Digital Diets, Information Overload, and Your Writing January 28, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: editing, writing, rss, aggregators, reporting, lifestreaming, information overload, digital media, digital diet, simplicity, information design, content filtering, sources
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A lot of people resolve to lose weight at the beginning of the year, but few carry through successfully. I’ve discovered from personal experience that sustained weight loss is possible, but what works for many people is a tough, but attainable, set of practices. There’s no quick fix.
What does this have to do with writing and editing? A lot. It appears that 2009 may be the year when “info-bloat” reaches a turning point and challenges the benefits that many have seen from digital and online platforms and Web 2.0 technologies. Thinking proactively and taking preventative steps can keep your writing from suffering the effects of too much information, available too readily, with no focus to guide its usage or significance.
The incredible expanding information waistline
The fact that the digital universe is in “growth” mode is obvious to everyone, but it may come as a shock that, according to market research firm IDC, by 2011 the digital universe will be 10 times the size it was in 2006. ComputerWorld, the source for that fascinating little tidbit, ran a very good article last August about the consequences of information overload and what companies can do to avoid “data-rich” parts of their businesses becoming data dump heaps.
As reporter Mary Brandel writes,
“Today, ideas and discussions are broadcast not at a prescribed time on a specific channel via a single medium, but all the time, on millions of forums, discussion groups, blogs and social networks. And they occupy a growing piece of our consciousness, thanks to RSS feeds, Twitter messages, mailing list and newsletter subscriptions, instant messaging, e-mail and Web surfing … It’s gotten to the point where information — which should be useful — has in some cases become a distraction.”
Inherent in the explosive growth of information is the rise of user-generated content. Duo Consulting, a group of web content experts, posted an article this month about digital overload, noting that “participatory media is resulting in a nearly infinite supply of content, although the increased fragmentation of attention is certainly an implication” of the shift to many-to-many, mass collaboration types of communication.
Do I look fat in this data?
Things have gotten so bad, Duo notes, that some are considering “digital diets,” limiting their intake of computer and Internet based materials to the bare minimum. Leo Babauta, creator of Zen Habits and Write to Done blogs, wrote a great post in 2007 on the Web Worker Daily, giving readers 21 tips for dealing with info-overload. Many of his tips work well for anyone considering a digital reducing program:
Map out your day. (Make a time map of what you want to accomplish.)
Allow RSS feeds to overload. (Just because it is there doesn’t mean you have to read it.)
Learn to focus. (In other words, learn to “unitask” and get one thing done at a time.)
Eliminate the news. (Believe me, as a journalist, I can vouch for this one—if something’s truly earth-shattering, you will hear about it at work or from friends.)
Read only 5 posts a day/Respond to only 5 emails a day/Write 5-sentence emails.
Beyond editorial-type content online, Seth Godin also points out that our writing has to compete against marketing in new media, which is rapidly leading to what he calls “social clutter”:
“It’s the clutter of the impersonal. Yes, you want an alert from a friend when it’s really a friend and really an alert. But what happens when it’s an ad that pretends to be an alert? Or what if it’s not an ad, but not really a totally personal tweet either?”
Seth predicts that social clutter will only get worse, so it appears the best offense against digital info-glut is a good defense. I’ve outlined a couple of steps writers can take to avoid the damage that information overload can produce, both from the standpoint of the information we consume, as well as that which we produce.
Tips for writers as information consumers
Resist the urge to try out every new social media tool that comes along. Be a mid-cyle adopter. Read about the promise of the next big thing while it’s in beta testing, sort through the hype and cautionary tales that follow the initial public rollout, then jump on board when you have reason to. Which leads us to the next tip…
Know why you’re online. The Internet is TV on steroids; not only is it possibly to surf endlessly and view passively, you have billions of “channels” to do it on. Before you sit down at the computer, or before you click the next link, ask yourself, “What am I looking for by going to this site?”
Find the 20 percent of social media/Web 2.0 tools that further your writing and learn how to use them effectively. Writers have a lot of uses for social media. Blogging can make you a better writer, Twitter can be useful for getting a heads-up on breaking news stories or doing quick fact-checks on stories and Facebook is so useful to journalists that numerous news organizations have a presence there. But to use each tool effectively, it helps to find out how your fellow writers or editors are using them.
Use content filtering to help the information you really need come to you. The ComputerWorld article offers several useful options for setting up aggregators or feed systems that provide only highly discussed and relevant content on a given topic. The article mentions using Techmeme for technology news, Blogrunner for general news and Wikio for global coverage. It also recommends customizing your iGoogle dashboard to develop a newsfeed that’s unique to your interests, something that I also recommend highly.
Another way to filter your content is to select a circle of Web 2.0 friends and acquaintances who’s online activies mesh with your information-gathering needs and following their “lifestreams” on services such as FriendFeed or Plaxo Pulse. Mark Krynsky, writing on Lifestream Blog, discusses this filtering strategy:
“I’m now leveraging the ultimate human filtering algorithm to bring me the wisdom of the masses. By selectively following those who are sharing bookmarks, Tweets, RSS shared items, and more, for my areas of interest, I am increasing the chance of having creme of the crop content delivered to me. This shift is treating people as a valued commodity ahead of the content.”
Have an “analog” workday and compare your productivity to a typical digital day. Try reporting, writing or editing “old school” style for one day. Travel back in time to, say, 1990 and work with the tools from that era: using a computer to type up your story is fine, but call sources on a land-line phone, take notes in a paper notebook and go to the library for research (it’s OK if your librarian uses the Internet to help you, but you have to interact with her face to face). Then work on a similar project in your usual digital fashion. If you save time doing it the old way, you may want to put yourself on a digital diet for a while.
Tips for writers as information producers
Think of your audience before beginning any project. What is the return on investment your reader will get for engaging with your material? How can you be of value to “digital dieters,” making their brief plunges into cyberspace worth it?
Think pull, not push. The upside of Web 2.0 is that readers can customize their content and have it come to them. Writing seductive headlines, subject lines and blog post titles is a matter of making a provocative proposition, then backing it up with substance.
Distribute your content in non-paying media (blogs, Twitter, RSS) strategically. Offering content for free is sensible if you’re building your brand, creating a platform for later revenue-generating work, connecting with people who may be important to your projects, or if your passion for what you’re doing is your overriding motivation.
Link enthusiastically, but add value. I’ve pruned several bloggers from my RSS aggregator list who simply posted links every day. While the filtering of content that they provided was useful for a while, I longed to understand their take on the topic of their blog and what they had to share with their audience. When you link online, pay at least as much attention to where you’re sending readers as if you were sourcing the material for print.
Pay attention to usability and information design when creating for online distribution. Sometimes, good online content gets buried in a 2-inch-deep paragraph, or simply doesn’t read the same way on a screen as it does on a piece of paper. Learning to optimize your writing for online display can make the difference between your audience taking the actions you want them to and your voice being ignored.
Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny) Redish is a terrific resource for web content producers and is filled with dozens of before-and-after website “makeovers” that focus almost entirely on how the content is arranged, rather than the visual design or the code behind the site.
Behind the (by)lines: An interview with editor Barbara McNichol January 21, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: book editors, book publishing, copy editing, copy editors, developmental editing, editing, ghostwriting, writing
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Today we interview Barbara McNichol, a talented book editor and book author based in Tucson. She has some wonderful thoughts on the differences between editing and co-writing, the best sort of training for would-be editors, and the challenges (and joys) of working with writers. Enjoy!
How did you get started as an editor? How did you determine that editing was one of your strong communications skills?
You might say I got started as an editor in fourth grade when my teacher had me correct the spelling tests for her in class. Later on at university in journalism school, I gravitated toward the copyediting class. Right from the start, I felt successful in that role. I even applied for a copy desk job at the Toronto Star after graduating. That told me editing was one of my strong suits. (No, I didn’t get the job and my life journeys took me elsewhere … for a while.)
How have you developed your niche as a book editor?
In developing my niche as a book and article editor, I look back to my years in corporate communication when I took charge of a corporate magazine called Round Up. I constantly rewrote jargon-laden articles by consultants to make them understandable. As a freelance editor, revising articles quickly expanded into rewriting and editing nonfiction books. I’ve had a full 15 years experience now editing mostly business, financial, health, and spirituality books.
How is your role as a freelance book editor different than a (bylined) co-writer of a book or an editor at a publishing house?
Freelance editing differs from co-writing because authorship involves much more—researching, interviewing, accounting, marketing, sales, and so on. As an editor, I work on 30 manuscripts a year, which doesn’t leave a lot of time for co-writing. I enjoy working with authors who come to me through a publishing house. The setup they’ve gone through with the publisher adds more planning, accountability, and sense of partnership to the whole project. Kaplan Publishing hired me to edit or ghostwrite about two dozen of their authors’ books over the years.
An editor’s best training is a strong grounding in grammar in several languages, not just English. Studying Greek in my twenties helped me understand English grammar and sentence structure better than ever.
What are the greatest challenges in working with book authors? The greatest joys?
My greatest challenges working with authors (assuming they’re being accountable, generous, and serious about schedules) is when they get too attached their own wording and can’t see simpler ways to get their ideas across. I’m all for making the reading experience simple and enjoyable for readers, which means not forcing them to work too hard to understand the author’s message. The joys come when their books make a splash in the marketplace and they share the credit and praise with me. Their appreciation goes a long way with me.
What do you spend more time on during your editing: developmental or line editing–that is, getting the structure and language right, or copy editing?
I’ve always found it tricky to put labels on the kind of editing I do because the degree of editing varies from author to author. My talent lies not only in smoothing out their ideas without losing their voices, but in looking for what might be missing and what could be improved on.
What would be the best sort of training for working as a book editor? What skills are essential to this kind of work?
An editor’s best training is a strong grounding in grammar in several languages, not just English. Studying Greek in my twenties helped me understand English grammar and sentence structure better than ever. Beyond that, taking copyediting classes in journalism school or its equivalent gives essential training in writing crisp, tight sentences and polishing to the point of making the copy “sing.”
Learn to simplify your ideas by reworking and revising your sentences until their clarity shines like a diamond.
Have you published a book under your own byline? Do you ever hope to?
I co-wrote The Landlord’s Handbook, 3rd edition, when the author struck a deal with me to do the updates for Kaplan. It hasn’t made me rich as an author or a landlord!
What really matters today is my own e-book called Word Trippers. Over my 15 years as a freelance editor, I’ve tripped over hundreds of confusing or misused words working with authors’ pieces. Word combinations like “further vs. farther” and “except vs. accept” are so frequently misused, I had to start shouting out about them! So I compiled an extensive guide called Word Trippers: The Ultimate Source for Choosing the Perfect Word When It Really Matters. It’s available on my website at www.BarbaraMcNichol.com; so is a signup for my free e-zine called Word Tripper of the Week. Word Trippers helps anyone get grounded in the accurate use of our language and can save embarrassing mistakes, too.
Any other advice or comments for readers who aspire to improve their editing?
To improve writing (which makes editing easier and better), my best, most succinct nugget is this: Learn to simplify your ideas by reworking and revising your sentences until their clarity shines like a diamond. For 10 more nuggets like these, please email me at editor@barbaramcnichol.com and request my “10 Top Techniques” article.
More from Barbara McNichol:
Write This Way: Writing and Editing Links for January 12, 2009 January 12, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: co-operative publishing, communication, editing, Garr Reynolds, lifestreaming, narrative nonfiction, nonfiction writing, parataxis, personal narrative, social media, writing
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It’s a new year, and time for our first 2009 installment of the writing-related hyperlink-love-fest we feature at least once a month on this blog.
1. Everyone still seems to be taking stock of the old year and setting goals for 2009. One inventive way to sum up 2008 if you’re a blogger, is to create a parataxis entry, which fuses a number of disparate, seeming unrelated fragments to create meaning. Michael Eddy, over at Orange Crate Art blog, used this technique on Jan. 1 by including the first sentence of the first post of the month for every month of 2008 on his blog. Here’s an excerpt:
“Small calendars for the new year, well designed and free. Alas, it’s a parking area that’s reserved. Victoria’s Secret likes to ask in its marketing, ‘What is sexy?’ Whoso would be a G-Man must be a pencil user, as Emerson might have put it.”
And so on. Musician and blogger Elaine Fine also jumped on the parataxis bandwagon, with somewhat different results:
“Daniel Wolf has put together a nifty Winter Album of twelve (and maybe more) piano pieces that incorporate a great range of compositional techniques. Scott Spiegelberg found this wonderful clip that is sure to make you smile. My grandmother kept magazines like this April 30, 1945 Life magazine on her coffee table. Thanks to Anne for this! And music criticism of unusual quality.”
I think parataxis is an interesting technique to experiment with—it can be fun to see if you find a thread of narrative in your varied posts if you blog, or it could be interesting to use the first-sentence/first-entry-of-the-month theme with a writer’s notebook, a poetry journal, or other analog writing tools.
2. Will Web 2.0 tools make us better memoirists or storytellers? That is the intriguing proposition of Kathy Hansen at A Storied Career blog, who asserts that 2008 was the year of the personal narrative, and that “lifestreaming” is the key to understanding why social networking tools will facilitate personal narrative nonfiction.
Lifestreaming, she explains, is the aggregation of personal content (status updates, blog or news item postings, photos, videos, etc.) across a number of services. FriendFeed and Plaxo Pulse are two examples of services that help users follow all their friends’ activities, from their status updates on Twitter or Facebook to their bookmarks on del.icio.us.
As Hansen tells it,
“Lifestreaming is unquestionably a form of personal narrative. It doesn’t provide a complete picture of one’s personal narrative; often the beholder is left to try to fill in the blanks, connect the dots, and assemble puzzle pieces. But in many ways, this lack of comprehensiveness is part of the charm. The little bits of information and media serve almost as story prompts that enable the reader to construct his or her own story about the lifestreaming person. And you can always ask the lifestreamer to fill in details or explain cryptic status postings.”
This assertion is one I’ve pondered privately for a few months now, and I tend to agree. As I determine what to post on my Facebook page, blogs and other places, I definitely think through my audience, how vulnerable I’m willing to be on the page (or screen) and how the items will reflect my experiences when I (or someone else) review them later. I believe that this tension between social media users’ desire to connect and share, and very real privacy and security concerns, will influence personal narrative development (or maybe it should be called “personal broadcasting”?) in the years to come.
3. If you are a mom with a book idea, take a minute to read an interview on Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen’s Quips and Tips for Freelance Writers blog with Iris Waichler, MSW, a member of the Wyatt-MacKenzie Writer’s Co-operative. This innovative publishing group is comprised of 24 stay-at-home moms who had dreams of becoming published authors. Led by Nancy Cleary, the company has a special focus on publishing titles that relate to motherhood.
While Waichler acknowledges that being a member of a publishing co-operative has its drawbacks, the experience has mostly been positive:
“The team helped my book become a reality…My wonderful colleagues helped answer questions I had about a multitude of issues like book marketing, putting together a press release and sell sheet.
“We cheer each other on when something good happens like great publicity or a book award or successful author events. We cheer each other up if things don’t go well and offer valuable advice about how to tackle writing, marketing, and book challenges.”
4. Finally, business communications expert Bert Decker recently posted his list of the Top 10 Best (and Worst) Communicators of 2008. For those who are interested in the public performance side of communication, Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen (who made Decker’s “good” list) added a few names of his own in a separate posting.
Whether or not you agree with (or like) the people on Decker’s lists, they have definitely all made their marks in the media world, and the list of “good” communicators (which includes Barack Obama, the late Tim Russert, Colin Powell, Mike Huckabee, Tina Fey and businessman John Chambers) provides ample material for discussing what it takes to reach your audience in this media-clogged world.
(P.S. Decker put GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin on both the “best” and “worst” communicator lists, which perhaps emphasizes the truism that very few people can communicate in every situation with equal effectiveness.)
Bonus Links
Line Number Your Writing
An incredibly practical tip for those who receive feedback on their works-in-progress from Marsha at Writing Companion blog.
The Six People You Meet in Freelance Internet Writing Hell
Adam Brown details the types of people you don’t want to spend eternity with online in this hilarious post on the Freelance Switch blog.
What are your writing goals for 2009? January 3, 2009
Posted by creativeliberty in Uncategorized.Tags: community-building, craft, editing, editors, first readers, new year's resolutions, publications, resolutions, writers, writing, writing community, writing goals
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Now that we’re several days into 2009, the unfocused warm glow of New Year’s optimism is giving way to the nagging question that haunts resolutions or goals made at anytime during the year: how am I going to get from where I am now to where I want to go?
For writers and editors, this question can be quite pertinent. It’s quite possible to consider yourself an aspiring writer and carry on your creative work without anyone even knowing you’re doing it. There is a great freedom in pursing an art-form so unfettered by the requirements of specific tools or logistics, but it is also possible to labor for years without significant improvement in one’s writing, simply because of a lack of access to feedback or a lack of investment in one’s art.
Setting writing goals for the year can be tricky. If you’re just starting out, you may have no idea what you’re best at or what topics you want to write about. If you’ve been writing for a while, you may want to take your writing in a new direction, but not be sure how to go about it. And if you are a seasoned professional writer, your goals may be driven by a need to stay relevant and/or avoid burn-out or staleness.
A good place to start with goal-setting is to figure out what results you want to create in three areas in your writing life: publication goals, craft goals and community goals.
Publication goals are pretty straightforward—they include all the possible outlets for your writing, from the church newsletter to national magazines, Technorati Top 100 blogs, commercial outlets, books and more.
My publication goals for this year are to get six or more articles published on topics that I consider my specialties (creativity and workplace learning), to continue to post to Write Livelihood at least once a week, and to guest post at least once a month on other blogs that cover topics allied to my own blogs (this one and Creative Liberty).
You’ll notice my goals have numbers attached to them. Once you’ve moved past a benchmark (getting the first article published in a topic area), it can help motivation as well as week-by-week planning to have a frequency goal to encourage regular query-letter-writing, blog posts, and other publication-generating work.
Craft goals concern the quality of one’s writing. To set a craft goal, one needs some feeling for the requirements of their publication goal(s). If you have said that this year is the year you’re going to write up that nonfiction book idea that’s been floating around in your head for years, consider what you’ll need to know how to do to get started.
Have you ever written an article on the topic?
Have you ever written a series of articles on interrelated topics?
What has been the longest (in terms of word count) that you have sustained a story or stories that have a similar theme?
Have you ever written a book proposal? Do you understand how to compose the component parts?
If you plan to write creative nonfiction, your craft goals may look similar to those of fledgling fiction writers if you haven’t yet mastered dialogue, descriptive writing, dramatic structure, etc.
Picking a particular craft element to focus on each day, week, or month may also provide direction if you’re intending to start a daily writing practice or a writer’s notebook.
My craft goal for the year is to review and practice with two great books on nonfiction writing style that have come out in the past few years: Writing Tools by Roy Peter Clark and A Writer’s Coach by Jack Hart. I feel confident in my ability to complete the big-picture tasks of nonfiction writing (formulating an idea, finding an appropriate structure, etc.), but I would like to enhance the line-by-line care I use when building images through words.
Community goals aren’t for everyone, but, as I pointed out earlier, writing can be an intensely private craft and involving others in your writing process can provide perspectives, feedback and camaraderie that can balance and harmonize your individual brilliance.
It’s a good idea to think broadly about building writing community. Perhaps your first goal might be to find a trusted “first reader,” who can give you key feedback on your early drafts. This person doesn’t have to be an editor or a writer—on some levels, it may be better if they are simply a caring, intelligent reader—to give you an honest response to your work. Just having the same person read your early drafts over time can develop a rapport that allows you to be more vulnerable on the page, as you know your first reader will support you in your self-extension, even if he or she has suggestions for improving your expression.
Beyond a first reader, are you hungry for feedback from other writers? An editor’s opinion (or help)? Connection with others who reassure you that your writing is a worthy project ?
My community goals for the year include more commenting and interaction on other writing blogs, inviting readers to join me for off-blog events (live or virtual) and exploring local writing groups or meet-ups.
The question to you…
What are your writing goals for this year?
