How Does He Do That?

I have several ideas rolling around in my head tonight; but none of them really are speaking to me. So, I think tonight is good night to write my first piece on how I write.

How I write, greatly depends on what I am writing. My process for writing Technical Manuals at work is different than what I do for this blog. Since this blog is a break from work, we should talk about how I write my posts for this blog. I have four phases of writing – Idea, Draft, Revise, and Final.

I have two techniques that I use to go from the Idea phase to the Draft phase. The techniques are relatively the same. The difference is in the tools that I use, and the tool used depends upon my location when I thinking through my idea.

The first method, and the one I use the majority of the time, is to use a Digital Voice Recorder and talk through my idea. My commute takes me anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. That's a lot of time in the car to sit and think. I get a lot of ideas in the morning; so it is the perfect time to work through fledgling ideas. Incidentally, it is the method I used to work through main idea of this post.

The second method, which is the one I used for my “How I Spent September 11th” post, is to sit at the keyboard and just write what comes to mind. This process takes up more of my time in the evening, but is just as effective. Technically, it partially encompasses the Draft phase.

The Draft phase is where I put my head around the idea and turn it into a concrete piece of writing. I try not to go back and make too many corrections while I am in this phase. I want to get the idea out on paper before I lose too much of it. I find that if I go back and make edits while drafting, I tend to lose my train of thought and it takes me a while to get back on track.

I save the edits for the Revise phase. This is where I go back and reread the piece and make any of the necessary corrections. I may revise a piece several times before I am satisfied. This is where the piece goes from a rough piece of coal to a diamond. (Well, I think of my work as diamonds – at least diamonds in the rough.)

The Final phase, well, that is what you are reading now. After I have revised to my heart's content and tried to find all of the spelling and grammatical errors, I post my blog for your reading pleasure. But, it almost never fails, that my lovely wife Shannon will read my post and point out an error or two (or three).

That is an important lesson for any writer to learn. Some times you get too close to a piece. You know what you want to say and how you want to say it; but, as you are rereading the piece you read words that are not there or read the sentence how you think it should sound and not how it is actually written. Even as a professional writer, somebody reads my work before it goes out to the customer.