress), you could follow the Method Writing regimen, or simply write whatever comes into your head. Some writers do this even if they have a WIP, as it gets the creative juices flowing and frees their mind for concentrating on whatever project they’re currently working on.

Other writers prefer to write a certain number of words per day, and that’s fine, too. I’ve just written a bit more than 200 words, so you can see how small of a commitment that is. Start there, and work your way up, week by week, to 1,000 words a day or more. You will get faster as you go along.

If you’re currently working on a specific writing project, spend a bit of time at the end of each daily session outlining what you want to write about the next day. If you’re doing Method Writing, choose a topic for tomorrow. This way, you’ll be ready to spend your entire session writing and not trying to figure out what to write about.

I’ve written a few posts on the importance of daily writing, on creating a schedule, and on motivation. Go ahead and check them out. And remember: don’t lose the momentum just because it’s December!

For those of you who don’t know what to write about, I have an ebook with 144 prompts, so that should keep you busy for a while. You can get it here.

Overstatement, understatement, and plain speaking

My sister sent me an interesting article recently, by Roy Peter Clark, from the Poynter website.

Honestly, I wasn’t that impressed with the cutesy language Clark sometimes used in the article (not only when he was demonstrating overstatement), and neither is Poynter to my taste. (And there was one egregious error in the essay. See if you can find it, and email me your answer.)

However, the article introduced me to Charles Edward Montague, British author, editor, and veteran of World War I. Montague wrote an essay called “Three Ways of Saying Things: Statement, Overstatement and Understatement,” and that essay is Clark’s jumping off point. As Clark says:

Know when to back off and when to show off.” To back off, especially when a message is inherently dramatic, may require a form of understatement. Permission to show off comes when the subject is quirky or surprising, inviting the writer to do a little dance…

Exaggeration vs. euphemism

Montague is a better writer than Clark, and the examples Clark includes from Montague’s writing are tight and descriptive. Montague Shows more than Tells; the excerpt about Word War I is incredibly visual. I also like what Montague has to say about overstatement. His analogies and clever use of words are worth reading the article for. Here’s one bit:

Almost every leader of an opposition, however talented, says of almost every big government bill which he has to oppose, that it is the most monstrous hash of crude and undigested proposals that he remembers in a long parliamentary experience….Nobody, speaker or hearer, thinks of believing these flourishes….It is all a form, a flourish, a figure of speech, and yet somehow it does serve a purpose, if only to convey a vague impression of robust and salutary trenchancy.

Other than for politics, why else do we have such a desire to be dramatic with overstatement and ironic with understatement (e.g., calling the Atlantic Ocean “the pond”)? Clark summarizes: “The overstater and the understater seem to crave more attention to an idea or bit of news than the item may deserve.”

What we can learn from this

Two lessons can be drawn from the article:

1. Be more discriminate in deciding whether a fact or statement is worthy of extra attention
2. Don’t be cute

Deliver the truth directly. This doesn’t mean you have to be boring and always use “to be” words and Tell, like, “World War I was a terrible war. There was a lot of mud and vermin in the trenches.” Use visual, industrial-strength words. Raise the bar on your verb choice. And for an amazing, one-paragraph description of what it was like in the trenches of World War I, read the article.

What I’m reading

These past two weeks I’ve read a bit of trash and also finished Warriors Don’t Cry, which I wrote about in my two previous emails. I didn’t love the book from a technical perspective, but the story is fascinating. I recommend the book, but not only because of the story. It’s also instructive to read books whose writing you don’t always enjoy, as it helps you be more discriminate in evaluating writing styles and abilities. And it’s helpful to learn to separate story from style.

I’ve just finished Kate Atkinson’s Started Early, Took My Dog. Wow; talk about good writing. She’s brilliant, but not for the fainthearted. Her plots are always quirky, and there’s “language,” so not everyone will like her. I hated the whole plot/theme of another book of hers, Life after Life, which I mentioned on my blog a few years ago, but the writing was so good that I ended up finishing the book anyhow. Life after Life is a good example of separating style from story.

I’m now in the middle of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, which is a classic detective novel. It was first published in 1929, and the writing is top-notch. Here’s a book that’s super well-written, even though it’s written in stylized, “tough guy” language. Hammett’s word choice is outstanding and the dialogue characterizes each speaker. The protagonist is so Humphrey Bogart; in fact that’s who played him in the 1941 movie.

The interesting thing about The Maltese Falcon is that it has all the “sex-drugs-and-rock-‘n’-roll” stuff that we’ve unfortunately come to expect in 99 percent of modern thrillers, but Hammett does it subtly and modestly. There are few, if no, gratuitous elements of any kind in this book.

Here’s how Hammett describes one of the bad guys using a popular insult on the protagonist:

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second, “you.”

Is that totally brilliant or what? Ten points for finesse and elegance!

***

Maintaining an uneven balance between overstatement, understatement, and just plain statement is one of the keys to lively, elegant, and tight writing. And this boils down to knowing how to use description effectively. Charles Edward Montague understood this; Charlotte Bronte and Kate Atkinson, among many other classic and modern writers, did too. Description is a prerequisite of good writing.

Happy writing!
Deena

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com
Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

The reason you are reading this post is because I have run out of writing ideas.

What happens when the well goes dry?

There are all sorts of solutions to this problem. Let’s explore them together.

Write

Yes, yes, I know; how can you write when you have run out of ideas?

It is crucial that you write every day. This should be nonnegotiable. I will, however, give you one day off a week, so it’s really only six days a week. Here are some ideas to implement if you have no novel, short story, poem, or writing job on your plate:

• Do Method Writing. Every day, take one small piece of your life – past, present, or even future – and write for 15 to 20 minutes. Describe an event and how you felt while you were experiencing it. Don’t worry; no one needs to read this. Then file it away for possible use in a future writing project.
• Do free writing. Similar to Method Writing, take 15 to 20 minutes to just dump words on paper. Look at the clock on the wall and describe the second hand. Listen to the children playing outside and make up a story about one of them. Vent about your evil mother-in-law. Write about anything that comes to mind. Think stream-of-consciousness. Nothing has to make sense.
• Write in longhand. Research has shown that writing in longhand has many benefits, not the least of which is peace of mind. Daily journaling has been shown to improve mood. You don’t necessarily have to journal if you choose to write in longhand; no matter what you write, you will release creative juices you might not experience from using a keyboard. Creative juices = writing ideas.

These three ideas are not exclusively for writer’s block or a dry well of ideas. Even you are working on a project, doing one of these for 15 to 20 minutes every single day will help get you started in the morning (or evening, or whenever you write). Think of them as warm-up exercises.

Read

Writers must read.

This is another nonnegotiable rule for authors of every stripe. Certainly have a book by your bedside table, and try to carve out a chunk of time every day just to read. Many writers are in the middle of several books. I am frequently in the middle of two physical books, one Kindle book, and a nonfiction volume I read only on the weekend. Each and every one holds a wealth of writing ideas.

Books are full of ideas to write about, and it’s okay to “steal” themes and characters. Just put your own spin and stamp your own voice (or the voice of a new character) on your work.

You’re allowed one trashy novel, but make sure that the rest of your reading list consists of “good” books, old and new classics, history, philosophy, etc. I’m now reading Middlemarch and love it.

Be aware of other reading opportunities, too, such as magazines, newspapers, fliers, your cigarette package. You are bound to discover all sorts of ideas to write about. How about a story of Marlboro Man? Or why you hate the New York Times (doesn’t everyone?). Perhaps an advertisement for a lawn mower (human, not machine) will take you back to your salad days when you mowed lawns for pocket money.

And don’t forget that nonfiction is also full of wonderful, creative ideas to write about.

Stalk

Take a bus and eavesdrop on a conversation. Join a Facebook group and read what the other members are thinking about, talking about, preoccupied with. Slink around Quora or Reddit. Call your mother.

For more writing ideas, look at old photo albums. My husband and I infrequently look at the table pictures of our wedding. (Pro tip: tell your wedding photographer not to take any table pictures. You won’t remember who half the people are ten years down the line, and pictures of half-eaten food are gross.)

Google your favorite singer or actor and read about his or her exploits. Or Google something you’ve always been interested in but never took the time to learn about. There is so much material you can garner from a Google romp, for both fiction and nonfiction pieces. Keep a list of everything you want to learn more about, and choose one each time your metaphorical ideas database is empty.

Read obituaries. There’s a whole world of ideas and quirky vignettes inside these columns. A word, an episode, and list of family members can set off a whole chain of story events in your head – which you should immediately get down on paper.

Go away

There’s nothing like a nice jog or vigorous walk to clear your head and give your brain a break so it can once again fill up with things to write about.

Vacations are nice, too: new scenery, different people, and a change of pace are all excellent sources of idea fiber. (Don’t forget to write 15–20 minutes a day, even on vacation.)

Meet a friend for coffee, go to a museum, see a film, go ice skating or bowling (or observe those who are doing it). Go to the beach, take a train ride. There are so many writing opportunities waiting to be discovered! You don’t have to necessarily find an exact and detailed story to write, but just getting away from your desk will go a long way toward firing up those creative brain cells.

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I’m interested in hearing other ways to prime your writing pump. Let me know in the Comments how you find ideas to write about. And of course,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

In light of this, I thought now would be a good time for a bit of inspiration and a kick in the pants. I’ve been collecting famous author quotes for the past few years, and I hope they will help keep you writing no matter what: rain or shine, snow or desert wind, school or vacation, employed or jobless, content or anguished. (And by the way, each of these descriptors can serve as the basis for a writing project!)

Sit down and write

• Show up, show up, show up, and after a while the muse shows up, too.” – Isabel Allende
• Show up and be the vessel, not the source. – Elizabeth Gilbert, in her stunning TED talk
• The most important thing in writing is to have written. I can always fix a bad page. I can’t fix a blank one. – Nora Roberts
• If the sun rises today, I will write. – Judy Walnoh

Worth remembering

• “Write about what you know” is the most stupid thing I’ve heard. It encourages people to write a dull autobiography. It’s the reverse of firing the imagination and potential of writers. – Kazuo Ishiguro (Read more about writing what you know and what you don’t know here, here, and here.)
• The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt. – Sylvia Plath
• The road to unfinished writing is paved with the phrase, “Maybe I’ll just check ___ real quick.” Sue Weems

The act of writing

• I hate writing, I love having written. – Dorothy Parker
• Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. E. L. Doctorow
• A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann
• I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze. – D. H. Lawrence

The secret to good writing

• Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. – Barbara Kingsolver
• There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before. – Willa Cather
• Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. – C.S. Lewis
• The secret of it all is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote. …By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught. – Walt Whitman
• If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it. – Toni Morrison

Which of these pieces of advice are the most valuable to you? Why? Which ones will you integrate into your daily writing habit? Let me know in the Comments. And as always,

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

I know they’re ugly

A story of shoes

I desperately needed a new pair of house shoes.

I went to one store, where I bought a pair of supposedly leather shoes. The salesperson swore up and down they were leather.

When I got home, I noticed a transparent sticker on the bottom of one of the shoes, and it said they were entirely synthetic.

The next day, I went with my husband to get my money back. Where I live, the buyer has 48 hours to return an item for a full refund. However, we had to yell, threaten, and take a picture of an illegal sign in the store (“No cash returns”) until they agreed to give me my money back – and then they made up some cockamamie story about how they can’t open the register until after the weekend.

I then went to another store down the street, bought another pair of house shoes, and after also having to exchange them for a smaller size a few days later (while the proprietors were hurling abuse at me), I now, finally, have shoes that I can actually wear.

Why am I telling you this?

Because these proprietors were more interested in making a sale than in serving their customers.

Nowadays, it’s all about the consumer. But this doesn’t mean we’re allowed to be nasty customers and vendors have to lick our boots.

A vendor must know exactly what he or she will and won’t do for a customer or client, but it can be done nicely and within the law. The consumer can express his or her requirements, and if the vendor can fulfill them, the consumer should expect to receive what they asked for.

Trust and integrity are the are the name of the game.

The professional writer and editor

The same is true with regard to professional writers, editors – and really any freelancer. Put a sign with the word “SERVICE” on your wall or computer; it will remind you of your raison d’être.

True, I’ve always said on this blog that writers have to write for themselves, and I still believe that. However, when you are being paid for your services, you need to serve. On the other hand, having work parameters allows you to write “for yourself,” while still fulfilling your clients’ needs.

Here are a few things you can do as a professional writer or editor in order to deliver outstanding product, while still protecting yourself.

Always have a contract

Please, people, don’t “feel bad” or “be embarrassed” about insisting on a contract. NO WORK should be done until you have set out in writing exactly what you will and will not be providing to your client. Be as detailed as possible.

You need dates and deadlines as well. This goes for both you and the client. For instance, if you are writing or editing an article, specify the date you will return the piece, the date the client must give it back to you with their corrections, and a date when you will hand in the finished product.

There should be monetary consequences for a client’s returning the piece late. I’m not even going to discuss your missing a deadline, because you can never let this happen.

Do not start to work until you get a deposit, somewhere between 30 and 50 percent of the estimated total cost of the project. Enumerate when the next payment(s) is expected, and how much you are to be paid. Generally, you should be paid either after you finish a draft or on a certain date. No work begins before you receive your initial deposit, and no work continues until you receive your incremental payment. Final draft is sent to the client only after final payment is received.

I know this is difficult, especially for women, but I cannot emphasize its importance enough. If it makes you feel any better, it’s still hard for me to do this.

Your responsibilities

You, too, have responsibilities to your client.

First of all, be nice. Even though this whole contract thing feels a bit tough – nay, cruel – you can do everything with a smile and an attitude of accommodation. Be positive.

Consider the following pre-contract proposal:

Here’s what I propose: If you can sign the contract and give me your guidelines/provide the manuscript by [date], I can write/edit X and send it back to you by [date]. If I receive the manuscript back from you with all queries answered by [date], I can give you a final draft on [date].

If you’d like me to also do Y, I’d be happy to do it for an additional $___.

Included in my package are two versions of the final copy: one with tracking and a clean one without. All queries will be in comment bubbles.

I will also provide you with a style sheet at no additional cost.

You’ll hear from me every week/day/ten days with a progress report. And of course, please feel free to contact me any time with questions or concerns.

Once you get the gig and have delineated what you and the client are each responsible for, write up a contract with all this information and get it signed, or at least approved in writing via email.

Other ways to serve your client

Make sure you understand exactly what the client wants

If you have a writing assignment, how many words? If you’re editing someone else’s work, what kind of editing does the author desire: just a quick eyeballing, a copy edit, a language edit, or an in-depth, line-by-line editing job? For both writers and editors, who is the audience: age, gender, secular or religious, etc.? Ask the client for the demographics, as you won’t want to use the word “ubiquitous” in a book for young children, or allow a curse word if the article is for a church publication.

Make sense

The work should be as perfect as you can make it, within the time frame you and the client have worked out. Cross your t’s and dot your i’s, and remember your grammar and spelling. If you’re writing, self-edit before you turn it in (see the following 5 articles for details: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). If you’re editing, make the author look good by giving them a comprehensible manuscript in their own voice.

Make a style sheet

Your clients will love you for this. Unless you have been given a set of guidelines by your client, write down every ambiguous word or “rule” you run into or make up. For example, how are you going to spell Ann? Or Anne? or Ayn? Will it be “God, Who told Noah to build the Ark,” or God, who told Noah to build the Ark”? Or is it “ark”? If you’ve been given a style sheet by your client, create a new document comprising any new words, phrases, or rules, and send it along with your piece.

If you are working on fiction, it is essential to write down every single detail: names, dates, places, and relationships. I have read several semi-professional books where the name of Martha’s sister is Joan in chapter 1 and Bonnie in chapter 6. Moreover, if the book takes place in Hawaii during the month of August, you cannot say, “The next day it snowed, so we couldn’t go to school.” Whether you are writing or editing, go that extra mile and hand in a style sheet.

Take pride in your work

No matter what you are working on, be it a novel, a board book for two-year-olds, a memoir, or a how-to book on growing your own mushrooms, treat each project as if it’s the most important thing ever written. You’ll feel good about yourself, your client will think you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread, and you’ll get many more jobs from happy clients or their friends and colleagues.

I’ll close here with a wonderful article I read recently. This amazing woman elevated the obituary column of the New York Times to an art form. There is much to learn from her.

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Have I missed anything that relates to serving your client? If I have, please add it in the Comments. And no matter what you are currently working on, I wish you

Happy writing!

Deena

Deena Nataf

BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com