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Getting Started: Stop Staring and Start Writing

“My way is to begin at the beginning.”

—Lord Byron

“The last thing one knows when writing a book is what to put first.”

—Blaise Pascal

IF ONLY WRITING WERE LIKE riding a bike, swimming, driving a car, or roller-skating. Once learned, we never forget how to do it. Unlike climbing a mountain and planting a flag on its peak, the writing process consists of mental mountain climbing where there is no peak to reach. Rather, we encounter only a series of plateaus of elevation. Two factors often inhibit the writing process: fear of criticism or failure and the need to impress the reader. Our awareness or sense of permanence associated with committing ideas to paper or the computer disk can produce in us feelings of anxiety and lead to procrastination. We are often reluctant to reveal our thinking on paper because any resulting criticism either from superiors or readers will reflect negatively on our ability to think clearly and logically. We are what we write, or perhaps what we seem.

Often only through our writing do others know us. So it is natural for us to become concerned about the image we convey. In a way, as writers we are similar to movie stars who wince at the thought of an inferior performance or ill-chosen role captured forever on film. We too can easily dread that what we write today may haunt us tomorrow. If the actor or performer who claims he or she never reads reviews cannot be believed, business writers who try to convince themselves that they write only for themselves, the reader be damned, are not to be trusted as well. With the exception of what we record in a diary, writing is meant to be shared with readers. Writing is a dialogue with our readers, not a monologue.

Since the days of our earliest English classes, we writers have been especially prone to the tyranny of the red pen. It is not surprising that we can become traumatized, so to speak, about exposing our thoughts to the public reader. No one enjoys being criticized negatively. If fear can paralyze the bravest soldier, it is no wonder that the freedom of expression and spontaneity essential to effective writing is vulnerable to being stifled from within. The greatest writers from Shakespeare to Dickens to those of our own time have often shown us the strongest prisons are those without walls and steel bars and doors, they are the mental and emotional interior ones we create for ourselves.

Express to Impress

What kind of writing makes the best impression? Writing that is readable. Writing that conveys your ideas with clarity and precision. Writing that allows your reader to conclude, I understand every word this person is trying to express. We are in big trouble if our readers ask, Is this what you really wanted to or were trying to say? Did I misinterpret your meaning here?

We are not writing interpretive poetry, where the reader may think we are saying this or that. Business writing does not involve mystery or the need for interpretation. Worse, writing is often an all-or-nothing proposition. We are not there to explain our message to the reader. We are not available to say, “This is what I really wanted to say” or “Let me put it another way” or “Let me draw you a diagram.” No. It’s an all-or-nothing proposition.

So then what type of writing makes the best impression? There is only one: writing that communicates our thoughts clearly and precisely. Too many writers get caught up in the notion that the only acceptable models for writing appear in formal reports, newspapers, magazines, trade or professional journals, and, heaven protect us, academic articles. Do you really want to send an e-mail or letter in overly verbose academic or formal style? Although both styles have their places, for the most part, they will most likely put your busy business reader to sleep. Fancy words and long-winded sentences do not make for successful writing. Rather, it’s the skillful way we use words as tools to create and connect sentences.

It’s Time to Jump Into the Water

One way to overcome our initial resistance or fear of writing is to accept the fact that there is no such thing as perfect writing, at least not in this world. Even if it should exist, there would be critics to find fault with it. Yet this does not mean we should assume a devil-may-care attitude or ignore the needs of the reader. Rather, we need, for the moment, to disregard all concerns of criticism and desires to impress and just start writing. In the same manner that the longer a 10-year-old first learning to swim waits to overcome the hesitation to jump into the deep end of the pool, we as writers must “dive” into the pool of ideas we want to express. No one ever learns to ski without sooner or later going down the mountain. You can’t learn to sky dive without leaving the plane. Unlike the just-described experiences, there is no way to simulate the writing process. We are always jumping out of a real plane, albeit a mental one, when scribbling our first draft. No wonder we hesitate.

Face the Blank Page: Overcoming Writer’s Block

All writers experience writer’s block, the inability to begin or continue to develop ideas. Because we are people and not machines, it is only natural that the road to written communication is fraught with unforeseen detours and potholes. Any number of reasons can lead to this frustrating experience. We might be worried about a personal or job-related problem, fearful of criticism from our supervisors, or just plain too exhausted or not in the mood to write even the shortest of sentences. So what can we do about this frustrating dilemma? Sometimes doing nothing is the best course of action. We might concentrate on another activity.

Perhaps we may decide it best to tend to other matters. All of these techniques buy us time to get back to writing. When you experience writer’s block, here are a number of techniques that will help relieve your stress and perhaps to find direction.

Revisit the Past

Use your previous writing as a model. Thanks to our computers, we can save all our correspondence, good and bad, for later review. So if you find that your writing assignment is similar to one accomplished previously, such as a memo, letter to a customer, report, or manual, there’s little harm in using it as a point of departure. Surely this solution is better than the ceaseless torment of staring at the page or blank monitor. If the content and format of your model worked before, it may well work again. Yet there is a negative aspect of this technique: Just as it’s not always a good idea to dwell too much on the past, the tendency to rely too heavily on previous writing may inhibit your chances for growing as a writer and may produce feelings of boredom both for you and your reader.

Go Idea Shopping

You don’t always have to begin writing complete sentences. A “shopping” list of ideas, problems, and topics we need to address will often do just fine. There’s something about a list that helps us to focus our thoughts. Once listed, you can expand upon the word or phrase you jotted down. Perhaps you might even number each in order of importance. You can add or delete topics. Most importantly, you’ve begun writing.

Use a Conversational Style

Some people are better talkers than they are writers. They have the ability to tell us in the clearest terms what we need to know. Yet when they send us e-mail or letters, we wonder why a Dr. Jekyll of spoken clarity and precision has been transformed into a Mr. Hyde of written obscurity and verboseness. E-mail alone has encouraged greater use of conversational style in writing, and to a great extent that’s good. Unfortunately, some writers mistakenly believe a conversational style gives them license to write incomprehensible fragment and run-on sentences or cross the line of decorum.

The great advantage of conversational writing is the ability to generate words and phrases most appropriate to spoken language, often reflective of the informal, lively rhythms of our speech. When we speak, we use voice inflections, gestures, facial expressions, and body language. Our writing relies more heavily on complete sentences, precise words, and an orderly presentation of ideas. So if you’re a better talker than writer, why not write initially the way you would say it to someone face-to-face, during a phone conference, or in a meeting? You can always modify your conversational notes to sound more like writing. That is, instead of the vague “get back to me,” you would substitute a specific action word such as call, meet, or advise. Again, you’ve begun the writing process.

Engage in Free-Writing

I often think of this technique as a mental laxative or a “when all else fails” antidote for writer’s block. First, set a time limit, say five to 20 minutes. Next, identify your subject, purpose, and reader. Then begin writing anything and everything that may come to mind about the identified subject, purpose, and/or reader. Describe your feelings or fears or concerns or expectations. Focus on what you want to say or what the reader needs to do. You might even use first sentences such as “I don’t know what I want to say about…” or “What I really need to say here is…” or even “I don’t feel like writing this message because…” as motivating opening lines. Do not stop to edit. Just write.

The idea behind this technique is to attempt to trigger the ever-elusive inspiration through perspiration. So don’t worry about generating an orderly list of sentences or if you write the conclusion before providing the supporting details or an opening sentence. Just keep going, much as you would after your car battery has died and someone has helped you jump-start the engine. You keep driving until you get to the nearest service station or home.

When your writing time expires, take out your own red pen and review your work. It’s time to engage in intellectual “cutting and pasting.” What’s worth keeping? What needs to be deleted? Look for meaningful phrases and sentences, important details, examples, or recommendations—in short, anything that would be useful to expressing your message. Try to rearrange ideas in order of importance and relevance. List and number instructions or procedures. Remember also that when getting started on your first draft and during the transition from thinking to actual writing, it is best to get your ideas down quickly without concern for correct grammar, punctuation, usage, and spelling.

Most importantly, remember that although this is not a first draft, rather a beginning of the beginning, at least you’re no longer staring at the page or monitor. In fact, you’ve taken a giant step, however uncertain, toward creating a first draft.