Seeking Perfection

All writers strive for perfection. Some achieve it easily while others struggle to obtain it. For a writer, perfection can take many forms. For some it takes the form of perfect grammar. For others it takes the form of English usage. And for still others it takes the form of content.

The reading public believes that all writers should practice perfect grammar. People are almost unforgiving in this respect. If a doctor slips up on a diagnosis or treatment, the patient doesn’t go back to him or her and correct them. In fact, most patients probably wouldn’t know if their doctor had made a mistake unless he or she said so or something unusual happened.

But with grammar—that thing that everyone studies in school—it’s different. Everyone either uses good or atrocious grammar. For many who perhaps didn’t finish high school or perhaps stopped their education after graduating, daily grammatical mistakes are forgiven—“They don’t know any better.” If a person is college educated, that forgiveness is less forthcoming—“They should know better.” But for writers, for which grammar is a tool of the trade—“They ought to know better.”

Yes, writers ought to know better, but they’re also human. And in conversation, perhaps in the heat of the moment, they may occasionally make a grammatical mistake.

English usage is right behind grammar. Writers seek to practice correct English usage, but with styles changing every five years or so, it’s hard to keep up with what’s acceptable or not. Readers forget that today’s writing style is vastly different from say that of the early 20th century.

Unfortunately, a lot of writers, stylistically speaking, are still back in the mid-20th century. Some will tell you that’s the way they learned to write in school, and so they continue using outdated English usage. A good example is the use of dashes. Today, readers are more visual, therefore writers use dashes more often to visually separate information from the main body of the text.

Another example is the semi-colon. While businesspeople and academics still hold on to using this form of punctuation, many of today’s writers opt to forgo using semicolons. Instead of joining two thoughts with them, they create two separate sentences whose similar content joins them automatically.

Lastly, writers strive for perfection in their content. Not only should sentences be complete and logical, but thoughts and ideas need to be, also. In a shorter piece, that’s usually not a problem. But when a writer is working on a book, a play, or a screenplay, he or she can lose sight of where they’re going. And if they don’t check for consistency once in a while, they may lose their readers as well.

Perfection for most writers comes during the revising and rewriting process, after they’ve finished writing a piece. But going over and over a piece, constantly revising it, can do more harm than good. Too much revising is as bad as too little. Trying to be too perfect can ruin a good piece of writing.

For many writers, perfection comes after working on many pieces. Each one adds to a writer’s overall sense of perfection. To be a perfectionist too early on can stifle not only a writer’s creativity but his or her ability to write.

So You Want to Write a Blog - Part 2: Positioning for Success

Location, location, location. That’s the mantra of real estate agents. And it should be your mantra as far as your new blog goes. In this case, it’s not where you post the blog----there are numerous free blogging sites that you can use. Instead, it’s how you position your blog among the other blogs in your category.

So before you do anything, you’ll need to do some surfing. No, you don’t need to go put your swimsuit on and get your boogy board ready. But you will need to spend some time surfing the Web for other blogs in the subject category that you’ve chosen. When you find several you like, study them. Don’t just read the latest post, but check back through the archives and find the thread that keeps all of the posts in line with the bloggers goal.

And that brings us to the next step. You’ll need to define your goals for your new blog. What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? What type of blog will it be? (See last week’s post). Are you trying to establish yourself as an expert in your field? Are you trying to promote your business? Or are you blogging for fun and to share your ideas and opinions? Write down your short and long term goals for your blog. What do you aim to gain from it in six months or a year. Then design, write and promote your blog to meet your goals.

What are your target audience’s expectations? The design and content will vary according to your audience. And even before you post another entry, your audience will size up your blog. If you don’t meet its expectations, they’ll move on without a second thought.

Once you begin posting your blog entries, you’ll need to be consistent. Nothing screws up a blog more than when the blogger jumps around and rambles on and on. Your blog represents a specific message and image to your audience. Your blog's design and content should consistently communicate your blog's image and message. Being consistent allows you to meet your audience's expectations and create a secure place for them to return to again and again.

Another stumbling block to gaining a good audience is not regularly updating your blog. If you fail to update regularly, your audience will perceive your blog as a static Web page. Your blog should be anything but static. It should be a vibrant living thing that’s also timely.

To garner a good position for your blog among your audience, it’s imperative that you invite your readers to join in a two-way conversation. Ask them to leave comments. Pose questions from those comments that will solicit more comments. Continue the conversation by leaving comments on other blogs inviting new readers to visit your blog. If you don’t gain loyalty from your audience, then your blog will fail.

Much of your blog's success will depend on how you promote it on the social media networks. Find bloggers in your subject area and comment on their blogs.

Look for enhancements for your blog. There are plenty of plug-ins and features available. But don’t overload your blog with gimmicks. Try holding a contest, for example. It’s a simple way to engage readers. Take the time to research new tools and features, and keep an eye on the latest news from the blogosphere.

Remember, your blog is an extension of yourself. Your loyal readers will keep coming back to hear what you have to say. Inject your personality into your blog and adapt a consistent tone for your posts. People don't read blogs simply to get the news. They could read a newspaper for news reports. Instead, people read blogs to get bloggers' opinions on the news, the world, and more. Don't blog like a reporter. Blog like you're having a conversation with each of your readers.

If you follow the old real estate developer adage, "If you build it, they will come," you’ll surely be disappointed. Sure, some readers will find your blog and read it a few times. Others will stick around for the long haul and read your every post. But developing a successful blog requires hard work by creating compelling content on your blog as well as working outside of your blog to promote it and develop a community around it.

Write as You Talk

Not so long ago, most people viewed writing as a formal activity not related to talking. In the last 20 years, that idea has pretty much gone the way of the trolley car–while there are still some around, most remaining ones can only be found in museums.

In today’s hurry up, chat and text world, many people have dropped their guards when writing, much to the chagrin of many retired English teachers. Besides writing for a living, I also teach others how to write as part of my business. One thing I’m constantly telling my students is to write as they talk.

Today, good writing is conversational writing–writing that reads and sounds like good conversation, only the writer makes it go where he or she wants it to. To get my students started on this road to good communication, I tell them to pretend their reader is sitting across the table from them and then just tell the reader their story–only on paper.

Recently, I’ve gotten to know a local newspaper reporter. During the week, he reports on the humdrum details of our county court system. But on Saturdays, he gets to write a column where he can express himself on whatever he pleases. I got to read one of his columns for the first time last week. He writes in a witty style but seems to want to let everyone know that he is a WRITER by including lots of more sophisticated words than he would ever use in conversation on the same subject.

A few days later, he sent me an E-mail in which he told another story. It had that same wry sense of humor his column had but without all the big words. In other words, he was speaking right to me, the reader, not past me the way a lot of writers think they have to do. And why should writing an E-mail message be any different than say writing an article or a story?

My point is that if more people just wrote as they talked, we’d have much better communication all around.