WRITAMINS™

These writing supplements from WORKTALK will boost your ability to write more quickly and concisely.

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Getting to the point means getting your point -- your idea, proposal or request -- into the mind of your reader. The purpose of my new book, Get to the Point!, is to help you use words to carry your ideas into your reader’s mind as clearly and quickly as possible. Get to the Point! will help you clarify your meaning and choose words that reach into the minds of your readers and get your point across. It’s fun to read, and it tells you everything you need to know to write successfully.

The book begins with a section on managing your mental barriers to writing. It then carries you through the process of planning, organizing, drafting and revising your work. Here is a brief excerpt:

Overcoming Your Fear of Writing Your mind is the most powerful word processor you have. If it is not working clearly and efficiently, having the most powerful computer will not increase your work output at all. Your great technology will just enable you to produce bad writing more quickly – and in more fonts—than you could before. Effective writing depends so much on mindset, attitude, emotional state, expectations and ability to cope with self-criticism that we will begin with the issues that are usually the first ones to confront the writer: fear, loathing and the compulsive urge to do anything other than write.

If fear, unconsciousness and a compulsive urge to return phone calls, water plants or eat cookies is preventing you from sitting down to write, you are not alone. In fact, the only people who never feel apprehensive about writing seem to be the ones who’ve had frontal lobotomies. Here are a few suggestions that will help you relieve your fear of writing without having brain surgery:

1. Take a few deep breaths. Fear and anxiety cause the abdominal muscles to tense up, forcing the breath to become fast and shallow. This is a throwback to the happy days when our ancestors fled from saber-tooth tigers instead of writing deadlines. Neither fight nor flight are viable options anymore. We have to bypass our primitive instincts and get some oxygen into our brains where it might do us some good. Take a few really deep breaths. Slowly. Exhale completely and then inhale completely. You will feel calmer – I promise.

2. Weigh the costs and benefits. Ask yourself, “What is the worst thing that could happen to me as a result of writing this?” Sure, you could write the letter and then get fired or die, but how likely is that really? As much as you may dread writing, odds are that the consequences of not writing will be far worse than the consequences of writing. That’s a cheery thought, isn’t it?

3. Reward yourself for reaching interim goals. Take a break or call someone you love or read the next chapter of a trashy novel. (Just make sure that your “break” doesn’t eat up the rest of the time you’d set aside for writing.) Don’t wait until every last detail is done before you take a brief time-out. Interim incentives and interim rewards will help you nurse yourself through the project. You can still celebrate when the job is complete.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Worktalk Communications Consulting can help you communicate powerfully and purposefully. If you need to create web-site content that works; develop and document new procedures; perfect your core correspondence or train your staff to write clearly, we can help you. Visit us at http://www.worktalk.com or call (888) WORKTALK to learn how Worktalk can help you get to the point.

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