When I’m feeling whiny about how hard writing is, I turn to my file of quotes from the pros. It seems that no successful writer, from Ernest Hemingway to Kurt Vonnegut, could resist kvetching about the craft.

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five and other black comedies

“I love being a writer. What I can’t stand is the paperwork.”

— Peter DeVries, American editor, novelist and wit

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and wait for drops of blood to form on your forehead.”

— Gene Fowler, American journalist, author and dramatist

Writing is tough. Always has been. Always will be.

Now that we’ve got that out of our systems, what can we do to make it better?

While we talk a lot about what to write — More stories! Fewer words! Shorter sentences! — we don’t focus so much on how.

But if you’ll break your writing time up into steps, you’ll write better, easier and faster. Here’s how …

Develop a good writing process.

Process is important: The way you write affects how well you write. As a writing trainer and coach, I can always tell when a writer has:

• Written a story before organizing it
• Edited a story before writing it
• Failed to edit the story at all

I can tell when a writer writes by typing up her notes and moving them around in Microsoft Word — or when he sits with his nose in his notebook for too long.

The writing process makes a huge difference in the quality of our copy. Problem is, most of us were taught a lousy writing process.

How we were taught to write

Writing is hard because we weren’t taught to write, says Richard Andersen, author of Writing That Works. Instead, we were taught how to edit — how to spell, punctuate and use the right grammar.

As a result, when we write, we try to do three things at once:

• Think of what to write
• Write it down
• Get it right

How to write instead

Instead of trying to do all of this work at the same time, we need to take writing step by step. (Or Bird by Bird, for Anne Lamott aficionados.)

The best writing process breaks writing up into discrete steps:

1. Prewriting. Here’s where you get ready to write. In this step, you conduct your research, find your story angle and organize your ideas.
2. Freewriting. Write it down. Don’t worry about grammar and spelling. Just get words on paper so you can revise them in the next step.
3. Rewriting. Here’s where you polish your final product. Only now do you let the grammar police in.

Both sides of the brain

The writing process is based on the theory that our brains are divided into two parts:

• The logical left side. This side of our brain thinks analytically from one point to the next like a computer, making sure we don’t end our sentences in prepositions or use a colon when only a semicolon will do.
• The creative right side. This side is impulsive and unconventional and gives our copy interest and energy.

Too often, we spend our writing time only on the logical left side of our brain. That’s why too often we write it right … but we don’t write anything that people want to read.

Why the three-step writing process?

The folks who study the writing process say that writers who divide their writing into discrete steps are:

• Less likely to suffer from writer’s block
• More likely to meet their deadlines
• Unlikely to get stressed out in the process

Put your effort at the top.

Most writers invest little time in the pre writing phase, focusing instead on fixing a lame draft in rewriting.

Turn that investment upside down: Spend the bulk of your time getting ready to write, less time writing and the least time fixing what you wrote.

The result: You’ll soon be writing better, easier and faster.
___

Source: Richard Andersen, Writing That Works, McGraw-Hill, 1989

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I don’t believe in writer’s block. Never had time for it. Blank page? I’ll take two, please. I’ve never met the muse. She sounds delightful, but she’s never knocked on my door.

“There is a muse,” writes novelist Stephen King. “But he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer station.

“He lives in the ground. He’s a basement guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there, you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you.”

Amen, Brother!

Still, every writer struggles with times when you’d rather be reading a book than writing one — or heading to the coffee shop instead of the office. So how can you put words on paper when you can’t think of what to write? Here are some writing strategies that work.

Use the creative process.

What passes for writer’s block is usually a process problem. The more you understand how your brain works, the more likely you are to come up with a good method for writing.

I use the five-step creative process, for instance, every day. It looks like this:

1. Forage, or gather information. This is the “feed your brain” step of the process. Here’s where you interview subject matter experts and turn to Google for the raw material that will become your story.
2. Analyze that information. Focus, sift and organize it to see how the pieces fit together. (Bonus: During this step, you are also uploading this information to your brain.)
3. Incubate, or let the information simmer. Let your subconscious mind mull over the message.
4. Break through, or get to the “Aha!” Here, you’ll answer questions like “What should I use for my lead?” and “How am I going to organize this thing?”
5. Knuckle down, or take Ernest Hemingway’s advice and “apply the seat of your pants to the seat of the chair.” In other words, start writing. (In the three-step writing process, this step is called free writing.)

Skip any of these steps or carry them out in the wrong order, and you may have trouble figuring out what to write.

Before you sit down to write …

The biggest contributor to writer’s block is when you skip incubation — that is, you try to force a solution without relaxing and letting your subconscious mind work on your project.

“I’d like to remind you again, Winfield, that daydreaming is only a part of the creative process.”

— Boss to employee in a New Yorker cartoon by Charles Barsotti

That’s easy to do.

Incubation is the most misunderstood — and therefore, the most frustrating — of all writing tools. That’s because it seems as if you aren’t really doing anything.

That can frustrates us — and irritate our bosses. But skip incubation, and you can look forward to some long days staring at a blank page.

Successful writers incubate. Period. Here are three ways to perform this essential writing exercise:

1. Work on more than one project at a time. That’s right, multitasking can actually work in your favor when it comes to overcoming writer’s block. Blocked on that blog post? Switch to social media status updates. While your conscious mind tackles the Project B, your subconscious mind keeps toiling away on Project A.
2. Time it right. My best case scenario: Finish foraging and analyzing one day, then head out for happy hour. When I return to the office the next day, I’m itching to write. The reason: 16 hours of down time have really been 16 hours of incubation. Call it “creative pressure.” Put off that first draft until you need to let off some creative steam.
3. Incubate in tiny doses. No time to put the project away for even one night? Try a fast-food method of incubation: Put your notes in a file. Put the file in a drawer. Then take a few minutes to answer your email, walk to the vending machine or organize your files. Even a tiny change of scenery can be more productive than staring vacantly at your notes for 20 minutes.

Creative works.

Gordon MacKenzie, the late, great Hallmark creative guru, told a story in his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball (edited by yours truly!) about a businessman watching a herd of dairy cows.

The guy watches and watches, but all he sees is a bunch of cows leisurely hanging out under shade trees, roaming around a pond or quietly eating grass. Finally, the businessman shakes a fist at the cows and shouts: “You *&%@# cows get to work, or I’ll have you butchered!”

“The man wants to see the cows creating 24 hours a day,” MacKenzie wrote. “What he doesn’t understand is that only a portion of the creative act is visible. As they stand idly in the pasture, those cows are performing the miracle of turning grass and water into milk right before his eyes.”

When you incubate, you are performing the miracle of transforming words and ideas into stories. Don’t skip this step. There is magic in it.

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“The hard part” of writing, says playwright Tom Stoppard, “is getting to the top of page one.”

Getting to the top of page one is the job of prewriting, the first step of the writing process. That’s where you develop a plan for your story.

Prewriting includes everything you do to get ready to write. During prewriting, you’ll:

• Research your story. You’ve heard the phrase “hog in, sausage out.” No matter how accomplished a writer you are, your story will be no better than your material.
• Develop your story angle. Come up with the key message that will drive every paragraph, sentence, phrase and word of your message.
• Organize your piece. Spend a few minutes organizing your message upfront, and you’ll save hours agonizing over it later.

What’s not prewriting: revising and editing. That’s the last step of the writing process, called rewriting.

Prewriting will help you:

1. Craft your story.

Typing isn’t writing; thinking is writing. Prewriting is where you figure out what you’re going to say. The rest is just getting words onto the page.

“My working habits are simple,” wrote Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winning novelist: “long periods of thinking, short periods of writing.”

2. Write to length.

Why write a thesis when what you need is a tweet? Prewriting can help you write to length. That saves you the time you would have spent overwriting — plus the time you would have spent going back through to edit out the extra words.

“Keep it short from the initial conception,” writes Poynter Institute senior scholar Roy Peter Clark. “You can write a haiku faster than a sonnet, a sonnet faster than an epic.”

3. Get ready to write.

Prewriting helps you stuff your brain with information and ideas so the back of your mind can work on your story while you’re doing the dishes. Best-case scenario: You’ll write the story in your head, so it flows from your fingers when you hit the keyboard.

“Writing is no trouble,” wrote Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock. “You just jot down the ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself … it is the occurring which is difficult.”

Now, on to step 2 …

Prewriting gives you a road map for the next step of the process: That’s when you free write, or get words onto the page.

___

Source: Richard Andersen, Writing That Works, McGraw-Hill, 1989

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When the folks at Topolobampo, Chicago’s cathedral to Mexican cuisine, wanted to sell more syrah, they didn’t put signs on the tables saying “Buy wine!” Instead, they provided nifty little tabletop tipsheets on how to pair wine with Mexican food.

Take a tip from Topolobampo: Instead of always pushing your products, offer your customers news they can use to live their lives better. Tip sheets position your organization as the expert in the field and may drive more sales than purely promotional pieces.

Here are seven ways to make the most of your next tip sheet:

1. Find a topic.

Explain how to:

• Cut costs during the recession
• Save on taxes
• File for Social Security
• Grow a great lawn
• Reduce gas consumption
• Or do whatever it is your organization helps people do

Stumped? Check out this list of benefits. How can you help readers save money, save time, avoid effort and otherwise live their lives better?

The key here is to provide real value. Tip sheets on “Five reasons to work with Ann Wylie” will never gain traction. “10 tips for choosing an XYZ vendor” won’t change anyone’s life either.

Instead of offering self-serving tips, remember this content marketing formula: “Give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, ask.”

2. Organize tips logically.

Choose the right structure:

• Alphabetical structure is best for glossaries, for instance.
• Chronological structure is the right choice for a series of steps. (As everyone who’s ever put together an Ikea bedside table well knows.)
• Hierarchical structure works best for top 10 lists.

3. Use the language of service stories.

How-to language — like top, 10, you, most, best and, of course, how to — has been a mainstay of service journalism for years. These days, this language tops the list of most-shared words and phrases on Facebook and Twitter, according to Zarrella’s research.

4. Put a number in the headline.

Numerals sell stories. That’s why coverlines on best-selling magazines are packed with numbers, from “Six Steps to Six-Pack Abs” to “101 Best Cheap Eats.” Blog post headlines and subject lines with numerals are more likely to get shared and opened, too.

But be careful: It’s not enough just to slap a 10 onto the headline. Odd numbers tend to outperform even numbers; specific numbers (99) are better than round ones (100); and 101 of anything is too many, unless you’re offering chocolate chip cookies or cute kitten videos.

5. Write in the imperative voice.

Speak directly to “you” using the second person, and start each item with a verb, like find, organize, use, put or write. That will also help you make your list of tips parallel, which your third-grade English teacher and I will appreciate.

6. Format your tips.

Numbered lists, bullets and bold-faced lead-ins lift your tips off the page and screen and make it easier for people to read your tips.

7. Deliver “go and do” information.

Links, phone numbers, times, dates, addresses and maps not only boost value. Links increase your message’s chances of going viral. And maps and addresses improve the chances that readers will act on your information.

Deliver news you can use.

“News you can use to live your life better” is the currency of most successful content marketing and PR writers.

Investor’s Business Daily’s motto is, “Don’t read it. Use it.” Shouldn’t that be your motto too?

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As a reality TV superfan, I’ve learned a lot about writing from “Project Runway” episodes.

For one thing, time management counts. The most talented designers sometimes trip over deadlines: If your model walks down the runway in a bra and a button, you’re going home no matter how brilliant your sketch looked.

The same thing’s true in writing. It’s what you deliver — on deadline — that counts.

One way to write better, easier and faster, then, is not to overdesign. A big piece of time management boils down to knowing whether you’re creating a wedding gown or a shift, a dissertation or a direct mail letter.

Hitting your number — aka writing to length — can save you an enormous amount of time. So instead of overwriting, then underwriting, map out a plan for the length of your piece before you write a single word.

1. Budget your word count.

To write to length, start with your assigned word count. Then allocate a word count to each section of your piece.

2. Map out your story.

Now determine how you’re going to use those words — which statistics, success stories and other facts and ideas will make up each paragraph.

At this point, you’ll start to see that some things won’t fit. I call this “editing before you write,” because it allows you to make most of your decisions about what goes in and what stays out before you write the first word.

The alternative: Burning time writing everything, then burning more time cutting elements after you’ve already written them.

3. Track your budget.

Once you start writing, check your word count after you finish each section. That lets you know how well you’re spending your words and whether you have more or fewer words than budgeted for the next sections.

Count me in

I don’t claim that this system allows me to hit the word count perfectly on each piece I write. But I come pretty close — plus or minus 10%, maybe.

Over the course of my career, that’s saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours of overwriting, then cutting. That’s certainly more time by far than I’ve invested in mapping out my pieces before I write.

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