Use the basic information and apply the type of writing you prefer to it to see if it could be a finished story with the changes you have made or are making.  For example: If a child liked to play with a father’s keys you could have a nice mystery if the keys became missing. You could build on the mystery as you gave the details of where everyone looked, what actually or in your embellished version happened and how the story was solved.

Keep the details of the original version intact and use your embellished top this versions separate so you are keeping the family history in place as you are borrowing the basic story to embellish.  Have fun and see what you can do as you are increasing your creativity in this manner.

Apply this to any type of writing you want to try and soon you will be enjoying your writing more, you may also find yourself wanting to write more.  Start with one or two areas first and then expand to other types of writing.

Give yourself a time to write and keep it to five minutes or under in the beginning.  You can increase the time when you feel  more comfortable with the shorter time.  Try the mini writing sessions on every subject you can think of and see which areas seem to be of more interest to you.  Turn it into a game and see if you can start and finish a story in under the five minute time.  Put a timer on and when the timer goes off put your pencil down and the paper you wrote away.  Allow yourself at least an hour before you go back and read what you wrote.  You can take an additional five minute timed session to change the original if you want to do so.  It may not need any additional changes.  The objective here is to see if you can write about a topic and have a complete story in the mini time frame.

It can be so much fun to increase your writing skill doing it in these mini sessions.  It keeps your project simple and you have to suspend your judgement because after all, you were timed and you only had five  minutes.  Your inner critic won’t have anything to grab onto so you can enjoy the process without the concern that it might not be approved by your inner critic then ultimately approved by others in your world.  What a nice gift you can give to yourself while you are increasing your skill.  Remember to have fun!

You are already an expert because you are the only one who has your insight about the subject you want to write about.  You are the only one who has had your experience.

Start by getting a collection of ideas together that interest you.  Collect as much information as you need to give you the volume to select from for the starting draft.  Begin to write and as you do you will find what you need to add to make your approach clearer to you.  You do not need to use everything you collect.  Just have it on hand to draw from as needed.  At this point how many chapters will be decided as you continue to write.

You will have your approach to the information you are writing about by adding your thoughts and insight.  It is amazing how a different approach to a subject can give you and others inspiration about the subject.

You can add or subtract as you would like.  The important part is that you begin.  Leave the evaluation about the material out of the picture.  Your job is to write your thoughts down as completely as possible.

As you have your material separated into parts, which we will call chapters, you will begin to get a better picture of how long your book will be when finished.  Start to label the chapters with appropriate titles to help your reader define the direction you are going with this part of your material.

The most important thing is that you begin to write.

When you are ready to gather everything into your final draft and finalize your material use this format as a suggested approach:

To begin to organize your material into book form:

1.    Have friends read your material and give you their insights about how the information impacted them as they read the chapters. Have them write 1-2 sentences. This can be at the beginning of the book if you choose to use them. 

2.    Then you will place the title page. 

3.    Next, the dedication page.

4.     Followed by the table of contents. 

5.    Some like to add a forward section where you have a testimonial from another author/ or person about your writing and what their thoughts are about how the material will impact the people who read it.

6.    Some authors will do an introduction section letting the reader know what they hope to achieve by presenting the material and why they chose to write about the subject.

7.    Follow by the chapters you have written.

8.    At the end of your material you can put in your resources as a whole or by chapter.

9.    If you have used stories or data from other people you will want to put in their permission.

10.  Other offerings if you choose to have them to offer to your readers.

You can choose to self publish or send your manuscript to publishers.

Sort for the exact explaination about the topic that will present the information in as clear a manner as is possible in as few words as you can say.  If you can be that concise in addressing the exact result you want, what you are writing will get your point across easily and quickly. 

Try it on a number of subjects.  Write an explaination and then rewrite it and try to reduce the number of words.  Next, take that explaination and see if you can reduce the number of words even further.  Keep practicing.  This is such a valuable skill to develop. 

When you learn how to be concise in your writing you will then know where you can occasionally add to what you are communicating to improve the content.

So how did I get to 7,615 words?  Well, my mother was an extraordinary elementary teacher and developed a Spelling, Penmanship and Creative Writing Program that she taught.  The average improvement of the student in their language skills was 3-4 years in just the 1 year they were in her classroom.  (Achievement test documented)  She just had an amazing skill in being able to make it fun to learn language. The system she developed was simple as well as effective. 

That’s where I learned how to appreciate words and how using words could improve the quality of my life.  It was so valuable to connect to and continue to use those basic tools.  Now I am sharing those tools with others, children and adults alike.  We all need to become more powerful in our ability to communicate which leads to connection with others.

If you are just learning American English, it will be easy for you to begin and quickly progress if you have a place to start and then a method to build your word list.  It is more important to get the basics in place than to speak with words that others do not understand unless they go to a dictionary for the definition. 

If you already speak American English, the system will allow you to become more powerful in your daily communication to others.  The basics are where you want to focus and let others use the fancy words or the dollar words we used to say. 

You recognize those when you have to look them up to get the  definition and then try to apply the meaning to what the writer was saying.  It becomes problematic when you have to look up very many words in a communication.  With our busy schedules, we often just put that aside and go on to other writing where we can quickly and easily read and understand. 

Once you get the basic word foundation in place writing is easy to do.  It is another form of talking so let yourself enjoy the process of putting those words down on paper.  Use everything you can in your explaination to your reader to communicate with the reader about your topic.  Make it easy for them to get the concept you are sharing with them.  That is when the words become powerful to you and in addition to your reader.

Words are descriptive in the way they convey the information so the more descriptions, the better and more interesting the writing.  To add spice to your words, you need to add feelings or emotional content with your words to get your reader involved with your story.  Choose your words carefully so you don’t let them get in the way of the message you are telling by diverting the readers attention away from your topic. 

If you have other opinions about your topic that do not directly relate to the outcome you want to achieve with what you are writing or provide good stimulation for your reader to consider the other points of view presented, you need to put them in another article or story.  Then your reader does not wonder aimlessly through your writing and get confused with too many points of information about the topic that do not seem to add to their discovery or allow them to form an opinion from the information you presented.  The moment the reader has to work at the words on the page is when the reader loses interest in what you are writing.

Write for yourself and not to impress others.  You will discover that people connect with you and your consistency in the way you do things, talk about things or write about things.  It adds value to them when you are believable.  So what words do you frequently choose that make you believable?  Are there any words you might want to choose to leave out of your verbal and written communication?

When you actually have time to put the words into an article or story you can then sort through the informaion and put like thoughts together and present your perspective about that information using that point of view.  You might have a number of different groups of information so you can write numerous articles or stories showing various perspectives regarding the information.  Notice which point of view seems to feel more comfortable to you.  This is a valuable bit of information for you to gather.

If you will allow yourself to approach information from many different directions, your ability to write will improve quickly and often dramatically.  So will your satisfaction about your ability to write and communicate an idea.  The clarity in presentation of the informaion will be reflected in your number of readers who will connect with the different approaches too. 

That adds to your fun in writing which then encourages you to want to write more.  It’s a wonderful cycle so pick a topic and give it a try.  See how many different articles or stories you can put together from one topic.  Then put these articles or stories in like best to like least order. 

Put a word count on the top of the page.  Who knows when someone might approach you and say  “I need a story that is 250 words about ____”.  You can then quickly go through your stash of articles or stories and select the point of view that would be perfect for that event or application. 

Less thinking about what people will think and more writing showing different perspectives will take you to a totally different level in your writing, quickly improving your ability and giving you a confidence boost at the same time.

See writing as creative sharing and you will find pleasure in doing it.  Consider what has brought joy to you and remember that same thing will bring joy to others.  Share your stories.  You never know who might be comforted by your words and thoughts.