I flew up and back to DC yesterday, and both times, like always, I requested a window seat. You aisle seat people don’t know what you are missing.
Just about every time I fly during the day, when the weather cooperates and we are up in the blue looking down at the clouds, or the ground below, I’m able to get an entirely new perspective on something that’s been vexing me.
I just sit there and stare out the window, getting this completely fresh and other worldly perspective about the earth below, and about what’s happening in my own life when I’m down there. Sometimes it’s a work quandary and sometimes it’s personal (as was the case yesterday). But it’s almost always some kind of breakthrough.
So much of what I would call bad nonprofit writing is really good nonprofit writing in hiding, obscured by all the day to day chaos and worries and assumptions. It needs a breakthrough.
If you don’t have an airplane ride in your future, how about . . .
Talking a long walk where you don’t talk to anyone else or listen to music — just your own brain.
Rewriting the article from someone else’s perspective or in someone else’s voice.
Asking yourself “so what?” over and over, until the answers take you to a fresher perspective on why you are writing in the first place.
Let me know what else works for you in the comments.
P.S. Our next webinar is Nonprofit Writing Stinks! Bring Your Writing Back to Life on August 9, 2011.
