Studio Blog

If you're anything like me (and I know I may be just setting myself up here), you have a love/hate relationship with writing. In one respect, you love it because there is just something about laying down words in an engaging and almost lyrical way that just flows effortlessly from word to word, sentence to sentence, and paragraph to paragraph that, ultimately, communicates an organic concept from writer to reader. For me, that's a quite a thrill. But at the same time, getting to that point can be one of the most painful, tormenting, hair-pulling, excruciating experiences ever. And sometimes that's just trying to decide on whether to use a gerund or an infinitive. I tell you, Abu Ghraib is nothing compared to being stuck between two relative clauses. And then you hit it. The wall where nothing is coming out of you. And you're just staring at that dreaded, hypnotic blinking cursor, actually counting how many times it blinks in one minute. So, naturally, you take a break. Just for a moment at least. But then that moment soon stretches into hours and suddenly you're not quite sure why you're about to order a Snuggie at three o'clock in the morning.

Often times, I tend to lose focus when I actually focus too much on my overall goal. A journey of a thousand miles may begin with one step, but I'm always thinking about the thousand miles and how I don't seem to be getting any closer to it. So to help myself overcome this hurdle, I break up longer writing sessions and goals into smaller ones. To me, it's kind of like chunking--the psychological term where you break up longer strings of information into smaller digestible units. Like 23801967 is harder to take in than 23, 80, 1967. If your goal is two pages an hour, that's much less intimidating than 10 for the day or 300 pages total. And between every small goal, I make sure I reward myself for accomplishing it. It's OK to have that cookie now. It's fine to browse ESPN or TMZ for a bit. The reward provides closure for me and makes me feel comfortable about moving onto the next goal because I can see the units of progress I'm making.

So my question to everyone is what do you do to help yourself stay focused, on course and productive?

It’s not unusual for me to sit in front of the computer for hours and contemplate what to write. My attention jumps from the point I am trying to make, to what song is next on my playlist, to an itch on my right foot … and then back to the initial reason I sat down in the first place. Then comes Joan Didion’s essay, “Why I Write.” It’s a second-hand title from George Orwell, who initially mused about why he became a writer, but I always refer to Didion’s perspective. She goes on to explain what she thinks being a writer is:

“By which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person who’s most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper.”

I keep this essay bookmarked in my browser for those days (about seven per week) when I sit down to write and end up just staring at my cursor as it blinks … slowly … like a ticking clock … taunting me to write that first opening sentence. The essay reminds me that writing is not about perfecting the art of spelling or mastering grammar. Writing is the ability to put words in a logical and cohesive order. Some people are very clear, some are very creative, some are just plain awful, but each and every writer brings a different organization of words to the page, and no two writers are the same. That, in my opinion, is what makes writing so fascinating and is partly why I love it so much.

I was reading through some Studio articles and noticed that we have titles that are very similar (and by very similar I mean identical), and the content in each and every one was absolutely unique. Part of it is because we require it, but part of it is that each writer carries and maintains an authentic voice. I honestly think that is the greatest proof of quality. When you think about how your articles are rated, what that means and what a “5” article compared to a “3” article looks like, it is important to remember that even though we have strict guidelines and formats that may dilute the creative structure of the article, it does not—and should not—offset the authenticity of your voice and writing style. 

I can’t wait to provide better examples of “5”-rated articles in the Resource Center. In my opinion though, an article you should be proud of, “5” or not, is one that you read, and—no matter how stringent the guidelines are—your voice still carries out. That is the most powerful thing a writer can do, and it is tremendously impressive when you see it done right.

This afternoon, my fellow Studio editor Sarah and I ventured into Borders on our afternoon break so I could grab an interior-design magazine. As we walked toward the magazine section, I recalled the days when I’d wander into a magazine section in a bookstore and flip to the editor’s page. I was probably a freshman in high school back then, and I had just started considering becoming a writer/editor. I loved studying those pages in the front of the big magazines that said “A Note From the Editor” and then were signed by the editor-in-chief. I wanted to have my own page like that some day.

Well, I haven’t been the editor-in-chief of a magazine, but I did go on to get a bachelor’s degree in magazine journalism, and I have been an editor for a couple of them. I’ve learned I love editing. Words can be beautiful. Sometimes they require a little twisting, trimming and fine-tuning to be beautiful, and I love working with them until they become that piece of art.

However, while the written word will always exist in some form, it increasingly seems as though print journalism may not. I’ll admit it—this worries me. The die-hard, trained journalist in me mourns the potential losses of the many great newspapers and magazines that may get (or already are) lost in society’s transition to new media. I worry that we’ll lose the beauty of words in exchange for fast-paced, unedited, unsubstantiated citizen journalism.

This is just one of the reasons I’m so excited to be a part of Demand Studios. We’ve taken most of the great aspects of the print-journalism process and combined them with the strongest qualities of new media. We operate at a fast pace, but the information we publish is substantial and verified by qualified copy editors. Our articles are easy to discover online, but they’re found on high-quality authoritative websites of which we can be proud.

So, it has been with excitement for the future of opportunities in new media that I’ve slowly drifted away from my old dream of having an editor’s page of a big magazine. My byline appears in them from time to time, and that’s good enough. My writing appears all over the Internet, and far more people have access to the Internet than they do print issues of various magazines.

We all know we are at the forefront of a huge transformation in media, and I’m excited to be a part of ensuring it maintains journalistic integrity, high quality and, most of all, beauty.

For example, if you were writing an About article titled "Low Carb Snack Foods," we DO NOT want a list of low carb snack foods and corresponding descriptions. The types of snacks can comprise one subhead and section, but we are looking for a multifaceted article covering different angles of the title. For instance, you might explain the significance of choosing low carb snacks, misconceptions people may have about low carb snacks, benefits of including low card snack items to your diet, ways to identify a snack that is low carb, etc. While we don't require that you use our suggested subheads, they can be useful to help shape your article.