Tag Archives: Writing

Personal Reflections, Writing

Eight Tips for Coping with Writing Rejections

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SheepWriting is hard. I know you already know that.

Reading is hard too, especially if you have to read bad writers, which is why I hope you haven’t already started thinking, “Reading this blog is hard. . .”

My point is that putting words on a page and hoping they pile up and turn into clear, coherent, and meaningful prose (or poetry) is so difficult that it creates self-consciousness and worry and other neurotic thoughts and emotions linked to being judged and rejected. And just in case you feel tempted, you don’t have to tell me that good writers never write, “My point is. . .” because my other point is that I’ve been getting lots of rejections lately.

I’d rather not admit anything about my writing rejection rate; I’d rather have you think that everything I write gets published. There have been thousands of pages, eight books, and 100+ professional articles—all published, but that’s NOT the point (I also know that using ALL CAPS is bad form, like shouting while writing, and that no one but Dave Barry, former humor columnist, GETS AWAY WITH ALL CAPS).

This summer, not unlike last summer and the summer before that, and other ad nauseam summers of my life, was a summer of writing rejections. I like to say, “There were a plethora of rejections” because I like the word plethora. But let’s not go into the details because one year I tried to count up all my rejections and it was like counting cloudy days and I got depressed and I vowed to never count rejections and instead to only count acceptances and publications and successes and smiles and sunshine, and I also vowed to write long sentences if I feel like writing long sentences, because as far as I can tell, that’s what Sigmund Freud did, and he got a couple things published.

Instead of numbering the rejections, let me share just one.

This summer I wrote a proposal for a trade book on Suicide in American. It was supposed to be a proposal for a trade book on Suicide in America. But the first version of the proposal managed to include an extra “n.” How that typo slipped in there after 43 readings, including my traditional oral reading before submitting—I cannot say.

Anyway, just remember this, Suicide in America is not the most fun topic, but it’s even a worse topic when you make a typo in the first line. After experiencing the horror of seeing the typo and correcting it, I sent the proposal out to a dozen or so agents and got a dozen or so rejections. Not the most fun outcome. However, not to be deterred, I stole some of my sample chapter material and used it in a continuing education course that I DID GET PUBLISHED (notice the ALL CAPS, BECAUSE, YES, I AM YELLING).

I thought about sending all the agents who rejected my book proposal a copy of my first check from the CE company, along with a photo of my finger, but that belongs on this list of tips and sage advice for all you writers who will inevitably need to cope with rejection.

  1. Even though you want to, don’t write a snarky email or letter back to the person who rejected your wonderful work. No doubt, the snarky email will feel good in the moment, but you could regret it later. I speak from experience. Being at conferences with people who have received photos of my finger is awkward. Instead, vent to your friends and colleagues, and thank the person who rejected you for considering your work.
  2. Listen—sometimes. Lots of trade book agents and publishers tell you in advance that they plan to ghost you, so sometimes there’s nothing to hear. But on occasion, there’s this thing that happens called feedback. You can take it or leave it, but if you want to develop your writing skills, take it—or at least take some of it sometimes. The corollary to this is that reviewers can be nasty. This is especially true of academic reviewers, many of whom have come to believe that it’s their responsibility to shame fledgling writers. My advice on that is simple: Ignore the reviewer’s tone because he/she/they likely have poor social skills and are compensating for their loneliness by trying to make you feel bad, or something like that. Ignore the tone, but listen to the content.
  3. Go Big or Go Home. Being that you’re an amazing person with fantastic ideas, don’t, as former President George W. Bush might say, misunderestimate yourself. Feel free to submit pieces to the New Yorker or the New England Journal of Medicine or other fancy publications that begin with the word New. Then, get ready to be ghosted, rejected, and humiliated. If—odds are low here—you get something accepted, you’ll be like Rocket Man.
  4. Find a Small Pond. Going big or going home is a broken philosophy, unless you finish the guidance with go home and find a small pond where you can submit your work, become a big fish, and find the positive reinforcement you crave. Publishing a short comment in your neighborhood newsletter is better than having nothing published. Look at me. I’ve got a blog. I publish here all the time. The best part of the deal is my publisher loves my work.
  5. Turn it Around. Rita and I have an academic friend who says we academics should live by the turn it around in 24 hours rule. He says that as soon as he receives a rejection letter/email from a professional journal, he starts his timer and submits the manuscript to a different journal in 24 hours or less. Never having achieved that, Rita and I try to live by something more like a 24 day rule. Either way, push yourself to revise and resubmit to someone, like my blog publisher, who’s likely to love your work and publish you yesterday.
  6. Mingle. If you’re sitting around feeling sorry for yourself, you need to get out more because, duh, you’re not alone. If you find them, you’ll discover that most writers are mostly sitting around feeling sorry for themselves most of the time. So mingle. Share your sorrows. Maybe form a writing group or a book club or a knitting clutch. Embrace the Hegelian dialectic that, although you’re plenty special, you’re also simultaneously not really all that special.
  7. Write More. There comes a time when you need to get right back on that bus that bucked you off. Nobody becomes a better writer without writing. Visualization is good for golf and relaxation, but not so much for writing. Reading is good for writing, but only if you’re also putting fingers to keyboards and digits on screens. Somebody said this already: Read, write, repeat.
  8. Practice CBT on Your Neurotic Writer-Self. Albert Ellis liked to say, “Don’t be a love slob.” What he meant was to not be too needy. He would ask his clients things like, “What the holy Hell are you thinking?” He drove home the idea that you can perform badly at lots of things, get rejected, fail, and still have, what he called, “Unconditional Self-Acceptance.” In other words (which is another phrase my editor hates), Ellis is saying you shouldn’t confuse your performance with your SELF. Let’s say you get rejected. You’ll likely feel sad and disappointed. That’s normal and healthy. But don’t use your Vita to measure your SELF.

I’m hoping you find this list of tips for handling rejection helpful. If it’s not, feel free to let me know. I’ll be sad and disappointed But I’ll get over it. I plan to keep writing anyway. I hope you do too.

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Personal Reflections

A Book Review of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David A. Treleaven

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Ocean ViewThis weekend in Missoula is the Annual Montana Book Festival, so I’ve got books on my mind. In a stroke of good fortune (and thanks to Susan O’Connor and Rita), last night I got to meet David James Duncan, the author of my all-time favorite book, The Brother’s K.  Talking with DJD was ALMOST as fun as reading The Brother’s K, which, if you haven’t read yet, should be on your reading list.

Speaking of Davids and books, several days ago one of our fantastic UM Doc students and I had a book review published in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy. The Doc student’s name is Ariel Goodman (not David), and I have the bragging rights (and honor) of being the co-author of her first (of many to come) publication.

Our review is of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness by David A. Treleaven. Ariel and I both liked the book. Although we take him to task a bit for less than perfect scientific rigor, overall the book is very well written and has many excellent ideas about how to safely employ mindfulness with individuals who have previously experienced trauma.

Here’s the review: Goodman-Sommers-Flanagan2018_Article_DavidATreleavenTrauma-Sensitiv

Also, thanks to James Overholser, editor of the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, for giving us the opportunity to do this book review.

Personal Reflections

Vulnerability and Magnificence from Rita

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Hi All.

This comes from Rita. It’s her musing on life and death and spirituality. She tells me to warn you that it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. This is true. But then again, who gets to avoid a cup of tea of life and death and spirituality.

You be the judge . . . if you want.

And if you like this, go to her blog and like it and become an email or WordPress follower.

Have a fabulous weekend.

John

Before the snow came, I burned rotten, misshapen wood. Dirty wood, not even worth cutting up for the woodstove. Wood filled with unremovable, wayward screws. Such fires are my last resort. Enduring the scorn of my carpenters, I save every scrap of wood—wood that was once a seed that grew into a tree that was […]

via Fire — Short visits with an honest God

Personal Reflections, Suicide Assessment and Intervention, Writing

Professional Writing 101: Dealing with Rejection

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This is how it goes.

You read, gather background information, do research, and carefully write a manuscript. You put in so many hours or days or weeks that you lose track of how much time you’ve put in—which is a good thing. You re-read, edit, get feedback, revise, and do your best to produce an excellent manuscript. You upload it a portal where it magically finds its way to a professional journal editor. Then, because you can only submit a manuscript to one journal at a time, you wait.

A month passes.

You keep waiting.

If you’re lucky, you hear back from the journal editor via email within two months. You click on the email with a mix of anticipation and dread. Then, ta-da, you learn your manuscript was REJECTED.

The editor is polite, but pointedly informs you that this particular journal doesn’t recognize the magnificence of your work. To add insult to injury, your rejection is accompanied by critiques from three different reviewers. These reviewers were apparently named by Dr. Seuss: Reviewer 1, Reviewer 2, and Reviewer 3.

Some rejections are worse than others. Maybe it’s because your hopes were too high; or maybe it’s because the journal’s impact factor rating was so low. Getting rejected when the journal has an impact rating of “0” can bring down your self-esteem to a similar level.

And then there are the reviewers.

It’s important to remember that reviewers are busy, fallible, human, and unpaid volunteers. They’re also purportedly experts, although I’ve had experiences that led me to question their expertise. Many appear to have a proverbial axe to grind. Perhaps because they experienced scathing critiques in their professional childhood, they feel the need to pass on the pain. Sometimes they just seem obtuse. I’ve wondered a time or two if maybe a reviewer forgot to actually read the manuscript before offering an off-point “review.”

If you sense bitterness, it might be because over the past several years I’ve experienced an extra-large load of rejections. When the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) rejected my manuscript in less than a week, I was disappointed. But because the NEJM is the most prestigious journal on the planet, I didn’t linger much on the rejection, because rejection was expected. But when a decidedly less-prestigious professional group rejected all my proposals to present at an annual conference, I was deeply hurt, saddened, and angry. Reading the reviewers’ comments didn’t help.

At one point last summer, in a fit of self-pity, I decided to count up my two-year rejection total. I got to 20, had a flash of insight, and stopped. It was like counting cloudy days. My advice: Unless you’re especially serious about depressing yourself, don’t count up your rejections. If you’re into counting, put that energy into counting the sunny days.

One time, back when I was immature and impulsive, I received an insensitive and insulting rejection from a low tier journal. My response: A hasty, nasty, and indignant email lambasting the editor and his single reviewer for their poor decision-making process and outcome. Sending the email was immediately gratifying, but, like many immediately gratifying things, not reflective of good judgment. I never heard back. And now, when I see that editor at conferences, it’s awkward.

More recently, I responded to a rejection from a high-status conference with humility along with a gentle inquiry about re-consideration. Less than 24 hours later they discovered “one more slot” and I was in! It was a paid gig, for an excellent conference, and at a convenient venue. Bingo. Let that be a lesson to me.

Last month I received a different sort of journal rejection. It was an invitation to “Revise and Resubmit.”

Put in romantic terms, revise and resubmit is lukewarm and confusing. The message is, “I kind of like you, and you have potential, but I’m not ready for a commitment.” But if you’ve been casting out and reeling in a raft of rejections, revise and resubmit is a welcome flirtation.

I had submitted a manuscript focusing on suicide risk assessment to a reasonably good journal. It was a good manuscript. In fact, Reviewer 3 recommended publication. But Reviewer 1 spoiled my day by offering 23 substantial and picky suggestions. The editor, who wrote me a long and rather nice email, decided to go with Reviewer 1’s opinion: revise and resubmit.

Given that I’ve been reviewing the suicide risk assessment literature for a couple decades, I assumed I was well-versed in the area. But when I read through Reviewer 1’s suggestions I was surprised, humbled, and eventually pleased. Reviewer 1 had many excellent points.

Looking back and forward, I think this is what I like best about submitting manuscripts to professional journals. Basically, you get a free critique and although some reviewers are duds, others are experts in the field who provide you with a fabulous educational opportunity. There’s always so much more to learn.

The moral of this story and blog post is that the attitude we have toward rejection is far more important than our fragile egos (at least it’s more important than my fragile ego). In response to the revise and resubmit verdict, I’ve graciously accepted the feedback, engaged a co-author to help me, and we have now systematically plowed through the 23 recommendations. The result: Last week we re-submitted a vastly improved manuscript.

Now we wait.

Although I have hope for success, I also realize that Reviewer 1 may have a bit more educational feedback to offer. But this time around, I’m looking forward to it.

 

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Personal Reflections, Writing

What Brain Science Says about Becoming a Better Professional Writer

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This piece on professional writing is in anticipation of our upcoming John Wiley & Sons sponsored ACA presentation on April 1 in Montreal titled: Writing for Publication: Insights and Strategies

The “Decade of the Brain” started way back in 1990. It’s been over for more than 15 years. So you would think everyone could get over it and move on. But obviously that’s not how things pertaining to the brain work. Too many neuroscientists, journalists, and other people are happily riding along on the brain science bandwagon to just let it go. Most things would be perfectly satisfied with their own decade and the attention that goes with that, but the brain is a selfish organ and obviously interested in hogging all the decades. And so the brain discoveries just keep rolling in and eager journalists keep on writing and talking about the brain, which is why the popularity of neuroscience is now officially off the map. Neuroscience’s reach has far exceeded its grasp, but such is the nature of popular things. Just think about bell-bottoms.

We still know very little about the brain. That’s partly why neuroscience excites people. The excitement is more related to our collective brains collective imagination of what neuroscience might be than neuroscience reality. This has turned neuroscience into a projective test (think of the Rorschach Inkblots). There’s some vague information or structure out there and so everyone takes some of it in, blends it with their unique personality and past experiences, and then projects hypothetical possibilities about brain science onto the blank canvass of reality. Then voila, people start talking about ridiculous things like male brains and female brains and teen brains.

I say all this as a balancing introduction that will help me not sound completely trite and ridiculous when I write,

Coming up next: What brain science says about how you can become a better writer.

Let’s pause and self-reflect here. This statement is both bad writing and bad science. It’s bad writing because I’ve transformed (through grammatical magic) the inanimate field of brain science into an entity that has something to say. It’s bad science because the first rule of becoming a better writer, although supported by neuroscience, is such numbingly basic common sense that it’s inappropriate to gift it the charade of scientific authority.

Put another way, brain science can’t talk; people talk. But if brain science could talk, and you asked it, “What can I do to become a better writer?” it would likely respond with something like:

The first rule to good writing is WRITER’S WRITE. This is what literary and professional writers have said over and over for centuries and you didn’t need me, brain science, to tell you something you already knew. (see also: https://johnsommersflanagan.com/2013/09/04/professional-writing-for-us-professionals-who-may-not-quite-be-writers-yet/)

If there’s one thing we know from brain science (and common sense), it’s that practice leads to improvement. Neuroscientists might say it this way, “Your behavior directly influences your brain structure and chemistry; when you repeatedly practice something, you’re actually creating specific neurons and neural pathways to make that something easier.” Common sense (if it could talk) might say, “Repeated practice generally leads to skill development.” Speaking (apparently) on behalf of common sense, the renowned science fiction writer Ray Bradbury wrote:

Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.

The take home message here is simple. If your goal is writing success, then you must make time to write.

There is, of course, a caveat to this general brain-based common sense rule. Yes, practice leads to improvement, but there are always exceptions.

Sometimes, even when you practice with great effort, consistency, and sincerity, you don’t improve much. The good news about this exception is that in the world of writing there are usually fascinating reasons for why diligent writers aren’t improving . . . and I’ll get to that important content at some point in the future. For now, remember this: The first step to becoming a successful professional writer involves taking Bradbury’s advice—which I repeat and elaborate on below:

  • Write every day
  • Read intensely
  • Get feedback
  • Engage in self-editing—produce a 2nd, 3rd, and 4th draft
  • Schedule more time to write
  • Identify your target audience and then learn more about them
  • Deal with multiple distractions
  • Reward yourself
  • Get more feedback so that you can be certain that you’re not rewarding yourself when you should be engaging in more self-reflection and scrutiny
  • Read your 4th draft aloud to yourself, then read it aloud to someone you trust to get even more feedback
  • Find somewhere to submit your precious manuscript
  • Hope for the best, but prepare for rejection
  • When you get your rejection, stay calm and integrate the feedback into your writer-identity
  • Revise your manuscript again, read it aloud again, get feedback again
  • After dealing with your neuroses, improving your manuscript, and gnashing your teeth, find the courage and strength to face your fears and resubmit your precious manuscript to somewhere that will recognize its greatness
  • Hope for the best, but prepare for rejection—again
  • Repetitively do all these things to help your brain structure and chemistry develop itself and you into a better writer who has a better chance of writing success

Before moving on I should say that I realize Bradbury was advising fiction writers and fiction writers fall within the literary writing domain. This is an important distinction. If you’re reading this blog, you’re probably busy juggling numerous professional activities. These activities might include a combination of teaching, research, service, attending classes, clinical practice, supervision, and more. Traditionally, writers with literary ambitions only juggle their daily writing and reading with a job delivering pizza or waiting tables. It’s likely that you have a more rigorous and full professional life. This is one good reason why your immediate goal shouldn’t be to publish your first novel or personal memoir. You probably don’t have time for those more ambitious goals; most human services professionals who write novels and memoirs do so during sabbatical or after retirement. For now, our goal for you and your goal for yourself should be to begin taking small steps toward becoming a professional writer. The best-selling novel will have to wait.

John hanging out with Robert Wubbolding

With Wubbolding

Personal Reflections, Writing

Writing about Writing . . . Feedback Please?

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Over the past several days I’ve been inspired to pursue a new project that focuses on writing about professional writing. This is the sort of thing that happens to me when I’m facing a big list of imposing writing projects . . . I decide to add one more.

But the good news is that I’m having fun and producing lots of words on this topic. My latest method for generating words is to go for a long walk with my cell phone. Then, I dictate email messages to myself through my cell phone and send them. Pretty cool. Over the past two days I’ve “written” almost 8,000 words.

There are some problems with this system, however. In particular, if there’s any wind, or if I don’t enunciate perfectly, my phone is inclined to misquote me. The result: In the moment I feel exceptionally articulate and then I when I get home and read the emails I’ve sent myself, I sound somewhat less articulate. Here’s an example:

1 thing keep in mind is: your trickster is not my sister. What is means is that are in your obstacles 4 demons are unique to us as individuals. You wear the standard prescription for all riders. Beware the single strategy you overcome writers block. He wear even if we say it, love 1 message to manage your picture.

You can imagine my disappointment at receiving this message from myself, I’m sure. If that preceding paragraph wasn’t absolutely hilarious, I might be furious at having lost whatever profound message I was trying to communicate with myself. But I have to say that reading these emails from myself makes for excellent entertainment.

This reminds me of a dream I had back in grad school. It was amazingly profound . . . but I’ll skip that and get to the point of asking you for feedback.

If you’re a current or recent graduate student, please send me your answer to one or more of the following questions:

1. What emotions and thoughts do you experience when you turn in a paper to a professor (or, better yet, a thesis or dissertation committee)?

2. When you get lots of “constructive feedback” what thoughts and feelings do you experience? This might involve you receiving a paper back with a low grade and/or lots of “red ink.” Can you share an example of what you think or feel in response to that situation?

3. When you get positive feedback, what thoughts or feelings does that trigger? Can you share an example?

4. After you’ve gotten negative or constructive feedback, how do you find the strength or courage to send in another draft or turn in the next assignment?

If you’re currently a professor somewhere, consider answering one or more of the following:

1. What thoughts or feelings do you have to deal with to get yourself to write something?

2. How do you react to or deal with rejection? For example, if you have a manuscript or proposal rejected, what do you say, do, think, or feel? What do you do to “bounce back” from rejections of your written work?

3. How do you react to success? For example, when you have a paper accepted or get positive feedback, how does that affect you?

4. What helps you write well . . . or in what situations are you likely to write efficiently.

Thanks for thinking about this with me. I appreciate it. And I’ll even appreciate it more if you send me an email answering some of the preceding questions. Send it to: john.sf@mso.umt.edu

And . . . I’m confident that whatever you send me will arrive in better shape than the emails I’ve been sending myself.

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Writing

The Active Voice in Writing: An APA Style Blog

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[OPENING SENTENCE #1] One challenging grammatical maneuver in contemporary writing is the proper use of the active voice.

Oops.

Because this essay is about the active voice, it might be a better idea to use a more active voice for the opening sentence. What do you think of the following alternative?

[OPENING SENTENCE #2] Proper use of an active voice is a challenging grammatical maneuver in contemporary writing.

Can you see or feel the difference in these two opening sentences?

Although the use of the word maneuver is a questionable choice in both sentences, an active voice is better illustrated in the second opening sentence. That’s because “active voice” is the subject and “challenging grammatical maneuver” is the object or outcome that an active voice acts on.

I think.

Editors, publishers, and even the 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association advise neophyte writers to eschew the passive voice. They also suggest eschewing words like eschew and neophyte, but that’s another topic altogether. For now, we are admonished to use the active voice. The Publication Manual also encourages prospective APA authors to use first-person language to promote clarity. I like that.

But what exactly is the active voice?

The active voice involves a subject acting on an object. For example, “She is depressed,” includes a subject “She,” a verb, “is,” and an object or outcome “depressed.” An active voice involves arranging the sentence in a way so that the subject acts on the object. Another example, “Depression crept into him” illustrates how, in some cases, it’s possible to anthropomorphize or animate an entity so that it becomes the actor and what you might usually consider the subject becomes the object that is acted upon. This is a good example of flexibility and creativity in writing, but a less good example of an active voice.

Here’s another (and clearer) example that you might find in a research paper:

“The researchers reported insignificant results.”

In this case, “The researchers” are the subject and they’re taking the action of reporting insignificant results.

Many writers find it difficult to use or maintain an active voice. The passive voice may feel easier or more natural and therefore be used when the active voice would be more clear and succinct. Here’s the passive voice version of the preceding example:

“Insignificant results were reported by the researchers.”

Note that although the passive voice is factually correct, it’s less parsimonious and less direct and therefore less desirable.

Grammar Girl is a good source for more active and passive writing examples [you can listen to her grammatically correct and calming voice at: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/active-voice-versus-passive-voice?page=all#sthash.Ys1GOZN9.dpuf]. Here’s what she has to say:

A straightforward example is the sentence “Steve loves Amy.” Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the object of the sentence.”

Another example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song “I Heard It through the Grapevine.” “I” is the subject, the one who is doing the action. “I” is hearing “it,” the object of the sentence.

In passive voice, the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, “Steve loves Amy,” I would say, “Amy is loved by Steve.” The subject of the sentence becomes Amy, but she isn’t doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve’s love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy.

If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say “It was heard by me through the grapevine,” not such a catchy title anymore.

Grammar Girl also noted on her podcast that sometimes writers (or speakers) intentionally use a passive voice, or at least a neutral voice. This resulted in the following examples in our University of Montana class today.

This wall is painted (neutral voice).

The painters painted this wall (active voice).

This wall was painted by painters (passive voice).

As you can see from these examples, identifying an actor (or subject) in a sentence may or may not be important or relevant. Grammar Girl also used the example of President Ronald Reagan’s famous “Mistakes were made” line. She noted that, for obvious reasons, sometimes politicians (or others) want to be vague about assigning linguistic responsibility to a specific actor. The more active voice alternative might have been: “I made mistakes.”

Finding your active voice and avoiding a passive voice requires awareness, practice, persistence, and motivation. To help with this process, I have a few tips you might want to try out.

  1. Watch out for the word “by.”

Both of the passive voice sentences in Grammar Girl’s examples included the word “by.” This is often the case. You might remind yourself of this tip by using the following self-statement [Can you reword this sentence to make it more active?]: “I’m going to say bye to by.” Or—even better—you might use the preceding self-statement to remind yourself of this tip (notice I managed to give you this tip again while getting rid of my new nemesis: the word “by.”

2.  Be aware of your use of the word “of.”

Typically, it’s a good idea to try not to use “of” more than once in a sentence. This can be hard and many good writers ignore this tip. In fact, really good writers will violate most basic writing rules. For example, the APA Publication Manual authors even ignored it. Consider the two following statements and think about which one you prefer.

From section 2.04 of the Publication Manual:

“An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the contents of the article.”

An alternative:

“An abstract is a brief, comprehensive summary of the article’s contents.”

Many readers (and writers) may prefer the original APA Manual sentence. However, in my professional writing I often find myself annoyed with how many times I use the word “of” in an initial draft. And so my point is to watch out for sentences that include “of” too often. Even if it’s not technically the passive voice, using “of” too often may begin feeling passive.

3.  Don’t let your tendency to write in a passive voice stop you from writing.

No writers ever write a perfect first draft. My best advice on this is for you to start looking forward to the opportunity of transforming your passive voice into a more active voice when you edit your work.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about writing and speaking about grammar is that it—writing and speaking about grammar—can cause the writer and speaker substantial self-consciousness. And, if you’ve followed psychological research in this area, you know that self-consciousness can cause or increase anxiety. That’s why I need to confess that substantial anxiety (not to mention self-doubt) accompanied the writing of this essay. Or should I say: The writing of this essay was accompanied by substantial anxiety (no, I should not because this second example is that dratted passive voice again). That’s also why I want to end with strong encouragement for throwing off your anxieties and writing right through whatever personal writing quirks you may be facing. Write now! You can fix the quirks later.

Learning Activity

  1. Which of the following sentences from your homework reading is the best example of an active voice?

a.  “Each paragraph should be able to be read and understood in isolation from the rest of the manuscript.” (Knight & Ingersoll, 1996, p. 209)
b.  “A multitude of small details must be taken into account to produce a publishable work, and editors truly appreciate writers who are cognizant of addressing these details.” (Brewer et al., 2004, p. 21)

c.  “Ethical principles must guide every aspect of professional writing.” (Brewer et al., p. 21)

2.  Write a sentence with an active voice.

3.  Write a sentence with a passive voice.

4.  Other than spacing and citations, name one way in which the preceding blog post violates APA style.

5. (Discussion question for class) Why do you think that it’s sometimes acceptable to include a passive voice instead of an active voice?

More information on using an active voice is available generally online and specifically at Purdue’s OWL website: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/539/02/

Finally . . . this is NOT an official APA style blog. If you want to check out the real thing, go to: http://blog.apastyle.org/

Personal Reflections, Writing

On Being or Becoming a Writer (Again)

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While I was taking notes on Mary Pipher’s “Writing to Change the World” book, a bug flew in my eye. It was at the precise moment I was typing the following quotation: “When we equivocate we lose an opportunity to build our identities as writers. If you are not doing it already, I advise you to learn to say you are a writer” (p. 76).

Shall I really say “I am a writer!” even if it doesn’t feel quite right?

Or should I be more honest and describe the complete situation by saying, “I am a writer who is trying to write, but I have a bug that just flew in my eye and that’s making it more difficult than it might otherwise be.”

Didn’t someone once say that honesty is the best policy? And isn’t there a story about George Washington honestly confessing that he chopped down a cherry tree that he had no particular business chopping down. Of course that story is a lie and as it turns out Betsy Ross didn’t really sew the first American flag, but she had some fairly effective promotional people who either thought she did or decided to lie on her behalf.

What if I just tell a microscopic white lie to myself? Is that a problem?

Or maybe I just need an agent who will lie willy-nilly on my behalf? I’ve sort of always wanted somebody who would do something will-nilly just for me.

After all, honesty will only take you so far and the only advice my father gave me about being married was that “You don’t have to always tell your wife EVERYTHING you’re thinking.” That’s good advice, except that it contradicts with what Carl Rogers said about maintaining a transparent relationship and how he learned the most from being completely honest with his wife about the things that were most difficult to talk about.

Wouldn’t it be true, however (this, I understand, is how attorneys like to begin questioning the person who has just taken the stand), that lying destroys relationships and can take you to prison where you might share a cell with Piper Kerman. Then again, she wrote a book (Orange is the New Black) that got made into a television show and that’s pretty cool.

It’s very difficult to find clean and straight answers upon which everyone agrees. I’ve noticed this and thought I should honestly articulate this observation.

When I’m doing counseling with young people who have anger problems or who are cutting or who are embracing a negative and unhelpful identity, I sometimes ask them to consider thinking differently about themselves. The technique is a little bit of a knock off of Alfred Adler’s Acting As-If. I don’t ask them to pretend or to tell themselves bald-faced lies, but instead to tell more of the complete hairy-faced narrative truth. For example, when a girl tells me she’s got a “terrible temper,” I suggest and implore and encourage her to capture the WHOLE DARN NARRATIVE and instead tell herself something like, “I believe I’ve had a terrible temper in the past, but I’m working on it.”

Pipher (not Piper) says I should learn to call myself a writer. Obviously that worked for her and she’s been immensely successful and now she’s sharing it as a writing strategy. But what if that doesn’t work so well for me? What if my mantra is that I’m a writer who’s got a bug in his eye and that darn bug is making it terribly difficult, but I’m working on it?

What if I prefer a different hat style?

Here’s what I like instead: “I am becoming a writer.”

I most definitely like that better. I am becoming is a better fit for my tentative always in flux and change and self-reflective in-moderation identity.

I am becoming a writer.

And I hope you are too.

Personal Reflections, Writing

Professional Writing for Us Professionals Who May Not Quite be Writers . . . Yet

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This past week I’ve been searching in vain for the origin of my favorite pithy advice to aspiring writers. It may have been Flannery O’Connor or George Orwell or another literary-type who noted or shouted or penned the phrase: “Writers write.”

This nice thing about this advice is that it’s simultaneously very general and very specific and very redundant all at the same time.

But there are also different breeds of writers who write.

While I was at the University of Portland, one of my noon-time basketball buddies was a Math professor. When he wasn’t making fun of his own stutter-step dribble or teaching classes or waxing his 1967 Mustang, he was writing a mathematics text. He told me his writing philosophy—which was really more of a strategy, but then he was a math guy. Every night he wrote one page of his textbook. Just one page . . . and he didn’t go to bed until he had completed this nightly homework. He never said, “Writers write.” He just wrote.

Another one of my Portland basketball buddies was an English professor, writer, and poet. He didn’t talk much about writing, probably because he was too busy reaching in and hacking my arms as I tried to shoot. When I asked him how he thought computers had affected writing and writers (this was the late 1980s), he said he thought there was too much cutting and pasting going on. Lines or stanzas or paragraphs would find their way to places where they didn’t belong. He was a real writer; a literary guy; a pen and paper type. He also wrote every day, but he was too interested in the muse to ever start or stop himself on a clock or a page.

This brings me to my point.

In the Department of Counselor Education at the University of Montana, we have a brand new doctoral-level course on advanced research and professional writing. As a caveat, I should note that we make no claim to be real (aka literary) writers. But that won’t stop us from doing what real writers do and following their advice.

We will write . . . every day . . . and not just because writers write, but also because of what the great science fiction writer Ray Bradbury suggested: “Just write every day of your life. Read intensely. Then see what happens. Most of my friends who are put on that diet have very pleasant careers.”

We will see what happens. We would like to have very pleasant careers.

There are many writing genres and styles and venues. It can be confusing. There are blogs and grant proposals and professional journal manuscripts and book chapters and emails and books and magazine articles and personal journals and the letter you should be writing to your mother. There are also many places to publish and many more places for not publishing. Right now I have at least 50 unfinished and unpublished blogs and commentaries and journal article manuscripts and books on my computer. This work is sitting and waiting for renewed inspiration or focus or time. I fear that I’m violating Annie Dillard’s advice on whether to hold ourselves back or break free. She wrote: “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now.”

Speaking of hoarding, we don’t plan to keep this writing experience all to ourselves. And this brings me to my point (again). All who read these words may participate. Here are two examples of what you can do:

  1. You can read these blogs and provide commentary or critique. For example, shortly after posting the blog, “The Long Road to Eagle Pass Texas” my wife and co-author informed me that I had made a glaring grammatical error. If you read that post and can identify a grammatical error, please offer up your feedback. You can email me directly at john.sf@mso.umt.edu or post on this blog.
  2. You can write a guest blog. Everyone in our real (not virtual) class will have this assignment. As long as the blog focuses on writing or the helping profession or both and you’re open to feedback, please submit. I will assign it to a doctoral student for review and if it makes it into this blog, you can count on an incisive, but perhaps grammatically-challenged introductory comment from me.

In the meantime, just read . . . intensely . . . and write . . . even if only for yourself . . . and struggle with the muse like a wrestler or dancer or whatever metaphor fits best for you here.