As promised, here are the headlines for the most absurd press releases sent to my blog in the last month plus the PR companies behind them.

I can see no reason at all why these PR companies would want to target ME with these stories.

I’m pretty sure that all the PR companies concerned are billing their clients for their ‘blog outreach’ campaign. What a waste.

• Precise picture of early Universe supports "dark matter" theory (Spring O’Brien)
• Disney FamilyFun Announces Toy of the Year Award Winners (Rosen Group PR)
• Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet TOP SEARCH on Google This Week (5W Public Relations)
• SimpliFi helps consumers avoid the holiday financial hangover (Atomic PR)
• Tips to keep legs looking good, cold weather strategy!!! (5W Public Relations) Note that the three exclamation marks are from the original.
• Maria Shriver has Cell Phone Driving Mishap – Tips to Help Break the Habit (5W Public Relations)
• Ready to go tips for a fun and healthy Halloween! (5W Public Relations)
• Top students choosing college based on "values," not cost (Lipman Hearne)
• Dynamic law firm, Spring Law, unveils innovative business Model (Singleton PR) Note that the capitalisation of ‘Model’ is from the original.
• Five Best Halloween Weekend Getaways by Travel-Ticker.com (Atomic PR)
• Ways to keep your children healthy and happy (5W Public Relations)
• Best Kid Friendly Hotels in Hawaii (Oahu, Kauai & Maui) (5W Public Relations)
• PLAYMOBIL:  THE SECRET OF PIRATE ISLAND on DVD (Jane Ayer PR) Note that shouting capitalisation is also from the original.

And my particular favourite:

• Is there a place for "murder-boarding" in American business? New book says definitely yes (Newman Communications)

I am interested in writing, communications, technology and business. On my other blog, Golf Hotel Whiskey, I’ll look at anything related to space and aviation. I’d love to hear from PR companies that have something interesting to say on these topics. So are my readers. C’mon PR companies, you can do better than this.

I am the proud owner of a large number of tiny, defunct computers. For example, I have a working HP 95LX handheld that runs DOS, a Toshiba Libretto 70CT which only a tiny-fingered Japanese schoolgirl could type on and an OQO Model 01+ which is as tiny as it is noisy and slow. Each one is a testament to my belief that if I could only find the right portable, my life might be beautiful.

Well, I think I might have got it. The Sony Vaio P11Z is everything I’m looking for:

• Very small and light. It weighs less than half a kilo which means it’s easier to carry round than a Jeffrey Archer novel (and less embarrassing). It’s also tiny.
• Full size keyboard. Almost. I can touch type on it. In fact, I’m writing this review on it. On a train to Chiswick.
• Runs Windows. I can run all my usual software: Word, Outlook, Skype, Firefox and Windows Live Writer. I installed Windows 7 as well. It’s so much better than Vista that I was prepared to sacrifice some of the Sony software to get it.
• Lots of cool techy stuff. It has a webcam, built-in 3G data connection (you have to have a SIM and contract), Wireless-N networking, GPS sat nav and a cool Linux-based instant boot feature. Not all of this works in Windows 7, but that’s the kind of challenge I like.
• Big screen. It’s very, very wide and ultra-high resolution for the size but a bit un-tall. By making the Windows fonts bigger and zooming in the text in Word, I can edit documents very easily.
• Cheap. I bought it at the airport for £550, including VAT but Sony have a mail-in rebate for £150 so the actual cost is £400. Since I can claim the VAT back and it’s a business expense, it really costs less than a proper meal out with my wife. (Sorry Aileen!)

I think this could be a fantastic way for me to write during the ‘dead times’ when I’m travelling on trains and planes or when I would normally leave my lovely, but heavy, HP 2510p at home. Highly recommended.

I’m studying Dutch. It’s my father’s language but I never learned it as a child and now I’m trying to go back to my roots. I just got back from a four day trip to Amsterdam and 16 hours of intensive one-to-one training. It made me think about how learning another language has helped me write English better.

1. Remember simple words. When you start learning another language you have to focus on the basic words first. Everyday words, such as get, use, give and take, are the most important and easiest to understand. This means that they are also the easiest for people to read. Learning Dutch has taught me a new respect for these direct words.
2. Write for everyone. My teachers have to use the basic words and familiar sentence structures to talk to me but when I read the Dutch papers they are full of specialist words and complicated sentence structures. They are much harder for me to understand. Writing for everyone means writing in a way that everyone can understand; not clever talk for insiders. It doesn’t mean dumbing down but even people with degrees in English literature from Oxford University don’t have time to waste on over-complex writing.
3. Tell a story. In Dutch many of my sentences begin with ‘toen ik’ (‘When I…’) and they are the beginning of a story. Human beings are story-telling animals and, even in technical or business writing, stories are important. Writing needs development, progress and careful control of suspense. But all this easy to forget that so learning another is a helpful reminder.
4. Be a beginner. While I was in Amsterdam, my teacher took her first Russian lesson. I asked her why and she said that she hoped it would make her a better teacher. Remembering the experience of being a beginner – of coming to something new for the first time – is scary and humbling. But it is also exciting because of all the possibilities that exist. I think the best writing has this sense of excitement. It takes nothing for granted. It brings to mind Shunryu Suzuki’s observation that “in the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
5. Respect your teacher. When I learned to fly, I found it very hard to take lessons. I was then the boss of quite a big company and I was used to being the ‘big man’. But over time, I learned that having a teacher wasn’t humbling but ennobling. It’s the same with Dutch. I like my teachers (in the UK, Fen Dohmen and in Amsterdam teachers from the University of Amsterdam – UVA Talen) and I think that I learn more than Dutch from them. So when it comes to writing, perhaps I need to adopt the same attitude by reading what other people have said about writing. (I like Writing to Deadline a lot.) I learned a lot from Matthew Rock, my editor when I wrote for Real Business and from other editors at Wired, Popular Science and other magazines. I sort of miss that input now I’m on the marketing side.
6. Continuous improvement. Sometimes I’m depressed by the fact that I’m not fluent yet but I get a bit better with every lesson and with every visit to Holland. Doing is as important as learning. This is also true of writing. I’m a better writer today than I was five years ago and I hope I can keep improving.
7. Regular effort. The secret to continuous improvement is regular (daily) effort. I’m not sure you can really call yourself a writer if you don’t write every day, for example.
8. Get a new perspective. The Dutch languages plays around with my expectations of how sentences should fit together and how grammar works. For example, it’s much more common to use the present tense when you would use the future tense in English. I have to stop myself writing that way but the new perspective forces me to think harder about forms and structures that I take for granted. This thinking is the antidote to clichés.
9. Recognise roadblocks for what they are. When I don’t know a word in Dutch I have to try to talk my way around it. It’s the same with writing. If there isn’t an obvious way to say something, I have to find some other way to make the point. The problem is that getting around a roadblock this way often makes me write lazy prose. I use the passive voice or write clunky things like ‘that means…’. Learning another language makes it easier to think about these roadblocks and that is the first step finding new ways to get around them without clichés.
10. Don’t be shy. Just open the door. It’s difficult sometimes to write. Perhaps you feel a bit shy or nervous. Sometimes, my self-censor stops saying anything. It’s just the same with speaking another language. Just open the door and go through. Open de deur en ga door!

Ik ga in Amsterdam van maandag 5 oktober tot en met donderdag 8 oktober om enkele Nederlandse lessen te hebben en ook de taal te oefenen. Als u wilt ontmoeten en praten nederlands met me, ik zal de drankjes kopen. Stuur me een e-mail!

Thanks to the success of this blog, I now get press releases from PR firms.

A few are useful, such as announcements of books in my field or writing tools or people I might like to talk to. (For instance, myWriterTools who pinged me earlier this year or the folk at MindJet who sent a very thoughtful email asking me to look at their product or HP – a client – who set me up with an interview with their CTO).

Sadly, the vast majority are completely pointless and a waste of their clients’ money. Here are some of the problems:

• Irrelevant. Products that have nothing to do with the subject of my blog. Today, for example, I got a press release from KMR Communications in New York for Le Baby hair gel. Yes, hair products for children. This is almost a daily occurrence now. Please look at my blog before you pitch me something.
• False promises. A PR firm working for Roger Connors and Tom Smith, authors of How did that happen? offered a guest post about accountability for my blog. I rarely do guest posts but the book sounded interesting and the offer seemed sincere so I explained a bit about my blog and audience and gave them some suggestions for an article. What they sent me (about three weeks later) was a generic piece that had been published on dozens of sites. Either don’t offer a guest post or do it properly.
• Unrealistic expectations. Occasionally I rant about companies or products that let me down in some way. OB10 being the most notable example. PR companies monitor blogs for adverse comments and often respond very quickly to them. This is nice – I’m open to discussion and feedback and, yes, even correction. But having put things right, don’t then ask me to delete the blog post. That’s not how it works it. In the case of OB10, I did add a postscript saying that my particular problem had been fixed.
• Nothing to offer. The majority of PR pitches I get as a blogger give me nothing I can use. No demos, no high-level interviews, no fabulous gifts or freebies. (Guy Kawasaki got an Audi R8 for a week!) They just send their announcements and press releases and hope that I bite. But on what?

Here are my top tips if you are a PR company and you want to engage with me:

• Read my blog and understand what I’m interested in. No more pitches for children’s shampoo. I’m going to start naming and shaming.
• Give me something I can use. Guest posts, demos, interviews with interesting people, comment, link love, Twitter follows, cool pictures and videos, put something about me on your blog.
• Don’t promise more than you can deliver.
• Don’t give me shit and pretend it’s caviar (are you listening ‘How did that happen?’ people?)
• Build a relationship. Let’s be friends. Be consistent and reliable. Find ways to help me, e.g. with introductions or content. Do this before you want me to do something for you.
• If you disagree with me, disagree in a bloggy way (e.g. with comments as well as direct email) and disagree agreeably.
• Ask for my help and feedback on something. Then listen to me. Bloggers are great pundits, critics and product mavens. We love opining. Ask us to opine and we’ll be your friend. (Don’t do what OB10 did and ask me to introduce them to my customers so that they could ask them for their feedback. No. Sorry. My contact list is private, thank you.)
• Write short emails and get to the point. 100-150 words is enough for a pitch.
• Blogs are personal. I like to talk to people. I like people’s opinions. The corporate angle is okay for a journalist, but a blogger wants to get to the people behind the story.
• If all that fails, freebies are worth a try. Come on Audi! Where’s my A8. And my other blog, Golf Hotel Whiskey, reviews planes, airports and pubs, restaurants and hotels for pilots. Plenty of opportunities there for naked bribery. (In the interests of full disclosure, there will always be full disclosure.)

As a recovering journalist I have a pretty low opinion of PR firms. (See The top ten lies of PR companies and How to annoy a journalist.) However, there are some good ones out there and I know that some of them would like to sell their clients an ethical and hard-working blog outreach campaign. I’m listening if you do it right.

I was moved by the Economist’s obituary of Stanley Robertson. He is the latest (and perhaps last) in a long line of storytellers. He inherited and used a mixture of dialects and languages:

Eenie meenie macka racka
Rair roe dominacka,
Soominacka noominacka,
Rum tum scum scoosh!

or

Me Mammy kilt me; me daddie et me;
Me sister Mary picket ma banes,
And buried me ’neath twa marble stanes;
And I grew and I grew into a bonny wee doo.

It made me think about what we’ve lost as we’ve moved to a written culture and a homogenous TV culture and an Americanised culture. For almost the whole of human history, we have relied on storytellers like Robertson, poets and griots. Perhaps rappers and YouTube performers are their inheritors.

My wife is a theatre practitioner – a writer, actor, director and producer – and she has helped me see that there is something magical about the interaction between a performer and an audience. I wonder whether there are any lessons for writers here. For example:

• Writing as people really talk
• Controlling suspense
• Telling stories
• Using surprising, rare and unusual vocabulary

(PS If anyone can find a video or recording of a Robertson story, please let me know. YouTube seems to have missed him completely which is sort of my point.)

A few weeks ago I visited Oban, Scotland. On a tour of the whisky distillery there, the tour guide asked (rhetorically) ‘What’s the best way to drink whisky?’ and answered immediately ‘Any way you like it.’ It’s the same for writing. The best time for writing is whenever you are able to write productively.

That said, changing your writing routine can be helpful. There are also ways to find more time in the day to write. Lastly, you may find that a new time is better for you. So here are some tips and suggestions.

• Get up early. The phone doesn’t ring and nobody interrupts you so, for me, 6am-9am is usually my most productive writing time. (It’s 6:53am as I write this.) I find that setting two alarms – one by the bed and another further off – means that I wake to the first and then get out of bed to stop the second one ringing. Bingo! I’m already up. For more tips on getting up early read: How I trained myself to get up earlier in the morning. You’ll be in good company. Anthony Trollope used to get up at 5am and write solidly until 9am when he would stop for the day. Michael Palin wrote his voluminous diaries first thing in the morning.
• Work late. This never worked for me but there are plenty of examples of writers (and especially computer programmers) who do their best work after everyone else goes to bed. Churchill was notorious for working late into the night – usually after a heavy meal and heavier drinking. His colleagues hated being summonsed for dinner because they didn’t get to sleep for two or three hours in the afternoon, unlike the great man himself. The advantages are the same as in the early morning – no disruptions.
• The ten-minute burst. If you are working on a project that doesn’t have a tight deadline – a novel, for example – this technique might work really well. Set a timer (the iPhone clock application will do or you can use my free concentration timer) and write as hard as you can to get as many words down as possible. Edit another day. You can do this at lunch, after work, on the commute home, in gaps between other projects, after every phone call, between TV programs or while cooking in the evening. Life is full of short gaps that you can use to do some writing.
• The 9-5. I tried this for a few weeks when I was working for one of my clients. I did a strict 9-5 day with 30-45 minutes for lunch. It worked very well in that I got a lot done but mainly because I was working with colleagues and not in my regular office so there was some peer pressure to concentrate and also because I was away from my usual distractions and interruptions. You can recreate the circumstances by writing somewhere different. Take a laptop to a library or coffee shop. You could work at a friend’s house. Or a tree house. The key thing for a big push like this is concentration. Check out my earlier post: Concentration: 22 ways to stay focused on writing.
• Weekends. I try not to write on weekends. It’s important to have time to feed the well and do non-work stuff. But if writing isn’t your day job (lucky you: check out My profession for a great poem about the travails of being a writer by Ezra Pound) then weekend work might be good for you.
• After work. Neville Shute wrote his novels in the evening after a long day designing aeroplanes, according to his autobiography Slide Rule. He did it for relaxation. It could be very effective but since I spend most days writing, for relaxation I want to do something else!

So, dear reader, what works for you? How do you find time to write? Please comment and share your experience.

A good picture of yourself is essential if you want to build your brand online. It really is worth a thousand words.

A few years ago, I hired a professional photographer to take my picture. It didn’t cost much (£200, I think) but I think it was the best marketing investment I have made. It puts a human face on all my interactions online.

(I’m no model so this is making the best of a bad job!. I have more books and less hair now.)

Here are some tips for getting and using a good photo:

• Find a photographer you like. The most important thing is to be relaxed and happy while you’re doing it. Most people dislike posing for photos so you’ll need moral and practical support while you do it. I talked to three or four different photographers. I found a couple online and the others were recommended to me. Back then, I was writing for business magazines and the chap I used (Graham Fudger) took a lot of portraits for them. This is a good thing. Anyone who can make a man in a suit look semi-interesting is a good photographer.
• DIY if you have to. A professional photographer is best but even a DIY picture or the services of a patient and artistic friend with a tripod and nice camera will do if you can’t afford to pay. Just don’t use grainy snaps from a phone camera.
• Choose a natural location. I tried a studio photograph and it was just too formal. I took my picture at my club but any well-lit location that you like will work. The focus should be on you, of course, but a matching setting helps. Guy Kawasaki uses an outdoor location very well in his picture:
  
• Be yourself. Avoid joke pictures. Don’t dress up too much or be too casual. Choose the clothes you would normally wear if you were trying to make a good impression. Take a selection of different items and take advice from the photographer.
• Colour balance for onscreen use. A photographer can tweak a picture in Photoshop so it works better onscreen. Get a print version as well, just in case.
• Crop out the boring bits. Focus in on the expressive bits of your face – eyes, mouth, forehead, cheeks. The rest of it is irrelevant, especially if you only have a 32×32 pixel icon to play with. If you look at the image I use on this blog, it’s just my face cropped out of the picture in this post. Seth Godin is, of course, an exception but his picture uses his eyes very expressively:
  
• Use the same image everywhere. Using the same image on different sites will reinforce your brand. Like a logo, you want it to be the same everywhere.
• Get a mix of shots. Some smiley, some serious, some that show your teeth and some that don’t etc. Try to relax during the photo shoot so that the images feel more human. My photographer took perhaps 150 different photos and only four or five were usable and one or two stood out.
• Ask a friend. Ask your friends to pick their favourite shots. Make a note of their opinions but don’t tell them which images you like until they’ve shared their comments. Remember, you’re not the one who’s going to be looking at these pictures. The photo that jumps out at the most people is a good guide. Remember – we are all a bad judge of our own appearance. You need to pick a picture you can live with for a year or two.
• Get feedback.Ask them what they liked about your pictures. How do they make you appear?
• Have a trial run. Get a friend to take some indoor and outdoor shots to help you decide what suits you best. The same with makeup and hair, if these things matter to you.
• Prepare like a model. Before the shoot eat well and drink gallons of water and get a good night’s sleep the night before. If you wake up with a huge spot on your chin, reschedule.

How to use your picture:

• On your blog’s about page and author information
• Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Xing, LinkedIn etc.
• Social bookmarking sites: Technorati, Digg etc.
• Instant messaging and VOIP: Skype, AIM etc.
• Google Profile: This is a free way to link your blog and online presences with your profile and picture on Google. It’s very useful for SEO – ‘Hey, Google! All these sites belong to me!’
• Gravatar: this will associate your email address(es) with your picture so that your comments on other people’s blogs will show your picture. This is very cool and very easy and free. It’s a no-brainer.
• I’m sure you can think of a million others but it’s so easy to do this stuff when you have the right picture that’s pointless not to

In the New Yorker recently, James Surowiecki wrote:

“Numerous studies have shown that companies that keep spending on acquisition, advertising, and R&D during recessions do significantly better than those which make big cuts.”

I want to know if managers in big companies have any other response to a downturn apart from budget cuts and layoffs. Surely the one thing we’ve learned from this clusterf#@k to the poor house is that Wall Street knows nothing about running a business. So why do companies pander?

I don’t want any part of that. They’re all Apprentice candidates in a Dragon’s Den world. They’ve got it wrong.

For the last nine years, I have tried to be a one-man multinational. A little big company.

This means trying to emulate the best aspects of big companies:

• Benchmarking myself against big companies that I admire (mostly financial metrics but also more practical or HR type things).
• Aiming for world class service, especially consistency and reliability.
• Constantly investing in new products and services like my new presentation training business.
• Equipping myself with business-class technology like high-end email servers and extranets.
• Working globally (I have clients in the UK, the US, Switzerland, Sweden and I’m learning Dutch).

It also means taking advantage of the strengths of being small:

• The personal touch – what my clients see is what they get (plus proofreading and graphic design elves that make my work even better)
• Low overheads. This means lower ROI hurdles for new investments.
• Direct communications. Read The Mythical Man Month and Other Essays on Software Engineering on why more people means much more time wasted on communications.
• Time limitations challenge me to work smarter and concentrate on adding value rather than adding effort. (“Since I couldn’t make my days longer I strove to make them better.” Thoreau.)
• My obvious is my talent. I don’t need a mass market. I don’t need to dumb down or work to the lowest common denominator. I just need to find enough clients willing to pay for my unique combination of skills, insight, curiosity, talent and hang-ups.
• Marketing is meeting people. If people meet me, like me and find what I have to say useful, that’s enough. I just need to be myself. That’s pretty easy to do.
• No employees. I can spend my time on client work and business development; not on management stuff. I used to have 70-odd employees and, believe me, management stuff takes a lot of time.
• I’m a contractor so I’m good at working with other contractors. I know how they think and what they need. I use all kinds of specialists: proofreaders, graphic designers, cameramen, directors, actors. I think this ability will be more valuable than the ability to manage people in a conventional business sense.

I think this is the time of the freelance professional. Small companies can already outshine huge, established brands. But it helps to remember what our strengths and opportunities are. And it helps to think hard about our reaction to the recession. I don’t want to bury my head in the sand.

According to Surowiecki, companies can prosper in a recession by wise investments in:

• New product development
• Advertising, PR and go-to-market
• Acquisitions (the best time to buy something is when it is cheap, after all.)

This is what I intend to do. Well, not necessarily the acquisitions bit but I am looking a new business opportunities and various kinds of outsourcing. I am developing new products and services. And I’m working hard on marketing.

These are interesting times and I think the lesson of Surowiecki’s answer is not just to be good at what you do and hope for the best. “Today, most companies are far more worried about sinking the boat than about missing it.” Instead, I think we have to try to transcend ‘business as usual.’ As Roosevelt famously said, quoting Virgil, “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself.”

Normal isn’t. Good enough ain’t. We have to aim higher. This is the opportunity inside the crisis.

What are you doing about the recession? How are you changing and reacting? What can you do this month to be more proactive?

To be a great writer, you have to be able to concentrate. Not only that but you have to be able to stay focused for sustained periods. It’s not the only thing you’ll need but it’s a good start.

Psychologists talk about ‘flow’ which is a state where the person is fully engaged in what they are doing. (See the Wikipedia definition of flow.) When you are writing in a flow state, you can hold all the pieces of a story in your head and write fluently.

We all recognise this state. “Time flies when you’re having fun” is one version. Meditation is, perhaps, another version. If you play sports or video games and you find yourself ‘at one’ with what you’re doing, that’s another.

Conversely, failure to concentrate can be very unproductive. In fact, multitasking makes us stupid. People who think they are good at multitasking aren’t, according to researchers at Stanford University (see also: original paper). That’s you and me, dear reader.

I’m writing this post to share some of the techniques that have (sometimes) helped me to concentrate on writing. And yes, I know that some of them a contradictory. That’s the ‘sometimes’. Anyway, I hope you find them useful. If you have any tips you would like to share, please leave a comment.

• Accept your distractions. You will get distracted. Your mind will wander. You won’t want to get started. Accept it. The trick is to stand back and notice your brain doing these things. When it happens, stand back from yourself. Notice the distraction. Name the monster. Gently remind yourself that you’re trying to concentrate and it will be easier to return your focus to your work.
• Use a concentration timer. I like using meditation timers when I write. A little bell every five minutes helps remind to put my focus back onto my writing if my mind has wandered. There is a free, online timer on my company website. You can use it time and pace a writing session.
• Go somewhere else. Do you write a bit more neatly when you get a new pen? Change can be beneficial, even if the effect is temporary. Sometimes a change of location (go to the park, Starbucks, the Kitchen – anywhere but here) or a change of method (use a quill, a pencil, a typewriter, a different word processor, Linux) can help.
• Stay where you are. I’m always getting up and going somewhere to get something or do something. To counter this tendency, I keep scrap paper (recycled A4 printer paper cut in half) by my desk and scribble reminders. Then back to the writing.
• Write at a different time. I write best if I get up early. (See How I trained myself to get up earlier in the morning.) Just changing your routine can be helpful.
• Write to a schedule. When I have a busy week with many deadlines, I block out time for my work in Microsoft Outlook. This helps me allocate time and measure progress on longer-term projects and ensure that I have enough time to do all the work I planned. Other people find it helpful to start writing at the same time every day.
• Morning pages. I have to admit that I haven’t tried Julia Cameron’s technique for unblocking your creativity but other people, including my wife, swear by it. It involves writing in a stream of consciousness first thing every day.
• Switch off distractions. Turn off your radio, TV, shut the door, close your email program, put your phone on mute, shut down your blog reader software, use a distraction-free word  processor. Anything you can do to stop distractions before they happen, the better.
• Tame your muse. Your muse works for you, not the other way round. Think of it as a recalcitrant employee. Give it deadlines, tell it to show up for work at a fixed time every day, give it feedback and praise, define what you expect from it.
• Seek inspiration. Lots of people praise walking or running as a source of inspiration. The best advice I ever had was from my history tutor at Oxford – keep a notebook with you at all times because you never know when you will have a good idea.
• Quantify. Use word count to set goals – 500 words and then a break, for example. Track writing output over time in a spreadsheet. Use Joe’s Goals to keep track of habits in the long term. Some people, like me, are highly motivated by a sense of progress.
• Silence. External noise can break your concentration. Try noise cancelling headphones (I use Bose), music (see Music for working), silent PC (See: Tools for writing: Silent PCs) or ear plugs (See In praise of earplugs).
• Meditate to develop concentration and calmness. I find it helpful to meditate a little before I start work. It’s not easy for me but when I do it, I find it really helps. I sit in a quiet room, legs crossed and count my breaths. This guide may be a helpful place to start.
• Treats. I like tea (See Tools for writing: A nice cup of tea). Other people prefer cigarettes, Jaffa cakes or whatever. I would just be wary of too many sugary treats because they can cause a sugar crash later. You end up borrowing energy from yourself.
• Punishment. Try Write or Die. If you don’t keep writing, it starts deleting what you have already written!
• Shame. Instead of running a 26 mile marathon, aim to write 26,000 words and get your friends to sponsor you for charity. If you fail to do it, you won’t raise any money and you’ll feel bad. Nothing like social pressure to keep you at the keyboard.
• Buddy writing. Working with a friend, even over an open Skype line, can encourage concentration, providing you both have the same work habits. Somehow the peer pressure keeps you both working hard. It’s also an antidote to the potential loneliness of the long-distance writer.
• Chunking. Write for 45 minutes, take a 15 minute break. Repeat.
• Don’t worry. Editing is not writing. Don’t let your mental self-editor get in the way of your super-productive copywriter. Accept that your first draft might not be perfect. Leave notes to yourself in your text – fact-check, tidy up, rewrite, condense. The important thing is to keep writing.
• Use TK. This is a special case of ‘Don’t worry.’ If there’s something you don’t know, don’t stop to look it up. Just put TK in the text. It means ‘to come [later]’. For example, ‘When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in TK DATE, he didn’t expect to meet little green men.’ Fill in the blanks later. TK is easy to search for because it doesn’t occur often in everyday writing. (There are a few exceptions, such as the band Outkast.)
• Rock and river. Water is soft and rocks are hard but a river can defeat a rock with patience and constant effort over time. I think it’s the same with writing. A little every day beats a lot once a year. If you keep this in mind, concentrating for a short period every day becomes easier.
• Leave a hook to get you started. When you finish writing each day, try to leave a few notes in your text to help you get started the next day. This will make it easier to overcome inertia and re-engage with the work.