Did I just say a bum can write like a pro:) Well they can!

I used to believe fast writing, good writing was a gift reserved for writers, which didn't include me. Till my hubby started writing books. Well he didn't go to writing schools, he never took any serious English course, and he had never written before.

Later he did take up a copy-writing course but that was after he had written a couple of books and had them published on lulu.com.

Writing like a pro - how do you do it ..

This got me thinking. I wondered how he did it. Here is what I noticed:

1. I was married to him, so my charm rubbed off on him :)
2. Getting to more serious stuff ... He loved the topics he chose. He just loved them.
3. He wanted to spread the word.
4. He wanted to make money writing.
5. He was consistent in what he did.

Let's work on these points, except point one, which wasn't true anyways...

Alan (my hubby) loved his topic. He really LOVED it. Do you know what this means?

When you love what you do, you just are unstoppable. You devour books, tapes, websites, magazines, anything to learn more about this subject.

This is called research.

So let's break how any bum can write like a pro into a few steps shall we?

Step 1 - Research

Research helps, research is the core to success. I am not speaking about the kind of research scientists do. I mean researching your topic. If you want to write about cars, research cars. Read up on them, look at what others have to say. Identify the leaders, identify experts, follow their blogs / writings.

Keep yourself in their company. Because

Step 2 - Start Writing

Next comes writing. When you really want to write, and write fast:

Open a book, or word document and start writing.

Yes, just write. Don't worry about what the spelling is, whether it even is correct or makes sense. Just write.

Step 1 does help at this step, because you have so much to say. So much to offer. So much to give. You are all pumped up. You are on fire. You want to splii everything out. You HAVE to get it out of your system.

Remember, DONT spell check, DONT grammer check, DONT check at all.

Just write.

I know I sound crazy, but let every doubt go to the dogs and write for now. Please ...

Step 3 - Edit

Ahh!!

Now open your document and read it.

My friend you will be amazed at what you see. You will be amazed at what you can produce.

Now go ahead and edit. Move things around a bit. Delete stuff, Add stuff. Highlight words as pointers.

I know peple who write on paper and chop thse into strips. Then they sequence thse strips and number them. Then they work on each strip, throw a few away. Add a few, expand on a few.

Step 4 - Write some more / Research some more

Repeat Steps 1, 2 and 3.

When do you know you are done.

You will. For some it easy, they just know. Some unfortunately don't. They keep editing, adding, deleting and working like rats.

For the second group here's my 2 cents..

STOP!!!

It is enough.

Write, edit, research, edit research for a while but then stop.

Just have a friend read and comment on it.

Give yourself a pat and work on getting it publiched.

Visit http://howtopublish.blogspot.com/ to learn how to self publish.

Cheers

Latha