Professional Nonfiction Writing

Going Down the Rabbit Trail

I’m a member of the Writer’s Digest writer’s community.  I host the “Nonfiction Writer’s” group.  In the group I have a continuing discussion “What is one of your biggest challenges you are facing right now in completing your nonfiction writing project?”

Ed, a member of the group, yesterday responded with, “Finding the right balance between using illustrations and avoiding rabbit trails with my illustrations.”

I thought I would post my response here on the blog for you to read.  Here is my response to Ed…

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Ed, it's been a long time since I've heard the term rabbit trails. You created an amazing visual for me when you said it. Good job. For those that haven't heard the term, it means going down the wrong path. The visual I had was a narrow, maybe two feet by two feet path with a slight upgrade going up a mountain side as far as one's eye can see. It could also mean a rabbi's sermon but I don't think that was your meaning.

I find my mind going off onto the rabbit trail quite often. From what I understand it's common for right brain, creative individuals. I also found it to be a way of avoiding completing the original path. Some exerts say it's actually part of writer's block. Years back I didn't agree with the writer's block theory. Now I do. Some therapists say it's part of anxiousness. A point when a person begins to fear something causing anxiousness. Like the writer's block theory, I didn't agree with it before but now I do. I think all of it is intertwined.

I'm certified in NLP (neuro-linquists programming) and one of the ways I have helped myself with this was to purchase the "easy" button from Staples. Because I knew my rabbit trail behavior and thinking was a habit that needed retaining. I needed a way to catch myself; become conscious of when this was occurring. There are other terms for this in NLP; however, I'll keep this conversation simple.

I would just hit the button and hear "this is easy." It would snap me back. At least most of the time. At the beginning it worked a little, then it got better, and eventually it became a "whoosh" feeling that Tony Robbins trained me on so many years ago. When it becomes a whoosh feeling you can kind-of see the easy button and you're hitting it without the action. It just whooshes through you in an quick energy wave in a split second. This now happens to me when I'm listening to someone and my mind begins to wonder.

The "easy button" isn't a must. A snap of the fingers, or taping on the elbow, or a slap on the leg or any other unusual movement can be used. However, for me the red button and the noise was required. Maybe because I use other movements, trained myself in those, for other things.

You don't need NLP necessarily. I use other ways to become aware of when I'm starting down the rabbit hole. Sometimes I just ask the question, "Catherine, where are you going now?" This doesn't have much of a success rate for me though. If I'm using the pen, I give the though two words and record it in the margin and then keep moving back to where I was.

Like any type of retraining, it takes conscious awareness and consistent effort to change. It's so worth it though. I noticed my writing improved significantly and my completion rate as well. This occurred many years back when I was barely getting one article done a day and I wanted to change that to five a day. After a few months I was up to five a day and my publication rate increased significantly as well. Then again, remembering back, I used a rotating format for this. I drafted one article, then another, then another, etc. Sometimes all five and then returned to the first one for editing. Sometimes I would get through the second one and return to the first. I flopped back and forth if needed to accommodate my mind shifts and to walk with the rabbit trail.

- Catherine

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Capture Your Sleep Writing

Many writers have a very powerful creative side and a weaker left side.  Imagine creating a stronger whole-brained writing process.

Here’s is a technique to help you.

This exercise is exactly like laying out your clothes out the night before. Without even thinking, without making any conscious choices, you jump into your clothes in the morning and you're on your way.

Your first step begins by consciously working out the best approach for you in the early morning.

When it comes to getting ready in the morning, some people place their clothes on hangers close to their bed.  Some set them out in a dressing room.  Others hand their clothes on the back of the bathroom door and dress in the bathroom in order not to wake up the spouse.  Maybe you don’t set out your clothes and prefer to decide in the morning.  You admit that isn’t the most effective way to save time.  If you aren’t sure try different ways to find what works best for you.  What’s your preferred method? 

Now, think of how you want to be ready to write in the morning.

Think about where your want to set up your writing area.  Is it next to your bed?  Is it at a table or desk in the bedroom, on the couch in the living room, on the patio during the summer?  Where? 

Next, think of what tools you need to be ready.  Is it simply a tablet and pen next to the bed to capture those times when you wake during the night and need to record something fast or if you prefer to begin writing as soon as your feet hit the floor next to the bed.

Or do you prefer to set up your tools in an area in another room? 

I use the dining room table and not my regular desk in my home office because I become distracted in this area. I place a blank writing tablet on the right-hand side, position my writing instruments – several favorite pens, a few different highlighters, and a red pen – above in a old coffee cup.   I place my supporting docs if I have some to the left.  If you find you have a tendency to review the docs before writing, I suggest you don’t include them in this space.  If you are a laptop writer, place the laptop above the tablet, plugged in, monitor up, but not on.  The writing tablet can capture the words while the laptop is booting up. 

For a period of time, I kept the table next to the bed and in my morning writing area. 

Before retiring, clarify your focus.  Try creating a focused question, headline or sub-headline.  Record it on the tablet (both if you use one in each area). 

As you are drift off to sleep, repeat the question, or key focus, several times.  Ask for the answer.  Ask for the words.  Ask for the language.  Ask for what you want to accomplish the next morning.

When you rise, if you can’t wait to get to your morning writing area, grab the tablet and begin writing.  If you prefer, move to the writing area you set up and begin writing.

You may want to do both.  I did for a few years.

It's best to start writing without reading anything.  Start recording what your brain worked on during the night.  Begin wherever your mind wants to start. Sometimes the words don’t seem to connect to the focus. This is okay.  Sometime later you will see the connection.  Then again occasionally your mind just needs to clean out the spider webs. 

You will find in a short timeframe, your mind will lead into your focus. 

When I began this ritual, I found it took time for me to let go of control and trust the process.  After being consistent with the process, the flow came easy and the wording improved.  I remember my subconscious wanting to fight the process. 

When my students practice this, they tell me a similar story about how their metamorphous occurred. 

Share yours here.

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Do your environments fuel your words?

Different environments influence my writing outcome.  Just like I am sure you are aware how they affect yours.  Have you ever taken a analysis look at your surroundings in order to increase your flow?  I have.  Allow me to walk you through some of my processing.

After completing this process I became keenly aware of what I needed, where, and when.  And because of this, the words came easier, faster, and needed less revisions – my production tripled.  I was enjoying my writing process a whole lot more.

In Northern Virginia there seems to be a McDonald’s every half a mile.  One of them, the second closest from where I was living at the time, seemed to fuel my ideas and the first drafts flowed fast for anything on the topic of marketing.  And only marketing.

To figure out why this was happening, I thought I would do a test.  The test was to visit three other Mickey Dee’s several times to see what was affecting this.  My question was, “What was this particular space giving me that my writing flowed so well on just marketing?  And why just marketing?  And would other McDonald’s fuel some other topic?” 

Here is a partial list of the results from my test:

• The window, in the only booth I would sit in, faced some bushes with small birds flying in and out of.
• The light was just right between 2 and 4 pm.  The only time I went there.
• The soda bar was free access for unlimited refills.
• The smells were different in some way, even though the underlining smell was grease.
• When the counter line grew longer I couldn’t write; I people watched instead.  This particular location I could see the people without feeling like I was staring.  The other locations always seemed to have long lines and a lot of people talking behind the counter.  This one there was hardly any chatter behind the counter.
• The air circulation was fresher.
• The temperature was comfortable.  No cold drafts except on drafty cold winter days and then I would move one booth over.
• The tables were always cleaner, floors too.

I found I could not write on the topic of marketing anywhere else. 

Later, when I spent a year traveling, my writing flow was lost until I created a checklist for my environmental needs. 

Here are a few things from this list:

• lighting
• temperature comfortable
• the right smells
• cleanliness
• unlimited refills
• sound level between 3 and not above 5

Whenever I came close to that McDonald’s environmental list my ideas and words flowed.  When I found a place that met the majority of the items on my checklist, I stayed and wrote.  When they didn’t I moved on.

Later, when I stopped travelling and settled into a permanent place the energy wasn’t my own yet.  I used my checklists to create different writing areas to fuel my writing and change the energy fast. 

• My chair in the living room, after I added a cuddly blanket, feed my personal journaling and reading.
• At my desk my writing was blocked if I faced my writing table top yet it wasn’t when I turned my back to use the computer.  After my review I tried removing all the paper from my desk and polished it.  Then I could write.  So I learned to make this one of my regular morning rituals – I removed everything that wasn’t want I wanted to focus on next and polished.  Then finished in half the time.

My checklist has evolved since then and reads more like this one:

• Living room chair – personal development, reading and taking notes.
• Writing desk area (once prep’d) – planning, strategizing new ideas, and outlining
• Computer desk – After writing drafts by hand
• Starbucks – very specific, already determined, topics.  I would take a few index cards with my focused topic and my laptop and nothing more.
• Library – rough notes, first drafts and outlining.
• Car (stopped of course) – quick idea jotting notes
• Shower – idea generation, brainstorming.
• A waiting room of any kind – a personal development exploration exercise, further clarity on a particular idea
• McDonald’s (new one) – marketing topic ideas and first drafts.
• …and my list goes on.

Share your ideas on what you have done to fuel your writing?

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Not just about spiritual writing

Writing Spiritual Books: A Bestselling Writer's Guide to Successful Publication by Hal Zina Bennett

I've read this book several times now. Going back and scan reading it because my intuition says I need to learn something again from this book. Not sure what yet. View all my reviews >>

 

 

 

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I still love reading Henriette Klauser’s books

Writing on Both Sides of the Brain: Breakthrough Techniques for People Who Write by Henriette Anne Klauser

This is an oldie but goodie. It's been on my shelf for the last five years and I have re-read it now three times. Every time I get a few more things out of it that helps my writing. I've decided to keep this on my shelf for now and read it again next year. It's definitely a keeper for me. At least for now. The book is difficult to find, so if you do, celebrate and enjoy it. I have another chapter I want to re-read before I place it back on the shelf. View all my reviews >>

 

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Five-Step Writing Process of Ayn Rand

Mike Consol wrote this interesting summary article about Ayn Rand’s five-step writing process.  I felt it was worth reading his take on her process and especially how he condenses it into a simpler process.

To read

Are you writing from your head or your heart? When to know the difference.

by Catherine Franz

When our heart is broken from an experience or set of experiences, connected or unrelated, our brain kicks in to protect it.

For a writer, It’s important to know where the words are coming from.  And just as important to choose where you want to come from -- to write from.

If you are in the mist of planning and organizing your writing piece, especially if its a book, I recommend not letting your heart in at first.  Think from your library which comes from your mind.

If you are struggling with a course or direction for your writing piece, or the layout or table of contents ask whether you are trying to complete it from your head or your heart.

Yes, the perfect balance is to be able to use both at the same time.  This author doesn’t know if this is possible.  But what is possible is to ask the question, “Am I writing, pulling from, right now, my head or my heart?  And which would feel right?  Which would allow me to express what I want to say in the best way?”

If you aren’t sure which one is best, allow yourself to turn off the heart and write strictly from the head.  Afterwards, reverse the process…turn off the head and write from the heart.  This is a good exercise to discover which one is writing and to get them to converse together.

If you believe it’s always best to express your writing from your heart.  Allow me to share this…

When I’m working on a sequence section, such as a nonfiction how-to process, or even a fiction story that’s running sequentially with time, I first pull from my library…my head by asking, “What’s next?  And then what happened?  And then what happened?” etc.

After I have the sequence laid out, I rewrite the piece from scratch.  This time from my heart.  And since I already worked through the sequence from my library the emotion now intertwine into the piece.  My expression is different.  My words change.  My writing is more relaxed.  More enjoyable to read and easier for the reader to connect with.

If you are struggling to add more emotion to your writing piece, this will help.  When I coach technical writers, I begin with this same awareness I’m providing you with.  It’s because technical writing is more writing from the brain than it is from the heart.  Eventually, they turn off their heart writing.  Besides other connections that need to change, I coach them on how to write from the heart.

When I’m writing and I’m not sure where it’s coming from, I place my hand over my heart and let it sit there for a moment.  When I feel the energy between the hand and the heart connect I know I’m writing from the heart.

What causes us to write from the brain is a broken heart.  This comes from experiences in life that didn’t go the way we had hoped or wanted them to.  This can come from broken love-type of relationships to yelling at our kids and everything in between.   This broken connection is more prevalent in us than most of us think it is and that’s because our head is protecting us from the pain. 

You have heard the saying, “She died from a broken heart.”  Logically, we’ve heard it, yet many of us, myself included for a long time, didn’t really think it was true.  It was something out there, invented by some fiction writer.  In actuality it is true…we can die from a broken heart.  It happens daily.

To mend the heart I recommend Byron Katie’s book and process.  The book, “Loving What Is:  Four Questions That Can Change Your Life” (Amazon link) is enlightening to say the least.  She walks you through a mending process.  If you can, I would recommend working with one of her trained coaches and heal faster.  Katie calls her process “The Work.”  If you are seeking a coach who is skilled in The Work, I highly recommend, and I’m saying this from hands-on experience, Alison Elissa.  Her email address is coach@alisonelissa.com.  Her Web site: www.alisonelissa.com.  Receive a complimentary session, to experience this wonderful process, by giving her my name, Catherine Franz.

In the meantime, check-in with your head and your heart.  Ask which one wants to write now.  And mend the heart.  It’s worth the effort.  Your writing will change overnight and so will how you see life.

 

© Copyright 2009, Catherine Franz.  All rights reserved.

Technorati Tags: writing,nonfiction writing,fiction,technical,Are you writing from the head or the heart,Catherine Franz,writing coach

Compiled List of 75 Different Types of Blog Posts

Was doing some research this weekend on the various types of blog posts that I could use.  I was shooting for a list of 100, got to 75 and quit.

If you are interested in this list, it's available on my Out of the Blog, Into the Light blog.  A PDF of the list is also available.

Here's the link to that post:

Our Online Tone of Voice

Whether we’re writing for our blog, Web site, Internet articles, on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and more, it’s important to know what tone of voice you want to use BEFORE you write.

On Monday I read a blog post on “ABC Copywriting Blog” about their recommended tone of voice in these medias.  I thought the information was informative and accurate.  Here’s the link if you want to read the post.

After reading it several times the information since I realized even more so how important it is to identify what tone of voice we want for what media we’re present in.

In order to track this information, and because I’m a visual thinker, I turned the information into a mind map.

The mind map is available for free downloading (if you use MindManager) or viewing in PDF form (if you don’t) on Biggerplate.com.  Here’s the link to the map.

While you are on www.Biggerplate.com Web site, you can find additional mind maps I’ve contributed.  To bring up the list, create a search (from the home page) under author and my name, “Catherine Franz.”

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How to Write a Blog Post, Step by Step

This morning I was reading Jay Ehret’s blog post about “How to Write a Blog Post, Step by Step.”

It’s a fairly simple concept he presents with a some good valid points.  However, I believe he’s left out the some vital steps that make the difference between an average post and something someone wants to read.  And the steps fall either before Step 1 and Step 2.  I know from experience as a published writer for 45 years and from teaching, these are critical steps for impactful writing.  Also the difference between “just an article” and an “article that’s speaks to the reader.”