Daphne Gray-Grant grew up in the newspaper business. Her parents owned a struggling weekly, where she worked from the age of 16. From there she advanced to the position of senior editor at a major metropolitan daily, supervising a dozen reporters and editors and managing several daily pages. Eventually, she spent four years as a director of communications for the newspaper’s parent company.
Today Daphne is a communications consultant, writing and editing coach, and the author of the best-selling book, 8½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better. She is currently working on her second book titled Writing Your Crappy First Draft. Her popular newsletter Power Writing, which is delivered to more than 12,000 readers around the world, helps corporate communicators, business owners and students write better, faster.
Daphne is also the mother of triplets, which only serves to cement her reputation as a compulsive overachiever. This time on the podcast, Daphne walks us through her journey from traditional job to self-employment and teaches us how to manage our time to accomplish long-term goals as we write better – faster!
Key Takeaways
Daphne’s best tip for writing faster without sacrificing quality is to break the habit of editing-while-you-write
- Train yourself to separate the phases of the process: research, mind map, write, then edit
- Avoid stopping to research when you discover a hole in your knowledge
Daphne’s advice for reaching a long-term writing goal
- Spend the first half hour after you wake up on your big project
- We have maximum willpower and concentration first thing in the morning
What is most important to you may not be the most urgent
- You must make time to work on the projects you love
- For the sake of accountability, Daphne’s clients report to her each day – or she tracks them down!
Daphne’s tips for making a long-term goal into a bite-size, achievable project
- Begin with a word count goal (if the client doesn’t give you one, create an arbitrary one of your own)
- Do the math to determine how many words you need to write per day, working five days a week
Your feeling about your writing is irrelevant to the number of words you produce
- You need distance before you can accurately judge your work
- Daphne encourages writers to wait 6 weeks before editing (on a long-term project)
Select your topics in advance so that you are not faced with a blank page when you sit down to write
Resources
Daphne’s Book 8 ½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better
Connect with Daphne Gray-Grant
Daphne Gray-Grant grew up in the newspaper business: her parents owned a struggling weekly where she worked from the age of 16. From there she advanced to a job as a senior editor at a major metropolitan daily, supervising a dozen reporters and editors and managing many daily pages. Eventually, she spent four years as director of communications for the newspaper’s parent company. Today, she is a communications consultant, writing and editing coach and the author of the best-selling book 8 1/2 Steps to Writing Faster, Better. (She’s currently working on her second book titled, Writing Your Crappy First Draft.) Her popular newsletter, Power Writing, which is delivered to more than 12,000 readers around the world, helps corporate communicators, business owners and students write better, faster. It’s weekly, brief and free. Sign up at www.publicationcoach.com. Daphne is the mother of triplets, which only serves to cement her reputation as a compulsive over-achiever.
