Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Is your writing as fast as you want it to be? If not, perhaps it’s time to think about email productivity for writers… I typically receive somewhere between 200 and 350 emails a day, by which I mean emails that I must answer. (In other words, I’m not including […]
Is email derailing your writing? Read More »
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 an article about the exclamation point written by Lauren Katz… I confess: I sometimes overuse exclamation marks. Mostly, I do this in
I’m not kidding about the exclamation point… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute Could taking a fresh start — apart from on New Year’s Day — help you accomplish something important? Two classes I ran this week ended up being better, livelier than usual. One, for my Get it Done group, seemed friendlier and more engaged. The other, for my Extreme 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 — and a simile — from Guy Lawson. I read a New York Times Magazine piece about new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, some time before Christmas. Written by Guy
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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: riparian. As a youth, I was a serious canoeist. I had belonged to the Girl Guides (known as the Girl Scouts in the US) and, when I hit
What does “riparian” mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you think there ought to be some new year’s resolutions for writers? Let me suggest something that will work even better… I know it’s resolution season. New year’s plans seem to lurk in blogs like dangerous creatures in swamps. But not here. I don’t believe in new year’s
Here’s a non-resolution that could change your writing life Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Here are 7 reasons why you might want to use the principles of time management for writers in 2016… I know Christmas is looming (only three more sleeps!) so perhaps I’m crazy to take on the topic of time management right now. But Christmas is also often when we
Top 7 reasons why you should learn time management for writers Read More »
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 an article on collective nouns from the Language Matters blog by the Oxford Dictionaries… Collective nouns — names for a group of people
Collecting some collective nouns… Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute Is your workplace riven by conflict? Here’s a video you might want to watch… I was especially interested by a recent talk by Rochelle King (pictured above) Global VP of Design for the company Spotify, a music streaming, podcast and video service. King speaks insightfully — and entertainingly — about how conflict
Are you embracing conflict? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors and similes from Anthony Doerr. One of my favourite books of the last five years, the novel All The Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr (pictured above), is
The figurative language of Anthony Doerr.. Read More »
