Reading time: About 1 minute There’s an art to saying you’re sorry. Here are some guidelines for how to apologize… I had an important interview scheduled for this week, but the person’s Executive Assistant emailed me to re-schedule it. The new time she suggested wasn’t convenient for me — I had another call booked — but […]
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 and a simile from Celeste Ng… I don’t typically read mysteries or thrillers but I’m always willing to make exceptions when something literary crosses my desk. My husband recently passed
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes I’m guessing that most aspiring writers have never been serious figure skaters. Here’s why you might have more in common with that type of athlete than you imagine… Should there be a publication ban on the names of all defendants and victims in criminal trials until a verdict has
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute Sometimes writing seems hard and complicated and thankless. But when such feelings seek to overwhelm you, remember the advice of Neil Gaiman and simply make good art… As we approach another season of university commencements I’m drawn again to the very wise words of author Neil Gaiman (pictured above.) Addressing
Reading time: Less than 1 minute When I’m editing material for clients, here’s the most common mistake I see: they haven’t set a consistent style for headlines and subheads. If your headline doesn’t follow a proper style, your publication won’t look professionally edited. What do I mean by that? Well, there are two fundamental type of heads
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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 simile from Ben McGrath… I was serious about canoeing as a young person. The high point of my life, when I was 16 years old, was an 80-mile canoe trip around the Bowron
A monologue as unstoppable as a river… Read More »
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: coruscating… I briefly worked for Conrad Black. Not face-to-face (thank goodness); he owned the newspaper chain where I was an editor. Black once controlled Hollinger International, which published The Daily Telegraph (UK), Chicago Sun-Times (U.S.), The
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Reading time: About 3 minutes When you write, do you begin by taking an inventory of all the stories you have at your disposal? Here’s why you should try to collect as many as you possibly can… Let me begin by telling you a story. It dates back to the 2008 Summer Olympics, when Michael
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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 about the late author John D. MacDonald… John D. MacDonald (1916 to 1986) was prolific author of crime and
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute The worst thing about taking the bus should be having to sit next to someone you don’t like. But in a recent bus imbroglio, two teenagers learned things can get much worse than that… Public relations is harder for companies than used to be. The Internet has changed the
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