​There’s a line I read one time from a writer who grew up wanting to be a newspaper man.  He didn’t want to be a writer.  The reason he wanted to be a newspaper guy instead was the sense he got from the newspaper he read as a kid:  He felt the writers were putting the paper out just for him.  “HE” was the audience.

That’s a great insight and also something we all should consider when writing:  Keep your audience in mind.  Write for them.  Don’t write for yourself.
 
All great writing goes down that path because if it doesn’t, you lose your readers.  They don’t follow.
 
Recently I had the opportunity to interview several people for a story, and my questions all funneled from my thoughts of, “What will the readers want to hear?  What’s going to be interesting to them?  What flows from one part of the story to the next to keep the reader engaged?
 
By continuing to structure my questions with those thoughts in mind, I hope I got good information that made the story much more engaging for the readers.  When you take on a subject, keep those tips in mind and you’ll find your readership growing.

​Writing is work.  It’s not for everyone.  Like other professions, those who like to do it and experience a degree of success actually love to write.  You have to.  The financial and ego awards are not sufficient to sustain you otherwise.
 
It’s important to find your sweet spot when you write.  Whether you do or don’t like tapping away at a keyboard or laying a pen to paper, the more you find the things you enjoy writing about, the better job you’re going to do at it.  Explore the personal and professional issues that excite you, and consider how you can add your voice to that dialogue.
 
Recently, I had the opportunity to wed two loves of mine:  environmental issues and golf.  I pitched a story to Avid Golfer, a magazine based in North Texas, on a story where those two issues intersected, and got a “go-ahead” signal from the editor to proceed.  That jazzed me.
 
As I worked on the story, interviewing sources and writing, I told several friends and professional colleagues how excited I was to write the story.  That hadn’t happened in a long time.
 
Most of us don’t get what we ideally want in our jobs on an everyday basis.  Instead, if we are fortunate, we get to work on issues, projects or ideas that give us a certain degree of consistent engagement.  When it comes to your writing, the more you dig into what passions are, the greater your joy is going to be when you start putting the story together.  That goes for any job.
 
So once you get through your daily grind, take a step back, look inside yourself and have an internal dialogue (or external for that matter) to figure out what pumps you up.  You’ll be better focused afterwards, and your fulfillment level will rise.

​A lot of attention is paid to getting the lead right in a story.  The headline in the news, the subject line in an email or the trailer leading up to a TV account all are designed to be short, punchy and grab your attention.  That’s understandable, as the first goal of your communication is to get others interested in what you have to say.
 
Less is written about the ending.  Yet it is equally (if not more) important in terms of what the reader gets out of your communication.  You want them to walk away affected in some way by what you wrote.
 
To do that, you need to close with sharp language.  Summarize your main point in a completely different way.  Take extra time to come up with a new example to capture and highlight what you want the readers thinking about after they finish what you wrote.
 
Your conclusion is the last set of words they will see.  Think about that.  It’s where you get the reader to say, “Hmmm, that’s interesting,” or “boy, that seems really silly.”  Nail the ending and you’ll have them musing the former rather than the latter way more often.

This past week, I was sipping coffee with a good friend and colleague when he mentioned that I cursed more in front of him than when we first met.  I agreed, and noted that with a comfort zone, my willingness to throw !@#$%^&*()(*&^%$#@! into the dialogue became more prevalent.  There was a trust bond, and that made me more open about using four letter words.

Cursing is fascinating.  Years ago, in my weekly newspaper column, I wrote about how I completely eliminated all cursing from my vocabulary as my wife and I raised our three kids.  That has very slowly gone out the door as they’ve become young adults, but I still monitor my vocabulary.  During those earlier years of their childhood though, I kept it in check, and when I happened upon a forum where you didn’t need to watch everything you said, I would let the occasional four letter word fly, and man, did that feel good.

Watching what you say in a business environment is another issue.  You have to approach each situation as if cursing is taboo.  You must monitor first, get a feel for the terrain, and listen to what others say, particularly the leaders.  If there is an acceptance of certain words or ways of saying things, you should file that away for what you regurgitate later.

Cursing can be cathartic, enjoyable and provide the exact explanation you seek.  But it typically isn’t appropriate in open business forums.  You will find your own comfort zone as you work your way into a new culture.

My job several years back put me into a new situation, and it quickly became clear that cursing, even in fairly substantially-sized meetings, was okay.  Men and women both let it fly.  I found that interesting, and it might have been part of a certain cultural element of our business line.

​In general though, keep your lip zipped when it comes to professional cursing.  See what others say first, and if someone is going to step in dog poop, let it be them, not you.  Even if you reach a point where it’s clear that cursing is okay, err on the side of caution.  Save it for your friends.  They’ll tell you when you’re over the line.