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Author: Patricia Iyer

Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com|Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com|Do you have an amazing business success you want to share? Pat Iyer has worked with experts helping them share their knowledge since she first began writing and editing books in 1985. Pat Iyer has written or edited over 800 chapters, books, case studies, articles or online courses. She delights in assisting people to share their expertise by writing a book. Pat serves as a developmental editor and ghostwriter.

Pat built a service business assisting attorneys with cases involving medical issues. After growing that business to a multi-million dollar one, after 25 years, she sold it in 2015 and now devotes her time to mentoring, writing and editing. Get tips for polishing your writing style and gaining business through the material you write: Listen to Writing to Get Business Podcast on the C Suite Radio platform.

Reach her through Patiyer.com

Categories
Best Practices Entrepreneurship Personal Development

You Would Benefit From a Book: Do You Have to Write it Yourself?

Did you grow a business from scratch to point of needing employees? Or you may have risen through the ranks to become responsible for the work of others. In either case, you’ve had to learn to delegate responsibility.

You might be thinking about writing a book. It would boost your company’s credibility and be an effective form of marketing your business. Should you write it?

Here’s another possibility. As you’ve delegated many critical responsibilities to your employees, you can also delegate the responsibility of writing a book. Why may this technique be the best solution?

How Good Are Your Writing Abilities?

I once dropped a ring in the sink. My husband took apart the little S-shaped pipe under the sink and couldn’t put it back together. We hired a plumber to fix the problem I created and my husband made worse. I learned that using an expert instead of getting involved in an area where I have no expertise saves time and money.

I thought about that incident this year when I interviewed an author who said, “If you think it’s expensive to hire an expert, think about how expensive it is to hire an amateur.”

When it comes to writing a book, the amateur you hire may be you. The ghostwriter is the expert.

How Much Time Do You Have?

Some people who love statistics have figured out the time involved in writing a 120-page book, which is a common length in these times of diminishing attention spans. If you’re a good writer, it will probably take you an hour per page, or 120 hours. Do you have 120 free hours in your schedule?

You may think that 120 hours isn’t such a problem. Ask yourself, though, how you could use that time to build your business, market your products, and implement new and cutting-edge procedures. How can you best spend your time?

Is It Cheating?

Do you think you’re cheating if you don’t write it yourself? Celebrities and national and world leaders don’t share this belief. Some of the most significant and bestselling books were ghostwritten. A skilled ghostwriter can write your book in your voice. You might think of one as an actor who, instead of delivering the words of a playwright or scriptwriter, delivers your thoughts, experiences, and message.

What About Ego Gratification?

No matter who writes your story, it’s still your story. You will tell that story to the ghostwriter, probably in a series of recorded interviews. She will come to know and understand you. The ghostwriter will take your words and organize and write them in a way that makes them flow and have a greater impact on the reader.

And that’s what you want. Let’s return to the why of your book. You want to create positive publicity for your business and/or for your ideas about business in general. In these times, when change is taking place on all levels of society, you want your ideas to help cause positive change.

Your book can help to do that, and given the rapid nature of change today, the sooner it gets out there, the better. Unless you love writing and are proficient at it, and unless you have lots of free writing time, hire a ghostwriter. You’ll have the gratification of seeing your book in print and knowing that it’s a fluent and cohesive expression of what you know.

Pat serves business leaders as a ghostwriter. Connect with her at patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

How to Write Effective Emails

Whenever I edit the transcript of a podcast, I search for the phrase, “You know.”

A recent search of a 30-minute podcast yielded 80 occurrences of “You know.” This means that, on average, the speaker used the phrase every 22.5 seconds. Whatever he was trying to communicate got buried.

While an email isn’t a podcast, empty and sometimes weakening words and phrases easily find their way into writing, especially emails, where we use more informal language. Phrases like “I just” or “kind of” or “maybe you could,” lessen our authority.

These phrases and their many relatives express uncertainty. They convey one’s doubt about the right to give instructions and orders. They diminish our qualities of leadership.

What’s Wrong with “You Know” and Its Friends?

Besides being a filler phrase, “You know” usually signals the approach of other unnecessary words.

“You know, Sean, that we are having an important meeting on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. and that you will be giving a report on problems in the Human Resources Department.”

So far, this anonymous author has written 30 words without getting to the point of the email. This kind of filler writing often occurs when the writer is trying to put off making a request or giving an order.

Consider how the recipient feels about reading it.

In simple terms, if Sean knows, you don’t have to tell him.

He may suspect that you think he doesn’t know (or remember) about the meeting or his promised report. He may resent the reminder.

Furthermore, like all of us, Sean has too many emails and too little time, and your prologue irritates him.

The Solution

“Sean, I’m looking forward to your report at Thursday’s meeting on problems in the Human Resources Department. Cara and I would like each report to not exceed ten minutes, which will provide ample discussion time.”

Version two states the issue in 35 words.

Learn From Your Reluctance

If filler phrases litter your writing, ask yourself whether you accept your authority to make a forthright request. If you don’t, you might want some formal or informal coaching or training.

A leader who speaks and writes clear requests benefits everyone in the organization.

As one of the original 100 C Suite Network Contributors, Pat Iyer serves business leaders as an editor, book coach, and ghostwriter. She is the host of Writing to Get Business Podcast, broadcast on the C Suite Network. Connect with her at Patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Scrivener: The Program Designed for Writers

Check out Scrivener, a versatile and multifaceted program, for these reasons:

  • It’s low-risk, with a 30-day free trial program.
  • You can buy it for $49 in either Windows or Macintosh version.
  • If you need a form of tutorial assistance in learning it, you can find courses at Udemy and other sites.

Full disclosure: I don’t own Scrivener, but I have writer friends who rave about it. Between their acclaim and what I learned in my research for this post, I’m giving it serious consideration.

Below are highlights of what Scrivener offers.

Goal Checking and Focus

You can set goals for both individual project sessions and for the whole project and periodically check on how you’re doing. You can also avoid distractions by using a full-screen mode that only lets you see your writing screen.

Writing Styles

You can choose between MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and Chicago styles of writing. Scrivener also has tools for including scientific or mathematical data.

In addition, you can use it for script writing.

Organizational Features

Use Scrivener to import, notes, links, images, and other information in connection with research.

Scrivener’s storyboarding feature creates virtual index cards that you can use to organize sections of a chapter or chapters of a book. A tool called the Corkboard lets you look at them all together.

The Outliner Feature can help you organize your text with folders for sections, chapters, and divisions within chapters.

Help with Self-Publishing

Scrivener is especially useful when it comes to handling the final manuscript. If you choose to self-publish on Kindle and/or elsewhere, you can avoid more expensive formatting routes. Instead, you have the option to export your document to MOBI (Amazon), EPUB (Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other platforms), or PDF, TXT, RTF, and DOC.

You can also import from Scrivener to Vellum, which provides the opportunity to create an attractive type design for your book.

Downsides

Overall, Scrivener does have a learning curve, and some users describe it as steep. It can take two hours to learn the basics, depending on your general technological agility. On the other hand, many writers feel that you don’t need to learn more than the basics. In addition, even those who complain about the learning curve also rave about the program.

Free Help is Available

 https://medium.com/@EmilyFox/the-best-free-scrivener-resources-f4d32fb47c0c

 Emily Fox, author of Scrivener for Dummies, gives a detailed account of her own challenges in learning this program and provides an invaluable list of free resources to help you with your own learning curve.

It’s also, of course, free to check out what the Scrivener program looks like. Go to https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview to see screenshots of the various features. You can also browse through the features section, testimonials, and the FAQ.

Paid Help is Also Available

 Udemy offers low-cost courses to learn Scrivener in both Windows and Mac formats.

Joseph Michael, a Scrivener expert, offers classes ranging from $127 to $297. He also, from time to time, gives free and useful seminars. If you don’t want to commit at this time, you might want to sign up for his mailing list so you’ll know when a course is available. Go to https://www.learnscrivenerfast.com/?r_done=1#_tcil2ra05

Is Scrivener the best thing invented since moveable type? I don’t know, but in summary, it’s clearly affordable, worth the trouble to learn, and has fervent fans.

It also means you can say good-bye to index cards.

Pat Iyer is a C Suite Network contributor who serves authors as an editor. Reach her though her website at patiyer.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Free yourself from distractions when you write

You want to write, and you have a plan in mind. Experts have assured you that you need to practice discipline and block out areas of time during which you will only write.

You look at your weekly schedule, determine that you’re a morning person, and decide that you’ll get up extra-early and write for two hours. You assure yourself that this is dedicated time.

However, once you’re sitting in front of your computer, you think it would probably make sense to clear your mind by checking your emails. You’ll only scan the headers and only answer one if it’s essential. Otherwise, you’re not going to get involved in responses.

Or maybe a news site calls you. You’re a responsible citizen who needs to know what’s going on in the world.

Or you’ve been writing for a full half-hour. Don’t you deserve a reward? Why don’t you see what your Facebook friends are up to?

Whichever Internet outlet you choose, the odds are good that the simple checkup will evolve into an extended visit. Time passes in a blur, and you don’t meet your writing goals. In fact, even if you make a brief detour from writing to visit social media, it can take you an average of 23 minutes to refocus on what you were writing.

You might need Freedom.

What is Freedom?

Freedom is a software program with over one million users that allows you to block internet usage selectively.

You can, for example, use it to block Facebook and Twitter from 5 to 7 AM if those are the hours you’ve designated for writing. Freedom is designed so that you can set up any kind of schedule that suits you.

Why Isn’t Will Power Enough?

It is enough for some people, but we’re seeing more and more evidence that social media has effects on our brains that are similar to those of highly addictive drugs. It’s designed to be addictive, and most people aren’t immune to it.

The people who designed Freedom recognize that even setting up a block may not be enough. They have an additional feature that lets you lock yourself out from removing a block. This means that if you’ve set it up to prevent you from accessing Facebook, for example, during your designated times, you’ll be blocked.

You Can Still Go on the Internet

In the past, I’ve tried programs that initiated a total lockout from the Internet. It sounded good in principle, but I found that it prevented me from doing needed research. If you write any kind of nonfiction—and this issue can also come up with fiction—you often need to fact check or look up the meaning of a word to make sure you’re using it correctly.

Freedom allows you to do this. For your part, don’t try to convince yourself that you’ll find the facts you need on Facebook or Twitter.

Pricing

A year’s subscription to Freedom costs $2.50 a month.

On a monthly basis, you pay $7 a month.

The best deal is lifetime access for $130. Obviously, don’t do this until you’ve had a significant test run of the product.

Visit Freedom at https://freedom.to/?rfsn=410732.cca35 for more information.

One of the original 100 C Suite Network Contributors, Pat Iyer is an editor and ghostwriter and the host of Writing to Get Business Podcast. She is working on reducing her time on Facebook and news sites. Connect with Pat at Patiyer.com

 

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

How Good is Grammarly

You’ve probably heard of the editing tool, Grammarly. If you go to its web site, grammarly.com, you will read claims that the app ensures that what you write is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free. It presumably detects grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice, and style mistakes in your writing.

The free version checks spelling and grammar, and from my experience, it does a pretty good job. However, I must note that I did decide to double-check its accuracy by running a document through Word spellcheck, which found a spelling error that Grammarly hadn’t caught.

The paid version checks for readability, compelling language, tone detection, confidence, and other subtle elements. When I use the paid version, Grammarly chides me for too much passive writing. If Grammarly criticizes you, don’t take it personally.

Overblown Claims

Where I part company with Grammarly is in its claims that “anyone can be a great writer” and that “brilliant writing awaits.” These are not comments buried in text; they’re headlines. Folks, I would consider dialing it back.

Some people will never be great writers, and that’s fine. I believe that people who use Grammarly can get a useful education in the technical elements of writing and get to see repeated errors they make. They can then become good or at least competent writers.

Case Histories

In researching this article, I asked two writers their opinions of Grammarly.

The author with whom I spoke trusted the paid version of Grammarly to take care of the grammar part of her writing. She uses it for her blog posts for the sake of finding better words, incorrect tense usage, and passive voice. She then gives the manuscript to her content editor, who will look for flow and related issues. She made it clear that Grammarly does not replace the need for a good editor.

I asked a second author whether he felt that with Word spellchecker and Grammarly he didn’t need an editor.

He said, “Not even close because they’ll help you with some of the overall ideas. And, yes, Grammarly, I love the product. It checks a lot deeper, but you still have to pull out the nitty-gritty meaning and the true intent of your words. Unless you have somebody asking you, ‘Hey, what do you mean by this?’, you’re never going to have crafted your message as well as you could.”

In response, I said, “And I think Grammarly may correct the sentences it sees, but it doesn’t say, “Hey, wait a minute. This doesn’t make sense,” or “You said the same thing on page 32 in Chapter Five, and now you’re saying it again in Chapter Eight.” It won’t pick up that kind of repetition or nonsensical sentences that are correct grammatically.”

He agreed. “It’s the limitations of the tool, and they’re great for ’Okay, I’m writing a quick essay or blog post or something.’ Yeah, I just want to make sure that’s correct, but if I truly want to build something that is going to impact people, keep people involved in it, I need an editor.”

Grammarly is Worth a Try

I would recommend that you play with the free version. If you find that it’s benefitting you, you may or may not want to move on to the paid version. You can try it for a month. If you decide you really like it, you can move on to an annual subscription, which will save money.

Overall, though, my unscientific survey seemed to indicate that for blog posts and similarly short documents, Grammarly is useful. If, however, you have anything longer, you need the human touch.

Visit grammarly.com for more information.

Pat Iyer serves as the safety net for authors by providing professional human editing. Reach her through her website at patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Personal Development

Turning Your Manuscript into a Book

It’s done. You’ve finished the last edit, and your book is now ready for publication.

Except that it isn’t. Whether for ebook or print publication, your manuscript needs to go through some significant computerized transformation.

A number of methods are available to engineer this transformation, too many for this blog post. I will cover five methods, two of which are best for those who intend one or possibly a few books, and two for the person who feels they have loads of books waiting to be written (or who have interest in doing a side business in book design).

The final method is an in-between one.

The One-shot Deal

You can hire a professional book designer who will do both your print edition and ebook layouts. Some designers charge thousands of dollars, and that price is based on a highly complex layout that may have charts, illustrations, and a quantity of other design elements.

If your book has a simpler design, you can go to Fivrr, Upwork, or a similar business, and see the available price ranges.

No matter who you hire, do vet the interior designer. You can judge a book by its interior.

Another approach is to upload a Word document to Kindle Direct Publishing or the appropriately named “Meatgrinder” at Smashwords. Then pray.

I’ve had success at Smashwords, but they have a rulebook for manuscript preparation that will terrify some people. You have been warned.

The Long Haul

Just the word, “Calibre,” will frighten some people almost as much as the Meatgrinder does. It’s a very powerful ebook software program, but many people feel that it’s meant for programmers, not authors. I managed with Meatgrinder, but Calibre mystified me.

Another method is to learn, and I do mean learn, to lay out your book in Adobe InDesign. This desktop publishing app will give you fine-tuned control over your book design. However, you have to invest lots of time and a monthly subscription in a product you might not often use. This is why it’s a long-term investment.

InDesign has a steep learning curve. I found it difficult to use because It Is not Intuitive. A function called one thing In a Microsoft product is called something entirely different in an Adobe product. I do not recommend attempting to learn it unless its use will be a regular part of your job or business.

Vellum

With Vellum, you can format both a print and an ebook version of your manuscript. The cost for this is $249.99. An ebook-only version is $199.99.

That may sound like a lot, but you’re unlikely to pay less to have a book designer format your book. If you have two or three books on your to-do list, you will save. If time to you is money, you’ll save that way, too.

Full disclosure: I have not used Vellum, but I’ve consulted with those who have, and they say that the program is easy to learn and use and that it turns out a nice product.

Caveat: Vellum is for Macs, and the developers of the program have no plans for a PC version. However, a workaround exists. You can buy time on a virtual Mac at a rate of $30 for 30 hours. Even if you add that amount to the purchase price of Vellum, you’re still saving money over hiring a professional.

This link goes further into the use of Vellum by PC owners. https://paulteague.com/how-to-use-vellum-on-a-pc/

Some other pluses of Vellum include the ability to assemble boxed sets of a series, produce advance copies for early feedback, format ebooks for Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and other retail platforms, and a lot more, including a wide choice of book styles.

I consider it worth visiting the Vellum site to read more about its feature. Go to https://vellum.pub.

C Suite executives hire Pat Iyer to help them turn out professionally written and edited books. Contact her through her website at PatIyer.com

Categories
Growth Personal Development

You Can Integrate Work and Home Time When You Write a Book

Have you been longing to write a book and not begun because the project seems too huge? The challenge of finding the time to write stops many would-be authors, but it doesn’t have to stop you.

Many authors write books while managing full-time work and family life. They do it by finding bits of time they can use for writing.

Begin by tracking your time for a week. Make useful categories: work, watching television, on the Internet, reading, exercising, eating, commuting, etc. Be honest about how you spend your time. People often get shocked when they see how much time they spend watching TV or Internet surfing. Instead, you can rejoice that you’ve found the time now available for writing.

Make an Outline

Outlines are essential. They create a framework for your book. People often get lost when they try to include too much material and too many topics in their books. They end up with an unwieldy mess and spend excessive time trying to edit the pile of pages into a reasonable—and readable—number.

When you work, instead, from an outline, you greatly reduce the amount of time it takes to write the book. It’s much easier to revise an outline than a completed book.

If you know someone who is an experienced writer and willing to help, you can show them your outline and get feedback.

How to Use Your Work Time for Writing

I don’t mean by that to write your book when you should be working. You can, however, make notes for a book on your lunch hour. You can look over your outline. If you drive to work, you can dictate ideas to your phone. You can listen to podcasts or books on writing.

Lunchtime is a good time to work on outlining your book or for re-reading things you might want to put in it. These could include blogs or position papers you’ve written.

How to Use Your Home Time for Writing

Take an honest and searching look at the way you use your time. Look for areas where you can cut down. Consider this a time reduction diet. You may need to use the Internet for research, but you will also need to use that time in a disciplined way. Resist the temptation to deviate from your intention to look up information you need for the book.

If you exercise at home, you can also be listening to podcasts or audiobooks about writing.

Time spent watching movies or television with the family may or may not be quality time. If you and the others in your family are vegetating instead of sharing, you may want to either reduce this time or think of introducing family activities that are more meaningful.

You Can Make All Your Time More Meaningful

While the principal advantage of seeing how you spend your time and changing your habits may seem to be that you find time to write, you can also realize the benefit of getting more value from your time in general. This kind of appreciation is something people often realize when they restructure their use of time.

And getting a completed book from this restructuring will provide a great reward.

Pat Iyer has written 49 books – one book at a time. Connect with her to discuss her skills as an editor and ghostwriter. Go to Patiyer.com.

Categories
Entrepreneurship Leadership Personal Development

When Is Your Most Creative Writing Time?

When you work in an office, it’s difficult to map out time for creative thinking or for writing a proposal, blogs, or drawing up a long-term strategy. Interruptions fill your day, whether they come in the form of meetings, phone calls, or people with questions.

Sometimes you must bring your work home. The man or woman who values family life and relationships with a partner or spouse wants to keep this to a minimum. The way to do that is to discover your most effective creative time.

If you work at home, set up a schedule for yourself. Teach your family to respect your work time. Learn to find the best rhythms for your work.

Early Rising Encourages Creativity

Multiple sources that I consulted agreed that science states early mornings are the best times to exercise creativity. Without going into the details of how the brain works, we can see the logic of this.

In the early morning, shortly after you get up, part of your awareness remains in the dream state, which is a source of unlimited creativity. Creativity means finding new connections. Dreams loosen hard-wired connections, thus allowing us to see new ways to organize our thoughts.

Salvador Dali used to take naps with a spoon in his hand and a tin plate beneath his chair. When he became totally relaxed and dropped the spoon, the sound of it falling onto the plate would wake him. He then noted whatever ideas or images that he remembered.

You don’t have to be a world-famous artist to wake up and write down any ideas that come into your mind.

Early morning may also be the quietest time in your home. If you get up an hour before the rest of the family, you’re less likely to be interrupted. That hour can yield greater productivity than longer stretches of time when interruptions are more likely.

Note: If you’re going to adopt this schedule, make sure you go to bed earlier than you did. Chronic lack of sleep does nothing to foster creativity.

Evening Fosters Critical Thinking

One way to see the difference between early morning and evening writing is to think of the differences between the intuitive activity of the right brain and the logic of the left brain. Early morning is right-brain time. In the evening, rational thought processes—which you’ve probably been exercising for most if not all of the day—become dominant.

Evenings are good times to look at your creative ideas with a critical (but not over-critical) awareness. Say to yourself: “This is a great idea. Now, how am I going to bring it into reality?” You make lists, come up with various alternatives, and give your ideas solidity. If you’re working on a writing project, evenings are best for editing. Now you can focus on grammar, punctuation, and spelling. You can see how to tighten up and clarify your ideas so that others will understand them.

Honor the Exceptions

Even though science and logic favor the morning-evening divisions I’ve described, it’s important to make room for those whose brains may be wired differently. Some people don’t fit the mold, and if you’re one of them, don’t try to alter yourself.

Experiment and find the creative pattern that works best for you.

Pat Iyer enjoys writing in the morning and editing in the evening. Businesspeople work with her so they can share their expertise with the world without having to do all the hard work of writing. Connect with Pat to discuss her editing and ghostwriting services. Go to patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Growth Leadership Personal Development

Learn How to Write with Your Children

Homework is part of a child’s life. Not every child needs help in starting and completing it, but every child can benefit from a parent’s encouragement and participation in the homework process. A parent’s interest can make the burden of homework, making it more enjoyable.

Participating in a child’s homework can benefit a parent, too, particularly in the areas of grammar and writing in general. Far too many adults have forgotten the grammar, punctuation, and spelling rules they learned as children.

This forgetfulness can lead to reports, memos, and other writing riddled with errors that detract from their value.

Sharing in a child’s homework can help you to revive your familiarity with these rules.

Set Guidelines

Unfortunately, some parents think the way to help children with their homework is to do it for them. Do not fall into this trap. You and your child will get into trouble if the teacher discovers this practice. Far worse, your children won’t learn to think for themselves, and this is a much higher loss.

Instead, set guidelines at the beginning. Make it clear that you will answer questions, read essays, and reports that the child has written. You will make suggestions and look over the finished writing.

Make It Fun

The odds are that your grade school teacher didn’t do this. Maybe she never taught why commas are necessary or how much difference it makes whether you use it’s or its.

You can demonstrate to your child how a comma adds drama by creating a small pause. Read this sentence aloud:

“When we got to the woods,”—then pause before continuing—“an army of mosquitoes attacked us.”

Reading aloud can also teach a child the value of the Oxford comma.

We laughed,

We danced,

And we said we’d always be best friends.

Hearing how punctuation makes writing sound teaches a child the music of language.

Online References

Grammarly.com compiled a list of the 10 best grammar resources for English language learners. https://www.grammarly.com/blog/10-best-grammar-resources-english-language-learners/

Another good source is Grammar Girls at https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/grammar-girl. Writer’s Digest has frequently named this among the 101 best web sites for writers.

Essays, Book Reviews, and Reports

Do your best to find out well ahead of time if your child has to write one of these. Putting words together to make a point, especially for a younger child, can be challenging. You can help by saying that the first draft can be very rough and add that its quality has nothing to do with the child’s ability to write. (This could be an excellent reminder for you, too.)

You can also encourage the child by asking him to tell you what he wants to say. For a book review, ask him to tell you what it’s about and what he thought of the book. Then have him immediately write down what he said.

Towards the end of the writing process, build on the punctuation lessons by having him read his work aloud. This will not only help him to identify errors but will build on an appreciation of the music of language.

With patience and attention, you and your child can learn together and share a special time.

Help your children with their writing/reports homework. Not only will this provide valuable family time, but you may get to learn the rules of grammar along with your children.

Pat Iyer’s children learned how to write well, in part because she read so many books to them.  Pat loves to write, edit, and ghostwrite. Connect with her at patiyer.com.

Categories
Best Practices Culture Growth Personal Development

Do you Have Trouble Making the Transition from Work to Home?

Try this fast and free method.

Unless you usually work at home, the atmosphere and demands of work versus home are very different. It can be a challenge to make a smooth transition. Some people have a drink to relax. Others watch the news, but neither of these methods addresses the probability that too often when we come home from work, we bring remaining problems and issues with us.

Consider this simple and short writing exercise instead. It serves several purposes.

  1. You can give yourself the freedom to say anything you want.
  2. You can read over what you wrote later on and often see that the issues that troubled you either resolved themselves or weren’t as big as you’d thought.
  3. This no-pressure method can ease you into writing.

How It Works

  1. You can either write by hand or in a text file. Do whichever comes most naturally to you.
  2. Set a time limit for how long you will write. I recommend five minutes. If you find that you want to write longer, do so.
  3. This is freewriting, which means to write freely. Don’t check for errors. Don’t try to write well.
  4. Write without censoring yourself. No one will ever see what you write.
  5. Think of this as unloading. The thoughts that are racing around in your head need to come out of that crowded space and land on the page (physical or electronic).
  6. Don’t judge yourself for the thoughts that emerge. This is crucial.
  7. I usually re-read what I write every two weeks. If you do this, again, ignore typos and other errors. Focus on the essence of what you wrote. See if you have any new insights, and, if you do, write about them.

Why This Has Value

I referred to this process as unloading. This example may make that more clear.

You’ve been sitting at a desk all day, and your back hurts. You might start off writing, “Stupid back. Why do you have to hurt so much?”

Physical pain often reflects mental/emotional issues. You might ask yourself questions.

  • Who is a pain in my back?
  • Who do I feel has been kicking me?
  • Am I wearing a sign that says ‘Kick me’?”

Patience is Helpful

The questions and their answers may not initially come quickly. Once you’ve practiced the five-minute writing exercise for a while, you’ll find that the channel to understanding opens. The more you ask the questions, the more you’re telling yourself, “I want to know; I really do.”

Sometimes it may help, instead of saying,” my stupid back,” to say “my stupid life.” Then you decide what’s stupid about your life. Reminder: Do not judge yourself for your thoughts. Everyone who ever had a thought has had a lot of stupid ones.

Beneath the Garbage Lies Creativity

Although you may not be planning to write a novel or a self-help book or a memoir, five minutes of freewriting can jump-start your ability to work on the project you’ve chosen. This fast exercise, by helping you to give up judgment about your thoughts, will allow a new level of creativity to develop in a way that’s analogous to brainstorming. Thus, it can also enhance your ability in writing associated with your job.

Enroll Your Family in Your Program

Let them know your new plan. Explain that your engagement in five minutes of writing will make you a better and happier parent and spouse. Take it a step further and encourage them to try the five-minute writing, too.

Once you’ve unloaded, then you can relax with your family and turn home time into a time of refreshment and renewal.

Pat Iyer is a ghostwriter and editor who Is one of the original 100 C Suite Network Contributors. Check out her podcast Writing to Get Business on the C Suite Radio Network. And connect with her at patiyer.com.