I’m afraid that I didn’t do a great job of convincing my students that their writing skills would matter once they entered the work force.

Misconceptions

“I’m going to be a nurse, I don’t need to write essays.”

Fill in whatever career you like, but if it wasn’t directly related to writing, then most students assume that they won’t need to be able to write well, or even passably well.

I work in the IT field, and there isn’t a person I know who doesn’t answer several, sometimes dozens, of e-mails ever day. Yes, your ability to communicate clearly and well matters. Making lots of grammar errors can and will mark you as someone possessing substandard communication skills.

“I’ll have a secretary to do my writing for me.”

This one is actually pretty funny. I don’t know of many people who have a dedicated secretary, unless you’re a CEO. If you have an assistant at all, you’ll likely share that person with several others. No, he/she won’t have time to write all your e-mails for you.

The truth

You don’t have to have the same level of writing skills that your English teachers demanded. For most people, that’s unrealistic as well. Keep in mind your English teachers were pushing you to learn as much as possible, and holding you to a high standard in order to do that.

In the workplace, you do need to have good writing skills, but they can still be imperfect but acceptable.

How do you know if they’re good enough? Compare yourself to others. Try comparing your writing abilities with those immediately above you, that is, your manager and his/her peers. Do you write at least as well as they do? If so, that’s great. Your writing skills are probably fine for now.

What if you don’t measure up?

Improving your skills

It’s tough to improve your writing skills without some feedback. Here are a few ideas for getting help to improve your writing.

• Take a class. This is obvious, and probably the most traditional approach. However, a good class devoted to business writing will do wonders for your abilities. Check your local community colleges for classes that won’t break your budget.
• Join an online writer’s group. You’ll probably have to commit to reading and commenting on others’ work, but this can be a good way to improve your writing skills as well.
• Ask for help at work. Ask a coworker who writes well to proofread your material. Don’t ask that he/she just fix it, but ask them to explain to you what the problem was. This is a bit tougher, as it will involve getting someone else to commit their time to helping you improve your writing skills. However, if you can find a willing mentor, it certainly works.

By the way, I saw each of these mistakes made today, so they’re not as uncommon as you might think, or hope.

Weather and Whether

Some people say these two words differently, others don’t. I put a definite “h” sound (a breathy sound) in whether than I don’t do with weather. Others insist that they can’t hear any difference between the two.

People who don’t hear any difference between the two words often used them incorrectly.

Weather refers to rain, snow, sun, etc. As in the following.

1. I don’t know what the weather will be tomorrow.
2. Stormy weather is my favorite song.
3. This rainy weather has got me depressed.

Whether means if.

1. I don’t know whether I’ll go to the movie or the mall first.
2. John doesn’t care whether you get a raise this year!

How about this one?

Do you know whether the weather is supposed to be nice this weekend?

Are and Our

This one is tougher for me to understand people getting wrong, but I see it all the time. I think it’s a matter of the person’s accent. I say our and are completely differently, but I know some people pronounce them virtually the same.

Again, these words are nothing alike in terms of meaning.

Our is a pronoun, meaning that something belongs to us.

1. Our house needs to be painted this year.
2. This has not been our day, has it?
3. Our project won’t be completed in time for the senior staff meeting.

Are is a verb, specifically a form of the verb “to be.”

1. John and Amanda are getting married this October.
2. Are you going out this weekend?
3. What are you doing?

An and And

Again, this one boils down to accent and getting the words confused because you say the two the same way.

An is an article, like “a,” only intended to be used before a word starting with a vowel. So, you’d say “a banana” but “an apple.”

1. I have a problem with an overbearing boss who won’t listen to anyone else’s opinion.
2. An orange is a portable, healthy breakfast.

And is a conjunction, linking two word, phrases or sentences.

1. We shopped at the mall, and we spent too much money. (links two sentences)
2. We bought clothes and shoes while we were there. (linking words)
3. Alex dropped off the car, met us for lunch, and drove us home later. (linking phrases)

Even if you don’t have problems with these commonly misused words, understanding the relationship between what we hear, how we say a word, and how that affects how we spell the word can be very useful. If you understand why someone is making a mistake, whether it’s your student, child, friend, etc. you have a better chance of fixing the problem.

Yes, I’d definitely call all of these errors a problem. Some errors in grammar and word choice are more forgivable than others. No one’s perfect, and I’m sure you can find some mistakes here on this blog if you look. However, some errors stand out more than others and mark you as having some real problems with communication.

We found out a little over a month ago that my mom needed surgery. What we thought were gall bladder problems turned out to be a tumor. Of course, I’ve spent a lot of time worrying. Her surgery was last week, and she did terrific. I’m exhausted, but happy that it’s over for her.

I’m also up against a December deadline to (finally!!) finish my grad degree in computer science. Yep, it’s been a while, I’ve change instructors, changed plans, etc., but it looks like it’s going to happen. I have a lot of work to do in the next six weeks though.

Now, to add to my list of things to handle, I think I’m getting sick. My fever is 99.3 tonight, my throat is sore and I have a headache. Wonderful!

I’m trying to get caught up on twitter, stumbleupon, facebook, etc. tonight. I may not be as active onlne for the next month or so, but I won’t be totally off either. Wish me luck!

The gist is this, you put up your novel on the site, which is run by Harper Collins, it gets voted on, and the top novels get read by editors at HC.

That led me to doing some research on whether other publishers are doing something similar. One of the first sites I found was Writer Beware Blogs, which is a site I head to whenever something looks a little too good to be true. They give a good summary of Authonomy, including some of the potential problems. Essentially, they argue that it’s still the slush pile of old, just moved online.

Authonomy seems to be combining the traditional slush pile with social networking. Instead of an agent or reader looking at your work, online readers do. If you’ve used any social networking sites like StumbleUpon or Digg, then you probably know that it’s not just the quality of your work that makes you popular. It’s also the quality of your social network.

So, I can see a mediocre novel getting more attention that a good one, providing the author has an active network on the site. Fair? Not really, but that’s the way popularity on all social networking sites works.

So, has anyone used a site like this? If so, I’d like to know how it worked out for you.

No? Well me neither. Feeling awful, depressed, discouraged? Ready to call it quits and give it a go again next year? Don’t do that!

Or maybe the answer is yes. You’re sitting there having a cup of coffee, feet up, basking in the glory. You may be tempted to take a little writing vacation. Don’t do that either!

First, stop focusing on the word count and start focusing on spending time writing. Every time you check your word count, calculate how many words you’ll need to write a day to finish, etc., you’re taking away time you could spend on your writing. Even worse, you can get so worked up about “failing” to get your word count, you stop writing altogether. That is definitely not what NaNo is all about.

Yes, you want to hit that 50k mark. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have signed up for this month of madness in the first place. However, remember that hitting the word count isn’t, or shouldn’t be, the ultimate goal. Take a step back and think about why you wanted to do NaNo in the first place. I’m betting that for many, the goal isn’t just to get down 50k words. The goal is really to write a novel.

Hitting 50k words isn’t a magic potion for finishing a novel. Sitting your butt down to write every day (or nearly every day) is. So, whether you’re way behind or you’ve already hit your 50k goal, I want to put out another challenge.

Vow to still be writing on November 30.

Vow to keep writing beyond November 30 and beyond 50k words, until the novel is FINISHED.

So whether you’re way behind or way ahead, shouldn’t you be writing?

Names

1. Don’t worry too much about making names sound evil or menacing. If your bad guy is names somthing like Dirk Beastly, you’ve got problems.
2. Don’t make names too similar. Jen and Jan will be tough for readers to keep track of. Use global search and replace if you need to.
3. Make names pronouncable, even if you’re writing fantasy. It’s distracting to read about someone named Xytrlnsqr.

Character Name Generator

Seventh Sanctum Name Generators

Characters

1. No one is all good or all bad. Good guys to bad things; bad guys do good things. Keep it realistic.
2. Real characters have entire lives. That means family, friends, jobs, hobbies, money problems, baggage, etc.
3. Don’t give me minute descriptions of what the charcter looks like.

My Character Creation Worksheets

Holly Lisle: How to Create a Character

Plotting

I don’t pre-plot, but I won’t tell you not to if that’s your thing.

The snowflake model is the only one I’ve had any success with.

Editing

Don’t.

If you’re tempted to re-read a small section and rework it. Don’t.

The whole idea is to free yourself from your internal editor. Force yourself to keep moving; you’ll be glad you did.

Word Count

Write as much as you can as early as you can. You’ll likely have plenty of steam during the first week, so take advantage of it and exceed your daily goals if you can. Over time, the daily goal will be harder to reach. You’ll appreciate having a bit of a cushion.

Time Management

This is just as important in getting through NaNo as all the writing advice anyone can give you.

See my post on Getting Through NaNo

1. If you plan on getting up early to write, start that now. You don’t want to try writing foggy-headed from too little sleep.
2. Delegate as much as you can now. Ask your family to help out more.
3. Find a quiet place you can go to write. Make sure it has a door, and don’t be afraid to shut it.

keywords: writing, novel, fiction, national novel writing month

Photo by Terwilliger911

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, then you know that I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month for the last few years. If you’re unfamiliar with the idea, he’re’s a summary.

• It takes place for the entire month of November
• You commit to writing 50,000 words on your novel
• You can’t pre-write any of the novel, but you can outline
• You “win” by completing the 50k word count by the end of the month

Sounds crazy, right? I think it’s a great way to get most of a rough draft down on paper, and if you haven’t tried it, I’d highly recommend you give it a go.

Writing that much, that quickly, isn’t an easy thing to do (I know). If you’re planning on participating, you need to start doing some planning now. The most important thing you should do is get yourself accustomed to writing daily and achieving a set word count.

I’d recommend a goal of 1000 words a day. That’s doable without wearing yourself out before NaNo begins. That’s my typical word count goal per day whether I’m prepping for NaNo or not. Also, get used to writing every day if you don’t already. Missing even one or two days during NaNo can leave you feeling hopelessly behind.

The second thing you can do is work on outlining and/or backstory for your November novel. You can’t start writing before-hand, but you can think about your characters, their backstory and where you want your story to go. I’m not a pre-plotter, so I don’t do that, but I know some people do, and they find it helpful.

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