One of the most memorable experiences of 7th grade was Toastmaster’s Club. Every day, a few representatives of Toastmasters would come to school and teach us about public speaking. We were required to make speeches every three or four weeks.

Now there were some people that literally prepared for three or four weeks, revising and typing everything up.

There were some that didn’t think about it until Wednesday afternoon, who wouldn’t make nearly the alloted time and would always mess up.

Then there were some like me, who easily learned the art of winging speeches.

Every Wednesday morning, I would wake up and think…

Spontaneosity

“What shall I talk about today?”

As this is generally seen as irresponsible and foolish, I will have assure you that this was completely planned. I planned to forget, because the less I think about the speech, the better the speech is.

Sometime during the day, I decide what I want to talk about, find five minutes to research it, and do my best to not think about it.

Planning is your worst enemy

For some reason we’re educated to think that planning your speeches is the best way to prepare for them. This is not true. While I do outline the general things I’ll go over and how much time I’m willing to spend on them, I don’t write out my speeches word for word.

Learn

Make every speech you give a lesson. Even when giving a minor demonstration, try to get the best feedback you can so you can do better the next time.

Be Inspired

I tend to draw inspiration from pictures of nature or massive posters of waterfalls when I’m about to make a speech — especially powerful looking images. This allows me to think powerful thoughts, and reflect those thoughts onto my audience. It’s a silly idea, but it works.

Because you can’t write if you can’t read. Sorry, but it’s the sad truth. Too much of the world thinks they can get away with one book a year and expect to win the Nobel Prize.

Think of it this way. Can one write music if he never listens to it? Can one paint if he has no exposure to other people’s art?

Definitely, but no matter how good he or she is, eventually, that person will suck at whatever they’re doing.

Why? Because without external inspiration or backup, you have no idea how to get better, and what you write will never be published, because it’s not even close to being literature.

That’s one of the things that separates jobs such as engineering and programming. Writing is 100% pure art.

So take the time, whether monthly, weekly, daily, or bi-daily to go to the library and read. Better yet, go to the library and write! (That’s actually an amazing idea. I should start doing that more often.)

Sign up for magazines. Register Google Reader. Read one Wikipedia article a day. Skim the front page of Yahoo.

Go. Expand your vocabulary. Take your notebook with you and write down every single idea that you have.

Surround yourself with material. You’ll be bogged down with reference and inspiration, you won’t be able to stand it. You’ll love it, trust me.

In all this struggle to make time for writing, you’ll probably come along an extremely long article which you absolutely must finish reading, but don’t have the time.

There’s a difference between PhotoReading and speed-reading. Photoreading is skimming massive blocks of texts for keywords and absorbing important information.

Speed-reading is done when one reads anything, from books to highway signs. Please consider these three pointers to help you achieve more in less.

1. Read bigger chunks — Most children read one letter/one word at a time. When you become an adult, it’s important to read big blocks of text at a time. Eventually you’ll be able to read whole lines at a time. I’ve even heard of geniuses that could read paragraphs at a time. This is probably the most crucial part. Linger on a sentence and more on. When the letters join up and become words, you’ll be able to see their meaning without actually reading the text.
2. Move faster through chunks — it’s also a matter of how fast you can move from one block to the next. If you constantly move your eyes faster, eventually they’ll adapt and you’ll be reading more. Don’t move your eyes back either. People tend to go back if they skipped a word or two. Train your eyes to only move forward. This way, your brain will start retaining more of the information on the first try.
3. Use a pointer. A finger works. Pencils are also good. This helps your eyes focus on a single dot instead of lingering back or skipping forward.
4. Don’t try to hear the words in your head. When most people read, they hear some kind of voice in their head reading the text. If you’re writing, it’s fine to hear your favorite storyteller vocalizing what you write, but when you do this when reading, it’ll only slow you down. You should be able to read much faster than you listen

The writer needs to be an independently intelligent person. He or she gathers information from around him or herself,
prosesses it, and turns it into something better that he or she could write about. Here’s now:

1. Sense. Sharpen your senses. Observe your world whenever you have time. Listen to nature whenever you can.
2. Read. Everything. Encyclopedias, magazines, microwave instructions, whatever. The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the more foundation you have to build your writing on. The more you read, the more you think, and when you think more, you come up with better ideas.
3. Focus. Whether on bus, train or automobile, focus on what you are doing to the fullest extent. You will end up accomplishing more… and if not, thinking more.
4. Write it down. If you forget what you learned, there’s no point in learning.
5. Memorize. No, this does not remonstrate my earlier statement. Even if you memorize something, it’s still good to write it down. You should do your best to memorize it and not have to go back to what you wrote, but writing stuff down ensures that you remember it.
6. Ask questions. Why are scientists smart? Because they ask questions. Make it a goal to ask at least 20 questions a day. Then lengthen that to 40. Then 80. Then 100. You’ll notice that you become a much better conversationalist as well.

Remember these six tips. Sense, read, focus, write, memorize, ask. Your six secrets to success.

Additionals:

• Instead of asking, you can always use google or wikipedia to look up information. This counts for reading, too.
• When bored, do math problems in your head to sharpen your awareness. How many times can you take away 44 from 579? If you didn’t end up with 7, you made a mistake. Start over.
• Read.
• When you’re bored and want to read, then read. See Read.

“Excuse me? Hi. I’m ____ and I’m doing an interview for _____. May I present you with the following question?”

Do it right. Do it well. You have a subject to interrogate. Now what?

1. Encourage him to elaborate. If you’re asking a question about something and you feel like she’s not telling all that she’s thinking encourage her to give further details.
2. Ask additional questions. You don’t have to stick with the main idea. Try to branch out. If she particularly enjoyed something about the product, ask her what it is she liked about it.
3. Branch out. Request recommendations for people to interview. Ask your friends to If you’ve asked surveyed your friends, survey their friends. If you’ve surveyed their friends, survey their family.
4. Don’t spill out all your questions at a time. Hi, I’m Bob and I’m doing this survey for this and this magazine. Will you tell me your opinion about this and what you think about that and possibly your name and whether you prefer direct or anonymous quoting or… No. One thing at a time. If you just pour out your needs, people will evaluate whether or not it’s worth answering, then reply.
5. Vary your systems. You don’t have to stick to email if you don’t want to. IM surveying and telephone calls are okay. You can holler at your neighbors too! Asking your flowers would be silly, but as long as they give good feedback…
6. Ask for contact information. Not all people will respond positively to this, so you might want to leave it until last. Having a list of contacts is good if you need to ask additional questions later, or if you need to burn something.

What do you think?

“length doesn’t matter in freewriting. when writing stories or something for hobbies/fun, length doesn’t matter. However, in official stuff, like essays for school, write the amount that you’re required or more..”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no, length normally shows the amount of information that is in a piece of work.

“Sometimes, the longer the work, the more information that it holds

However, that does not mean it is better than anything else

If the legnth lacks quality, the writing piece will probably be overlooked”

“not necessarily…. Quality > Quantity

If a story is too long, the reader might get bored and not continue to read on….”

“For me, not really. I have seen chapters four pages long but are the most boring or retardest things I have ever read while I have chapters as short as prologues but with insight and excitement. “

” most likely longer compositions have more details and more interesting”

” Lengthy chapters are alright, but too long of a chapter gets boring after a while. You just really need to find a happy medium.”

” Yes but if its useless words and filler then don’t write about it. There are two types of introducing a story”

“Not all the time, honestly. Sometimes some of the greatest stories or poems are the shortest. It’s a lot about quality, but quantity does help sometimes.”

” No. Quality > quantity” (wow, second time I heard that today)

“no”

“well if its a novel you want it longer, and if its a haiku you want it shorter, but a longer piece of writing is not necesarily a better piece of writing.” So the length has to suit the purpose? “Sure”

What do I think? I think it’s absolutely the last thing you should ever care about, think about, or even consider.

Why? First of all, more text does not equal more information. And even if it did, that information wouldn’t be of any value. I could sit here and read a 400-page TV Guide and gain nothing. Why? I don’t watch TV.

Second of all, length just stretches out the same information over more words. If you want to make valuable stuff, write less so that you can apply more.

But when writing stories, there’s a bigger reason yet. If you’ve said everything you wanted to say, revised it enough and made it as good as you could, then it’ll automatically be beautiful, lengthy and deep.

That’s because if something is written in the best that it can be, then the amount of words, the style and the value will automatically correspond and what you wrote will be just as long as it has to be, and will be perfect as it is.

I’m going to steal something from the above and revise it. It’s not Quality > quantity, it’s Quality + Style + Revision = Exactly how much quantity is needed.

If you have any comments, responses for the survey or objections, let’s hear them.

Guess what? You’re the God, the paper’s the minion. Too many people suffer from writer’s block because they’re afraid of what will happen if they publish something horrible. That is why self-doubt hits them, they can’t write, they lose motivation, and through repetition, stop writing.

So until you feel like you dominate your paper, please do the following exercise two times a day:

1. Take out a new blank sheet of paper.
2. Write your name at the top.
3. Write down the first paragraph of your next story.
4. Draw a smiley face.
5. Spill coffee/water/paint on the page.
6. Write the next paragraph.
7. Fold it into a paper airplane.
8. Fly it out the window.
9. Retrieve it.
10. Open it up, cut out faces and glue them together into a house.
11. Crumble the whole thing.
12. And into the trash it goes.

With these 12 easy steps, you will once again have that dominating feeling that your piece is really controlled by you. Too many people are too afraid of the page to write stuff down, so they sit there for hours staring at the blank piece of paper.

Well guess what? Nothing will happen if you mess up. So WRITE!

“Roses are… Violets are” poems are sweet, but you’re a write, and they don’t even get close to your standards. So please, go for quality.

If you missed your opportunity this year, there’s always the next. If not, go ahead and send a late Valentines poem. There’s still time, unless you’re about to die.

So here’s some tips to keep in mind:

1. Pick a style. What do you want your love to feel? Make her cry? Make her excited? Annoyingly longing? Remember this when writing your poems. Remember though, even though your story is expressed with love, this may not be echoed in your love’s heart. Don’t explain how sad you are and expect an equal reaction. Induce sadness. Induce excitement. An ebullient style doesn’t necessarily have to be echoed. Hearts aren’t as mimetic as we might believe, so make sure your poem creates, not shows.
2. Outline. Yes. Here too. Don’t try to skip this. Do it. What will you start with? An antecedent? A question? Go on, write exactly what you’re going to do.
3. Lengthen. Recopy your poem and make it better. Use a Rhyme Dictionary, as it’ll immensely help your poem. Make sure your syllables line up.
4. Edit. Go back and replace stupid adjectives, adverbs and verbs with more descriptive versions of themselves. This is when you make everything impressive.
5. Revise. Read here for advice on revising just about anything.
6. Rewrite. Copy what you wrote into your favorite visual publisher program. Word works fine. Insert pictures, preferably those that you drew yourselves, into the document. Pictures should generally be red and white.
7. Visualize. Option One — Computer: Choose Valentines Day-themed colors. Use an appropriate font. Fiolex Girls MS is a font that comes with Vista and is especially designed for writing love poems. I would only use it for the title, and probably make the rest Vivaldi, Edwardian Script, Freestyle Script, French Script, or something of the sort. Bold the text, make it white and make the background red, pink, or a combo of the two.
   Option Two –Write: If you have a nice handwriting, this is the choice for you. Write it on a plain sheet of white paper, glued onto a pink/red piece of paper. Calligraphy pens are a good idea. I suggest you use one if you have one.
8. Frame. Optional, but good anyway. Use a red border.
9. Present with flowers/candy/some other type of present.

A common problem with writers, surprisingly, is not whether they’re too picky, but whether they’re picky enough.

We’ve all got standards, some higher than others. We all have a certain point to pass before we can conclude that we’re finished. But how do you know whether or not your point is correctly placed?

So here’s a rule of the thumb: If you haven’t started over on everything in your story at least once, it’s not good enough.

Seriously, writers throw away finished novels and start over from scratch.

It’s important that you know when your writing sucks and when it doesn’t. In truth, if you started throwing away everything that you write and starting over at least three times, you wouldn’t be half as bad as the best.

You’re a good writer, but don’t let yourself fall into the amateur crowd. If you think it’s perfect and others think it sucks, don’t let people see it. It’s yours.

The best programmers program for themselves first, the crowd later. The best email software is the one that was created by someone to be used, not to be sold.

If you made a software so you could use it, not others, only you, then you know it’s the best.

Same goes for writing. If you write for yourselves and ignore what everyone thinks, then you’ll automatically be the best.

Yes, you can give in to the crowd and stretch away here and there, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter what others think as long as you think it’s great.

And that’s the only time others will think it’s great, too.

So here’s your homework:

Rewrite the same story 3 times, then take out the strengths and weaknesses from each and combine them to make the ultimate story.

Already looking better. Huh? Here’s another idea. Take that story and rewrite it 3 times.

What do you think? Not as good as the original? It shouldn’t be. But even these little stories have strengths that your masterpiece doesn’t.

Feel free to chop off good pieces and revise again and again.

Only once you’ve written 10 stories and can’t find a single strength that your story needs do you know that your story is 100% complete.

As a follow-up of my New Notebook article, I’ve added a guide to making up your own shorthand.

This is useful in many, many ways. You can’t imagine how many times I use my own set of shorthand. I do this when I need to write down fast notes, when I just had an idea, or when I want to produce massive quantities of pages in a short time.

The point of your own set of shorthand is to speed up your writing. This is why we use easy easy, fast slashes, swirls and dots for shorthand and not complex symbols.

If you’ve seen Japanese writing, you’ll know exactly what you need to not do. Hyrogliphs are generally taboo too, because they’re based on comlex symbols, not easy letters.

You don’t always need to have symbols for every single letter. Sometimes you’ll only want to have stuff for the phonetics. You won’t really need “c”, because you already have “s” and “k”. You really don’t need a symbol for “q” either, because you can have “k”.

Also, you can have symbols for common combinations of letters. “Ee” is a given. If you have a symbol for “ee”, you don’t need a symbol for “ea” and “y” (as a vowel). “The” is another common combinaton. You’ve got “there,” they,” “these,” and a ton more.

The last way is to make a symbol for every single word, or the common ones at least. I don’t like this system, but it has certain advantages. However, it can be good short-term. If you’re taking notes on a lecture that has the same long words over and over again, you’ll want to make a key at the top of the page with symbols and apply them to only one sheet. These should be hyrogliphs and should probably be obvious and easily detected.

Here are some additional sites that can help.

http://www.alysion.org/handy/althandwriting.htm

http://www.alysion.org/handy/handyhand.htm

http://www.erskine.edu/SI/shorthand.htm

http://www.pcshorthand.com/