Business Writing, Period. is a counter-intuitive book. It will tell you to do things that fly in the face of most anything you’ve been told about writing before. It will make suggestions that sound improbable, but that will make the process of writing easier than you ever dreamed it could be.
Those who profit from this book are writers who are willing to
• Suspend their disbelief
• Look and sound imperfect on paper
• Take chances
• Enjoy writing
All others should proceed with caution.
"Contrary to what you learned in the academic world, writing is not painful, torturous, backbreaking work. It doesn’t have to do with “impressive” or complicated sentences. It’s not even something you have to think about very hard. I know this is sacrilegious, but, trust me, writing is as easy as talking--when you know how to do it.
So, let’s take a look at some of the reasons you might think writing’s hard and turn those old ideas around so you don’t sit down at your screen with three strikes against you.
Reason #1: Your sixth grade teacher was very strict.
She insisted on perfect spelling, perfect organization and perfect punctuation from the minute your pen hit the paper. There were no cross-outs allowed. Your handwriting had to be neat and you had to stick in all the difficult vocabulary words you covered in class that week.
CONCEPT: Your sixth grade teacher was WRONG.
Reason # 2: College texts suggested detailed outlines.
Good writers agree that good writing needs a plan, but forcing yourself to go from A to B to C (before warming up your brain) is counter productive. The reason trying to make a detailed list from the minute you sit down at your screen doesn’t work is – the part of your brain that creates writing doesn’t ever follow a logical order.
CONCEPT: Rigid outlines don’t work.
Reason #3: You want to start with the perfect fact, word, phrase or sentence.
The problem here is the time it takes anyone to turn up the perfect word, fact, phrase or sentence. Usually that perfect whatever it is turns up around paragraph three, but you have to be writing to find it. Most people start writing, stop, cross out, and then start again. In the old days all this method was good for was creating a room full of crumpled paper. Now all it creates is a mostly blank screen. Waiting for the perfect beginning produces frustration, not writing. All “trying for perfection” does is cause trouble.
CONCEPT: There is no perfect start."
