Your story—permission to write badly (at first) & some questions to ask as you write

It’s pretty common to start writing and then get stuck. You put a paragraph or two down and then think, “What do I do now?” It’s a good question. First, don’t interrupt yourself by criticizing what you have, which will only discourage you and put a stop to your effort. There will be time to edit later. (And you will edit heavily, I promise.)

But your idea does need an audience, so the next questions are “Who do I want to talk to?” and “Where do they read their information?” If you aren’t sure yet, here are some ideas:

A letter to the editor: You’ve read something you like or disagree with or have found a content error you want to point out. These letters should be short (about one-half page or 250 words), courteous, and to the point. Newspapers, magazines, and professional journals all love to get reader feedback, and, if your letter is accepted, this may be your first published piece.

A point-of-view (POV) article: You want to share your perspective on a health care or nursing issue with the public (newspapers or magazines) or colleagues (nursing trade newspapers or journals). These articles should state your POV clearly, and then support it with evidence. That evidence can be experiential or reference based, but make sure that what you provide is accurate. Never, ever, take anything from a printed source or the Internet without attribution. And anything you do use should be very short, using direct quotation marks as needed to respect any copyright restrictions. This type of article usually runs about one typed page in length, or 500 to 600 words.

A clinical article in your specialty area: You want to discuss a nursing approach that you or you and your team have developed or provide an update on content you have become expert in, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, public health nursing, etc. These articles are the longest and can run from 1000 words to upwards of 5000, depending on the journal’s guidelines (more posts on guidelines will be upcoming). They require some literature research savvy, which I will also blog about in an upcoming post, and strong referencing, with citations and references formatted according to journal requirements. I recommend querying the journal or magazine editor before starting an article like this.

An interview with an expert: Both lay and professional magazines often feature interviews. You likely know more experts than you think, and nurse experts tend to be generous with their time on issues they are passionate about. But you need to be well prepared with several cogent questions that can be answered in the amount of time the interviewee can spend with you, which is usually 30 minutes or less. (I’ll post a separate entry on interview techniques in the upcoming weeks.)

Now that you know who your audience is, you can go back to writing for them.