How Recording My Stories Cured a Serious Case of Adjectivitis and Other Writing Ailments.

Photo Courtesy of John Nielson

So much extra time in front of my laptop! So much opportunity to write, write, write! Just like I always dreamed of. But now, there was no hiding from the vast swaths of available hours to work on my craft. My social calendar was cleared. Yoga classes were canceled. Backyard birds were overfed. A guy could only watch so many hockey documentaries about NHL goons.

How do you improve your writing after writing?

Mayo Oshin published a great Medium piece sharing that King, Hemingway, Angelou, and other masters write for about six hours a day max. What happens after that? Today we’re flush with extra writing hours. How can we tap our creative stockpiles to improve our writing without burning out on it?

Write, record, and revise your writing out loud: there’s a science to it.

Back in the day, I wrote radio commercials. I loved every step in the process, from ideation all the way through to hearing my final spot on the air. It was a different flow compared to writing alone, working out everything in my head, believing my prose was the best it could be. Listening to my writing — often next to others who’d share a real-time critique — taught me…