Excuses, excuses, excuses--Writers, get back to work!

When a writer pushes his laptop away from him and sighs and sighs, you know immediately that he’s suffering from something. Could it be lack of imagination, the right idea just not germinating in his mind or is it plain laziness?

Lack of imagination: Not always is it plain laziness. Often, you might want to write, but what? That’s what remains elusive to some, particularly newbie, writers. The prescription to this malady is often to look at the same object or title differently, or to take a walk around the block or to write on anything, just anything. But what is anything?

The solution: Years ago, when I forayed into children’s writing, I developed a way out of this problem. When I sat at my desktop, fingers on the keyboard, I randomly tapped any one letter on the keyboard. That letter would then be the first letter of the first word of my story. It worked very well, even when I tapped ‘X.’ All it meant that the first word would be X’mas or Xavier. So, writers can’t sit away from work and expect the idea to come home to them, they’ve got to find innovative ways of finding their own solution.

Writer’s block: One often hears of writers complaining of writer’s block. Literally, it means a temporary inability to write, chiefly because of entering a mentally barren phase—no idea, nothing to say. You know that as a writer you get stuck at some point. So, what do you do? The easiest way out would be to narrate your story to someone and pick their brains. Somewhere in what they say lies your solution. Try it.

Writer’s cramp: This is also referred to as mogigraphia or scrivener's palsy because it causes a cramp or spasm in the hand or fingers and prevents one from writing. So, this is a real problem whose solution lies in reducing the amount of writing you do and taking medical treatment such as TENS. And, you could also do yoga, stretches or physiotherapy. Then, pick yourself up and move on. You’ve got a whole lot of writing to do!!

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: This problem also relates to too much pressure on the wrists, but is highly curable too. Surgery is one option to treat this problem, or you could have your arm tied in a splint at night. Alternatively, don’t use your bad hand, or take frequent breaks, massage your wrists or take painkillers.
Frozen shoulder: Here, you suffer from pain and numbness in the shoulder. The pain could radiate down to the fingers. You should get into a regular exercise schedule for this and within some time, you’re sure to find relief.

Finger and thumb arthritis: This happens when the joint surfaces are eroded. Finger and thumb arthritis is very common because each hand has 27 bones whose joint surfaces are eroded. When this occurs, our normal activities are no longer possible. We suffer from pain, stiffness and numbness in the area. But this is no the end of the world, writers. By eating a balanced diet, exercising, massaging your hands and not smoking or drinking, you can overcome this problem.

So, what are you waiting for? Pull your laptop closer to you and get down to work. Words, ideas and images should spill out onto your page now. Get going!!

Write a good article—the basics

Never imagine that you can sit at your computer and within a short span of time, produce an article for the Web that everyone’s going to love. Wrong! Absolutely wrong!! This is so wrong because no matter how experienced or inexperienced a writer you are, it is extremely difficult to organize your thoughts and write almost simultaneously. And if your grammar is so shaky that you have to worry about it before committing it to paper, then worrying is not going to get the best article out of you. Far from it.
But thankfully, there are ways of circumventing the problem. Here are some of them:

Organize your thoughts before you write. Arrange your material before you get down to writing so that your flow of thought is smooth and you know the order in which you’re going to present your article. To do this, you need to write an outline—the bare bones of your article.
Present information your reader can use. Since readers on the Web use it to find information they can use, it makes sense to make your articles user-oriented. Your information should be specific rather than general so that your readers can act on the information you provide.
If you have a site, ensure that its purpose is known. Let your readers know the purpose of your site. If they cannot fathom this out, they will move on to another site.
Write, rewrite and rewrite! Do this until you’re sure you’ve turned out a good article. Good article writing doesn’t happen the first time you write—it’s a process that evolves with time and sincere practice. Once you put your first thoughts down on paper, you will find that you can improve them if you try. So, give yourself enough time to rewrite and improve your pieces so that what you finally put up on the Web is something worth reading.
Personalize your writings. If you personalize your writings—i.e. use “I” or “we” it makes for a more conversational style and people take to it better simply because you come across as a friendly sort of person. This makes your piece more readable.
Spread the word around. Ask your friends and family to read your published works. However, don’t let them wait till you’re a much better writer than you are today. Why? So that they can suggest changes that might just improve the quality of your writing. Allow them to comment on your writing style, your ideas, presentation style or any other aspects. And be bold enough to accept the changes they suggest.
These apart, online readers are known to not spend chunks of time on a particular site but move on quickly if an article or site doesn’t grab them. Usually, they scan a page, read quickly across a page, and then scroll down quickly before moving on. To avoid this happening to you, do the following:
Start with an impressive headline—one that provides benefits to the reader.
Have short subheads, each comprising not more than 100 words.
Make a bulleted list of important points that the reader can see at a glance.
Put important phrases or words in bold.
Leave one space between paragraphs for a neat look.
Have simple paragraphs with each one explaining one thought.