PREPARING TO HELP ANOTHER GROUP SAY WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

Next week, I embark on a 6-session Beginning Creative Writing workshop series with the Midwest Writing Center. This morning, as I prepared my presentation, I wondered about the people who would courageously embark on the writing journey with me. We have sent information and offered discounts to senior centers and retirement community residents, so I hope there will be some grandparents who will be able to pass on their legacies. But, will they do it through fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction? I'm anxious to find out.

The goal of the first session on March 12th is just to encourage them and get them writing. We'll talk about getting into a writing routine and making time to write, even making writing appointments with ourselves. I plan a listing exercise so when they do sit down to write, they will never be at a loss for what to write about. We'll end by talking about free writing, doing a timed free write of our own so they can walk away, already, with words in print.

After that will depend on the group dynamics and what they want to write about. Whatever it ends up being, my goal is, at the end of the series when it wraps up in May, they will have at least started to say what they want to say, whatever that may be.

Happy Writing!
-the Wordsy Woman

OLYMPIAD WRITING

I've been watching the Olympics the last couple of weeks. I'm usually not even interested in many of the sports, but I find myself watching anyway as it is something different from HGTV and old sitcom reruns. Also recently, I've been working on my mind - my thoughts, beliefs, self esteem, and confidence. I've always heard that an Olympian's success is as much of a result of his or her mindset as it is physical ability, but it didn't solidify until watching the Olympics.

Though I would never put myself on the same level as an Olympian, certainly not physically, and not even mentally, my process as a writer is not totally different. Part of writing well involves having pre-contest rituals - drinking a cup of coffee, taking a walk, reading through research, or breathing deep. I see the Olympic competitors performing their own pre-competition rituals.

A big part, for me, is confidence. When you write pages and pages to get a few paragraphs of something decent, your confidence can be shaken. When Olympians fall or miss their landings, even though they may have done the same thing successfully hundreds or thousands of times, their confidence can be dented. So it's important to be able to remind myself I've written successfully in the past and one (or more) miss-steps don't mean my writing will never be good again.

Finally, another similarity is simply not thinking about it too much. Before competitions, Olympians jump around in the locker room to stay loose or listen to music in headphones to try to distract themselves from the impending performance. Often, they avoid watching their competitors or seeing the scores. They concentrate only on themselves and what they have to do, not even thinking about the scores or outcome. I try to do this with my writing as well. Although I read others' work for inspiration and instruction, I certainly don't copy them and I try not to compare the quality of my writing with theirs. I simply attempt to do the best job I can do, turn it in, and hope for the best.

And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll get that writing gold!

Happy Writing - And May All of Your Words be Golden...
The Wordsy Woman

STRATEGIC FOCUS

As part of my MBA program, I'm taking a competitive strategy class online (which is awesome - class in my jammies!) We've been talking a lot about a company's mission and vision as it relates to strategy. Most (I believe) of my classmates work for large companies, totally unlike my little, one person writing and editing business. So our perspectives are different - which is actually great for the class because it gives me a way to contribute.

But because my business is just me, everything we talk about is more personal for me. My company's vision is my vision; my company's mission is my mission; and my company's strategy is my strategy. We are intertwined. I'm thinking that this is an ideal situation even for large companies - to have each employee's personal vision, mission, and strategy aligned with the company's. If an employee follows his personal mission to achieve his vision according to his personal strategy, and that is intertwined and aligned with the company's, it can do nothing else but help that company excel.

What is challenging for me in this whole strategic mission and vision process is focus. Sometimes I have so many ideas about how to operate and promote my business that I get distracted. The first step, of course, is to align everything I do with my vision and mission. My mission is to help people say what they want to say and my vision is when someone needs writing or editing services, they will think, “Get that Wordsy Woman!” and hire me. Helping people say what they want to say is the bar against which I compare everything I do; if it helps people say what they want to say, I consider it, if it doesn’t, I dismiss it.

This doesn’t eliminate everything, however, and I realized recently even more focus is needed, so I’ve decided that other than serving my current and future paying clients, I will choose three additional projects to work on over the next three months. I’m still getting ideas, but I’m writing them down in a notebook to evaluate at the end of the three months. This way, I can have enough focus to follow the strategies I’ve chosen, but I won’t lose any new ideas. 

Happy strategizing!

-The Wordsy Woman

ZIPPING INTO THE FUTURE

I have long been amazed at our shrinking world due to the the expansion of technology and am proud to say I've finally started to take full advantage of it. And my new found experience has made me start to imagine all sorts of possibilities.

I come from the olden days - before Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; before Skype; before cell phones (before cordless phones, even); before the Internet; even before personal computers! When I was a kid, I always enjoyed hearing the stories from my mom and aunts about how it was "back in the olden days." These were stories about things like color TVs, tacos, seat belts, and even garbage bags. Now, I find myself repeating these types of stories to my kids:

"Back in the day, if we wanted to communicate with someone, we either had to put on our shoes and walk to the person's house, or we had to be tethered to the wall and call them on the telephone."

Now, this past week, I've Skyped with someone near London, England, from here in the Midwest. It worked great; I could see her and hear her. We had a lovely chat. I also started my first on-line class with an actual virtual class meeting period and collaborated on a group project. Most of us were in Iowa because the class is offered by the University of Iowa. However, some people were not logging in from Iowa, but were as far away as Brazil. And except for some growing pains with software and echoes, it worked almost seamlessly.

So this has got me to thinking about where my business could go. As I get more comfortable with this technology, I don't have to restrict myself with just emailing non-local clients but I could actually have a "face-to-face" meeting.

I also wonder what my kids will be telling their kids:

"I remember back in my day, we could only see the person's face and hear his voice through speakers or headphones when we had a virtual meeting. We couldn't reach through the screen and shake his hand!"

Maybe????....

Happy Imagining,
-the Wordsy Woman

HAPPY 2014!

We are already more than a week into the new year. My husband I were reminiscing last week about New Year's Eve 1999. Remember Y2K? The whole world was going to end, our computers would crash, and technology would launch into a tailspin thinking it was 1900. Oh, how far we've come!

Now, not only do we have computers, but we've moved past a toddling dial-up Internet connection to computers we can hold in our hands and getting our Internet from the clouds. And we don't realize how dependent we've become on them until they are not there anymore. Tuesday morning, as I usually do, I came down to my kitchen, started my coffee, and pulled my iPhone off the charger to see what emails had come in overnight.

I was met with the black screen of death. I have an iPad through which I can text over Wi-Fi, a computer with all of the capabilities of my phone except the talking part, and a land line phone, but I paid extra to get my warranty replacement overnight, because I'm still dependent on that thing. Because it does EVERYTHING! And I can pull it out of my purse to do EVERYTHING literally ANYWHERE!

In 14 years, cyber innovators have brought us Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and a whole host of other social networking opportunities. We can now more easily get a college degree from the comfort of our homes, see and talk to people around the globe, and carry an entire library in our backpacks. The world has opened up to more opportunities to communicate with not only clients and customers, but the entire universe. It's an exciting time and interesting to think of what may be in store in the next 14 years.

Here's to a prosperous say-what-you-want-to-say 2014!
-The Wordsy Woman

ORGANIZATION - CAN IT REALLY BE A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?

I think it is really sad, but I believe one of my competitive advantages is being organized. It seems like organization is out-of-style. People are on their cell phones, texting, tweeting, and multitasking with no real purpose, they are distracted and unorganized.

Teaching, at whatever level, is a profession which requires a high level of organization, in my opinion. The best classes I've taken -- and I've taken my fair share -- have been those where the class has been well-organized. The topic of the class hasn't even mattered that much. One of my best classes was Business Analytics (i.e. Statistics) because the instructor was organized. He laid out everything at the beginning and I knew what to expect. This allowed me to organize my school work to complete everything well and timely.

The worst classes I've taken in my current MBA program were those in which the instructors were unorganized. I'm finishing up one right now and it is driving me absolutely insane. These instructors changed the syllabus several times and didn't do what they said they were going to do. I've even had high hopes because the class topic was very interesting to me - but it was ruined by a poorly organized instructor.

Deadlines and appointment times seem like merely suggestions to a lot of people. To me, a deadline is a deadline; I either meet or exceed it. People complain about being soooo busy -- almost like that is their excuse for being unorganized -- but I'm busy, too. Just because I make better choices about how I spend my time and organize my time better doesn't mean I'm not busy. In my business, I take jobs I can complete and I don't over-extend myself. I organize my time so I can complete projects to the best of my ability, on time, and on budget. In my view, these should be givens, but with what I witness, they are sadly becoming things I offer that many others don't.

Happy Holidays! And here's to an organized 2014!
-The Wordsy Woman

THE WORD OF THE DAY

Whenever I meet with my novel critique partner, I'm always interested to see what my word of the day will be. Usually, it's a small word like "just," "up," or "down," modifiers that don't really mean anything and can be redundant. If one is looking at the sky, how else would it be besides up?

Though the word of the day comes up every time I write a chunk of novel, it can also creep into writing other pieces longer than a couple of pages like articles or web FAQ pages. I'm taking an international marketing class in my MBA program and, in addition to a handful of typos, I've noticed the author is enamored with the word ubiquitous. This word sticks out even more because it's not a word frequently used in conversation. 

I'm not sure of the reason people fall back on the "word of the day." I think I just get it in my head or I get tired. But the fact is, it happens, and should be dealt with in editing because it can make your writing appear redundant or simply boring. 

And if you can't catch them in your own writing (like me), have someone else read your piece and mark repeated words appearing close together. If the words create redundancy such as "just" or "up" do, delete them. If they are important, try to think of a different word to use. For example, sometimes you don't need to repeat the noun subject of a sentence and can use "it" in place of one.

Paying attention to these "words of the day" can keep your writing fresh and interesting for your readers.

Happy editing!

-The Wordsy Woman