Reading time: About 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: gleeking… When I read the word gleeking, in the Joshua Ferris novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, I knew it had nothing to do with the TV […]
Reading time: About 3 minute Are you afraid of self-editing? Here’s how to make editing less daunting. Instead of vaguely aspiring to make your text perfect, pass through it many times looking for specific problems…. One of my clients used to find writing horrifying, frightful and nerve-racking. But as a student working on her PhD
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Reading time: About 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 the new Steven Pinker book, Sense of Style… I’m telling my family the #1 item on my Christmas gift list is a copy
Why I want my own Sense of Style Read More »
Reading time: Less than two minutes Training dollars are rare with most companies. So here’s some important advice on how to get more value from your training… My husband recently took a four-day training course. He loved it although he found it exhausting. (And he had an awful pile of work to return to after have
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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 splendid personification from William Boyd… I picked up the novel Brazzaville Beach, by William Boyd, at my local library entirely because it carried a handwritten note from one of the librarians,
The figurative language of William Boyd… 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: fandangle… Occasionally, in my search for a word-of-the-week, I look not for unusual words, whose definitions lie just outside my grasp. Instead, I search for showy terms. Interesting
What’s a fandangle? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Side projects are things we do that aren’t our main jobs. Does that thought invigorate you or make your heart sink? I’m firmly in the former camp… This blog/newsletter started as a side project. Back in 2006, I had a writing/editing contract with a big corporation that paid the bills. But I
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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 book written by Bárdur Oskarsson… Even though I’m a fully grown adult, I love children’s literature. Young adult novels, such as
Incubation and the flat rabbit Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute The next time a boss or client tells you not to worry about whether your writing includes enough stories, I suggest you get him or her a copy of the book Significant Objects. Here’s why. Back in 2009, American authors Rob Walker and Joshua Glenn bought a series of random objects thrift stores,
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Reading time: Less than 1 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of metaphors and personification from novelist Sarah Waters. I’ve now read three Sarah Waters novels. The Paying Guests was not my favourite — not by a longshot. (Fingersmith earned that distinction.)
The figurative language of Sarah Waters … Read More »
