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: hurdy gurdy. Of course, I know what a hurdy-gurdy is. It’s a stringed instrument (pictured above) that produces sound by a crank-turned wheel rubbing against strings. You can […]
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Reading time: Just over 3 minutes In the 25 years I spent as a wage slave (an employee, rather than a contractor) I had exactly ONE good supervisor. But I learned plenty about how to write for a bad boss…. I was standing in the middle of the newsroom — an open-area office with about 115 people —
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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 an article written by Melinda Osteen… A headline like How To Think and Write Creatively was bound to get my attention. And
Make reading a daily habit… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Some people call it high rising terminal. But I call it uptalk. And I avoid it…. I have an important question for you: Do you uptalk? What I mean is: do you end every statement sounding as though you’ve just asked a question? If you don’t know what uptalk
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 Joseph Kertes. I remember many departures in my life. My two best friends leaving for Europe after high school graduation, while I was off to university. A boyfriend leaving me.
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes 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: chimera. I’d never read anything written by British novelist Sebastian Faulks (pictured above), despite multiple urgings from my husband to give the book Birdsong a try. I tend not
Reading time: Just over 5 minutes You have a book in you. I know you do! Here’s how to get it out of your head and down on paper. Here’s how to write your book… There are many ways to do anything and I don’t delude myself that I offer the only feasible plan for
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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 post on idioms from the blog Grammarly…. An idiom is a phrase with a meaning not deducible from the individual words.
Learning the origins of idioms… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute Universities need to learn that ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away… Let’s talk about the issue of sexual assault on university campuses. Check out, for example, this story about Brown University, published yesterday in Bloomberg Business. Protesters said wrongly ending an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations because the accused student’s
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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 Gloria Steinem. In honour of International Women’s Day, May 8, my favourite radio station (CBC-AM) aired an interview with Gloria Steinem. If you have the time, be sure to listen to
Gloria Steinem describes sweaters on her teeth… Read More »
