1st Assignment

A good text, my way

You'll need:

1 cup                   Good ideas

1 pinch               Frustration

8 grams              Optimism

500 grams.        Preservation

1 spoonful         Skill                                      

2 bags                 Preparation

Instructions:

There are many ways to achieve a good text. This, however, is how I do it. Please note that these ingredients are measured by my own preference and thus they can be adjusted as you go.

Everything has to start somewhere, and so do texts.  For us, the beginning is when you'll get an idea for your text. Sometimes it can be just a phrase, a title or even a monologue that gets the creative juices flowing, sometimes you just have a general idea of where you want to take it. Which is why preparation plays such an important part in the writing process. You can have a bullet list, a mind map or even keywords written on a separate piece of paper; the help it gives you is enormous. This also helps you to stay in topic and avoid droning on about irrelevant topics.

Sometimes I'll get frustrated by something I've written while I'm beta-ing the text. For me it's helpful, in moderate amounts, to see where I've started slipping from the text making sense to  senseless mumbo-jumbo. But always, always keep in mind to be optimistic; your own writing may seem boring to you, but it is mostly due to the fact that you already know what it contains. You are familiar with the text, and chances are that you've read it dozens of times, but for new readers the text is more interesting as they haven't read it already. 

What helps, of course, is a dash of skill. To know how to make a text flow right, how to keep it short, while informative, how to keep it interesting to read is a talent that needs to be in one's repertoire, but also one that can and will increase by time. What is best to keep in mind is that something is always more enjoyable when the text is structurally sound; a nice skill to have is correct grammar. As off-putting as a boring text can be, nothing beats an illegible mess in terms of a bad read.