Reading time: Just over 2 minutes Blog posts can start with nothing more than an interesting story but, eventually, they need to evolve into a big idea. Here’s why you need to accomplish that…. When I met with bloggers Mitchell and Jordan (not their real names), they looked nervous. They were sitting in a meeting room, […]
What’s your big idea? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Time is the most valuable commodity we all have. But let me ask you if you’re regularly wasting your writing time…. If Superman, or the tooth fairy or Dumbledore offered you either $1,500 or a thousand minutes of your life back, which would you choose? In our cash-obsessed society,
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post by Jonathan Mead… It was the headline that grabbed my attention. “Seven weird habits,” it began, “that will
Exploring the upside of doubt Read More »
Reading time: Just over 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: zeugma… My favourite television show of all time remains the West Wing a political drama (1999 to 2006) about the fictitious Democratic presidency of Josiah Bartlet (played by Martin Sheen). The stories are fascinating and complex and
What’s a ‘zeugma’? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you figure that time or hard work is enough to improve your writing? Alas, it’s not — if you consider the Pareto Principle in writing…. When I worked on my BA in political science in the late 1970s some form of madness overtook me and I applied to
The Pareto Principle in writing Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post about Ernest Hemingway’s protégé Arnold Samuelson…. Arnold Samuelson was a 22-year-old aspiring writer during the Great Depression when he had
Hemingway’s protégé: Arnold Samuelson Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors from Hana Yanagihara… There is nothing “little” about the book A little Life by Hana Yanagihara. Clocking in at 832 pages and weighing 1.1 pounds the book also carries the weight of
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Reading time: Less than one 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: saturnine… I chose to read John Lahr’s profile of the actress Viola Davis (pictured above) — in the Dec. 19 & 26/16 New Yorker — because I think she’s
What does ‘saturnine’ mean? Read More »
SeReading time: Just over 3 minutes If you were educated following Western norms, your many years of schooling may have made you wonderfully analytic but otherwise unoriginal or uninspired. Here’s how to improve your creativity… Are you already a creative person? Or are you the kind of writer who desperately wants to become more creative? Our
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help other writers. Today I discuss a Steve McCurry book of photographs of people reading….. When I was eight-years-old I used to sit at the breakfast table and
Striking photos of people reading Read More »
