The Publication Coach

• Is writing a dreaded chore that you avoid?
• Do you suffer from writer’s block?
• Would you like to write faster and more easily?
• Would you like to be in control of your writing instead of having it control you?

If you’re fed up with a daily diet of writing stress, I can help. As the Publication Coach, I bring techniques from daily journalism and time management, and adapt them to meet your writing needs. If you’d like to double your writing speed, look no further than my book, which presents a system for writing that will help you write with ease and clarity. Yes, you, too can write faster, better!

Start with the free stuff!

In Internet-land lots of people claim to be experts on everything. So, to demonstrate my expertise to you, and to prove that I’m a writing coach with a difference, I offer a free writing newsletter called Power Writing. Check out a sample and then consider these three reasons why you should subscribe:

• It’s weekly and it’s short. Super short. As in 3 minutes or less to read.
• You’ll receive a free copy of my 17-page e-booklet on mindmapping.
• I never share my list with anyone for any reason. Your name and email address are safe with me. (Privacy Policy)

This newsletter is equally valuable to those who want copywriting assistance, corporate writing help and Internet writing support. Heck, even some fiction writers tell me they find it useful! Please be sure to check out my blog (see most recent entry below or click on the link above for the archives) and I’ll have you writing faster in no time!

–Daphne Gray-Grant

Word count: 212 words

Reading time: Less than 1 minute

A great way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. Today’s comes from Sebastian Barry.

I’ve gone on a bit of a splurge with Irish literature, lately. First, I read Malarky. More recently, I finished The Secret Scripture. This Sebastian Barry novel is more a story of character than plot and I found his writing style to be absolutely riveting.

Deeply poetic, the book tells the story of an almost 100-year old woman, set against the history of Ireland — most particularly the 1922 civil war. Barry’s writing is uniformly excellent but here is one sentence I particularly admired:

There in the glimmering room I fancied I saw something strange, a tear rising from the corner of his eye, slipping to his cheek and tumbling quickly down, a sort of dark, private crying.

The modifier “dark” is so seldom used to describe tears and I found the adjective to be especially powerful here. I also liked the “glimmering” of the room (what a perfect word!) and the verb “fancied” seemed to capture a character of a particular place and age.

If you enjoyed this post you might also like:

He has a long, square-chinned face…

Under the rubble that’s himself…

Before they were unmoored from their spines…