#012: Eight Steps to Writing Faster, Better

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing.

Podcast, helping you propel your writing business.

To a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey everyone, thanks for joining me for episode number 12 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find detailed show notes to this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 12 the number 12. So if you're somewhere where you just can't take notes today, don't worry about it. These are detailed notes you can reference later at your convenience. So I'm super excited about my show today because I'm interviewing someone who, who has had a huge impact on my writing. Her name is Daphne Gray Grant, and Daphne is a former daily newspaper editor, a writing and editing coach, and the author of the popular book Eight and a Half Steps to Writing Faster, Better. One of the many things I love about Daphne is that her strategies and advice are so simple, yet extremely effective. In fact, they're often so simple that on the surface, they just don't seem to be the kinds of things that could actually work. But they do. They work very well. And I can say that confidently because her ideas and strategies are a big reason why I become such a productive writer and why I can often average $200 to $300 an hour when I'm doing client work. So I hope you enjoy this interview and more importantly, I hope you put these tips and ideas to good use. Let's get right to it. Hey, Daphne, welcome to the show.

Hi, Ed.

It's great to have you. Thanks for coming on.

Thanks for inviting me.

So let's start with a question that might seem a little strange, but I think it's an important question because I believe that much of this issue with writing and writing efficiency stems from this. And the question is, why is writing, and even for seasoned writers so difficult sometimes?

Oh, well, don't get me started. I think the number one reason for that is that we are not taught how to write in school. I don't know if you can cast your mind back to your life as a grade fiver, grade eight, er, but did you ever have a teacher who talked to you about the process of writing? I know I certainly didn't. You know, the best I ever got was I'd get my essays back with little red marks on them saying, you know, use a better word. Here, you spelled this word Wrong. You need a comma there. But no one ever, ever talked to me about how to write, about how to persuade myself to keep my butt in the chair and get the words onto paper. No one talks about that in school. And I find that so sad and actually so infuriating, as you can probably tell from my voice.

You know, the only thing I can remember that I was taught about process was to use index cards in your research. And interestingly enough, I'd never heard of that until that point. I think it was 10th grade and I didn't get it. I didn't understand, okay, why index cards? Why not the notebook? Honestly? And I went ahead and went with it, but I had no idea what I was doing. But you're right, that's where it stopped.

Yeah, yeah, no one talks about it. They don't talk about it in grade school, they don't talk about it in high school, they don't even talk about it in university. And it infuriates me because so many people feel so embarrassed by their writing or so frustrated by it that it keeps them from writing, it prevents them from writing. And that is just so sad and so limiting to so many business people.

So what drove you to find a solution to this whole issue of writing efficiency and writer's block?

Well, I think what affected me, and believe it or not, I mean, I never learned to write and yet I had a career as writer. I worked for a daily newspaper in a, you know, metropolitan area and I was there in the newsroom for six years and I hadn't really ever learned to write. And I wrote every day, but I hated it. I found it stressful and I wasn't very fast at it. And then I left the newsroom and went and worked on the business side of the business for a couple of years and. And then I went off on maternity leave and never went back. And once I had my children, I became self employed and I started doing freelance work. And the fundamental difference between being a newspaper employee and being a freelance writer editor is that when you're freelance, you only get paid for the work you produce. Yes, if you have a job, you get paid just for showing up every day. And so I could quickly see that if I could write faster and more easily, then I would be able to make more money. So the bottom line became very clear to me. And after, I guess, my first year, I thought, boy, I've really got to fix this problem. I have. I need to write faster. I need to write more effectively and more efficiently. And so I Spent a fair chunk of time reading everything I could about writing and talking to everyone I could about writing until I developed a system that worked for me, and then I wrote a book about that.

So tell us about the system. Can you maybe first list the steps in the process and then we can talk maybe in a little bit more detail about each step?

Sure. Let me first give you the overall framework. So the thing I realized fairly early on was that there are a number of specific steps related to writing. And the thing that's crucially important is to do them in a particular order. And that's what really messes people up. They start doing the steps in the wrong order, and then that leads to difficulty and chaos and writer's block. So if you do the steps in the right order, you're going to have far fewer problems. Now, thinking globally, the way I like to divide these steps is into three phases. The first phase is what I call the preparatory work. The second phase is the writing. And that's where you're sitting at the keyboard and your hands are moving across the keys. And, you know, just let me add there that many people think that writing is only that step, and that's a problem. It's not. It's many, many steps. So writing is one step of the rating process, and it occurs in the middle. And then the final set of steps relates to editing and rewriting. So you've got preparation, you've got writing, and you've got editing. So those are the three general areas. And then looking at the specific steps for my book, which is called Eight and a Half Steps to Writing. Faster, Better, I'll walk you through those eight and a half steps. The first one is to make a plan, and that obviously is one of the preparatory steps. Do you want me to just run through all the steps first and then.

Yeah, let's do that. Because I want to kind of visualize what they are. And then I think it would make sense to talk through each one in more detail.

Okay, sure. So step number one is make a plan. Step number two is to do your research. And so what that means is that includes interviewing, reading, talking to other people, whatever it is you need to do to get the information. The third step is thinking and rethinking. The fourth step is finding your lead, which is newspaper speak for the beginning of your article. So how to begin? The fifth step is writing. So notice four steps before you actually start writing. That's really important to understand that. The fifth step is letting it incubate, which means walking away from Whatever you've written for a while. The seventh step is revising. The eighth step is copy editing. And the half step for the eight and a half steps at the end is continual reading. And by that I mean reading really good writing all the time.

It struck me, you're right that there's so many steps before you start writing. And what do we naturally do? Right? We flip flock to the computer, we start typing.

Yeah, yeah. That's probably the biggest mistake that most people make. They start writing way too soon. And it's kind of a natural thing if you think about it. You know, someone gives you a deadline and you think, oh, I got to get going on this. If I'm not putting words on the paper, I'm procrastinating. And you know what? I don't like procrastination, but I never judge procrastination based on how many words people have on a page. What you need to do at the beginning of your writing process is you really need to spend some good time thinking about it and make a plan for your audience. So the first thing you have to do is really identify who your audience is. And that's really important because, for instance, for a long time I had a contract with a forestry company and I did a lot of writing for them. And one of the things I was always very conscious of was that a huge part of my readership had English as a second language. So being conscious of that, I knew I had to use a more conversational day to day vocabulary than I might if I was writing for, say, a group of doctors. So I had to keep my English really simple because English was their second language. They weren't as familiar with English, so it would be disappointing to them, frustrating to them to get something that would make it hard for them to read. So that was part of my making a plan. I knew that a large number of my readership spoke English as a second language. Another thing that I knew was that a large percentage of my readership was male in the forest industry. Now, there were lots of women, but there were way, way, way more men. And so that was one of the things I always kept at the back of my mind when I was writing for that group. So that's one of the things that you need to think about before you write. Now sometimes people say to me, particularly if they're doing something for say, a magazine, a general readership magazine, or let's say they have a company that's really well integrated, equal numbers of men and women, you know, ages across the spec they say, well, how do I write for a group like that? Because, you know, everybody is so different. And so what I say to people with that situation is that identify a single person and write it to them. So when I wrote for Daily Newspaper for a number of years when I worked there, I always used to imagine I was writing every piece for my mother. She was a reader of the newspaper, but that's not why I picked her. I picked her because she was a very, very intelligent woman, but she wasn't hugely well read. She wasn't particularly well schooled. She didn't think of herself as smart. In fact, she didn't see herself as smart as she really was. And I knew that if I could write an article in a way that she could understand, that the vast majority of my readers would be able to understand. So that was a very helpful device for me because, of course, I knew my mother really well. I knew almost intuitively what would appeal to her, what would be easy for her to understand. And so that was just a very quick way for me to tailor my writing. So that was kind of part of my making a plan when I worked in the newspaper business. Again, wide readership, highly varied. So there are lots of things you can do, even if you have a diverse audience, that will help you reach it well. And then the next thing you need to think about is what exactly are you trying to accomplish? And people often focus on the subject matter when they think about writing instead of what they're trying to accomplish. And it's really important to keep those two things separate. Let me see if I can pull out a real life example here. For instance, if you were asked to write something for a bank about mortgage rates, that's the subject. But the thing you might be trying to do is to persuade your readers to take a mortgage with that particular bank. So do you see how those two things are fundamentally different? One is just the information you want to communicate, but the other is what you're trying to accomplish. If you're trying to meet a sales objective, then your style of writing is going to be very different than if you're trying to meet, say, an educational objective. So really spend a bit of time identifying your objectives. Now, one of the things I often recommend people do is that they do this kind of work away from their computer. So, and one of the best ways to do this away from your computer is to do something else. Go for a walk, make dinner, do the dishes, go for a bike ride. Go do something that keeps you physically busy but leaves your mind Free to roam. That's the very best way to do the kind of thinking you need to do to be able to write. And, you know, from the outside, it looks like wasting time, but it's not.

Not.

It's really the most valuable thing you could be doing. But you do have to. You have to give yourself the task. You have to say, I need to think about xyz, and then just go about your run or your walk or you're making dinner, your dishwashing, whatever it is you're doing, and let it kind of percolate at the back of your mind. And that's the best way to do the kind of thinking that you really need to do before you get anywhere near your computer.

I couldn't agree more, Daphne. You know, some of the most brilliant ideas I've ever had have come from chopping onions and celery.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah.

You know, you can't always be using your deliberate mind to think about things. You need to disengage it, start doing something else. It's kind of like the tip of the tongue phenomenon. You know, when you're trying to get a word, you're trying desperately to remember a name or think of a particular word, you can never do it. And then as soon as you switch to doing something else, it pops into mind. Writing is exactly like that.

So this is all about step one, making a plan. Let's talk about step two. Research.

Research is fairly easy. There's nothing special here. It's just whatever research you need to do to get the information you need to write your piece. The thing I will emphasize here is that you need to make your plan before you do the research. Make the plan first, then do your research. So remember what I was saying about how people do things in the wrong order? Think first, then do your research.

All right? The next step is think and rethink. Tell me more about that. What does that involve?

So here is where I think it's very valuable to do something that not everyone will be familiar with. And this is one of those things that they really ought to teach in school. And they have taught in some schools, but not nearly widely enough. That's mind mapping. And mind mapping is. It's the closest thing to a magic bullet for writing that I've ever found. And it is so easy, it will sound like it can't possibly work. As a matter of fact, more than 25 years ago, I did an interview with a woman who wrote a book about mind mapping. She doesn't call it mind mapping. She called it clustering. And I did an interview with her. I wrote a 3,000 word article for national magazine and I still didn't do it myself because I thought it sounded too easy. I'm just kicking myself around the block now because I think of all these years I struggled with my writing and, you know, the answer was right at my fingertips. I'd even interviewed someone who'd written about it. So what you do to mind map is you take a blank piece of paper, you turn it sideways, so landscape fashion, that's really important because what that does is it's a signal to your brain that you are doing something different. And even though it doesn't really give you more room because it's still the same 8.5 x 11 piece of paper, it appears to give you more room because there's more space at the sides. You write your topic in the center of the page, draw a circle around it, and then you brainstorm with yourself. And so everything that springs to your mind, you write it down on that piece of paper. And what you can do is you can do a little line or an arrow from the word you wrote in the center of the page to the next word or phrase that springs to your mind. Draw a line to that, write it down and draw a circle around it. And so you get a page filled with writing, filled with all sorts of stuff. It might look a little bit like a kind of a wonky flower with all these petals coming off, or it might not. Doesn't matter how it looks, what matters is what it says. And here's the thing about mind mapping. People often try it and some of them take to it right away and get fantastic results right away. And then other people complain to it, complain to me about it, or complain to themselves and say, oh, it doesn't really work. Well, if it's not working, that likely means you're not doing something right. And one of the things I suggest to your listeners is that if they have a problem with mind mapping, they might want to go to my website and sign up for my weekly newsletter, which is free. And if they do that, they'll get a free booklet on mind mapping and it will walk them through all the steps you need to do. And it shows some real life examples of mind maps which will help make the whole process much clearer. The the thing I like about mind mapping that is so fundamentally different from outlining is that it puts you in the creative part of your brain. We all have different parts of our brains that are good at different things, and we have a part of our brain that I like to call the linear, logical part. We all have this, and that's the part of the brain that you use if you're making an outline. It's also the part of the brain that you use when you're editing. It's not the part of your brain you should be using when you write. In fact, if you try to use that part of the brain when you write, you're going to end up feeling frustrated. You might even start to feel like you have writer's block. So the thing about mind mapping is that it keeps you in the creative part of your brain, and that's the part of your brain where you want to be when you're writing.

All right, so what is the next step? Step four.

Okay, so step four is finding your lead. And as I said to everyone at the beginning of the call, lead is newspaper speak for the beginning of your story. And the reason newspaper writers and magazine writers use a different word for that is because a lead can be more than a first paragraph or a first sentence. A lead may be as short as a first sentence, but it needn't be that short. So if you think of articles in magazines like the New Yorker, where the articles are really extraordinarily long, a lead may actually be 10 or 12 paragraphs. So it's a valuable word because it doesn't make any presumption about length. There are a bunch of different kinds of leads you can use, and I list them in my book. So I won't go into them here, but I just want to explain the technique, because this is really such a sensational way of beating the blank page problem. What I like to do when I'm writing something is instead of asking myself, how do I ever begin? I take my list of different types of leads and I say, okay, if I were to do an anecdotal lead, what would I do? And then I identify the best lead there, and then I look at the next one on the list and say, oh, okay, if I were to do a question lead, what would I do? So I come up with a bunch of different options, and then I just choose the best. So it takes away the sting or the anxiety of the blank page, because it's kind of like a formula. You have a list of things you can do, you fill in the blank, and you choose the best one, and it makes getting started a whole lot easier.

You know what? I love the list that you have there because that is such a wonderful checklist to just kind of Kick start the process. It's interesting because until recently I was starting kind of after the lead. I was starting the writing process there because I thought, well, I can't think of a lead right now, so let me just start in the middle of the action.

Right.

And then I'll add that later in it. It's worked okay. But recently I've moved away from that in starting with a lead.

Yeah.

And I was surprised at how much faster it's made my writing.

Oh yeah.

And with this checklist here, I mean that, that's even better because I didn't have that before. So before I would just kind of pull it out of thin air and it would work okay. But you have a lot more ideas that would make the writing a lot more interesting.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like you, I used to write I would get whatever I could get onto the page as fast as I could. And you know, it often felt like I was running warm up laps around the track and then it would take me a while to hit my stride. But you know, if you have a list of leads and you just fill in the blank, you can get past that way, way faster.

So let's say you got your lead down. What should you do next?

Well, then you start to write and the thing, the one important thing about writing, because you know, I can't get inside everybody's heads. I don't know what they're thinking when they write. I barely know what I'm thinking when I write. But I can say that the number one mistake that most people make is that they allow themselves to edit while they write. And that's as crazy an idea as doing the dishes while you still are eating dinner. You should never ever edit while you write. And it's a very hard habit to break. I didn't manage to break this habit until I was, oh, I was probably in my mid-40s, maybe even a bit older than that. And so I had had many years. You know, I've been a professional writer since I was 19 years old. So I had many years of editing. I wrote. Very hard habit to break. Took me about a year. But I did it. And I am so happy I did it because it absolutely revolutionized my writing. And I write so much faster than I used to because I refuse to edit while I write. And it makes writing so much less painful too.

Well, I'm going to play devil's advocate because I'm very guilty of this, of editing while I write. And I'm trying to think, what is it? And I've tried this, but here's what keeps me from just to trying. Writing freeform and forgetting about editing. It's that feeling the next day when you open that document again and you had it in your head that it was okay, that rough draft was okay, and then you open it and it's crap, you know, so it's so discouraging. Have you had that feeling? I'm sure you have, but how do you get over that?

You know what I have to find? I have to say that more often I find the reverse. I feel awful when I finished writing something and then I put it away and the next day I open it up and it's like the editing fairies have been to work on it while I wasn't looking because it reads perfectly fine. It reads better than I thought. So I. No, I don't have that experience.

Oh man, I hate it when that happens.

You know what I bet if you're editing while you write, I bet that you're still doing that even when you think you're not. And that that may be what's creating the problems for you.

It probably is.

Yeah. Yeah. So I have some good suggestions for that. My favorite one is, well, I use the Pomodoro, which I really like. And that's a. It's a mental trick. You get a timer and it should be a noisy timer. I used a silent digital timer for a while, but it's actually better if it's a noisy timer. So the click CL click, click in the background helps focus the mind, believe it or not. And you write for 25 or 30 minutes. Don't check email, don't look at Facebook, don't surf the Internet, don't do anything except write. And then when the timer sounds, you stop and you take a five minute break. And that's a pomodoro. You've done a pomodoro if you've forced yourself to concentrate and just do one thing for 25 to 30 minutes. And if you can do that without editing, that's really helpful. There's another online tool called by a guy who describes himself as Dr. Wicked and it's called Write or Die. And despite the ominous name, it's actually a really valuable tool. It's free. It's on his website, www.WriteOrDie.com and you have to scroll down about a screen and a half and you'll get this box and you enter the number of words you want to write and you enter a time limit. I think it actually forces you to choose from a certain Number of pre selected time limits and then you start writing on the screen and you have to choose some consequences. And I would suggest just sticking with the default ones he has because there's easy, strict, kamikaze. I think he has some funny names for them. But one of them, one of the really bad ones, if you don't write, starts erasing your words and that's too drastic even for me.

Yeah, that's bad.

Yeah. But the ones if you follow the default mode, the ones he has set up to do is you have the screen and you start to write and every time you stop writing, the computer records it and the screen starts to pink. And the longer you don't write, and I actually timed this once and I think it was about 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, if you haven't written, the gentle pink has turned to a full on red blush. And then after about 12 or 15 seconds a loud unpleasant noise occurs. So it might be a crying baby, it might be a car alarm, might be 70s disco music, one of those things. And that's the alert to you that you haven't been writing.

I love it. Yeah, I love it. I know this, this works. I'm big into constraints. I really believe that when you're given certain constraints, amazing things happen.

Yeah.

You know, when I have very little time to get a project done, not so much because I've procrastinated, but because suddenly my schedule is compressed. You know, I got young kids and you know, maybe somebody sick or I now got to take somebody to school because my wife is working that day. I get a lot done in an incredibly small amount of time. So I can see that I need to try that.

Yeah, yeah, it's a really good thing. I used that a lot when I was breaking my own editing habit and I still use it from time to time because it's a really good reminder about how much time we waste when we write anything. We spend so much time staring off to the side of the computer, looking off into space, trying to perfect those words that spring into our mind. And really we'd be far better off just kind of vomiting the words onto the page and fixing them up later.

So you've written without editing and what's the next step? Should you start editing the next day?

No, the next thing to do is to put your piece of writing away for a while. Walk away from it. Because one of the things that happens is when you've had the benefit of planning for your writing, doing the research, thinking about it, doing the actual writing, you are way Too close to it to be able to edit it. So what I suggest people do is put it away for at least a day. And if what they're writing is something like a book, some major project, long, etc, etc, I would really try to put it away for at least three weeks before starting on it. Now, with something like a book, you don't have to write to the end, wait till you get to the end and then start editing. But I would write for three weeks worth before I started editing the initial stuff so that the writing was always three weeks ahead of what I was editing. Because it's really important to have that distance. Now, one other thing I want to mention because people often say to me, well, Daphne, you used to work in a daily newspaper. You certainly couldn't put things away for a day. What did you do? And they're right. I couldn't put things away for a day because I had to write it one day and then it would be published the next. So one of the things you can do if you ever have a really harsh or stern deadline like that is stop when you finish the writing, Go do something entirely different. So this could mean go to lunch, go talk to a friend, go work on a different project so that you get your mind caught up in something that's totally different. And that will help give you a little bit more distance from your project than you would otherwise have. So I still think waiting at least a day, maybe longer, is the best possible thing. And if you're given an assignment, make your schedule ahead of time to allow you to have that incubation time. You have to plan for it. But if you don't, if there's no way for you to have a day's incubation, then set it up so that you do something completely different so you get your mind off that work before you go back to edit it.

I couldn't agree more. I found I need to get away from it. And I would argue that most business writers, the reason they don't have that time is because they. Well, first of all, they didn't have a process to begin with, right. So now they're rushed or they procrastinated, which also has to deal with not having a system process.

Yeah.

So I think either way, if you approach this the right way, you should have time built in to get this done. And I think it is important. My writing is so much better if I let it rest. I think of the crock pot, right? It has to cook there for a long time. Slow cook and gosh, it's even better when you let the flavors integrate for a couple of days in the refrigerator and then eat the leftovers.

Yeah, that's a great metaphor. That one really works.

So you've let it incubate. Now you pull it out. What do you do?

Well, the next thing you need to do. And it's really important that your listeners understand this, that there are two types of editing, and they are quite separate and distinct. One type of editing is what gets called in the book industry, substantive editing. And that relates to the content. Have you covered all the necessary material? Have you put it in the right order for your readers to understand? Are you reaching the readers you identified way back at the beginning when you made your plan? Are you accomplishing the objective you set out for yourself when you made your plan? Does the piece of writing flow well? Does it make sense? Those are the kinds of things you deal with in substantive editing. It's not about correcting punctuation or spelling or grammar. So don't do that right away. Deal with the bigger questions first. That's what I call revising. And that's the type of editing you should do next.

So stop yourself, as tempted as you might be to start fixing little things. Make sure that the big pieces are in place.

Yes. Yeah. And so one of the things I like to do when I'm revising. And this is another valuable tip. And I'm always surprised that more people don't do it. I read everything I write out loud. And, you know, I did this when I worked in a newsroom, too. I'm sure I was dismissed as the crazy lady in the corner talking to herself. But when you read stuff out loud, you get a much better understanding as to how your readers are going to react to your writing. You also, coincidentally, get a much better sense of the rhythm of what it is you're writing. And so you can make small improvements to that as well. But it really helps put you in the frame of mind of your reader. And I like to read excruciatingly slowly. So I'll read a sentence, then I'll ask myself, if this information were new to me and I were reading this for the first time, what would I want to know next? And then I read the next sentence and see if it answers that question. And if it doesn't, that's an indicator to me that I need to do some revising.

Interesting. So you are actually reading it out loud at this stage of the game, I've been doing the opposite. I wait until it's almost Done. And that's kind of one of the last things I do. I read it out loud to make sure that it flows well.

Yes. Yeah. Reading out loud is a really valuable tool and it's something you can do more than once. And, you know, I just want to say that applies to a lot of things I've talked about today. I never think that one mind map equals one article. You know, I might do four or five mind maps for a particular article, particularly longer ones. And reading aloud, I might do three or four times for a particular piece. So it's a very worthwhile tool. The other thing about it too is that it forces you to do it more slowly because we can all read much more quickly than we can speak. And so if you're forcing yourself to speak the words, you're actually examining every single word, whereas if you read it silently, you're skimming by some of it.

So you've made major revisions.

Yeah.

What's the next step?

So the next step is copy editing. So two types of editing, substantive editing and copy editing. And copy editing is probably what most people think of as just regular editing. So you fix grammar, you fix spelling, you fix punctuation. That's kind of the last buff and polish that you need. Well, except for proofreading, but yeah. So just go through it, look for those problems, fix them up. And I guess the other thing I would say is depending on the nature of your project, it might be worth while considering hiring a professional copy editor. I do for any big projects I'm working on. I've been a professional writer for 30 years. I hired a copy editor for my book and she was fantastic. And the interesting thing to me was I'm a professional. I missed all this stuff. And I had a dozen friends who are also professional writers read my book and make comments on it. And they gave me volumes of comments which I incorporated into the book before I presented the draft to the professional copy editor and I guess arrogantly thought, well, this will be an easy job for her. And I get it back. And it was covered with red ink. I couldn't believe it. So people who are professional copy editors are really, really good at dealing with spelling, grammar and style questions. So that's another thing that many non professional writers don't understand. There are lots of issues where the answer isn't right or wrong. It's a question of style. And so I'm Canadian. In Canada we spell colour C O, L, O, U, R. In the United States you spell it C O, L O, R. Both are Correct. It's a style choice, which one you use. So copy editors are aware of all sorts of, of style choices that probably don't even enter onto the radar of many. Even professors stand. There are lots of issues where the answer isn't right or wrong.

Now, do you recommend in projects where you don't think it's necessary or there's no real budget for a professional copy editor, do you recommend using a proofreader instead?

You know, if there's no budget, the thing I recommend is finding someone in your organization who has a copy editor's eye. It's the kind of skill that I think is born, not developed. I was missing the DNA for this. You know, I'm not a particularly good copy editor and you know, I can read things and I can miss all sorts of the finer points of, you know, the Oxford comma and stuff like that that I'm just not interested in wasting my brain power on. Which is not to say it's a bad thing. Copy editing is really valuable and you know, I have a great copy editor and I pay her and I'm happy to do so, but it's just not something my brain is particularly good at. So. But there are people and you can spot them fairly easily in organizations. They're the ones who are pointing out the typos in newspapers. They're the ones who, when they get an email from someone, mark it up and say, the vice president of marketing. Vice president marketing should have been capitalized. The kind of people who care about things like that are really, really good copy editors. So can you trade with them? If you give them your piece of writing to do a copy edit on, is there something you could do for them in exchange? You don't necessarily have to spend money to get this kind of service, you know, and that's.

You made a great point about being a gift and not necessarily a learned skill because I, and this has only been something I've recognized in the last year and a half or so is my gift is organizing ideas, you know, higher level stuff and putting them in a logical, persuasive sequence. But once you get to the, to that level of detail, I really start losing focus and it's mind draining for me.

It is, yeah.

I used to try to ignore that and try to push through it. And I've realized, well, wait a minute, I shouldn't do that. Yeah, that's not where my talents lie. So I think it's important because if you try to push through that, what's going to happen is you're going to dread the whole process because you know that at the end you have to spend all this time finding all these errors and it's going to be. It's not where you should be spending your time.

Exactly, exactly.

I love that. Let somebody else who has found that to be their calling, let them do it.

Yes, yes, yes. And as I said, it's really easy to find people like that in just about any organization.

So one last question for you. And you talked about this early on where it's important to follow these steps. But let's say that I'm looking at these steps and we're going to talk about the last step here.

Oh, the half step. That's the most important one.

Yeah, Let me get. Before you get to that, though, I want to make sure. One last question for you. You talked about this early on where it's important to follow these steps, but let's say that I'm looking at these steps and. Oh, and we're going to talk about the last step here.

Oh, the half step. That's the most important one.

Understand in terms of the order if I'm looking at it. And go kind of like a recipe. Okay, I see where this is going, but I don't like that much garlic or that's too much salt or I want more tomatoes. You know, should you follow this to the T or should you make it your own?

I think you can make it your own with one exception. Actually, let me say two exceptions. One is that you should always spend significant time preparing to write before you write. That's really important. So I'm not going to say you have to do step 1, 2, 3, 4 or you'll die if you don't do those. But it's really important to spend a significant amount of time preparing before you start persuading your fingers to dance on the keyboard. Really important. And the other thing I'd say that's equally important is don't let yourself edit while you write. That will just really, really slow you down. And if you can break that habit, you will find it so worthwhile and such a big payback.

So let's talk about this half step here at the end. Tell me about, read widely. What is that about?

Well, one of the things I find, particularly people who work in the corporate world is they read an awful lot of dreck. They read badly written annual reports, they read terrible emails, they read magazines that aren't really well written. They're not reading really great writing. And the thing is, it's like they Always say about computers, garbage in, garbage out. If you only read dract, that's how you will write. So it's important for all writers to devote some time. You know, I would say pick whatever amount of time is feasible for you in your own schedule, but treat it like exercise. Make it a priority. You know, I know someone who was concerned about her amount of reading, that it was too low, and so she decided she was going to read first thing every morning. And so that's what she did. And if you haven't developed the reading habit, then maybe you need to do something like that. But make sure you're reading for a set amount of time every day. My commitment is I read a minimum of 52 books a year, and I usually read closer to about 65. I've toyed with the idea of trying to do a book a week. But, you know, I also read the New Yorker magazine every week, and that's almost like reading a book. But the thing is, if you read good writing, you will start to write better. It's kind of this weird metaphysical thing that happens. You will start to absorb the styles of the good writers you read, and you will start to sound like them.

I've never met a great writer, by the way, who wasn't a voracious reader.

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And the other thing that I heavily promote, and it often surprises people, but I promote actually copying the words of writers you admire. And I do that myself. I mean, I've been a professional writer for more than 30 years, and I get up every morning seven days a week, and I spend the first five minutes of every day copying the work of another writer, just word for word. Really. You get a huge payoff doing that. It's really, really valuable. You learn so much about the structure that other writers use, their word choice, the rhythm they use. It's really wonderfully instructive to do that. And, you know, I used to promote this, and I didn't do it myself, I regret to say. And around about the time I wrote my third article on the merits of copying, I thought, this is really getting embarrassing. I'm telling everybody to do it, and I'm not doing it myself. And so that's when I decided, because what I had tried to do before was I tried to copy for half an hour once a week. And I thought, you know, I have to do this daily. And I thought, well, what could I commit to daily? And I thought, well, five minutes is all I have, and five minutes is better than nothing. And, you know, at the end of the week. Five minutes is 35 minutes, and so it's a substantial amount of time, but, boy, it pays off. I've really learned a lot from doing it, and the people I've worked with who've done it are equally filled with praise for the idea.

I love that I need to start trying that. I've heard this before and it's been something I've wanted to start doing, but I haven't done it in a long time.

Yeah, well, try five minutes a day. Because you know what? It's very much like exercise if you don't carve out the time. If you don't do it first thing in the day, you're not likely to get it done.

True. We've mentioned the book a couple of times, but tell us a little bit more about your book, Eight and a Half Ways to Writing Faster and Better.

Yeah, so the book is Eight and a Half Steps to Writing Faster Better. It's available only through my website. I decided not to list it with Amazon. So anyone who wants to get it needs to go to my website. Website, which is www.profitcoach.com. and the other thing about my website is that anyone who goes there is welcome to sign up for my newsletter, which goes out every Tuesday and which is free. And as I mentioned before, if you do that, you'll also get a free copy of my booklet on mind mapping, which I think anyone who wants to find out more about mind mapping will find very, very helpful. And the other thing I'll mention, because people often ask me this is, is it mind map electronically? And yes, there's some excellent software for mind mapping, and I list all of that in the booklet as well.

I will tell everyone that. And you and I have had this conversation before, Daphne, but that guide that you have that you offer for free on mind mapping changed the way that I write about seven, eight years ago. It's made an amazing difference in not just my writing, but the way that I think, the way that I organize ideas, the way that I solve problems, and I've used it in so many different ways. I can't thank you enough for putting that out there because up until that, I hadn't really come across anything that explained it that simply and that well and in a way that made me feel, you know what? I can do this. So I strongly recommend that everyone grab that because it really is fantastic.

Oh, thanks, Ed.

Super. Well, listen, Daphne, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been fantastic. I learned so much. And guys, check it out. Go to her website, publicationcoach.com, sign up for her newsletter. Check out the book. Thanks so much for coming on, Dan.

Thanks a lot, Ed. Really enjoyed speaking with you.

Well folks, I hope you enjoyed that interview. And again, don't be fooled by the simplicity of some of these ideas. These are very powerful tips and strategies when applied correctly and as Daphne said, when you apply them in the correct order. If you haven't tried mind mapping before, or if you tried it but didn't really have much success with it, I urge you again to download Daphne's guide on that topic. You can get that by joining her mailing list@protional coach.com a few quick reminders before I sign off. First, you can grab the detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com the number 12. These are detailed notes that make great reference material, especially if you're somewhere where you can't take notes today. If you enjoyed this episode, I would be grateful if you shared it with friends. And the easiest way to do that is to go to b2b launcher.comlove or to simply use any of the social media sharing buttons on the Show Notes page. And finally, I just want to take a quick second to thank all of you who have taken the time to leave me either a rating or a review on itunes. You have no idea how much that means to me. This podcasting thing can be a very lonely business. Sometimes you don't know if what you're putting out there is resonating with people. You don't know if it's making a difference. And it's extremely encouraging to read these ratings and reviews. It really keeps me going. I mean, this is, this is what really feeds me. So I truly appreciate it. All of you who have taken the time to do that, I will tell you that one of the things that this these reviews have allowed the show to do is to get ranked really high in itunes. It's been featured in New and Noteworthy in the New and Noteworthy section of itunes Podcast and in the what's Hot section under Business Podcast. So that's just absolutely fantastic. People are getting this information. People who have never would have never come across it before. If you want to leave me some love on itunes, it's very simple. Just go to b2b launcher.com iTunes so that's it for today's episode. Again, I am your host, Ed Gandia. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you have an awesome day.

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