Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from Francis Spufford…. I can no longer remember where I heard about the marvellous work by Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built. Subtitled A […]
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Reading time: less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: scrofulous… The marvellous historical novel, Hamnet and Judith, by Maggie O’Farrell contains a veritable dictionary of interesting words. One of them is scrofulous, a word I’d heard
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Reading time: Just over 3 minutes Are you someone who believes you just don’t have enough time to do what you want? Here’s how to find more time for writing…. The hardest part of doing just about anything is getting started. For you, this principle might apply to reading, cleaning your garage, working on your
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I like to think of mindmapping as a Swiss army knife for writers. Perhaps the most useful way to use it is as a daily, inspirational tool. Let’s call that the large blade. Then, the second most useful way is as an occasional tool for organizing your writing. Very handy for any long-form projects, like
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about metaphors and personification from Barbara Kingsolver… I’ve been a fan of American writer Barbara Kingsolver (pictured above), ever since I read her 1998 novel The Poisonwood Bible, still on my lifetime
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: flensing… When I read the marvellous historical novel Hamnet and Judith — which tells the (imagined) story of Shakespeare’s son, Hamnet, who died as a young man
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Reading time: About 6 minutes (but very skimmable) Here are my 10 favourite articles or posts from last month, focusing on the most useful, helpful and healthful pieces for writers. North America is still in the deep midwinter, but because I’m lucky enough to live in the damp west coast, small signs of spring are
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I recommend most people in Get it Done (night owls possibly excluded) do their writing first thing in the morning. But writing is NOT the same as researching. Here’s why I suggest a different strategy for the researching process. First, you want to START your day with a solid accomplishment. Writing 500 words is just
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from writer Caity Weaver… A digitally restored edition of the 1987 box-office winning film Moonstruck, starring Cher, pictured above, was released last Christmas. I haven’t
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Increase your vocabulary and you’ll make your writing much more precise. That’s why I provide a word of the week. Today’s word: pishogues…. I always enjoy reading books by authors from different countries. Almost inevitably, their language or expressions are quite different from my own, and I end up
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