Archive for the ‘The love of writing’ Category
Posted on February 5, 2009 - By Sharon Lindenburger
My interview with Sue Shockley, founder of itsyourturnforsuccess.com
Please click the link on my Blog page to hear the interview.
Listen to my interview with Sue here
In the past week I had the great pleasure of meeting Sue Shockley and her wonderful and interesting site http://itsyourturnforsuccess.com
Through the new Coaching Directory on her site, Sue is creating an environment for coaches to connect with each other and for prospective clients to find the type of coach they’re looking for. One of the highlights of Sue’s site is that she is doing a series of recorded interviews, called “Presenting a Talented Coach” to showcase coaches’ areas of expertise. I am very privileged to have been chosen by Sue for one of the series’ interviews. By being the third interview on her new site, I found myself in the company of Bob Doyle, one of the impressive teachers in The Secret, and popular Life Coach Rick German–their interviews are up on Sue’s site, and mine is there too!
Sue and I talked about the process of writing a book, how writing books help coaches, consultants, and thought leaders extend their expertise to reach out to readers all over the world and expand their business, and the state of the publishing industry in general. Sue gave me a great opportunity to talk about what I do, how I do it, and my great passion for the world of books and the sharing of wisdom.
Sue, it is an honor to be one your interviewees! One of the things I plan to do in the near future is to create some podcasts all about the nuts and bolts of writing and the book world. Sue certainly whetted my appetite for this!
Posted on February 5, 2009 - By Sharon Lindenburger
That “P” word
For a writer, procrastination is a form of writer’s block. If you’re sitting there in front of your computer screen or with a blank page open in your journal, and nothing comes to you that you want to put onto that page, chances are you’re going to find something else to do.
You’ll clean the fridge, go out for a coffee, do your taxes, walk the dog. Now all of these may be useful activities but if you’re doing them as a way to avoid writing, they are a mask for your fear of the blank page. Many writers, when they scratch underneath the surface of procrastination, find that they’re having a crisis of confidence. Writing can make writers feel so vulnerable and naked. Some days it seems like self-doubt and writing go hand in hand.
Here is a great way to break through procrastination I learned from Elizabeth Ayres, a superb creative writing teacher in New York. Her book, Writing the Wave, is one of the best books I have ever come across about the process of writing. I love the anti-procrastination exercise in the book.
It goes like this:
For example, when I did this exercise, one of my major ways of procrastinating when I’m feeling writer’s block is to go hang out with a good friend of mine who owns an art gallery. I’ll enjoy sitting there, sipping a glass of wine (or maybe two) and effectively play hooky from the words awaiting me on my computer screen.
When I considered the sentence “Writing is more pleasurable than hanging out at the art gallery” here’s the reason my subconscious came up with…”because I’m watching my friend do his job and feeling guilty about not doing mine and so if I do my writing, I’ll be in the same groove he is, getting something done.”
Another way I procrastinate is by going to Starbucks for a latte. So I wrote “Writing is more pleasurable than going to Starbucks for a latte because a latte has lots of calories and though it has a great flavor, it disappears pretty fast, but with writing there’s actually something to show for it, and THEN I can go have my latte.”
Try it. Allow your subconscious to come up with a reason why every way you have of procrastinating is not as pleasurable as writing. It works! It breaks the log-jam and fear, and gets you writing again!
Posted on January 5, 2009 - By Sharon Lindenburger
Loving what you write
I want to talk a bit about why you are writing a book. In the non-fiction industry, particularly the part of the industry that deals with empowerment, success, self-improvement, and motivation, I hear too many prospective authors saying that the major reason they’re writing a book is that it will help their business, help them recruit new clients, position them as an expert, etc.
All these are valid reasons for writing a non-fiction book. But if the love the author has for his or her subject matter doesn’t come through in the book, the book will be dry and uninspiring. Do you love the topic you’re communicating about? Are you committed to it? Are you passionate about it? Are you full of enthusiasm about sharing it with others?
Writing a really good book is always an act of love. If your motivation is cynical or if your passion for your topic is not readily evident, your readers will in turn greet your book with cynicism. Readers are intelligent and can tell when a book is merely lukewarm. Your book is part of your service to the world. Your readers want to be inspired, informed, enthralled. They want to feel that you’ve been where they are, that you understand their mind and heart. They want to feel that you love what you do and that you love what you write about.
Your book and your life purpose are connected. Don’t separate the two. If you love what you write, and you write it well, you will have a successful book.
Posted on September 11, 2008 - By Sharon Lindenburger
There’s nothing passive about good content
A big part of your “story-sense” and narrative flow is the feeling of forward-moving energy in your writing. When the flow of your content keeps pulling your reader forward (even if you write about the past), your readers go with you where you want to take them.
However, nothing wrecks the sense of momentum more than the use of passive verbs. No, I don’t intend this as a grammar lesson, but please bear with me a couple of minutes while I rant about passive verbs. Passive verbs are “energy suckers” that can drain the liveliness out of your writing.
Passive verbs occur a lot in reports such as the minutes of committee meetings, briefing documents, executive summaries, etc. No wonder so many of these kinds of reports come across as dull and the members of your organization just don’t want to read them.
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“The meeting was held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, September 10″
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“A decision was made to increase the marketing budget by 15%.”
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“Several dissenting viewpoints were heard by the task force before the vote was taken.”
Sentences like that “dull down” your writing, even if it is just a business-oriented report. Passive verbs slow down the pace of writing, often to a snail’s crawl. The passive voice does not convey power or authority; rather it conveys the sense of some outside force acting upon people–hardly the kind of voice you need if you want to communicate with energy.
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“The task force held its meeting at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, September 10.”
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“The task force decided to increase its planning budget by 15%.”
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“Several members disagreed with the budget increase and expressed their views to the task force before all members voted.”
Now the above sentences are not brilliant sentences you would kill to read (since they’re from a business report!) but I have converted them into active verb forms. Even in such bland “task force meeting minutes” sentences, the mere use of an active verb gives the sentences more energy, more sense of authority, more “voice”.
Since passive verbs are so common in business writing (and in my opinion shouldn’t be), many writers of books, newsletters, and other written content make the mistake of thinking that resorting to the passive makes them sound more “official” or more authoritative in presenting their material. They think it’s a way of getting their own voice out of the way so that the “material” stands on its own. If you want good content, this is a fatal error. Don’t go there!
You don’t want to get rid of your own voice. You don’t want to come across as a passive person with a tepid writer’s voice. Just because a piece of writing is factual (as in “non-fiction”) doesn’t mean it’s voice-less. You want energy in your writing. If you write a book, article, press release, or newsletter about your area of expertise, don’t hoodwink yourself into believing that passive verbs make you sound good. They don’t–they just make you sound boring.
Eliminate the passive. Replace it with the active. This is one very easy way to immediately enhance the authenticity and energy of your writer’s voice. Whenever you write anything, read it over and root out any passive verbs. Find a way to replace them with the active form of the verb.
It’s amazing how much this improves the entire energy and voice of your content.
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