I recall so much from my education, and the many styles of writing, whether it is a formal letter, an outline, a resume’, or simple letter. There is the greeting, the body, and the salutation in them all. It’s the style that defines their purpose, and stays with us throughout our lives. Even a newspaper or magazine has definite styles, with their columns. What also should be mentioned is what defines their purpose. Without being addressed or identified, a newspaper seems to have the formal appearance, not to distract from what it was designed to do; be informative. Magazines seek styles that are attractive, alluring, and pleasing to read. Those legal and statement letters all have a letter head, and some include the reason for the document.  Even greeting cards do their best to catch your attention, with many starting witha picture or graphic, and a statement needing to be finished. With these guidelines, we have an idea of what we want our document to look like.

      When starting a document, we used to have to keep an eye on errors, or when we lost focus, and see if we could fix the correction or simply start all over. The guideline for any document was always start with a draft. Some of us try to get it right the first time, losing the hidden meaning of a draft. The main goal to any writing is to get the thoughts down, and make that the key focus, not spacing or corrections. By trying to fix sentences or words in the process of writing the initial idea, we can lose focus or meaning, and the intent of the letter has only a general message, rather than a personality of one’s initial objective and goals. Never sell a draft short. Use it. Get what you are saying on the page, and not what you meant to say.

      From the draft, read over what you wrote, and make this the next and immediate step, since not all you wanted to write may be written after all. To wait until you have time to go back and make the formal writing, the expressions may be lost. Fragment sentences may even make no sense to you. Don’t stop with just a draft, until you looked over it and made sure everything you were meaning to say is there. In  the rewrite is when you can make the corrections. This has become my flaw when it comes to writing, and even text messaging. But a wrong letter in a word forces the reader to try to make sense out of what you are communicating. I saw this recently, in one of my own emails, where I was trying to state what was on my mind, not what was on my “wind”.  Always make time to reread. It falls along the lines of art. An artist does not display a work in progress. Take the time to reread your own form of art. Also, get into the habit of using spell check. Make everything you write important, well understood, and final; even if it is just a home made greeting card. Let it be your form of art.

      Now, you can work on the style of the letter. If you wish to have a letter head or page numbers, on most office and document programs, you can click on view, in the menu bar, and click on headers and footer. Here you can craft that letter head, to be seen on all page, or typically, just on the first page. It is in the footer that can be shown on every page, and where you desire it.  In this part of the setup, you can change fonts size and type, and even include a picture, the date or time, and even use the footer to express the meaning of the document. When you click close, the top of the “drafted” document will appear faded, but that was so you can get back to the main focus…the body of the letter. After you have finished the letter, read it again, checking out its meaning, spelling, appearance, and make the changes then.

      Finally, the margins. If you click on File, in the menu bar, you can then click on page setup, and here you can adjust the margin settings. Click save. Always click save in many aspects of your letter, from the beginning, any time you stop typing, and any time you made changes. This way your adjustments and changes are saved, giving you the opportunity to experiment, and should you make a gross error, you can close the document, without saving” it and go back and open the document you saved at the point of the last saved period. It is like approving your own work, but with steps, many steps of saving in between.

      After the margins are set, you can see a print preview on your screen, rather than printing out a page. This is supposed to save on paper. You still might find a mistake or two upon printing, but use the print preview to check its overall appearance, the margins, and the header and footer before printing. This way, if there are any mistakes, they will be far and few in between. Before sending, now wait a day or two, and reread one final time. See if it all makes sense. Check for errors, and note it’s appearance. This is your style, and the style can vary from a well written document, or something that appears to be rushed, and set to be done to simply get it out of the way.

      Even after you have finished the letter, save this file and back it up. But don’t delete it from your computer. Instead, use it now to experiment and explore. Wander through the menu bar, and check out other tools available. Experiment with every aspect of this letter, but, rename it, and put it in another folder. Mark that folder “experimentation”. This prevents you from thinking it is the finished version, and accidently printing it or sending it by email. Always be willing to explore, and experiment, but make sure it never gets confused with the submitted copy, and the one you backed up. If you should recall that file to reuse for important purpose, do one final thing; reread and proof the letter.  Never send anything until you approve it. In the meantime I’ll practice what I wrote, and prevent anyone else from wondering what is in my wind, or more on my mind.