On 15 Jul 98, Tamra R. Heathershaw-Hart wrote:
> So, instead of looking at the whole
> book and getting scared, think of it in smaller chunks. Does writing one
> topic scare you? If not, then just keep writing one topic after another
> until you get the whole thing done.
Yes, this is good advice certainly.
I think a creative trap a lot of first-time authors fall into is to approach
the project with an exaggerated awareness of the fact, "My god, I have
to write a BOOK. Not just an article or a report or a breezy e-mail to a
list, but an honest-to-god BOOK with an ISBN number and footnotes and
chapters and, and... wit and insight and pictures and... jeez, all that
stuff." And then they get bogged down in all the trivial logistics of outline
structures, page lay-out and whatnot.
Well, not so trivial I suppose, but the point is that the fine-tuning and
"bookifying" comes later; your immediate goal is to simply spill your ever-
so-knowledgeable guts onto paper. You have editors to help you organize
what you've written, to excise the wordy bits and ensure that the folks at
the Chicago Style Manual won't raise aghast eyebrows at what you've
produced; your main job is to explain what you know in a clear, logical
way.
I was an essay tutor at university several aeons ago, and used to address
this syndrome with students utterly daunted at the prospect of writing a
formal 5,000-word paper for the first time. I would use a sort of modified
Socratic method, a process of questioning and refining their thoughts,
until they could see for themselves that they well understood the topic
and could explain it quite adequately in plain oral English -- thence they
could take the words they had spoken and write them down. They
weren't writing an ESSAY per se, they were just explaining a topic that
they already had a good understanding of. It became more manageable
this way, less intimidating.
Another useful device in writing a good instructional book is to have a
specific reader constantly in your mind's eye. Sketch him out before you
start writing: how big a vocabulary does he have, what education, how
much does he know about my topic? As you write, think "Does this
paragraph condescend to him, or does it lose him, or does it give just
enough information for him to understand what I'm explaining?"
Simply sit down and write and write and write, spill everything you know
about the topic with this imaginary reader hovering by your shoulder. The
cleaning up and window-dressing comes later, and you'll have help.
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Brent Eades, Almonte, Ontario
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Town of Almonte site: http://www.almonte.com/
Business site: http://www.federalweb.com
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