Instructionals: How to Plan Your Project

Previous Article - How To Begin A Piece Of Writing

Once you've set up your commitments and goals from the Previous Article, you can begin the planning and research phase of your project!

Some writers are able to miraculously sit down with an idea in their head, and write their entire piece from beginning to end, without any plans or forethought. But for normal people, this is not the case! There are many different methods that allow you to organize your thoughts and plan out your story or message before you put your first sentence on the page. For my writing, I usually end up with a messy hybrid of several techniques-- it's up to the writer to decide the best way to plan!

Planning can come in many forms-- a concise one-sentence summary, a  massive mind-map of the different characters, topics, subplots, or chapters, and your basic numbers/bulleted outline are just some of thousands of planning methods. Some people will plan out every detail of every scene, writing up detailed documents for every setting, drawing sketches for every character, and doing extensive research for every concept or topic presented. Others will simply take a note of their initial idea, and begin at page one, word one.

3 Things Your Church is Lying About

I was listening to a sermon this past Sunday, and I realized how very much I disagreed with what the pastor was preaching. No, this was not my church-- it was a friend's church, so I feel safe to reject his message. But it has been an eye-opener for me this week, and I hate how often we find sermons like these in today's church.

1. You're Not A Good Enough Christian

This particular pastor used a visual aid to demonstrate their principle, which they conveniently issued to every congregation member inside their program. It was a triangle, with 8 different levels inside. Each level, or "tier", represented a level of faith, starting at the bottom with "Faith - a decision to believe," then going to "Moral Excellence," then "Knowing God Better," then "Self Control," all the way up to "Godliness," then to "Radical Love For All." Most of the sermon was dedicated to this triangle. The pastor encouraged his audience to continue to climb the triangle as much as they could, so they could ultimately reach the top level; Agape, or radical, love for everyone. This is the kind of love God has for us.

Instructionals: How to Begin A Piece of Writing

This is the first article in my "Instructionals" series! I hope to help you become a better writer by offering step-by-step advice and helpful resources along your first writing journey.

Why do you want to write?

This is a major question, because it helps you to set goals. If you have a story you want to tell, then your main goal will be to tell the story as accurately and as entertainingly as possible. If you want to teach a lesson, then you want that lesson to be clear and understandable, and, possibly, as artistically conveyed as you can. Are you writing for yourself, or someone else (audience)? Understanding these things will help you set guidelines for your first (or second, or third, or infinite) writing project.

I suggest putting a brief answer to the question "Why do I want to write?" on the wall above your desk, at the top of your computer screen-- somewhere nice and visible. When you get frustrated, look back to the answer; why do you write?

Shock Absorbers

Lifestyle is a word we use to describe the way in which we live. Where we work, whether we go to church, how busy we are, and what we do to relax are all a part of our lifestyle. We find houses, cars, and even jobs and schools based on the lifestyle we want for ourselves. Many people dream of that white-picket-fence lifestyle, with two-and-a-half kids, one dog, two cars, a nine-to-five job, and a middle-class economic status, and some of those people have achieved their optimal lifestyle.

This month, my family moved to Cypress, Texas, and I am realizing all the differences between this suburbian paradise of Houston, and the quaint, tropical town of Lakeland, Florida. In Houston, people are always busy. The traffic is horrendous at all times of the day, the map of the area is far too big to remember, and the rows of cookie-cutter housing and identical streets goes past the horizon in all directions. It takes at least half an hour to go anywhere, and there must be a school zone on every other block. When people say the 'suburbs' they are talking about right here, in Cypress, Texas.