Reading time: About 3 minutes Wondering why reading matters? Guilt and discipline won’t get you reading. Pleasure will. Six ways to make books fun again… My son is severely dyslexic, and he struggled mightily with reading as a child. We could see he was incredibly intelligent, and we used every
Why reading matters (and why guilt won’t help you) 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 a blog post by Derek Sivers on the upside of self-employment… I have been my own
What’s the upside of self-employment? Read More »
Viewing time: 59 seconds Should you count words or time? Word count goals set you up to fail. Set a 10-minute timer instead, and the words will follow. Transcript If you set a word count goal, you may sabotage yourself. Here is the problem. You cannot control how many words
Do you count words or time? (video) Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors from novelist Yaa Gyasi… Although she was born only in 1989, Yaa Gyasi is a Ghanaian-American novelist who already has an armful
The figurative language of Yaa Gyasi Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes The hard part of writing for Gail Ward Olmsted is not the writing! Instead, it’s all the marketing activities — and she started her working life as a marketer… Gail Ward Olmsted was a marketing executive and a college professor before she began writing fiction
Reflections on writing with Gail Ward Olmsted… Read More »
Reading time: 3 minutes The boredom advice everyone repeats is wrong. Boredom doesn’t generate ideas — it processes them. Here’s how to make it work for you. I’ll never forget the time my electricity went out for two hours on a Thursday afternoon. It was awful. I couldn’t even make
Boredom won’t give you ideas. It does something better. 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 some research relating to 30 lost words…. I’ve written before about lost writing — how to cope
Could you use any of these 30 lost words? Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes from Vicki Laveau-Havie…. Family trauma doesn’t sound like a happy theme for a memoir but in the hands of Vicki Laveau-Harvie, the
The figurative language of Vicki Laveau-Harvie Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes According to Rae Knightly, the strategy that best sells any author’s first book is writing and publishing the second… Rae Knightly is an award-winning author of science fiction and adventure for teenagers. She is best known for her Alien Skill Series (which fans affectionately call
Reflections on writing with Rae Knightly… Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Are you a night owl? Someone has probably made you feel bad for that. But I won’t do that to you! Some people bounce out of bed at 5 a.m., wide awake and cruelly cheerful, and knock out 550 words before their coffee has finished
How to write if you’re a night owl (and love it) Read More »
