TOP 10 SECRET TIPS:
6. WRITE ON TOPICS ABOUT WHICH YOU ARE PASSIONATE (continued)
Back in Your Heartland: Where’s your heart? This is not about your content knowledge. We’re back to the heart again. Your whole heart should be engaged in your writing. Half-, third-, or quarter-hearted writing is not enough. It’s either all or nothing. Pour yourself into your writing. It should be a fully immersive experience. Allow your readers to feel your spirit of passion about your contribution, whether it’s a tweet, comment on a discussion, response on Facebook, or a scientific breakthrough for a cure for stupid reality TV programs about spoiled, immature celebrities. You may start with the content, but as you revise and edit each draft, make it sneakily engrossing and captivating for your readers.
(Up Close & Personal: Every e-mail, LinkedIn message, PowerPoint presentation, blog, article, and book I write begins with the substance—the serious content. That’s the most important element to be communicated---the “WHAT.” Then I shift gears into the “HOW.”
Once I’m tentatively satisfied with the content draft, I scan line by line and read the words as a reader would, to search for places to add humor or spin some of the material with rewording to make it fun or more interesting. I assume every paragraph to be boring for my readers. I use this same strategy with every PowerPoint slide in my presentations.
The challenge is to create appropriate humor, visual metaphors, and popular cultural references to grab and maintain the readers’ attention. It’s an unending process of revision, especially in my articles, books, and PowerPoints. The more deadly serious and boring the content, the more turbo-charged I am to humorize that material. That’s how I brand my writing. It’s the art of writing for me and what I love the most. I’m never satisfied that I’ve done enough to make it interesting and funny.)
My next blog will present Tip 5: examine how a mentor or coach in your writing life can provide mighty wise counsel and poke you in the eyeballs (like the 3 Stooges) or kick you in the shins along your writing journey.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
TOP 10 SECRET TIPS:
7. WRITE WITH A PURPOSE AND OUTCOME IN MIND. Like DUHHH! Everyone is bombarded with material to read in every form coming from every direction. Why are you writing? Why should anybody read what you write, even the niche you identified in Tip 8?
Answer these questions:
What can you contribute that’s new? (Or, tell me something I don’t know.)
What can you contribute with a different spin from anyone else?
What problem can you solve?
How can you help someone?
Who will benefit or gain?
Who cares?
How can you make a colleague a better researcher, teacher, or clinician?
How can you make someone’s life
• easier?
• healthier?
• safer?
• more meaningful?
• more productive?
• more efficient?
• more influential?
• more satisfying?
In other words, “Your writing is all about your readers; it’s not about you. It’s what you can do for them that counts” (Berk’s Law, 2010). Match your expertise to your readers’ needs.
These questions have to be answered whether you’re writing a blog, report, research article, or book. If the outcome isn’t a significant contribution to your discipline or to your readership, they won’t read your blog or article or buy your book. Your writing must be salable to your readers.
(Up Close & Personal: You’re probably thinking: “Where are the jokes you promised?” They’re sprinkled here and there, hither and yon, ying and yang. What you really wanted to ask was: “Why am I writing another piece on ‘writing’ in an already overcrowded field?” Great question. I thought I answered it previously, but maybe you were busy checking out my French derivation of niche. Wasn’t that a pip?
Although writing [but not necessarily publishing] is expected of all academicians, I don’t think most search for sources on how to write [or publish], no matter how much they may struggle. I thought my blog series could not only suggest a few new pointers, but also provide an easily accessible, anonymous, high security, secretive, covert, and free platform for a concise Berk’sNotes® resource. No one will ever know you peeked. Go ahead. Peek. I know you want to.)
My next blog will take you to Tip 6: how to pick topics about which you are passionate. We’re back to the heart of writing agaaain!
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
TOP 10 SECRET TIPS:
9. WRITE EVERYWHERE YOU CAN (continued)
Leverage Putrid Service: The quality of service provided by many businesses and institutions is putrid. We can experience extremely long wait times and delays at all of the preceding venues. My charge to you is: Leverage that putrid service to the benefit of your writing. Don't waste your energy with negative self-talk, complaining about delays you can't control; seize them as opportunities to write.
No Access Needed: Although most of the venues now have Internet access (some for free), except some prisons, that doesn’t matter for most major writing activities. You don’t need to be online to write blogs, reports, articles, books, etc. Any piece of writing can be copied and pasted onto any platform or site later. You will be amazed at how much you can complete in 15–30 minutes if you're able to rivet your attention on your writing. Be prepared to write at any of those venues. You can accomplish a lot.
(Up Close & Personal: I have gotten used to writing, editing, proofing, and weeping over reviewers’ comments at many of the previous sites. I’ve cried at the Toyota dealer, sweated buckets while writing on torn, uncomfortable chairs at a non-air-conditioned Midas Muffler, and written piles of blogs and articles in hospital emergency and waiting rooms, doctors’ offices, airports, and the MVA. I’ve been stuck in airports or on the tarmac for 3–9 hours on several occasions. That’s solid writing time. You can either get angry or write; it's your attitude and choice. The more you write in these public settings, except prison, the more you can build up your concentration skills. Since you’re writing every day, writing on the fly becomes a habit; writing in your office becomes a luxury. There is no excuse for not writing. “You can do it!”)
Tomorrow, I will discuss Tip 8: how to pick and write for a niche audience. I know you’re itching to read about niches.
COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
As a follow-up to my previous blog, I would add one more criterion to the list for Picking the right topic: (c) Fill a need and want in your niche. That can greatly improve the salability of your book. What information does your target audience need and want? The trick is to match your expertise, passion, and your niche’s need on the topic. That magical match will produce a book that’s credible, salable to your audience, and fun to write.
Now let’s move on to the next strategy:
2. How to Create Chapters Quickly and Easily: Writing chapters from scratch or even a detailed topic outline can be excruciatingly painful. Where do you begin? As I’ve said elsewhere, “It’s like eating one of those dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. Once you forklift your filet of T-Rex off your grill, which is the size of Wyoming, where do you take your first bite? Tough decision.”
Fortunately, as academicians, we’re not only required to write books, but also journal articles, chapters for edited volumes, research reports, wedding invitations for our daughters, and parking violations. So we have plenty of writing practice. Here’s the SECRET STRATEGY I’ve used for years (Are you ready? Getting excited? Bet ya thought blogs couldn’t be this much fun!): convert your published articles into chapters. There it is. It takes the guess work out of what to write because you already wrote it. Ah Ha!! Some of you may already do that. As most pastors say, “Let’s unpack this a bit further.”
Here are a few issues to consider:
(a) Write articles on related topics: Most of us generate articles and research publications that follow one major theme or passion of ours. They should hinge together under a common head or rubric. (Personal Note: For example, over the past decade I was passionate about testing new teaching techniques to connect with this Net Generation of students. Almost all students hate statistics, but this generation had other characteristics that made stat more challenging to teach. My research and articles focused on these techniques: humor, music, videos, and improvisation. I also did keynotes and workshops for faculty and administrators on those topics, plus continued to test the effectiveness of the techniques with keynotes to student audiences in the U.S. and overseas. Do you see where I’m heading with this? Me neither. I’m just rambling in the longest “personal note” in history. End of Bloated Note 2.)
(b) Why use articles? Articles test the criteria stated in my previous blog. Does your article contribute something new or better than what exists? Does it fill a need? The review process will answer these questions. Your work also goes through the rigor of peer review, with detailed feedback from reviewers, maybe rejection, maybe resubmission after revision, maybe submission to another journal, and copy editing before publication. After this beating is over, you usually have an article that is appreciably better than it was originally. Given the length of the journal review process, this could take 2–5 years for a bevy of articles to be ready for book conversion. Keep in mind you’re still scoring field goals with these articles or chapters. The book will be the culmination of all of that work, that is, the touchdown. (Note: This is football season, right? You can expect football analogies and metaphors. Watch out!)
(c) Start hinging your articles: Find that rubric that draws your body of work (articles) together. Think about that hinge as you begin to write each new article. You may also write pieces that have nothing to do with that hinge for different reasons. (Personal Note: This will be shorter that the bloated one above. As you may have guessed from my article topics above, my hinge is: “How to NOT Get Whacked by Your Institution!” Haha. A little hinge humor. The topic is: “Teaching Strategies for the Net Generation.” Among the 30+ books on the Net Generation, is there a book on this topic with the content I have chosen? No. Is there a need? No. Does anybody care? No. I hope I’m kidding. End of Semi-Bloated Note.)
These paragraphs should get you started. The next blog will be “How to convert articles into chapters without violating copyright.” Stick around for my next installment.
COPYRIGHT © 2009 Ronald A. Berk, LLC
