Category: The Writing Process
The Dangers of Editing Your Own Writing
| February 19, 2011 | Posted by JerriCook under The Writing Process |
The Madonna of Humility
Familiarity not only breeds contempt, it breeds mistakes. I heard from a Countryside reader about an article I wrote for the March/April 2011 issue. In the piece, I quote the FDA’s assertion that over the last 13 years, 800 people have become ill after drinking raw milk. Then, two paragraphs later, without realizing it, I changed the facts by stating that 800 deaths were, indeed, tragic. Eight-hundred people were sickened, not killed, after drinking raw milk.
I’m grateful for the reader who pointed it out. I’m also humbled. Not only did I not catch the mistake as I was writing the piece, no one else in the editorial chain caught it either. It happens. There are two important lessons here for writers: 1) Don’t edit your own work, and 2) don’t edit the work of others when you have a personal interest in the subject matter. (more…)
Can You Chop Wood And Write At The Same Time?
| January 23, 2011 | Posted by JerriCook under Becoming a writer, The Writing Process |
Everyone’s busy. For some of us, it’s all we can do to keep up with our everyday schedule, let alone find time to write. The good news is that you can write while you do other things, like split wood or weed the garden. As it happens, mundane tasks allow our minds to wander, and let’s face it—it’s wandering minds that return to reality with ideas fresh from the astral territories. The only problem is remembering them. Fetching a drop of inspiration from the ethereal and remembering it are two different processes. You might think you’ll recall the idea when you have a moment to sit down and write, but ask any writer who has let the brilliance of their subconscious slip away before they could write it down, and they’ll tell you how wrong you are. (more…)
X Marks The Spot: Finding the Treasures In Your Writing
| January 6, 2011 | Posted by JerriCook under Freewriting, Prompts, The Writing Process, Writer's Block |
Your writing is a map to new treasures
In the documentary, What the Bleep Do We Know?, it’s postured that the Indians didn’t comprehend what the ships of the first settlers were because they couldn’t connect the image with any experience or prior thought. The ships were so alien in nature that they were effectively invisible. More succinctly put: they didn’t see what they weren’t looking for. Who knows if the story about the Indians not “seeing” the first sails of the first pilgrims arriving in the New World is true? It doesn’t matter. What matters is there’s a gem here for writers, and I promise you, where’s there’s one gem, there are troves more.
We all have a shared experience—every one of us has searched for something that was right under our nose, but the mental image we had of the object and what it actually looked like weren’t connected. Once we realized this and made the mental connection, we were able to quickly locate whatever it was we were searching for. When you write, you might think you know what you’re looking for, but keep an eye open for some sparkling, seemingly quirky idea that leads you off on a tangent. Your writing is a map and that tangent connects to a treasure that sits unrecognized right in front of you. (more…)
The Worst Writing Advice Ever
| December 14, 2010 | Posted by JerriCook under Becoming a writer, Know Your Audience, The Writing Process |
Don't let bad advice come between you and your writing.
You’ve heard it. We’ve all heard it—write what you know. The oldest writing maxim known to Man is also the worst. It keeps would-be writers at bay like an angry police dog, hungry for the chase. Beginning writers are so terrified of it that they cower in fear with their eyes covered. If, however, they took a moment to look at the snarling beast that is keeping them from mastering their craft, they would see that the leash restraining it is held by an incompetent writer. The snarling beast isn’t trying to devour you, dear would-be writer. It’s trying desperately to escape the reigns that bind it to the writing elite, who want you to believe that writing what you know is good advice. Trust me when I tell you it’s not good advice, and the people who have told you it is are either incompetent or afraid of a little competition.
Here’s a better piece of advice—write what you’ve experienced. This is the essence of what writers do. We write about what we’ve done, what we’ve seen, and the people that have caused us great pain and great joy. It is our experiences that make us unique, and as country writers, we have all sorts of experiences. To illustrate my point, here’s an article I wrote for my column in The Country Today. It’s about an experience I had with a couple of kids in the garden. (more…)
The Curse Of The Adverb
| December 12, 2010 | Posted by JerriCook under Structure, The Writing Process |
Here’s the painful truth: most adverbs are useless. That’s right—useless. Think about it a second. What is an adverb’s function in a sentence? It modifies the verb. However, if you have to use an adverb to explain the verb, you’ve chosen a weak verb, and worse yet, you have failed to show your audience what you’re trying to convey. Remember the old writer’s adage, “Don’t tell me. Show me.” This is the essence of adverbs. They tell, not show. Continue Reading
Getting To The Point: An Example Of Ineffective Writing
| December 11, 2010 | Posted by JerriCook under Becoming a writer, Know Your Audience, Structure, The Writing Process |
When someone tells me that they can’t write, I cringe. Of course you can write. Barring illiteracy, anyone can write. What people really mean to say is that they don’t believe they write well enough to get published. To this, my answer is simple: just because someone is published, it doesn’t mean they can write. I’m not the only writer to make this observation: Continue Reading
Loading ...