I attended a talk by my former boss on how to write last Friday. It’s always helpful to get more help on how to write. My problem with writing is that I would have ideas pop into my head but when I sit in front of the PC to write, BLANK. I find it hard to start writing.
However Dr. F did have a tip on that. Just write, even if you could only write "Today, I have nothing to write." Well, as I have something to write about today, all the better.
I am stuck on an article I am supposed to write for Dr. F. So I thought writing here would flex my writing muscles, warm up my typing fingers and expunge my performance anxiety.
The more I research on the topic however, the more material I have on it and the more tangents I stray to. I have however decided to stick to two subtopics and just write on that, if that’s not enough then I would include the extra information and subtopics.
Four paragraphs and I still not writing down what I wanted to put down here. I wanted to put down the tips and tricks on writing that Dr. F gave that I still remember for my reference, and for anybody with enough free time to read this.
To summarise some of the more important guidelines. No adjectives and adverbs. Stick to verbs. Rereading what I typed down above, I noticed I was still using adjectives and adverbs. I maintained and italicised those for reference. If you found more please tell me.
Also Dr. F recommends reading the sport pages. They have a direct and succinct way to write. Guess what, I have always tried to emulate sports writers, most British paper sportswriters are good (yes, even The Sun sports pages) and also ESPN’s soccernet contributers. My day wouldn’t be complete without sports news, especially football news.
One last thing that also caught me was that when she was in Washington, she had the opportunity to meet Thomas L. Friedman (author of Longitudes & Attitudes, From Beirut to Jerusalem, The Lexus and the olive tree etc. (I have the three mentioned if anyone would like to borrow it)). He said that a writer should be like a squirrel, gathering and hoarding data, information, quips and quotes and then you can use it when you write. Useful tip, I had always gathered information on what I want to write about and digest it first before starting to write. However, due to time constraints and workload I would usually start with an existing draft and amend and add to it. Guess both ways would be useful, I would just need to fine a middle ground.
