HOW I WRITE ... ESSAYS

Essays are usually not regarded as the most exciting of writing exercises. They are usually about boring topics and are used in academics. When I think of essays, I usually think "essay tests" which are not fun for anyone. However, if you follow a basic structure, you can write an essay on almost anything. Make sure to include an interesting introductory paragraph, logical middle using three points, and a concluding paragraph ending with an idea that will stick int he reader's mind.

The introductory paragraph should set up your essay topic and lay out the three main points you will include in the middle. Avoid saying anything like, "this essay will talk about," or "I will address three points of," because that is boring. Try to introduce your three main points in a natural and conversational manner.

A basic, typical essay contains three middle paragraphs that address three main points regarding your overall topic. This seems to be the universal construction; speech givers recommend sticking to three main points in the middle of speeches as well. Make your three points specific and related. Use good transitions to make sure the first paragraph flows logically into the second, the second the third, and the third into the conclusion.

Once you've written your introduction and your middle, you are ready to write your conclusion. Recap what was contained in the body of your piece while avoiding saying anything like, "we've just discussed," or "I've just covered." Figure out a way to tie everything back together to reinforce how your three points relate to each other and to the main topic. Finally, use a point of irony or humor or some interesting fact to end your conclusion in an effort to make the essay stick in the reader's mind.

Numerous references have been written on the topic of writing essays for a variety of applications. Hopefully I have provided a general basic overview to get you started the next time you need to write an essay. And, perhaps, like it did me, it will help you to score in the 91st percentile on the essay portion of your GMAT.

HOW I WRITE ... NOVELS

I have two completed novel manuscripts and one in progress, my process for writing which have similarities and differences.

First, I think of an idea. It is just a tiny speck of thought with no development or detail. My first manuscript's idea extended from the job I had at the time as a paralegal. At first, I had the idea to write a story around a U.S. Supreme Court case supposing it was decided the opposite of what it was. So I found interesting court cases on the Internet and read books about famous Supreme Court cases. Eventually, I settled on a story about a teenage attorney.

The idea for my second novel, Missing Emily: Croatian Life Letters, came to me after meeting my friend from Croatia. In June of 1991 when civil war broke out in her country, I had just finished my junior year of high school; my baby cousin had died about 1 1/2 years before; and my boyfriend, a foreign exchange student, returned home and didn't write to me like he said he would. And I was so wrapped up in my own problems, I had no idea that there were children, like my friend, living through civil war, awake at night afraid someone would break in to slit their throats in their sleep. I thought about what might have happened if my friend and I had contact during that time. The idea was born.

My current novel takes place in 1860 - 1861 in Camanche, Iowa, where I grew up. A tornado ripped through the town on June 3, 1860, which, legend has it, prevented the town from growing larger than the neighboring and currently largest city in the county, Clinton. For this book, I chose the setting and time frame and then worked to build a story around that.

I love to research and did so for all three of my books, though less on the first one when I just looked up court cases to find a realistic one to base the story around. For Missing Emily and my current work, I performed extensive historical research. Missing Emily's involved several conversations with my friend, books, newspaper articles, and documentaries on the breakup of Yugoslavia. For my current book, I researched newspaper articles about the tornado and then books about the civil war, Iowa and Clinton/Camanche history, and life in the 1800s in general. Even as I write the book, I'm researching by reading novels written either in or about that time period, the civil war, and other young adult historical novels.

I had an outline for my first book; I developed the characters as I went along. I performed more character sketching for my two most recent books by writing character profiles, descriptions, and thinking about their personalities. I had a difficult time outlining Missing Emily; it was hard to invent a way to tell both of their stories using just correspondence while still showing rather than telling. I went back and forth with it and then finally threw out my outline and just plowed through it. I am working from a bare-bones outline for my current book. For all of my books, I've known generally where I wanted the story to go and how I wanted it to end but had varying difficulty figuring out how to do it.

I type my novels directly into the computer, saving backups of backups and emailing the partial manuscripts to myself to serve as an additional backup. Though it takes me longer than I would like, I strive to just get the whole story out and then go back to add to it, fill in any holes, and revise. If I think of a question while I'm writing, I make a note to myself and move on. I have a critique partner for my current book and have participated in some additional feedback sessions but I am still just striving to get the story down. When I'm done, I'll go back, gather all of the comments and suggestions and incorporate them into the manuscript.

So that is how I've written my past and current novels. My future novels may or may not follow the same formula.

Any questions, suggestions, or tips? Feel free to leave them as a comment.

Thanks for reading,
The Wordsy Woman

HOW I WRITE ... POETRY

I never usually sit down and tell myself, "Okay, time to write some poetry." My poems usually come to me while I'm writing in my journal. I'll be writing away about mundane, every day life things and a poem will just come out in the process. Sometimes, as I'm writing my stream of consciousness, rambling writing, there will be a sentence or two, or even a few phrases, that I'll take and use to create poem.

Many of my poems are about tiny moments. They are something that just struck me as interesting so I wrote about them in as much detail as I possible could, and then I massaged the words into a poem. These are things like fog swirling over the Mississippi River on a February morning driving over the crest of a hill toward the water, the sheet of water from a sprinkler cascading over a green electrical box, or abandoned toys and roller skates in suburban yards on an early Sunday evening. I just notice them and write about them.

Some of my poems are seemingly random words that pop into my head. I just listen to the words flying through my mind and write them down. Many times I don't even know what the poem is about or, sometimes, that it will even be a poem. There have been several occasions where I'll re-read a set of lines I thought I just wrote randomly and think, "Hey, that's about..." I wrote a poem I entitled "Apology" this way.

My poems are mostly free verse. I don't follow any particular forms. Some of them rhyme and some of them don't; some of them partially rhyme and some don't rhyme at all. If a rhyming part comes to me, I include it but I don't force rhymes onto my poems. Most of my poetry is easy to understand and accessible, especially those in my book, Crush and Other Love Poems for Girls. There will be a few more abstract poems in my upcoming collection by 918Studio, The Other Side of Crazy, but even they are not terribly abstract.

As far as revising my poems, it's a matter of paring down. I cut any unnecessary or redundant words and tighten things up. I will count lines and syllables to see how close they are from stanza to stanza; if they are close, I'll revise to make them match as much as possible because I like symmetry. But, if they're too far apart, I just leave it as a free-wheeling, asymmetrical poem. Finally, I read them out loud to see how they sound to my ear and feel their rhythms.

Unlike articles or outlined novels, poems feel more elusive to me. They are something I catch like butterflies rather than sit down and produce.

Happy Writing!
-The Wordsy Woman

HOW I WRITE PREVIEW

It has occurred to me that though how people approach writing various subjects, genres, and, for lack of a better word, things, has similarities, it also has differences. So the next several weeks, I will be blogging about how I approach and "do" the things I write.

This is what I have in mind:

• Website copy writing
• Essays
• Poetry
• Novels
• Personal narrative or memoir
• Articles
• Blogs
• Social media posts
• Emails
• Journals

Today I'll talk a bit about how I approach my writing practice. I would love to say that I wake up every morning at five a.m., get right to writing, and have dozens of brilliant pages of copy by ten a.m. But, alas, that is not true. When I was working on one novel, I did get up an average of four mornings each week at 6:30 a.m. and wrote for a couple of hours before having to go to my at-the-time out-of-the-house job, but I did it reluctantly. Most mornings the only thing that motivated me to get out of bed was the thought of my rotting, pre-programmed coffee.

Nowadays, between taking graduate classes, doing volunteer work for Midwest Writing Center, and carting kids, I am a full-time writer. Though I am a full-time writer now, I'm always intending to spend more time actually writing. With a couple of recent regularly paying gigs, that is happening to a degree. As far as my writing practice, I really have no set schedule and no set routine.

I keep a three week spreadsheet of my days broken down into two hour blocks from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. that I fill in with my planned activities. This helps me to meet my deadlines and fit everything I want or need to accomplish into my schedule. It is a fluid and flexible plan so I probably never follow it exactly, but I know if I get groceries when I was scheduled to work on my blog, I'd better swap somewhere. I also keep a calendar with specific lists of tasks to complete in the week; I go by the week since my aforementioned general schedule changes so frequently.

Whether I write long hand with pen and paper or on the computer varies by what I'm working on. Generally, though, I type anything concrete I'm writing like an article but will go long hand for poetry and journal writing. I probably do write every day but not creatively and not always in the project where I want to be, but it is a process and work in progress. That's one of the great things about writing; if it doesn't work one way, you try something else.

Happy writing. I hope you enjoy my upcoming posts!

-The Wordsy Woman