As you might expect, the site is simple. Just push the “Click to write” button, and you’re taken to an almost-blank screen. You can close the tip that displays when you first visit, and the navigation bar disappears after a few seconds. You can start writing immediately, but if you want to return to your work, you’ll want to register a username and password. You’ll also want to put your browser into full-screen mode.

Writing is limited to text only: no formatting, no links, no bulleted lists. Editing is limited to what can be done by the browser (such as Control-C or Command-C for copying). You can create document titles. Writing is saved automatically, but if you’re nervous, you can use Control-S or Command-S, and there’s a Save button in the navigation bar.

For now, QuietWrite has very few features, but the developers tell us they are considering adding support for offline editing, an iOS-optimized  version, the ability to send writing directly to popular blog platforms, themes and more customization options.

I have to admit that simplifying the screen probably won’t do much for my ability to focus, but if you think it will make a difference for you, give QuietWrite a try. It’s free and in beta.

How do you concentrate while writing?

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This isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. You don’t need to be a Pulitzer Prize winner or even a language whiz. As I explained in my last post, all you need is to take a little care and time over what you say in all those emails, blogs, wikis, forums, IM conversations, status updates and so on to make sure you’re expressing yourself the way you intended.

Once you’ve worked out what you’re going to say, and who you’re saying it to, you need to say it. Here are the five key elements I try to consider as I formulate an online message.

Forget Self-expression, Think Audience

Your personality may ostensibly be the thing that got people to come to your web site in the first place, but it’s not likely to keep them there on its own merits.

Your audience will only listen if you speak to them. Use language that suits them; frame your arguments in ways that touch them; vary your messages to provide intrigue and curiosity. Building readership isn’t just about snappy headlines and keyword placement; it’s about rapport and providing new perspectives.

Structure First; Write Later

A lot of us fail to plan what we’re going to write, and it shows. The web is full of blog posts that say nothing, articles that have no proper ending and generally disjointed thoughts mashed into chunks we call “content” but would more accurately be described as “filler.”

Whatever you’re writing, plan it first. Once you’ve worked out what you want to say, and which messages and frames will best suit your readership, plan the flow of your communication. Perhaps you’ll write key or starting sentences for each paragraph before fleshing out each one. Perhaps you’ll create a few bullets you want to follow. Whatever your approach, take the time to formulate your communication first. This gives you the opportunity to ensure that, in both concept and execution, what you say will meet your readers’ needs.

Don’t Waste Words

How can you say something new if you’re using clichés? How can you talk on the level with your readers if you embellish your messages unnecessarily? How can you show respect for readers is if you insist on beating your message into them over and over, as if they were idiots? All of these are pitfalls that you want to avoid. Don’t waste words trying to make points in ways that aren’t effective, efficient or relevant to your readership.

There’s a long list of techniques you could use to emphasize a point, for example: spareness of language, putting the reader into the story, humor, irony, sarcasm, live source quotes, italics, punctuation — the list goes on. Some of these approaches will inevitably work better than others; some will work better in particular cases. Try different tactics, and see what your readers like best. Learn from your experiments. Edit what you write before you make it public.

Don’t Write It If You Wouldn’t Say It

Honesty, transparency and consistency aren’t just elements of personal branding — they’re crucial to your reputation. If you’d never say “cos,” don’t use it to fit Twitter’s character limit, on your site or in an email — unless your usage is tongue-in-cheek and that’s obvious. If you’d never say aloud what you’re writing, don’t write it. Those who know you will know when you’re not being authentic; those who don’t will be confused by your inconsistency.

Provide References

Particularly in blog posts and online articles, link to your sources and back up all the facts you provide. Make it clear when you’re speculating or giving your opinion rather than presenting factual information. Don’t do this grudgingly, as an obligatory gesture: Be creative and enthusiastic. The tone of your link text should encourage readers to check out the extra resources to which you point them.

Better Text

No one’s born with a pen in their hand, but anyone can learn what it takes to put together a compelling argument, present an opinion or research the facts. Here are a few ways to improve your text:

• Read better to write better. Good writers are good readers. Don’t limit yourself to reading online content or articles. If you’re keen to persuade, compel and communicate, read widely, and expose yourself to as many good writers as you can. By all means, read the books of your favorite gurus, but seek recommendations for other great writers in your genre — and beyond. Look closely at how they write and work out what’s so persuasive about their essays, books and articles.
• Not sure? Check it. If you know you confuse your and you’re, or too and to, or its and it’s, check your usage. Look up the rules and make sure you’re applying them correctly. It’ll take you no more than five minutes, and you’ll know how to use these problem terms and punctuation marks for the rest of your life.
• Edit and rephrase. Can’t fit that message into Twitter’s character limit? Or come up with a headline that reflects the style you set for your company site? Try again! Tight editing makes for clear communication. Rephrase tricky text until you strike the right tone for your audience, or a message that suits your site’s style. Not sure if you can edit yourself? Pay a professional to do the job for you.
• Make your own rules. It might be popular to use shortened slang — OMG, ROTFL, and so on — in online communications, but that doesn’t mean that you need to do it, too. Everyone might be talking about the latest celebrity scandal, social networking faux pas or cool gadget, but if it’s not of interest to you, why comment?

The fact that you have a voice doesn’t mean you have to use it at every opportunity. Talk about what’s important to both yourself and your audience — don’t just follow the crowd. This way, your content will have greater value among your audience members, and you’ll avoid saying the same thing that everyone else is, in the same way.

What tips do you have for those of us wanting to express ourselves more clearly online?

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These various online spaces — social networks, company wikis, personal blogs, professional web sites and so on — become online repositories of our personalities. And text is crucial to all of them. Spelling errors, senseless sentences, structureless content and ill-thought-out arguments are just a few of the technicalities that will undermine your credibility.

Don’t worry, this isn’t an article about the importance of your dictionary. It’s an article about the things you can and should do to build your credibility in a largely text-dependent online space. It’s basically the advice I wish I’d been given before I ever started writing stuff and sticking it up all over the web. These are just some of the things that every blogger, tweeter, article writer and emailer should know before they set fingers to keyboard.

1. Know what you’re talking about.

It’s tempting to see the web as fleeting. You post a blog post today, and in a month it’s forgotten, right? Perhaps. But it’s undoubtedly still buried somewhere on your blog, people will have linked to it, and it will still be available.

Oh, sure, you can remove offending content from the web in many cases. But taking an erroneous or controversial article offline is something any self-respecting publisher wants to avoid — it can raise difficult questions, make you look like you don’t stand behind what you say, and infer that you leap to conclusions and have trouble handling yourself in public. So it’s best to make sure you never publish something you regret later.

The key is to know what you’re talking about. If you have an opinion on something, but you don’t know the full story, find out. If you think you know the full story, find out more. Do your research. Look past the first page of results, look beyond online sources, and be creative about your searches. For example, make sure the search terms you’re using aren’t biasing the results you’re retrieving. And go into the past so that you can be sure you understand the history of the issue you’re talking about. Keep a list of those sources, so that you can reference them when you’re talking about the topic.

This research will undoubtedly provide you with new angles on whatever it is you want to say. Consider them — don’t just take the one that speaks to you, personally. Consider the broader context, and how your issue fits into a bigger picture. And if there’s a piece of the puzzle you can’t locate, be prepared to acknowledge that when you talk about this issue.

2. Know who you’re talking to.

Once you have something to say, you need to think about who you’re going to tell it to. Whether your audience is your family and friends or a group of rights activists, you need to think about what interests and appeals to them. If you’ve ever set up a filter so you could avoid “humorous” emails sent by a well-meaning friend or workmate, you’ll know how it feels to be inaccurately communicated to online. It’s annoying and frustrating.

Don’t make that mistake with your readers. Understand their expectations, their sensibilities and their limitations. Respect their desires and interests. Assess whether the thing you want to say has relevance for them. If it doesn’t, don’t bother communicating it.

3. Know how to say it.

You have a message, and you have an audience. All you need to do is put these things together, right?

It sounds simple enough — type something into your blog interface, run a spell check and publish! Draft an email, spellcheck and send! It’s true that communicating online doesn’t need to be hard, but it does need some care. There are a few basics that most of us writing online fail to achieve — things that will make your communications stand out. I’ll cover them in my next post.

This is the advice I’d give to someone who’d never used the web before. What advice would you give them?

Photo by stock.xchng user jimrhoda.

I’ve been on my fair share of remote writing projects, including technical writing, contributing to books and writing for publications. Working on such projects and hearing from clients and colleagues about successful (and less so) remote writing projects, I’ve come to see that actions of both the writer and the client can influence the outcomes.

Here are my five keys to successful remote writing projects gleaned from my technical writing career:

Good documentation. I couldn’t agree more with Thursday’s recent post about the need for telecommuters to have good documentation. Managing a remote writing project can be a challenging task, so project artifacts like statements of work (SOWs) and status reports can be a helpful audit tool for both the writer and the client. You should also consider documentation for remote writing projects to include style guides, templates and source material for the writing assignment(s).

Remote access. Many of my remote writing projects require access to the technology systems I am contracted to document, so remote access is critical to the success of much or my work. Even if you aren’t a technical writer, a remote login can be useful to gain easy  access to project files, internal mailing lists, collaboration tools, and the like. You should also not just look to just the client to provide remote access and tools for the project. Because as you are bringing in outside expertise some clients may also look for you to bring new ideas like Google Wave to the table. As a remote writer, you should also plan for some redundancy for times when your home office Internet connection goes down, or you have other communications issues.

Technological self-sufficiency. In talking with colleagues and clients, the need for remote writers to be technologically self-sufficient has been a recurring theme. A writer’s technological self-sufficiency needs to extend to being able to diagnose technical problems and being able to communicate these potential issues in a proactive, clear and concise manner.

Mutually agreed upon publishing formats. Agreeing on publishing formats up front may seem like a common-sense move, but with the proliferation of MS Office alternatives, it is important that everybody on the team can open and manipulate the documents with a minimum of issues.

Managed document review cycle. Getting editorial and technical reviews of a your work completed can sometimes be a struggle, thanks to conflicting reviewer priorities and no writer on-site, standing at the reviewer’s door when the review is late. So it is best to implement a managed review cycle of documents you are writing, including accountability for yourself, accountability on the client/team side, review guidelines, and a schedule.

Do you work as a remote writer? Share your tips and advice below for successful remote writing projects.

Artwork by stock.xchng user: dmpop.

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But how to go about enlisting that kind of help, especially without spending a sizable amount on professional editing services? I’ll let you in on a little secret: You don’t need a pro to help you improve, and you don’t need to be a pro to help others.

Facebook Notes

I think the least-used Facebook feature is its Notes. The neglect is probably due to the fact that most of what people want to convey to an audience of Facebook associates can be communicated via wall posts, comments and status updates. But the Facebook note is a valuable resource that has a variety of different applications, including as a sounding board for your writing.

A lot of my writer friends use this method for soliciting opinions and responses to their work. They’ll post a short piece, or a section of a longer work, as a note, and then tag people who they know will either enjoy reading it, or who’ll provide honest criticism in the form of comments or privately via a Facebook message. And even if your work doesn’t elicit any kind of feedback, you haven’t lost anything and you’re basically in the same place as if you’d never looked for outside help to begin with.

Google Wave

Facebook is a limited audience, in some respects, but for some people posting notes just isn’t a viable options, since controlling access isn’t all that simple. Google Wave, on the other hand, can provide a way to share work around a much more limited audience, and in an environment that’s ripe for collaboration.

Now I’m not a great fan of Wave, but it isn’t all bad. It has some great potential for doing collaborative work, and now that invites are plentiful and easy to be had (in fact, let me know in the comments if you need one, I have 20 as of this writing), you should have no problem getting other friends who need help with their writing on board.

Start a group of like-minded people who could use a second set of eyes on the work they produce, and devote a Wave or two to sharing each other’s work. Some might prefer an informal arrangement, but I’ve found it works best when people take turns sharing work they want looked at, instead of just posting stuff as they create it, since that can lead to an imbalance in work load if left unchecked.

Pen Pals

Sometimes the best collaborative arrangement is a well-honed and well-matched partnership. The best way to go about finding a useful editorial partnership is contacting someone whose work you enjoy (and ideally, who you have a preexisting relationship with) and hammering out an arrangement by which you both mutually benefit.

This system often works best if you keep reading relatively light to begin with, make generous allowances for each other’s busy schedules, but still follow up if you haven’t heard anything in a while. It’s also probably not a bad idea to establish a regular interval for email exchanges, say a week at the outside.

The Golden Rule of Peer Review

I’ll leave you with the most important rule of all in peer review: Invest yourself personally in the work that you do, but distance yourself entirely from the product you end up with. That is to say, write like your life depends on it, but don’t take any criticism personally. Criticism is food for the writer, and remember, you can always disagree with anything anyone says against your work, although you should never do so outright.

How do you get feedback on your writing?

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Dictionary.com does the job in a very straightforward way, as does using a “define: term” search in Google, but I always felt something was missing, and it wasn’t clear what that was until I recently stumbled upon Wordnik. With the simple but boastful tagline “All the words” I was understandably expecting a lot from the new dictionary web application. What more could I really expect from a dictionary, though, and what more could Wordnik possibly deliver?

A Dictionary With Social Features

You don’t have to, but with Wordnik, the option is there to sign up and become a registered member. Doing so allows you access to additional features, ones that resemble the features of social networking sites. You can create and curate word lists, comment on definitions, tag words with relevant terms, record your own pronunciations and track your search history. Also, you can use Facebook Connect to sign in, so you don’t even need to create a new profile.

Registering also allows to you to edit your profile, which you can make publicly visible. So far, there’s not much info you can share via the profile, but it is an interesting way to find out about other users, especially if they actually take the time to curate lists and assign words as favorites.

You can also comment on the profiles of people. It seems like this would be useful for having word-related back and forth conversations, especially since there’s built-in custom code for linking to words and to the comments pages of words.

The People’s Dictionary

Clicking on “Zeitgeist” at the top of the Wordnik interface takes you to a page that tracks the latest activity on the site, and its here that you can see how the app is more than just another dictionary web site. You can tell what terms have been recently added to lists, check out open lists (which can be edited by any user), view comments and check out user-recorded pronunciations, and see some interesting statistics about the past week’s activity.

Of course, as with every site with user-generated content, not everything people add to Wordnik is useful. There’s some spam, some flaming — and some questionable words and definitions. That said, it’s a far more accurate representation of the living language than is Dictionary.com, or other more traditional dictionary web sites.

Statistics, tags, examples, constantly updated Twitter and Flickr streams, and an ongoing, on-site conversation about words, their usage and their meaning provide not only a comprehensive look at how we define things, but about how fluid that definition is. Whether you’re a copy editor or a linguistics student, there’s something on Wordnik for you.

A Better Word

If you’re trying to find la mot juste, you can depend on your old paper sources, or the online versions of those traditional tomes. On the other hand, Wordnik is an interesting alternative that not only provides you with up-to-the minute definitions and usages, but also makes you complicit in language making in a very real and immediate sense.

While the social aspect may not lead to the most efficient work process, it is a welcome and truly useful distraction. Language is not created in a vacuum, nor does it exist in one, and Wordnik is the first dictionary site I’ve see that not only acknowledges but embraces that. There’s still more potential in web technologies regarding dictionaries, but for now, if words are important to your work, you should make a habit of frequenting this site.

What other features would you like to see on a dictionary site?

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That includes OmmWriter, a new writing application for the Mac. It promises a very unique experience, one that aims to reduce distraction and enable you to maintain your focus. Part of that strategy is full-screen text editing, which has been done before, but that’s only the beginning of OmmWriter’s story.

The other part of the story? A snow-covered field, white-out conditions, and a couple of lonely looking trees. And a soundtrack of calming, ambient instrumental music. I was watching “Glee” when I tried the app out for the first time, so I initially thought a musical number was starting up, but then I realized that the sounds were coming from my computer speakers. I can honestly say it’s the first time a word processor has played me music.

When you first boot up OmmWriter, it displays a splash screen that lets you know that it’s best to experience the program using headphones for a more immersive effect. I dutifully followed the instructions using my Apple in-ear headphones, and sure enough, I felt more like I was lost in a world of composition.

If you’re not keen on the default backdrop and music, you can change both. Two other backdrops are available, including a fabric pattern, and a completely white one. Both are preferable to the field image in my opinion, since they have no real focal point to distract the eye. There are also seven different background soundtracks to choose from. OmmWriter remembers your choice, too, so you won’t have to reconfigure your work space with every boot.

I know what you’re thinking. OmmWriter sounds weird. And it is, but it’s also different. Unique, in fact. It’s rare to come across a word processor at this stage that can make the same claim. I really recommend giving it a shot, even if you’re skeptical after reading this. You may just find it’s exactly what you need to stay on track and write something great.

OmmWriter is currently available as a free beta, though you’ll have to sign up at the site with your email address to get the download link.

Has OmmWriter helped improve your focus?

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In a word, I found WriteRoom distracting. Here’s why:

Green Text on a Black Background. Perhaps it’s because I wear bifocals, but I find the green text on a black background to be very distracting (it hurt my eyes!) — and don’t get me started on my flashbacks of Matthew Broderick in 1983’s action thriller,  “War Games.” While some usability and productivity pundits do sing the praises of an all-black screen, the strain the screen contrast put on my eyes was a distraction unto itself.

No Visualization. Whether I’m writing my next post for WebWorkerDaily, an article, or a technical document for a client, I need to be able to visualize the final product as I’m writing. Like many writers, I like to see how my writing looks both on the screen and on paper in order to spare myself surprises at deadline time. Writing in WriteRoom doesn’t let me do that because it’s not WYSIWYG, and it doesn’t give me access to print preview or similar tools . As a technical writer, I’m probably not the right customer for WriteRoom. However, my work as a technical writer plays a heavy influence on my composition process, even when it comes to articles and blog posts.

However, while I didn’t find a productivity boost with WriteRoom, it doesn’t mean you won’t find one. As I often advise other writers, you have to find the composition process, workflow and right mix of tools that works for you and your projects.

WriteRoom is available with a free trial ($24.95 to purchase) from Hog Bay Software and — despite my experience — I recommend you giving it a try if you think it may help you with your writing.

Do you write with WriteRoom? Share your experience below.

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I was taught how to write in a world in which print media still dominated the written word. Much has changed since those pre-Internet days, the practice of writing not least of all. As a result, some things that were once considered big no-nos are now standard practice. Here’s a few old chestnuts you should think about tossing out as you transition to online writing. You may even take joy in doing so, if you’re the rebellious sort.

1. Write What You Know

Even when I was a much younger writer, and a big fan of science fiction writing, I found this rule to be rather limiting. The fact is, now that I’m doing various kinds of online writing that differ greatly depending on the contract, it’s become downright anti-productive.

A much better and more applicable rule for today’s provider of online content is know what you write, as quickly and efficiently as you can. That means doing research to gain a sense of familiarity with your topic, and to quickly find out what kind of tone and tenor is acceptable for the genre. Honestly, your goal as a writer is to be able to fool an expert into thinking the content was created by someone with at least a comfortable grasp and lengthy history with the subject at hand.

2. Don’t Use Contractions

Contractions like “I’ll” and “They’re” may have been completely against all good sense back when you were writing essays for school, but they’re completely acceptable in almost all online writing (see what I just did there?). In fact, when I work as an editor for blog content, I often insert contractions where they belong.

What many people don’t realize when they make the jump from print to online writing is that web content has as much do with spoken English as it does written English, in terms of what’s considered acceptable (see, I did it again!). Contractions more accurately emulate a conversational tone, which is something many blogs, marketing departments and community builders are aiming for with their online publications. If you do not use contractions in your writing, it is liable to sound awkward and stilted to a seasoned Internet media consumer.

3. Revise, Revise, Revise

Revision is terrific, don’t get me wrong (I can see editors all over the world glaring at me menacingly). It’s terrific and necessary, when you have the luxury of time. The fact is, with a lot of Internet writing, you just don’t have that luxury. Taking time to meticulously revise a piece could result in something that was current becoming old news, especially now that Twitter delivers news in real time.

Read over what you’ve written, always, but try to practice producing publication-quality prose on a first draft basis. Part of that means editing as you go, but part of it is just writing with a high degree of frequency. It helps if you can identify your common errors in advance, because that way you’ll be attuned to those areas as you write them, which should make you more likely to catch a mistake as it happens.

Those are the three big rules I break every day. And every time I do, I can still hear my tenth grade English teacher uncapping his red Sharpie. Do what you will, Mr. Marchand, but the Internet demands an entirely new set of rules, and she’s the only English teacher I have to please now.

What writing “rules” do you break regularly?

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The goal is for participants to write an entire 50,000-word novel, from start to finish, within the space of a single month. Sound challenging? It should, unless you’re Stephen King, who seems able to match that kind of production without even meaning to. It’s free to enter, although donations are encouraged to help the organization pursue its charitable goals.

For the rest of us, that’s a tall order, hence the benefit of giving it a shot if you’re a writer working online, or even if you’re not and you just have some writerly tendencies. NaNoWriMo may seem like an immense distraction from work, and it is, but that’s part of what makes it such a unique and valuable opportunity for those for whom the written word is professionally relevant.

For one, it puts you under an extreme deadline, but one that’s distant enough from the project start point that you can actually create a workable, multi-parted plan in advance to tackle the task. Having a definite start and definite finish isn’t something that you’ll always have when you’re working for a client, but being able to work within those kinds of strict confines comes in very handy.

It also gets your creative juices flowing. If your job is to write about one thing day after day, it can be pretty easy to fall into a rut, and who could blame you? Participating in something fun like NaNoWriMo will not only help you escape from the monotony of the daily grind, but it should also have a positive effect on your writing as a whole, both personal and professional.

Have you participated in NaNoWriMo in the past? Do you think you’ll take part this year? Do you think creative writing is a valuable tool for professional writers?

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