I’m currently reading The Subversive Copy Editor, by  Carol Fisher Saller, an outstanding book for editors and copy editors. This is the book’s second edition, which came out last month – what editor can resist a revision?

Besides containing updated material, this edition has a couple of new chapters, including one for writers. I highly recommend this well-written, humorous book for any writer who wants a backstage glimpse into the editing process and/or who wants to better understand the author/editor relationship.

The seminal takeaway from the book, however, which informs its every paragraph, is this:

“Your ultimate boss is the reader….You, your boss, and your boss’s boss all work for the same person, and you all have the same goal of making that person’s reading experience the best it can be.”

Writers, take heed.

Whom are you writing for?

Photo by sk8geek

When I’m sent a manuscript to either evaluate or edit, one of the first questions I (am usually forced to) ask the author is the following:

Who is your audience?

This can include, among other factors, age, gender, and educational level. In non-fiction it can also include level of technical knowledge of the subject. Even in fiction this is important; go ahead and read a John Grisham novel and immediately afterward one by William Brodrick. Defining your audience will inform word choice, length, style, amount of explanation, complexity…in fact, it will affect almost everything.

Keep a picture of your ideal reader constantly in mind as you write. This will help you stay consistent. If you find yourself stuck with regard to, say, phrasing, or how much detail to add, ask yourself, “What does my reader need?” or “What does my reader know?”

Stay consistent, and tailor your prose for your ideal reader. Uneven writing, an example of which is using highfalutin’ language in one paragraph and high school vocabulary in another, will render your work unapproachable to everyone.

Keep it convenient

Saller further warns us not to distract, confuse, or inconvenience readers. Be consistent also with regard to technicalities such as American English versus British English, or punctuation inside quotation marks versus punctuation outside quotation marks – but don’t be so rigid that you find yourself serving the style manual instead of your reader.

In other words, don’t leave your brain at the door; if it feels wrong, it probably is.

Saller gives the example of a bibliography that lists city only and not state or country, but which includes a book published in London, Ohio. It would be foolish to simply write “London: X Publishing Co., 1985.”  In Saller’s words, “For many writers and editors, our work is all about the rules. It’s what we do – we take a chunk of writing and we grind it through the style-guide mill and we never once stop to ask whether logic and reason and the reader are served.”

Here’s another example of rigidity at the expense of your readers: In Hebrew, the name Ruth is pronounced either Root or Roos. I can’t think of anything more unsightly than those two transliterations, and besides, they make me think of plants and Australian animals.How about Rut or Rus? Would that be “rut,” as in “I’m stuck in a rut,” or a variation of the man’s name Russ? Better to leave it Ruth and call it a day, even if you’ve transliterated all the other names.

Don’t be a slob

As a veteran editor, I cannot emphasize this enough.

Writing that is riddled with errors not only borders on the rude, it destroys your credibility with readers. (Now I’m panicked that this post will have typos in it.) If a writer cannot take the time to make sure his or her copy is free of even the most obvious technical errors, how can the reader completely trust the information itself?

I encourage writers to make their first draft a “brain dump,” or stream of consciousness. However, the operative word here is “first”: we number drafts because there is supposed to be more than one.

Finish your piece and put it aside. Then reread, revise, and redo.

Make the dictionary your best friend.

Photo by crdotx

You can find many useful things in a dictionary in addition to how to spell a word. Dictionaries give nuanced definitions and synonyms, and can be invaluable for usage. For instance, a dictionary might show you how to use the word in a sentence or tell you which preposition to pair a verb with (think “prohibition against” versus “prohibition of”). For more on this, see two earlier posts of mine, here and here.

Saller couches this in business terms:

“Reassuring and impressing readers keeps them coming back. It persuades them to believe, to invest, to buy.”

Don’t just vomit out your prose and expect others to clean up after you. Yes, editors are essential, but only after you have gone over your own piece several times, checking it for technical as well as content issues. In Saller’s words, “Inaccuracies and inconsistencies undermine a writer’s authority, distract and confuse the reader, and reflect poorly on the company.”

***

Respect your audience. Keep Ideal Reader in front of you at all times, and make friends with him or her. Do unto Ideal Reader as you would want other authors to do unto you.

Happy Writing!

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

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Imagine this scenario:

You drag yourself to the computer. You stare at the screen. You’re suddenly hungry. You’re dying to check Facebook and your inbox. Oops, forgot that coffee. And the electric bill has to be paid this very second.

In other words, you have absolutely no idea what to write about.

What’s your excuse?

Did the above send shivers up and down your spine, or is it just me?

Why do we writers have such trouble doing the very thing that defines us? I’ll bet your answer is one of the following:

• writer’s block
• procrastination
• “all out of ideas”

Let’s take each excuse and nuke it.

Writer’s block

There is no such thing as writer’s block.

Huh?

I repeat: There is no such thing as writer’s block.

Does this make you feel misunderstood? Or just plain mad? Hear me out anyway.

Writer’s block is a catch-all word for any of our excuses for not writing. And yes, I’m also talking to myself. Although writing can be hard, don’t you agree that the thought of writing is even harder?

The answer is to write.

The rest of this post will give you hands-on solutions to your writing problems. In addition, here’s a wonderful article in Write to Done. (I was privileged to publish a guest post there a few weeks ago.)  The author never uses the term “writer’s block.” Instead, he gives upbeat ideas for overcoming what he calls obstacles and roadblocks.

Procrastination

As I discussed in a previous post, procrastination is another term for Fear – and all the “what ifs” that come with it. Here’s the solution: Promise yourself that you will write for just 6 to 10 minutes. Even if you begin by typing the lyrics to “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” your fingers will be forced down the keyboard catwalk and you’ll be on your way.

Make your daily writing minimum 6 minutes only, and even if it takes a bit longer to write your piece, it will eventually get done. Every finished article or book will build your confidence, making each new project easier to complete.

You can also fake yourself out and get started by outlining your article, book, or blog. This is what Ramit Sethi calls “front-loading the work.” Outlining is powerful because it allows you to employ stream-of-consciousness, or what some people call a brain dump, which is much less stressful than “real” writing. Very often after outlining, your piece will write itself.

I wrote the outline for this post by hand because I couldn’t get access to my computer and found myself sitting around reading yet another trashy novel. I said to myself, “That’s it,” got out a yellow legal pad, and wrote at the kitchen table.

All out of ideas

Think you have nothing to write about? Try this: write by hand for 10 or 15 minutes about a specific event in your life. This kick-starts your creativity and ignites your senses. Describe the sounds, smells, and textures associated with the event. Eventually you will have an entire archive of experiences and emotions you can dip into when looking for ideas. You can read more about my solution, which I call “method writing,” in my most recent guest post, which went live last week on Book Baby, a website for authors who want to self-publish.

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Another way to come up with something to write about is to have a list of prompts, which are like word associations for writers. Prompts can be as random as “my first date” or “why I like soda.” Pick one and you’re good to go. You’ll never be out of an idea again.

Because I love you so much, I am offering a free ebook called “144 Prompts: Your Daily Writing Guide,” which you can access either here, in my Book Baby guest post, or below. Your friends can get this guide, too; just click on one of the social media icons!

No more excuses

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The problem with making a “thing” out of writer’s block is that it makes, well, a “thing” out of it. Instead, use one or more of the solutions I’ve delineated in this post. Let me know in the Comments what worked and what didn’t.

And for 144 ways to overcome a writing slump be sure to download my free ebook, “144 Prompts.”

Happy writing!

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

Deena@BulletproofWriting.com

​You’ve spent hours writing the perfect article or pitch. You’ve read the submission guidelines fourteen times, and you’ve checked and double-checked to make sure you’ve followed the rules to a T.

You’ve geared the tone of your article to that of the publication you’re submitting to. You made sure you spelled the editor’s name correctly, and you have definitely read and reread the piece at least six times. There is not one typo or misspelled word.

You push Send.

You eat a cup of pretzels or a bag of potato chips, and then force yourself to forget about your submission for the next ten days or so.

Dear Deena,

Thank you for submitting your article.

Unfortunately…

​

In the past six weeks, I’ve had four articles and a bid for speaking at an industry conference rejected.

What an awful, awful feeling that is.

​

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Have you ever said any (or all) of the following to yourself after a rejection?

“I’ll never succeed.”

“I’m a loser.”

“I’m a nothing.”

“I can’t write to save my life.”

“I have no talent.”

“I’m a bad person.”

Conventional wisdom says rejection stinks, be it social or professional. It makes us feel so bad about ourselves. We begin to question our judgment, our taste, our personality, our abilities. We get depressed. We cry. We rant and rave.

Adding Salt to Our Wounds

Then we’re forced to hear every bromide and cliché from friends, family, and colleagues who are trying to “comfort” us:

• “Better luck next time.”
• “It wasn’t meant to be.”
• “You should have tried harder.”
• “That’s life.”

And my personal favorite:

• “It’s their loss, not yours.”

Do any of these sound familiar? And have any of them ever made you feel better?

You’re in Great Company

The following books and authors were rejected multiple times. Thanks to LitRejections.com and OnlineCollege.org for this information:

• Agatha Christie: 5 years of rejections until her first book was accepted.
• Dr. Seuss: “Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”
• Chicken Soup for the Soul: 140 rejections; “anthologies don’t sell.”
• The Catcher in the Rye: “We feel that we don’t know the central character well enough.” Salinger does a rewrite, and the rest is history.
• Gone with the Wind: 38 rejections.​
• A Wrinkle in Time: 26 rejections.
• Little Women: “Stick to teaching.”
• John le Carré: “He hasn’t got any future.”
• Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: 121 rejections.
• Willliam Saroyan: 7,000 rejections until he sold his first story.
• The Diary of Anne Frank: 15 rejections.
• J.K. Rowling: first Harry Potter book rejected 12 times.

Making Choices

I’ve done a lot of soul-searching during the past few weeks, and I’ve come to the conclusion that while rejection can hurt, and hurt badly, it’s also a choice to feel this way. Let me explain.

What we think (input) becomes what we feel (output). In other words, if we tell ourselves “I’m no good,” we’re not going to feel so good. If we tell ourselves that we’re bad, we’re going to feel bad.

After the last rejection, I allowed myself to indulge in a little self-pity, which was accompanied by chocolate, carbohydrates, and a trashy novel. Notice the words I just used: I allowed myself. In other words, I made a choice.

A few days later, when I was feeling somewhat better, I sat myself down and thought back to the time I was rejected for a teaching position at a small women’s seminary. I don’t know what possessed me, but a few hours later I called the principal back and asked her what the problem was and what I needed to do in order to teach at her place. She was super helpful and gave me some actionable advice.

But the most important part was that as we schmoozed, she saw there was more to me than my resumé, and by the end of the conversation she said, “You know what, now that we’ve spoken, I really think you’d be a good fit for my school.”

True story.

Entering the Lion’s Mouth ​

Calling that principal was hard; I felt that I was entering the lion’s mouth (in a manner of speaking; she’s a really nice person), risking more rejection a la: “My decision is final; leave me alone.”

I discovered instead that most people want to see you succeed.

With this in mind, I went over the four article and pitch rejections. This is how I broke it down:

1. Didn’t respond. While it would have been great to have been published on this site, I had already sensed an edge to the owner through her writing that I wasn’t comfortable with. Moreover, her submission process was a bit over-the-top (you had to “swear” you read the guidelines – is that normal?), and there is nowhere on the site to “Contact Us”; everything goes through a contact form. None of this is my cup of tea, so why did I want to write for this publication in the first place; because it’s popular? So are a hundred others. It is not humanly possible to be a good fit for every single publication in the world. Now that this door is closed, I can open a window somewhere else.
2. Said my writing style wasn’t appropriate for her blog. I have a tiny relationship with this blog owner, as I had exchanged a couple of emails with her previously. She was 100 percent right; my style is totally not in sync with hers. And that’s okay, too. I thanked her for her time and told her how much I look forward to her future blogs, which is the truth.
3. Gave me feedback and urged me to reread her stuff. I have a friendly relationship with the editor of this e-publication, and I thanked her for her truly valuable feedback. She told me what type of article I would need to come up with in order for it to be considered for publication. I’ll try again with her, and I’ll work hard to make sure my next pitch is more in line with what she wants.
4. Said they liked my subject, but the pitch was all wrong. The editor gave me feedback with regard to what I’d need to do in order for them to reconsider the pitch. I then reached out to her, asking  specific questions with regard to the problems with my pitch and what they wanted instead. I reread several articles of theirs, and of course I reread the guidelines another 14 times. Success! My new pitch was accepted! And you’ll be the first to know when it goes live.

Win-Win     ​

As far as I’m concerned, this was win-win – for both me and me.

My “I’m a loser” side dug a little deeper and discovered that I’m not such a loser; not being a good fit for one or two publications is not a moral issue. Do I like every single magazine or website I’ve ever read? Goodness, no. Would I have really and truly been a good fit for publications number 1 and 2? Probably not. Does every single person in the world have to like me, and I them? Certainly not. So what’s the big deal?

My “I’m a successful person” side was happy because I moved on from the publications that in any case were not good fits, leaving me time and head space to pursue other possibilities whose doors were still open. I got good feedback. I used the rejections to learn a ton about pitching and writing for e-publications, and in the end I got a gig. I chose to remain positive and gracious with the editors, and burned no bridges.

***

Ultimately, rejection is about defining who you are. Once you do that, you can answer the other questions in your life: Which type of man or woman do you want to date or marry? Which college would be the best fit for you? What types of publications are you most suited to write for? Which genre?

I believe that if we can change the way we look at rejection we will come to see it as an opportunity instead of a disaster. You are allowed to to feel bad. But once you get the pain out of your system, use rejection to discover more about yourself and what you’re really meant to be doing.

How do you deal with rejection? I really want to hear how you handle it. Do you agree with what I said? Why or why not? Let me know what you think in the Comments.

Extra credit: Take a piece of prose that was rejected. Look it over and revise as necessary. Then send it to a new publication. Let me know what happens.

Happy writing,

Deena Nataf

www.BulletproofWriting.com

I’ve been running on and off (more on than off) for the past three and a half years; as I say on my About page, I’m a half-marathon wannabe. Yet even though I have managed to complete two 10Ks in a city with one of the most difficult routes in the world, I am still neither totally used to nor comfortable with my chosen form of exercise. But I do it anyway.

About a year or so into my running, I noticed that no matter how I’m feeling, no matter what the weather, and no matter what time it is, the first six minutes of my run are the hardest and when I am most likely to quit. My muscles and lungs are kicking and screaming. I’m bored. I can’t imagine how I’ll survive the next twenty (or sixty or seventy-five) minutes.

And then I’m okay. After those first six minutes I get into zone, and even if it’s hard, I finish the run. Even when my mp3 is broken, I can do it. Even when the six minutes seem like six hours, I can do it.

Eventually I wondered whether the six minute rule applied to other things. It does. Here are a few:

1. Lawyers: most bill out in six-minute increments
2. Online courses: “6 Minutes to Success,” “6 Minutes to Skinny”
3. Programs: the BBC’s “6 Minute English” (learn and practise useful English), “6 Minutes for Safety” (a tool created for and by fire personnel)
4. Books: The Six Minute Solution, The First Six Minutes Book
5. Medicine: The Six Minute Walk Test (6MWT)
6. Website: Six Minutes (a public speaking and presentation skills website)
7. Fitness: this New York Times blog, this video, and this workout
8. Another six-minute activity… (see The Undomestic Goddess, by Sophie Kinsella)

How does this apply to writing? you ask. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you:

You sit down at the computer and stare at the white Word template on your screen. You are rapidly getting the willies. You’d rather be doing just about anything instead of staring into this grand nothingness. Suddenly there’s the phone call you have to make, the book you must order on Amazon, the dishes begging to be washed this very second.

I experience the very same thing. However, if I go deeper into why I can’t keep my tush glued to the chair and my fingers nimbly typing away at the keyboard, I come face to face with worries. Here are mine:

• Being able to fill up the page(s) without fluff
• Having enough solid material to write about
• Having so much to write that I’ll never finish
• Taking too much time away from other essential tasks
• Writing valueless nonsense
• Having to do research

If I tried really hard, I’m sure I’d be able to come up with more. Heck, I’ll be so busy inventing worries that I won’t have to start writing.

But what is really going on here?

I think it’s fear.

I’ve been doing a lot of contemplating since I started this blog, and if I’m honest with myself, I know that all my discomfort with starting a new venture, learning new technology, and coming up with consistently valuable posts is just plain Fear with a capital F: What if I can’t make this a viable business? What if my goals for this blog aren’t realized? What if it takes too long?

Think about your own writing fears:

• Will I get published?
• Will I make money from my writing?
• Will anyone read my writing?

And the big daddy of writers’ fears:

Okay, Deena, very nice. Now that you’ve gotten me all worked up, can you please tell me what to do?

What if you applied my six minute rule to writing?

I’ve started doing this recently, and the results have been amazing. I sit down knowing full well that the first six minutes are going to be hell. And as painful as they might be, I write through them. I tell myself that I only have six, or four, or three minutes to go, and then I know I’m going to get into zone.

If you want, set a timer for six minutes, and see how well this works. Personally, I feel so much calmer knowing that after the first six minutes I’ll get into the rhythm of the thing and the words will flow. Or not. But I’ll be involved enough that I won’t stop. If there are a lot of bad sentences and mistakes, I can always revise. The important thing is to keep going and get it all down on paper, even if it’s lame and even if there’s a lot of stream-of-consciousness in my first draft.

By the way, this works particularly well for those of us who have schedules, or even semi-schedules. Knowing that you are going to write at, say, 10:00 a.m. will psyche you up and sit you down. And knowing that by 10:06 you’ll be on automatic pilot, as it were, will keep you there.

For those of us who write by the seat of our pants (difficult to glue them to a chair), knowing that all you need are six minutes until you can’t imagine ever getting up from the computer will give you the incentive you need to sit down and start typing in the first place.

So no matter whether you are a Type A personality or a Type B personality — or even a Type Q — there’s really no excuse now.

A promise: Your fear will take care of itself. You will face down your fear by writing. You will disarm it in six minutes flat.

There was a short sentence in an ebook I read recently which had a lot of impact on me. In fact, I actually wrote it down and taped it to the back of my computer desk so I can see it frequently:

Fear is a liar.

Fear, and its offspring anxiety, are a bunch of “what ifs.” But you’ll never know the answer to any of your “what ifs” if you don’t just go for it.

Remember: Even if your worst writing fears are realized, you’re no worse off than you were before you sat down and started to write, because not going for it at all — letting that liar win — will automatically make your doubts and anxieties come true. In other words, you can’t get published, make money from your writing, have anyone read your writing, or be a good enough writer…if you don’t write. You’ll never know the answers to these questions.

Do me, and yourself, a favor: Sit down and write for six minutes. Then examine how you feel. And then keep writing!

And let me know in the comments below how this worked out for you.

Happy writing!

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

Hi, everyone! I’m back home and happy to be on solid ground again.

I’ve made a commitment to send out a post every two weeks, and today’s the day. I wanted very badly to cop out and pull the covers over my head and barf out some excuse as to why you won’t get a blog today…

But then it was 3:00 a.m. and I couldn’t get back to sleep. And I remembered my last blog, which discussed writing even when you don’t feel like it. So instead of cursing my jet lag, I decided to use it to my advantage and get this blog out! How smug is that?

But first I had to have coffee, and then I had to skim (not scan, which means to read thoroughly) just the most important emails I’ve been ignoring for the past two weeks while I was on the West Coast. And write a few emails. And read that 99-cent short story I bought on Amazon for my new Kindle toy. And look something up for my daughter-in-law on BedBathandBeyond.com.

In short, my excitement with the rewards of jet lag dissolved when I suddenly realized that it was 6:30 and I was passing out from exhaustion.

Oops.

But it’s still Thursday all over the world (except in Australia; sorry, guys), and I can still make it. As I said in a guest post that will be published later this month, never, ever give up. As long as the candle is still burning (or in this case, the sun is still shining), you can correct your course.

How does this apply to us writers?

It is normal to fail sometimes. You will feel as if you cannot write another word, much less sentence. Perhaps you will even miss a deadline – which, by the way, I do not recommend. But write as if your life depended on it, and you will succeed and meet your commitments whether they are personal or dictated by a publisher.

One suggestion: give yourself an internal deadline. For instance, I must finish this blog and hit “Publish” in thirty-five minutes. You’d be surprised how well you can focus when the pressure is on.

Another positive outcome of today’s publish-on-Thursday-by-the-seat-of-my-pants commitment: I’ve decided to move my blogs up to Tuesday! I’d much rather you see my bi-weekly posts earlier in the week, so from now on I am committing to Tuesdays instead of Thursdays. You have it in black and white, folks.

In the next few weeks I’m going to be experimenting with creating and adhering to a daily and/or weekly schedule, and I’ll report my findings on the blog. And I’d love to hear from you! Do you have a schedule?
Do you stick to it? How did you figure it all out? Is it daily or weekly? Is it only a writing schedule or is it a life schedule?

If I hear from you by Tuesday I’ll print some of the replies on my Writer’s Clinic page.

And stay tuned for this Tuesday’s Comedy Grammar installment: The Apostrophe Catastrophe.

Happy writing,

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting.com[/fusion_text]

Hi, everyone! Right now I’m in L.A. for my father’s 90th birthday. I don’t “feel” like writing, nor am I “inspired” to spend my first morning here writing a blog post. Have you ever felt like this?

Like most editors, I’ve been asked for writing advice more times than I can count: “What does it take to be a writer?” “What should I do to improve to improve my writing skills?” “What tools do I need to write?”

Here are the three things I tell them:

Glue your tush to the chair

To be a writer you have to write. And you must write on a schedule. Choose either a daily word quota or a daily time quota, and stick with it.

“If the sun rises today, I will write.” (Judy Walnoha)

Have nothing to say? Write down what’s going through your head. Remember Dumbledore’s Pensieve?

Think process, not product.

Does this sound impossible, or just weird? Let me ask you something: Do you have to be inspired in order to brush your teeth? Do you have to be in the mood to breathe? Same with writing. I personally don’t believe in all that passion stuff. Get into the trenches and write!

Read

This is the second most important element of being a writer. You must read, and you must read good books. If you read my blogs regularly, you will begin to understand what makes good books good. Divide your reading time between

1. The classics: Dickens, Hardy, Austen, Dreiser, James, Conrad, Bronte, O. Henry…the list is endless, and there’s something for everyone; I promise. I myself am not a big fan of Hardy, and I generally dislike the Americans except for Dreiser and O. Henry. Check out the library (pun intended), or go explore a used bookstore, and commit to reading one classic every six weeks. It could even be your bathroom reading. Study writing techniques, and examples of superlative writing will pop out at you from the pages of the books you read.
2. Outstanding modern literature: For starters, try one of Kate Atkinson’s novels, Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, or anything by Sue Monk Kidd, Anna Quindlen, or William Brodrick. And since you’re so nice, I’ll let you in on a little secret: John Grisham has a great novel called A Painted House, which is one of the best modern books I’ve ever read. It’s not one of his lawyer books which, while fun, are in the category of “good trash.” And I say that with love, as I’ve read all of them.  As above, you will not like all of these authors, but you will find some either on this list or elsewhere whose books are to your taste, well-written, and worthy of your time. Try to read one or two of these a month.
3. Books on writing: My picks? The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White of Stuart Little fame, On Writing Well by William Zinsser (it’s ostensibly for nonfiction writing but in my opinion it’s invaluable for fiction as well), and On Writing by His Majesty of Horror himself, Stephen King.

Take grammar seriously

Seriously, folks. You can’t be a good writer unless and until you have the tools. Grammar is so important to good writing that I will be dedicating almost half of my blogs to it. (See my first grammar post here.) It’s so embarrassing to read prose that’s riddled with mistakes, and it’s well nigh impossible to get a book contract if you write like 90 percent of the “writers” in the world.

I hope this post has given you food for thought. I’d like to hear from you now: do you agree with what I wrote here? If not, why not? What other things do you think are essential to becoming a writer? Which other authors exemplify great writing? What kind of a writing schedule do you have or are you going to create?

Let me know what you think in the Comments section below.

Until next time, happy reading and writing!

Deena Nataf
www.BulletproofWriting
Deena@BulletproofWriting.com