Reading time: Less than 1 minute Schools and social media can be a toxic mix, as the Abbotsford school district learned this week… I went out of town to teach a workshop earlier this week. Following the event, I ended up having dinner with a school administrator. “Let me ask you this,” she said to me, […]
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some personification from writer Olive Senior… Despite having several rave reviews on Amazon, the novel Dancing Lessons, by Olive Senior, hasn’t yet persuaded me to finish it. I find it too self-conscious and the characters
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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: feuilleton. I began my working life in the newspaper business so, honestly, I should have known what the word feuilleton meant. But when reader John Friesen sent it
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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 Robert Fulford article about writer’s block… Do you ever suffer from writer’s block? If so, a recent piece in the National
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes If you ever have to do a difficult media interview I urge you to follow one essential tip: embrace silence… I used to work for a daily newspaper. Mostly, I edited, but every once in a while, I had the chance to write. In those days, I didn’t enjoy writing
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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 metaphor from Lori Lansens… I jokingly like to say I have a “lifetime to 10 list.” By this I mean that I have 10 books that so impressed me they have changed
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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: attar… I had long associated the word attar with scent, but I didn’t know its meaning any further than that and would have been reluctant to use it in
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Does the topic you must write about seem unspeakably dull and boring? Here are some tips for how to increase your interest, no matter what the subject… Imagine you have a blog piece, an article for your employee newsletter or even a long report that you’ve been procrastinating over.
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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 sharing Marcel Proust’s reflections on why we read… When people ask me about my hobbies I always say, “reading.” I’ve
Reading time: Less than 1 minute When you’re stressed or overwhelmed or disorganized — be smart and concentrate on one action: simply taking one step forward… I am almost neurotically well organized. But some days my organization doesn’t lead to my getting very much done. I get distracted by email. A client calls with a major
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