Improve Your Writing Experience

Writing is hard, Give yourself grace. If writing is making you miserable, something needs to change.

1. Manage your expectations.

If writing feels difficult, you’re not alone. Even published, professional writers find writing difficult. They feel this way most of the time, not just once in a while. If you think you’re going to sit down to write and the words are going to come easily, you might feel discouraged when they don’t. You might keep changing direction, or you might get all the words out and hate it all. The person who sits down and types out a perfect draft the first time around doesn’t exist. Good writers work hard.

2. Recognize that writing is a process.

Writing takes time and multiple drafts. You may think your first draft is terrible, and I would say to that, “Great! You’re right on track.” Words and ideas don’t spring fully formed from a writer’s mind. They develop through critical thinking, problem solving, and revision. Those early drafts that we’d like to ball up and use to play trashcan basketball are necessary steps in the process to get us to those smooth, polished, brilliant final drafts. It’s a messy process, but that moment when everything comes together feels like magic. Draft, revise, edit. Don’t try to do it all at once.

3. Develop writing habits.

Create good personal writing habits that work for you. What time of day will you write? For how long? Where will you write? What do you need to feel comfortable and minimize distractions and interruptions? Make a plan that works for you and stick to it. There is no generic list of good writing habits. The right habits for you are the ones that get you writing, every day.

4. Work the process.

Once you’ve identified your writing time and place, think about where you are in your process. Are you still brainstorming and generating ideas? Are you mapping out those ideas and planning your project? Are you writing that first draft, just getting the words out on paper? Are you revising? Like writing habits, the writing process is not the same for everyone. Some may spend more time on research and planning while others may want to start with a barebones draft and do most of their work through revision. There are skills and tools to help you work through any challenges at every stage of writing.

5. Find your writing community.

 Whether classmates, colleagues, friends, or family, you need a writing community. Writing, by its very nature, is not a solitary act. Writing is communication, giving and receiving at the very least, and often generating more complex interaction. Who can you talk to? Bounce around ideas? Who can you support who will support you in return? Find that person, or people. You need them, and they need you.

6. Read extensively.

Read about writing. Craft, process, and form are important. Some classics include Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, On Writing Well by William Zinsser, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, and The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

Read about your subject. Read not only for research but for pleasure, for noticing. What are other people saying about your subject? If you’re an academic, read popular books and articles about your subject. Read technical documents if you’re a creative writer. You never know where an idea will come from, and the more you know, the better.

Read within your genre. If you’re writing because you want to publish your work in an academic journal, read through academic journals in your field. When you find one you like, read more issues of that journal. How are the articles structured? What kind of research do they include and how do they incorporate the research into their argument?

7. Keep your audience in mind.

All readers are not the same. Don’t forget about the rhetorical triangle: audience, purpose, and genre. Your writing is a relationship with your readers. Keep your ideal reader in mind as you write. What does your ideal reader expect? What do they want? What do they need? Create a sketch or print a picture from the internet. Hang it in your workspace. You’re not writing for everyone. You’re writing for a specific person. Take some of the pressure away. You don’t need to please all of the people, just the ones who will take pleasure or purpose (or both!) from the type of writing you are doing.

8. Do your research.

Be knowledgeable. Get all the details right. I once advised a friend on her novel, and I explained to her that the navy, marine corps, and air force call their installations “bases” while the army calls them “posts,” as in “I live on post.” These little details, this specific language, creates the verisimilitude that leads to your success. If you’re writing an academic article or book, you start with your research. It should be the same with a creative piece. Make it real. Get it right. Immerse your reader in a different world. That’s why they’re reading in the first place.

9. Write every day.

It might sound contradictory for me to advise you to both write every day AND give yourself grace. It’s not! If you’re feeling stuck in your work on your primary project, take a step back. Let your ideas swirl around in your subconscious. Sleep on it. But don’t break your rhythm. Write in a journal, write a blog post, work on your website copy. Work on your business rather than in it for a minute. But write something every day.

10. Remember why you’re doing this.

You have a goal, a vision, a purpose. We can all get bogged down in the writing and forget why we’re doing this in the first place. When this happens, remember your why. Who are you? Who do you want to be? How does your project exemplify your morals, your expertise, your passion? If we define ourselves by what we create, what kind of person does the kind of work you are doing? As writers, we have an uncontainable voice, a need to organize our thoughts and ideas into a compelling narrative. Think back to when you started this project: what was your motivation? What did you hope to accomplish?