Tag: write

Hand Brain Connection

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When was the last time you wrote something substantive — a letter, a story, a journal entry, etc. — by hand? Could you ever imagine returning to a pre-keyboard era?

I hand write my first draft of just about everything. I find it helps my flow and connects better with my thinking. When I was editing my book, I would rewrite sections from scratch to help my clarity. From this exercise, I discovered I would often write the same information twice—without realising it. I would use the same words, in the same order and in the same place in the paragraph.  This confirmed to me they were correct. I have attempted this same exercise typing it instead of writing the second time and I get stuck. I  didn’t know what I want to say. For me there definitely is a hand brain connect.

As a Toastmaster, I hand write my speeches—both initially and as a way to learn them. Once again this helps with my flow, but I think in this case it also helps me—write like I speak. Once I am happy with my hand written first draft, I type my speech and make any necessary changes.  After I have my completed my speech, I learn it by writing it out by hand several times. It works for me. This process helps me to remember the main points in the correct order.

Today I learnt why this is so. In our brain is a collection of cells called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). They act as a link between our sub conscious and conscious mind. The RAS’s job is to filter all the information the world has to give us on a second by second basis, only drawing our attention to what we want to focus on. By writing things down we trigger the RAS into action. It begins to focus on the topic we are writing about. This definitely helps to explain why for me hand writing before I type gets the job done much quicker than staring at the computer screen.

Personally, I would never want to go back to a pre-keyboard era. Today with the keyboard comes many new options like the internet and self-publishing. But I am not voting hand writing off the island any time soon either. Variety is the spice of life—I’m using both to get the best result.

 

http://youtu.be/QCnfAzAIhVw

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pens-and-pencils/

Someone Else’s Skin

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If you could spend the next year as someone radically different from the current “you” — a member of a different species, someone from a different gender or generation, etc. — who would you choose to be?

The idea of living in someone else’s skin has never occurred to me before as I am quite happy in my own despite its flaws. However, given the opportunity I would live as someone I could learn from and gain new experiences to consolidate my want to be a full-time writer.

At present my book is non-fiction, based on my years of experience working with people with eating disorders. My future goal is to write fiction in the adventure romance genre. Janet Evanovich is my favourite author in this genre and I have all 21 of her Stephanie Plum series as well as her Plum series and Wicked series and several of her co-authored books.

Janet lives in New Jersey, outside New York, a city I would love to live and work in for a limited time. It has many things I have dreamt of experiencing as well as being a centre of excellence for writing.

Other reasons I choose to live in Janet’s skin are:

  • She spent many years learning the art of writing dialogue, which is one area I am only just beginning to learn.

 

  • She Is a New York Times Best Seller author something I aspire to be.

 

  • She started out as a mum with no expectations, grateful for what she achieved and her success grew from there.

 

Stephanie Plum

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/new-skin/

I Think, No—I Write

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To be, to have, to think, to move — which of these verbs is the one you feel most connected to? Or is there another verb that characterizes you better?

I find myself regularly using the phrase, I think. I hate the phrase. What does it mean anyway? It is okay if you are explaining exactly what you think, however, I find that I use the phrase like a question. For example:

“The meeting is on Wednesday, I Think?”

If, however, you want the statement to be more powerful, consider the following

“I am telling you that I think, it is important to do…. because……”

My other favourite verb is ‘ to write.’ I can think thousands of thoughts daily but, they only become truly mine, when I write them in either my blog or my book. Writing, helps me to clarify my thoughts and ensures I am using  a phrase correctly. Writing also helps me take the useless—I think—out of my vocabulary. Instead, practicing clarity and power around my thoughts, allows me to emphasis my thoughts as own. And, it is completed by perfecting my use of the statement—I Think.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/verbal-confirmation/

Write Twice, Publish Once

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My father taught me an important rule of building is to measure twice, cut once. If you only measure once before you cut and your measurement is wrong there is no going back. As you can edit after publishing, this is not the same with blogging, however, I find that write twice, publish once helps with my writers block and assists the flow of my blog.

By writing on the topic from scratch each time, my creativity often flows in a different direction. There are always some key points that to my surprise, I frequently by chance write identical sentences to cover these topics. This information I take as the core to my topic and build the other ideas from each writing session to complete my blog.

To date, I have found the second attempt to be more creative and fills in the detail. This practice works best when there is a couple of days between writing segments. Don’t read what you have written prior to writing your second draft. Re reading your previous attempt may stop new ideas from flowing as your mind is biased by your words.

Next time you find yourself stuck, give my write twice, publish once technique a  try and let me know about your experience.

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