Writer’s Block is a common problem for anyone writing a book. Whatever stage of the process, something will inevitably creep up to interfere. Many tips, tricks, and ideas are floating around to help self-motivated individuals fight their way through the blockade. But, sometimes a writer needs some individualized coaching, someone from an outside perspective, someone with experience that can bring scope and promise to your project. If you want to talk to a Writing Coach, schedule a consultation to see if it’s the right fit for you and your project.

Meanwhile, here are some ideas to help you move forward. Most people who attempt to write a book suffer from writer’s block at some point. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, trust me, it will. It happens even to the best of us, and when you get stuck in this phase, it makes for a miserable writing experience. The best thing about writer’s block is that there are ways you can overcome it and complete a book.

Generative Writing

Sit down (or stand) to write or type. Set a timer and just let the words pour out. Stream of consciousness writing is a very useful way to unlock the stuck parts of the mind and build on ideas and thoughts. By pouring out words without worrying about sound, sense, or order, writers will often find their way back to drafting the main project.

Engage the Senses

Take a break from writing and reading to do something that feels different. Cooking a snack, talking a walk, or lighting a candle are all activities that engage the sense of smell, of touch, sight, and sound in different ways than typing or writing. Writing involves so much more than simply forming words and creating readable content. In order to keep creative juices flowing, the writer has to intentionally engage in creative outlets and sensory inputs.

Rewards

Sometimes writers need a gold star. Writing a book is a long and arduous process. It is often isoltaing and lonely. You will spend long hours working alone. Find a way to build in rewards. Make a short list of things that make you happy or feel good. Maybe it’s a sticker or a small toy you can unwrap after every hour of writing. It could be a trip to your favorite coffee shop. Maybe it’s 15 minutes of video games or one episode of your favorite sitcom. A reward system is a great way to keep up the motivation to finish writing a book.

Breaking through writer’s block is about temporarily changing something so you can refocus the mind and start up the creative flow of writing. Try these methods on your own, but think about engaging a Writing Coach to help you through some of the more difficult times. Writing is fun and rewarding, but sometimes it is a chore. Contact a Writing Coach today to see if it fits your project well.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

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Writing is an essential part of doing business. Even business startups need to communicate about their business to potential investors, employees and colleagues, and for marketing. Whether working on a marketing analysis or a feasibility study, you must understand that writing skills are critical for any manager, director, executive, or owner.

The most successful managers are the ones who can write clearly and concisely about their ideas, their proposals, and their goals. Writing well is also essential when communicating with clients and customers—and even when working with other managers on projects or proposals.

Business Writing

Business writing is a particular style of writing that communicates in a direct, active, professional manner.

• Write in a clear, concise, and professional manner.
• Use plain English. Avoid technical jargon or complicated sentences and words.
• Keep your writing short and to the point. Use short sentences, paragraphs, and words where possible to keep your writing concise and easy to read.
• Write in active voice rather than passive voice, as this will make your writing more dynamic (and it’s much easier for readers). For example: instead of “It was decided that…” write “The board decided…” or “We’ve decided…”

Business Plan

One important document for a business is a business plan. For business startups or young companies looking to grow, a business plan will help you move forward in your industry. A business plan is a written statement describing the business’s nature, purpose, and objectives. It is a road map for your business and helps you communicate with your partners and investors.

An important part of the business plan is the executive summary. Often the executive summary is drafted first. The summary determines the initial interest of investors and partners. The executive summary is a short, one-page document that summarizes the rest of the business plan. It should be written last and should be brief and to the point. It should be written in a way that is easy to read and understand.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this blog post has taught you a little about business writing. But the most important takeaway is that writing is an invaluable skill for anyone who wants to succeed in today’s economy. So if you’re going to advance in your career, consider developing your business writing skills. Businesses in every industry need managers and directors who have strong communication skills.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

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Academic writing, or scholarly writing, is an important skill that is necessary for writing academic theses, dissertations, and research papers. The key is communicating ideas, organizing them into a logical structure, and making your point clear. Learning how to write according to academic standards is important because it promotes critical thinking, develops problem-solving, and results in knowledge sharing.

What is Academic Writing?

Scholarly writing is primarily a basis for research and discussion. Writing for analysis can take many forms, from short papers to long-form essays or books. However, academic writers are most frequently associated with using the essay format to communicate ideas and information. Academic writing becomes especially important when working on a long-form advanced research project, like a Master’s Thesis or a Doctoral Dissertation.

This specific writing style writing promotes critical thinking, develops problem-solving, and results in knowledge sharing. However, it’s different from other types of writing because you write to a particular audience, and the writer must follow specific conventions. Scholarly writing is necessary for academic success, but many students struggle with this type of writing because they don’t understand what makes academic writing different from other types of communication.

What are the Conventions?

Academics follow a set of conventions when they write. These rules are not the same as those you follow in other types of writing, such as personal letters or business memos. As an academic, you’ll need to learn how to format your work and make it clear and readable so that your readers understand what you’re saying.

• Academic conventions may vary slightly from one field of study to another, but there are some things that most academics agree on:
  • The text should be paragraph driven
  • Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that clearly states the main idea of that paragraph.
  • Each paragraph should also include at least one supporting sentence (or two) that explains why you support or prove your main point(s).

What are Common Problems?

We all know that grammar and spelling are crucial to any essay, but they’re not the only essential aspects of academic writing. Formatting your paper according to your professor’s expectations, organization, clarity of thought, and structure can make or break an essay. A few common problems in academic writing include:

• Lack of flow/lack of transitions
• Sentence fragments or run-on sentences
• Inconsistent formatting

Making Your Point Clear

Clarity is the most critical skill in writing. It’s not just about making your point clear—clarity is the ability to communicate your ideas so your audience can understand them and engage with your research. That means you should do everything possible to make sure your sentences are easy to understand, including:

• Using short words and sentences
• Avoiding jargon, technical terms, and abbreviations unless they are well-known and widely used in the field
• Giving examples or details that explain why something matters or how it works

Academic writing is essential.

Academic writing is important because it promotes critical thinking, develops problem-solving, and results in knowledge sharing. Academic writing helps to create a student’s ability to think critically and solve problems. It is also useful in developing a student’s ability to share their knowledge with the rest of the world in an effective manner.

Many educators have emphasized the importance of academic writing because this type of writing has proven to be very effective when learning new things or retaining old ones.

Conclusion

Finally, developing your writing skills for school, work, or personal research will help you clarify your point and get results!

If you struggle to find your voice in an educational setting, a Writing Coach can help you build a catalog of resources for dealing with specific academic writing conventions. In addition, an Individual Writing Coach can help you find your voice and organize large projects, like theses or dissertations.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

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Collaborative writing is a great way to find yourself in a writing community and get your work read by people who may be able to help you improve it. The more people you have involved in the process, the better!

Get Feedback

You can get feedback from other writers. You can get feedback from a writing coach. You can even use a writing group if you want to collaborate with other writers on your own writing simultaneously or use your writing community if you prefer one-on-one communication with fellow writers.

Either way, it’s important to have someone (or multiple people) looking out for your best interests and making sure that your writing is as good as it can be before publishing anything.

Make a Plan and Write Together

When you write with a partner, it’s important to have a plan of action. Perhaps you’ve already decided on what topic you will write about and how many paragraphs you’ll have. You can then divide the topics and start brainstorming ideas with your partner. If one person thinks of something great, like “The Great Depression,” that person should write it down in their document so the other person will see it when they look at their document. The next phase of collaborative writing is sharing ideas.

When everyone has had ample time to come up with ideas on their own (and make sure everyone has had enough time), then it’s time for each person to share their thoughts in real-time via Google Docs or another similar app that allows multiple people access at once without needing an internet connection (like Microsoft Word). There are various ways this can be done:

• 1:1 sharing where each team member shares their idea individually;
• Group sharing, where everyone shares their idea simultaneously; or
• Round robin where all members add one sentence about their idea until all sentences are shared, starting from the first member through the last member.”

Practice Your Writing With Others

Collaborative writing has many benefits. It provides a space to practice your writing, which helps improve your craft. You can also get feedback on your work from more than one person, which helps you see what works and what doesn’t in your writing and where there might be some areas of improvement. In addition, collaborative writing allows you to build relationships with other writers that may help advance your career or open up opportunities for future collaborations.

But some challenges come with collaborative writing: sometimes it can be hard to find the right person (or people) to collaborate with; working together through email can be frustrating at times; disagreements about the direction of the project or major changes mid-project can make it difficult for everyone involved; some things should never be shared with anyone else (such as personal details), so privacy becomes an important issue when collaborating on an essay or article; etc…

If these concerns seem daunting, don’t worry—there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try out collaborative work! Anyone who wants to start getting involved in joint projects might consider hiring a Group Writing Coach.

The More the Merrier

The more people you have to write with, the better. The more people you write with, the more ideas you get. And even if your group doesn’t become a bestseller or even a published book (which is highly unlikely), it’s still fun and rewarding to see what everyone came up with and start brainstorming ways to improve it.

Collaborative writing is a great way to find a writing community!

If you’re looking for a writing community, collaborative writing is a great way to go. You can find a partner on Meetup, at conferences, or other social media sites. You might also try looking out for one at local events or on sites designed specifically for this purpose. Some examples of these sites include Duolingo, Quora, and Reddit’s r/writingprompts, which have people posting daily prompts that they’d love feedback on!

Conclusion

As you can see, collaborative writing is a great way to find a writing community. It’s also an excellent opportunity for writers to collaborate on their work and get feedback from others outside their social circle. This can help them improve their work and build confidence in what they do best.

A Group Writing Coach can help you organize your projects within a collaborative setting or organize a collaborative writing project.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

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Writing the first draft is scary. It’s the most challenging part of any project, even when you’re just starting. However, knowing what to do and having the right tools can be easier than expected. This blog post will walk you through the steps of writing your first draft by helping you ask yourself some critical questions about your project. And providing resources that can help make this process easier for anyone who has ever felt stuck in the throes of writer’s block while staring at an empty page or screen, wondering how to start writing their book or screenplay.

Start with a question.

One of the most important things to do when writing a book is to start with a question. The question can be about anything important to you, but it should be something that can last for a long time. For example, if you’re writing about how you landed your first professional job, your question might be: “What was it like to look for employment in my field?” Phrasing prompts in the form of questions works well because it allows readers’ imaginations and mindsets to settle on the subject matter before it becomes more specific.

Your question could be: “How did my childhood experiences affect who I am today?” Or perhaps “What’s wrong with our country today?” If these questions don’t work for you or don’t resonate with what kind of book you want to write, find another one that does! Just make sure that whatever question(s) drive the narrative are ones that will last long enough. Hence, readers get into them before they stop reading altogether out of sheer boredom or lack of interest.

Get comfortable

Before you start writing, make sure you’re comfortable. Sit in a chair that allows you to rest your elbows on the desk and keep both wrists straight. If your knees are too high or too low, adjust them so they’re slightly lower than the level of your hips. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths as you relax into your chair—this will help prepare you mentally for what comes next.

Now focus on the question at the heart of this book: What is my book about? Open your eyes and write down whatever comes to mind first—no matter how silly it sounds! Opening your eyes gives you a fresh start; it can be a fantastic exercise to overcome writer’s block.

Write it as if in a conversation with yourself.

The best way to write a draft is in the first person. It’s a little bit of a weird thing to do, but it makes sense, and it works. If you think about how you usually speak with people, or even if you write emails and letters or postcards, we are not using the word “I” all the time. Instead, we talk in the third person: “He said this, she did that….”

You need to get out of your head and say what happened as if you were sitting there telling someone else about it in conversation. Instead of saying “I felt unfortunate when…” try saying something more like “I had never felt so downhearted before… I was miserable…. I was heartbroken…. My heart sank… I could hardly bear the sadness…. What could I do? Where could I turn? How would things ever get better again?

Use your resources.

The first draft of your book does not need to be perfect or complete. Instead, you should expect a jumble of ideas, notes, and thoughts that may not all fit together in one cohesive unit. That’s okay!

It’s important to remember that this is the time when you aren’t trying to impress anyone but yourself. Instead, use your resources as much as possible! Research other people’s experiences with the subject matter and consider their opinions on what needs further exploration within the topic and how you can improve it. Reading other books on the subject matter can also give an idea of what areas could use more work—or perhaps add something new!

Don’t get too attached at this stage.

Remember: your first draft is to write it down and ensure you know what happens. You don’t have to worry about spelling, grammar, or sentence structure at this stage. It’s important not to get too attached to your words or ideas in your first draft—you will change them later!

The most important thing is that you get the story down on paper so that it becomes natural for you (and anyone else who reads it).

Write your first draft as if it is only for you.

The first draft is for you. So keep in mind:

• Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or punctuation. You are writing for yourself and no one else right now!
• Don’t worry about what other people will think of it, especially people who don’t know how to write well themselves. They will want to change everything anyway, and they won’t understand that this is just the beginning stage of your book and not finished yet.
• Don’t worry about how long it takes or how much time goes into writing a book in general—there are no rules here! Some books take years to write, while others only take months (sometimes even days). The only thing that matters is when you sit down at the computer each day and begin typing your thoughts onto paper—or even better yet, if you use dictation software like Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which turns speech into text quickly. But, then, whatever comes out on screen is enough for now because no one will see those words except for us later when we publish them.

Conclusion

This is only the beginning. It’s a great place to start, but getting feedback from others before moving on can be helpful after your first draft. And there are so many options for how you want to structure your book after that—it’s up to you!

A Writing Coach can help you make the most of your time at any stage of the writing process. If you find it difficult to get past barriers to writing on your first draft, consider bringing in an Individual Writing Coach to help you move forward.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

The post First Draft of Your Book appeared first on Book Writing Coach.

Have you ever thought about writing a book? If so, you’re not alone. Millions of people dream of writing books every year. Still, many people don’t realize that writing a book is more than just putting your thoughts to paper—and it’s certainly not as easy as buying an expensive laptop and pointing its cursor at the screen! Writing is hard work, especially if you want to do it right.

That said: There are many reasons why people choose to write books. I’ve been thinking about this question recently because my own book is coming out soon (yay!). And I’ve learned that there are some compelling reasons why someone would want to write a book and publish it … so much so that most people probably don’t know about them yet! So let’s explore some of those reasons together now!

Your unique story can help others.

You can help people. You have a unique perspective on the world that not everyone has; many people could benefit from that insight. Your story will probably differ from most other people’s in some way, shape, or form. Maybe you have overcome adversity in your life and learned from it, or maybe you have a talent for connecting with others and helping them out of their ruts. Whatever it is that makes you special, and there are probably still others out there who can benefit from hearing about your experience. Write a book about your journey through life and show others how they, too, can overcome obstacles or live their dreams!

Sharing our stories is one of the most powerful things we can do as humans (and writers). We don’t often realize just how much impact our words have on others until we look back at the impact they’ve had on us–but when it comes down to it, writing helps us understand ourselves better than anything else could ever hope to achieve. The more we write down what happened in our own lives and share those experiences with readers who might relate (or even better: don’t relate), the more connected we feel with humanity overall.

It’s a great way to process your emotions.

Writing is a great way to process your emotions. Writing can help you understand yourself better if you’re angry or upset. It can also help you understand other people better and the world around you, as well as your life—all of which could lead to more understanding and, therefore, less anger.

You can change the world.

You could help people in your community, country, or the world. You could help people struggling with the same issues you struggled with. You could help people who are looking for help with their problems. You could help people who are looking for inspiration.

Writing a book is an amazing way to change someone’s life; writing a book can be one of the greatest things you ever do with your time on this earth!

Dealing with overwhelm when You’re an Aspiring Writer

• Write down your goals.
• Write down your progress.
• Write down what you have achieved.
• Write down what you haven’t achieved yet, and why that’s okay.
• Sketch out a very basic plan for how to achieve each goal, as well as some smaller steps in between them (e.g., “write the first draft” might lead to “add character names,” which leads to “look up synonyms for ‘dread'”). In the journal format, this can help you create an actual record of where you are headed with your writing and why—a roadmap through the overwhelm that accompanies big projects like book-writing campaigns!

Despite challenges, many people choose to write a book

• Writing a book is a big commitment. It takes time and effort to write a book—even if you’re just writing for fun. You need to be self-motivated enough to sit down and do it without feeling like it’s too much work or taking up too much of your time.
• Writing requires learning new things. To become an effective writer, you have to keep learning about the craft of writing—what makes good stories great? How do I improve my grammar? What makes me different than other authors? These questions must be answered before they can help make your book stand out from all others on the market today!
• You will have critics! Everyone knows that criticism comes with success in any field, so don’t worry too much about this part (it will just come with success). Be prepared, though, because some people might not like what they see but don’t let them take away from your dream either – everyone has opinions, so don’t let them bring down yours!

Conclusion

Our society needs more books. We need more stories that will help us understand others and ourselves in new ways—stories that can shape our worldviews, open our minds, and give us strength to face the challenges we’re facing today. So if you have a story you want to tell, then go ahead and write it!

Find out how a Writing Coach can help you get started, pick up where you left off, or publish your book.

Erica Mongé-Greer

Erica Mongé-Greer, Ph. D. is a lifelong academic and published writer. Her areas of expertise are teaching, coaching, and helping people get their writing projects started, through the writing process, and to the finish line. Erica enjoys spending time with her family when she is not teaching, writing academic papers, or coaching.

thebookwritingcoach.com

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