You may be a writing wildflower, or a seed floating in the breeze ready to flourish in fertile ground.
Experts estimate that there are over 20,000 species of flowering plants in North America belonging to about 300 different families. In her elegance, Nature provided pollination by birds and insects spreading and advancing the seeds of colorful arrays of flowers. It is a wonderful collaboration whereby floral colors attract the pollinators – birds and bees – and they flit from flower to shrub to tree depositing the fine, powdery pollen. And, the result is an ever-expanding bouquet of wild flower wonder and beauty.
Where are you in this cycle? Are you in full bloom producing writing and expressing thoughts; or, are you the sturdy stem holding up the bloom taking the role of researcher or contributor to works of other writers? Perhaps you see yourself as a pollinator, spreading news and views on writers and writing topics. Maybe you are the fertile soil, or nourishing rain encouraging friends, family and colleagues to click their pens or computer keys into writing production.
To encourage your writing to bloom, here are some nourishing ideas.
Introduce yourself to your “inner writer.” Interview yourself and pose questions about your writing personality.
- Feeling “blocked?” Write a letter to yourself reflecting on what might be causing this.
- When engaged in a writing activity, do you: (1) Spend time reflecting and then, begin writing alone; or (2) Talk through your ideas with a friend, first, and write ideas later?
- Do you readily sit down and write? Or, do you think and re-think hesitant to begin?
These interview results just provide clues about your writing personality and where you might be in the process. Once you can describe your writing preferences, you will be able to move forward.
Dream your writing garden first. Since most projects begin from dreaming or inspiration, embrace the idea of producing your writing in stages. Often dreams begin with some kind of yearning that comes from the unconscious, whether it is the image of a beautiful flower garden or re-telling an experience.
Stage 1 – Dreaming
You don’t have to go to sleep to launch your writing dreams, just tap your imagination to bring out your unconscious thoughts. Begin by doing some writing exercises such as free writing, active imagination, clustering and listing.
Stage 2 – Designing
Creativity often feels chaotic at the beginning; so, the dreamer stage of writing may have felt disorienting. But, at some point when you’re slinging out all of that erratic creativity, you will experience the urge to give it form which gives way to the designer stage of the writing process.
The designer stage is where you decide the order in which to present your idea and information. All writing needs order because order holds a piece together and helps the reader follow the material. Organization in writing is about the relationship between the whole and its parts. What do you want your writing to accomplish? Do you want to: inform, entertain, inspire, persuade, express, uplift, complain, tell a story, comfort, or evoke emotion?
Stage 3 – Building
After having planted the seeds of your writing project in the dreamer and designer stages, you are ready for the sprouts to surge. In this stage you will put it all together, adding components, examples and even flourishes! Here you will expand content and consider the needs of the audience.
If you previously felt blocked, you may have been attempting to start writing in the builder rather than dreamer stage. Do your best to let go of that urge and always dream and design first.
Stage 4 – Inspecting
Revise your writing to smooth out the rough edges and make it even more appealing. The inspector stage may take as much as 50% of your writing time.
Once you have composed, compiled and constructed you are ready to experience it as a whole. Think of this as a “tour” through the garden where you will refine and revise. Zero in on how well things go together, where gaps exist and opportunities for improvement. Check for some of the following:
Logical sentence and word order within paragraphs
Words expressing exactly what you want to say and spelled correctly
No evidence of grammatical, punctuation, capitalization or typographical errors
Paragraphs
The size of a paragraph should range from three to eight sentences revolving around one main idea. Overly long paragraphs overwhelm; short paragraphs highlight and encourage further reading.
Effective Sentences
Enliven the writing by incorporating fabrics and textures to match and blend. Employ a variety of sentence openers and make efficient use of words. Twenty words in a sentence is generally too long.
Word Choice
Think of your writing as a landscape of words evoking images in readers’ minds. Words are the hues of your colors; so, artfully mix and match for optimum impact. The meaning of word choices conveys as much as the words themselves.
Tone conveys attitude toward your message and your reader. Word choice conveys tone. An informal tone is indicated by use of more contractions and personal pronouns.
Proofing
For the essential mechanical and grammatical points, question everything. Keep a couple of English grammar/punctuation reference books handy. If this is not your interest or forte, connect with a good editor. Depending on your writing personality, prefer creating ideas to inspecting for errors. Other writers focus entirely on details and produce writing that is accurate but dull reading.
Adopt these four stages of writing; and, be gentle with the dreamer and designer, holding the inspector (critic and editor) at bay until the proper stage. Doing this will automatically stimulate creativity and reduce writer’s block. Today you may not feel like a natural writer; but, in the right soil pollinated by encouragement and writing tools, you can find a pathway to a flourishing writing wildflower meadow.
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