Brainstorming Write to Focus Your Ideas

Brainstorming:  Write to Focus Your Ideas Recently, I worked for a client who needed help finishing up a novel  after several failed attempts. The end product finally appeared a month later, which came with a mixture of relief†¦ and agony. The client was happy to have it finished. However, at almost 100,000 words, it was clearly bloated. Now, I’m not tooting my own horn or selling a consulting service, but I observed a phenomenon that I’ve been using unconsciously for some time. In the process of writing, my client had worked out ideas that seemed like such an insurmountable challenge when we began our working relationship. The client repeatedly emphasized how the book was losing its focus and they felt lost during the process. My advice? â€Å"Keep writing.† If you’re wondering what I’m getting at, I’ll show you how writing focuses your ideas—even if you don’t know what those ideas are yet. Perfection Anxiety Regardless of the type of fiction or non-fiction that they undertake, writers are plagued by something I call â€Å"perfection anxiety.† Simply put, writers feel nervous when their idea of their best work doesn’t match up to what’s on the page. Essentially, this perfection anxiety disturbs the image of what quality of writer a person actually is versus the one that they previously-imagined themselves to be. This creates a type of cognitive dissonance: the only way to maintain this image is to not bring anything to fruition, instead leaving work half-finished, unpolished, or—like my client—unsuccessfully aborting their work over a period of years, citing a lack of focus. Does this sound familiar to you? The problem is that I’ve never met a perfect writer who can nail their work every time. And even if there are writers out there, chances are they spend a long time in contemplation beforehand. And if those supposed geniuses actually had foresight, couldn’t they just prolifically release bestseller after bestseller, cult-classic after cult-classic? I think not. Is there a way to circumvent perfection anxiety to focus our ideas? There is, and the answer is keep writing. For now, that sounds like abstract advice. Let’s look at some strategies you can use. Brainstorming If you’re rolling your eyes at this common strategy, then I suggest you skip to the next heading, â€Å"Beyond Brainstorming.† If not, keep reading†¦ When you’re stuck on a particular part of a piece or can’t even fathom beginning a topic in mind, I believe it takes a period of brainstorming to get out of this rut. How does one brainstorm? Simply think of the topic and jot down what immediately comes to mind. Don’t worry about the sequence of ideas or whether something should be excluded from the piece. Anything can be deleted later, so anything is fair game. Seeing the words on the page changes my approach entirely, and I freely plagiarize past-ME in the present to benefit future-ME. Brainstorming is an excellent strategy to get unstuck. You don’t even have to type; some people prefer Venn diagrams and more visual approaches. All you need to do is have something written and correlations naturally start to appear. Brainstorming in Action Let’s use this article that you’re reading right now as an example of brainstorming: I began with the title â€Å"Write to Focus Your Ideas,† which was based on a Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast I was listening to. That’s it. From there, I opened up a MS Word document and just started typing short sentences that read more like schizophrenic non-sequitors. I did this for ten minutes and then the well ran dry. Later on, I revisited the document and reread it for a sense of form. Immediately, I saw â€Å"brainstorming,† which became this heading. Another entry read â€Å"distillation removes impurities,† which I may not use (besides mentioning that I shouldn’t use it). And so forth. Heck, if you really want to get meta, as you read this very sentence, I HAVEN’T EVEN FINISHED WITH THIS ARTICLE YET. Imagine that! Beyond Brainstorming If brainstorming is not panning out for you, but you feel the urge to write something/anything that will later become a cohesive work, there is an alternative loophole: free-association writing. The exercise is simple: Let it rip and don’t be afraid to be self-indulgent. Your goal is put something on a page. That’s it. You don’t have to mold your writing into any preconceived notion, whether that is tense, opinions, topics. Your goal is just to get something down, regardless of length. Do you cringe just thinking about filling up the white space of a blank document? Make it easier for yourself by one degree and abandon computer. Instead, just record yourself. You can use dictation software  if you have it, or just record on whatever device is handy. Later, your goal is to review it, perhaps when you are in a better mindset. But here’s the kicker: you don’t have to review it if you don’t want to. The work is finished by doing free-associating. If none of those ideas seem good, who cares? However, if you have something that seems like a germ of an idea, follow my advice that I keep reiterating in this article: KEEP WRITING. Now, I understand there are doubters out there. If you feel that free-associating is a waste of time, I offer a question in response: What do you have to lose? Understanding the Process Okay, so you have words down on a page and you’re beginning to see a form. But you may not feel that you’re finished until you’ve hit a milestone of creating a rough draft. In my opinion, as soon as you put down the first word on a page, you’ve created your rough draft. First drafts are called rough drafts for a reason, and that reason is that they’re horrible and unintelligible to anyone but the creator. Keep writing. While wed all like to create a masterpiece to skip the rough draft phase, I believe that’s just a perfection anxiety creeping back up, as well as chipping away at our precious ego. Think about it: does anyone you know feel good to see their words in print, to hear their own voice, or to look at their own pictures? No, it’s painful, but it must be done. Additionally, the process of creating the first draft (and subsequent drafts) actually solidifies the ideas that need to be tested, as well as the veracity of the topic. I’ve started many articles after free-associating, only to reveal a large fallacy and holes in my thinking that I had assumed were fool-proof. I find that keeping a cohesive idea of what Im beginning with tends to change after undertaking an article. That’s part of the fun. Each subsequent editing pass that you make is a way of polishing and refocusing your ideas. As I mentioned before, I still haven’t finished this article at this point, but my rough draft is coming along nicely. Just like the title of this article, â€Å"write to focus your ideas,† I keep writing†¦ A Final Tip Notice how I mentioned that I was excluding certain bits from this article in the process of revision? Well, I tried to and now I’m forced to lie to give you a final loophole: If writing causes you anxiety, but creating ideas is more of your fortà ©, may I suggest another approach that could come after your own brainstorming phase? The answer is delegation. If you have some money set aside for this purpose, why not create a job on an online freelancing site, like Upwork or Freelancer, and post your assignment in specific terms. For instance, if I had stopped at my brainstorming phase, this assignment would read: â€Å"Create a 1,000+ word assignment that details how a freelance writer can use writing techniques to focus their ideas. Included is a document that sketches possible ideas. Payment upon satisfactory completion.† Of course, I didn’t do this, nor am I reaping the profits from outsourcing my labor, but you get this gist of it, right? This same approach goes for my design skills; I may not be an InDesign wizard, but I can create a sketch and let an artist have carte blanche within my set parameters. * * * Now that we’ve reached the conclusion, I’m checking my original brainstormed outline and have only found â€Å"reiterate motif in humorous context, something about DEA issues  and why writing is the real gateway drug† written as a placeholder to focus my ideas. Taking that advice to heart, I’ll do as I previously wrote: keep writing.

A Midsummer Nights Dream Book Review - 1375 Words

A Midsummer Night's Dream (Book Review Sample) Content: NameInstructor CourseDateMid Summer Nights DreamThis is a story that occurs in Athens, Greece where everything goes wrong. It starts in the courtroom of Duke Theseus. Egeus is having problems with his daughter and so he decides to take her to the Duke for help. Hermia, Egeus daughter does not want to marry Demetrius, a man who was chosen for her by her father. On the contrary, she wanted to marry Lysander a poet. In this instance the Duke, remind Hermia that the law of land permits fathers to make their daughters to do anything. He reminds her that the only choice she has is to become a nun. They decided to run away with Lysander due to this little afforde choice to Hermia. They ran into the woods in order to make plans and while there, they meet Helena who is her best friend. She is sad since she loves Demetrius. On the other side, the fairies living in the forest are having their own problems. Oberon the king of the fairies in the wood is angry with Titania, his que en. This is because she is taking care of a little human boy whom Oberon wants to take to be his servant.The kings helper, Puck, who is directed by the king to find a magical flower, solves this problem. The juice from this flower is supposed to make anyone fall in love with the first thing that they see. Initially the flower was supposed to be used on Titania. Through this flower, the problem of love is solved. Lysander Loves Hermia and Demetrius love Helena. This makes everyone to be happy and they all head back to Athens to tell Egeus and Duke Theseus. Everything becomes better in the kingdom. The setting of this story is largely in the forest; however, there are some actions that take place in the city. The critical purpose of this essay is to argue whether Shakespear endorses the values of the forest or those of the city more and if so why?This play represents the dark side of love. The fairies in the woods makes light of love by making a mistake on the lovers and through the application of love portions on Titanias eyes thus making her fall in love with Bottoms. In, the forest the two couples are faced with problems. Puck meets Lysander and Hermia in the forest and provides a comic relief in the play by confounding the four lovers in the forest. Nevertheless, the play also has alluded to some serious themes. For example, towards the end of the play Hippolyta and Theseus are happily married as they watch about the play of the unfortunate lovers Pyramus and Thisbe and they are able to derive fun from that play. Helena and Demettrius are unaware of the dark side of their love as the cannot recall the happenings in the forest. The events that happened in the forest are the ones that led to the development of their love and finally marriage.In the setting of this play, a dispute is indicated to occur on the scene of the play when Theseus states, Four happy days brings in another moon. The episode in the wood takes place in a night when there is no moon. Howe ver, Lysander asserts that there will be a lot of light in the night that they will escape such that dew on the grass will be shinning like liquid pearls. The confusion is further exhibited in the next scene when Quince intimates that they will rehearse in full moon light. However, there is a possibility of the moon set during the night thus allowing Lysander to escape as well as allowing other actors to rehearse and the episode in the woods to occur without moon light. Therefore, Theseus statement can be interpreted to mean four days to the next month.The play has a blurred identity of fantasy and reality. This theme is fairly emphasized in the play where the writer prepares the reader to accept the fantastic reality of the world and its inherent magical happenings. This forms the base in which the conflict in the play is developed. The break down of individual identities in the play is central to the conflict in the play. This occurs mainly in the forest. The brawl between the kin g and the Queen (Oberon and Titania) is mostly based on the lack of recognition of the others in the relationship. This drives the rest of the plot in the play. It makes it difficult for any of the other lovers to come together due to the disturbance of nature caused by a dispute. Pucks failure to identify and make distinction leads to him mistaking one set of lovers for the other in the forest. He places the juice of the flower in Lysanders rather than on Demetrius due to this mistake. Oberon the king of the fairies in the wood is angry with Titania, his queen. This is because she is taking care of a little human boy whom Oberon wants to take to be his servant.In the woods, for the sake of love there is a great loss of individual identity as well as suffering of individual characters. This extravagant cult of love manifested in the forest struck sensible people as irrational and as having a dubious effect on the acolytes. Nevertheless, the identities in the play are not so much los t but these are combined together to create a lot of haze where distinction becomes almost impossible. The urge for new and more practical ties between characters drives this haze. This is as a means of persevering with the weired world in the forest even when the relationships are diverse and seemingly not real as is the case of Bottom and Titania (Rahn, N.D). The play also has alluded to some serious themes. For example, towards the end of the play Hippolyta and Theseus are happily married as they watch about the play of the unfortunate lovers Pyramus and Thisbe and they are able to derive fun from that play.The loss of individual identity is further played in the mechanicals at the forest through their assumption of other identities. The loss of individual identity blurs specifications and leads to the creation of new identities only found in the community. This is best highlighted by the mechanicals when they their roles as individual parts of the corporate performance for Pyram us and Thisbe. Most of the events of midsummer nights dream are moved by the desire to lose ones individual identity and finding identity in the love of another.A midsummer night dream has male dominance as one of its thematic element. In this play Lysander and Hermia escapes to the woods on a night so as the do not fall on the rule of either Theseus or Egeus who are male patriarchs. However, after their escapades in the forest, on their return to Athens there are happily married. In this case, therefore, marriage is seen as the ultimate social achievements for women while men can go on doing greater things in the society that will earn them societal recognition. The triple weddings that occur towards the end of the play occur because of the control of the lords and the husbands. This is just among the few happenings in the play that happens in a setting that is outside the woods. The Athenian law requires a daughter to die if she does not follow the wish of her father. This law is nonetheless outdated and is compared with that of king Oberon in the fairy world. The land of the fairies disorder completely opposes the world of Athens. A good instance of this is what happens to the four lovers in the forest as well as bottoms dream. These represent chaos that contrasts the political order of Theseus in Athens. Nonetheless, Theseus does not punish these lovers for their disobedience. Male dominance and power is broken during the time of festivities and carnival. Through the forgiveness of these lovers, distinction is made between the laws of the patriarchs and that of the monarch, thus creating two centers of authority (Bevington, 1996).DiscussionA significant portion of this play ta...