Debra A. Shute

Note: The following tips are adapted from a post graciously published by KevinMD.com . I've been writing professionally for almost 20 years now, and there’s still so much to learn. Here are five favorite writing “secrets” I’ve picked up so far: First drafts are supposed to suck. Aim low. Lower. Don’t try to sound any particular way. When I tutored at the writing center of my college, I’d always ask students (most of whom arrived with a crumpled, blank piece of paper) to describe their thesis to me as casually as if they were explaining it to a friend. Next step: Write that down, word for word. That’s your lump of clay. You can do whatever we want to it later. Read books about writing. The life-changers I can list off the top of my head include On Writing , by Stephen King; Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, and Get a Freelance Life by Margit Feury Ragland . For instance, Mr. King isn’t a big fan of thesauri; and I patently d...

The only after-school detention I ever got was because I was't prepared to share a newspaper clipping of a current event in Mrs. Ryan's sixth-grade social studies class. I'd straight-up not done the assignment because I feared public speaking more than punishment. As I got older, I began to understand that my anxiety threatened to steal a lot of my future if I let it. Fueled by anger about how much it had already held me back, and how many opportunities it took from my mother, I chose to defy the "no's" voiced by my anxiety whenever possible. As well-intentioned and empowered as this policy was, I have said "yes" a handful of times when I should have been more afraid. As with the case of public speaking, my anxiety had prevented me from learning the skills in the first place. I'm pretty sure I dissociated through 99% of the public speaking course I took during my fifth year of college. (It was a core requirement students normally took their f...

So, my byline has evolved a bit over the years. (Attention aspiring writers: Pick a professional identity and stick to it. There, you got the memo that I missed.) To clear up any understandable confusion, here's an annotated timeline of my various name changes: 1978--Born Debra Aili Volk (Debby to friends and family) 2001--Began career as Debra Volk (still introducing myself in person as Debby) 2004--Got married and changed my name legally to Debra Beaulieu (calling myself Deb at this point to sound more sophisticated). 2007--Added Mom to my list of monikers. Still professionally Debra Beaulieu, although my headshot was literally taken at a playground with my daughter on my lap (Please don't tell her we cropped her out.) 2013--Divorced. Lagged on changing my name back legally due to my kids' concerns validating my own laziness and adversity to paperwork.  On advice of an editor/fellow divorcee, I plotted a stepwise transition s...

"The enemy of art is the absence of limitations." - Orson Welles For a long time, I thought that being a creative writer and a business writer were mutually exclusive. I  also believed that I had much more to say outside of the constraints of healthcare, and that eventually I would break out into writing about nature, poetry, parenting, emotional complexities. Unlike a lot of English majors, I was at least using my degree; but I wasn't truly living a creative life. I know now that I couldn't have been more wrong. As a healthcare writer, I've gotten to explore depths of humanity that I would have otherwise never known existed. Moreover, the walls of business writing have forced me to dig deeper into the crust of what there is to be learned, said, and felt about where medicine can and should and may go. For the opportunity to help voice the many sides of crucial conversations around healthcare, medicine, and humanity, I'm truly grateful to my roster of 2...

Hello! I hope that 2015 is so far treating you well. It’s hard to believe, but it’s been five years since I took the plunge into freelance writing and editing.  Today, I’m happy to still be working with some of my original clients, including the Massachusetts Medical Society and FiercePracticeManagement , while also expanding into new endeavors. Two of my proudest achievements of the past few years include profiling physicians who aided victims at the Boston Marathon bombings for Medical Economics and delivering a keynote speech about the future of private practice at the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians ’ 2014 annual meeting.  Most recently, I took on oversight of marketing communications for a new family-run business,  Vista Horticultural Services, LLC.  In this role, I've helped develop the company's website and  social media presence , worked with designers to develop a logo, assisted in assembling benefits for employees, and more. ...