Can you believe I haven’t taken college level English Composition II yet? I have been working on a finance degree for some time. I finished all my business core classes and all my finance major classes. But I was recently informed that I haven’t yet taken English Composition II, which is part of my general education requirements.

Here are some writing tips I recently came across in my class. These tips can apply no matter what you are writing, whether it be a novel or a formal document.

• Write the First Draft Quickly – Write the first draft quickly and without thinking too much about spelling, grammar, word choice, and other elements. This is something I learned how to do through the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and I must say it’s a very helpful method. It allows ideas to flow and brings out your best creative elements. And it helps you get the writing project done faster. For example, The Dragon Emperor: Book Two of the Dragon Spawn Chronicles, is already written. I wrote it last year during the NaNo Writing Month. It’s not ready for publishing yet because I still need to do the next steps indicated below, but it’s written. Wouldn’t you love to write your novel in 30 days?
• Develop & Revise – After writing the first draft but before bothering with editing for spelling, grammar, or punctuation, go back over your work. Develop your writing better by restructuring sentences, making better word choices, reorganizing scenes, adding to the work, and taking away elements that don’t work.
• Edit Last – Leave the detailing task of editing for last. If you do it while you’re writing or while you’re developing, you could be wasting time on things you might end up deleting later.

One thing my instructor said was you don’t have to have a thought before you start. You can simply start writing whatever comes to your mind and ideas will emerge. I think this is true for when you need to generating ideas. But I like to have a well-thought-out plan. I only use the blank-thought-writing when I need an idea. Everyone is different, though. If you can write without a plan and still have all the proper elements of a story, then do so. If not, plan.