Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Paraphrasing isn’t a job just for academics. It’s something that all writers need to learn how to do… When I was in high school and university, I hated writing. I adored editing, mind you, but I found the pain of extracting that first draft […]
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Reading time: About 1 and a half minutes 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 New York Times columnist Frank Bruni. I don’t expect everyone
Helping kids become readers Read More »
Reading time: About 2 minutes Every hit isn’t a home run. And not all media interviews go smoothly. Here’s how to take your lemons and turn them into lemonade… Have you ever bombed on a media interview? If you’re being honest, the answer is almost certainly yes. No one is
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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: odalisque. A story in the January 2014 Vanity Fair magazine, headlined “Frieze until numbness sets in,” and written by A.A. Gill, focused on the
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Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever fretted about how to improve your writing? It might not be as expensive as you fear… We had a plethora of reasons for rebuilding our house four years ago. It had a cracked foundation that made it unsafe in the earthquake zone
What a broken washing machine can teach you about writing Read More »
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 an article written by John Kaag. As a professional writer, writing coach and mother of three children,
Don’t give up, but never willingly finish… Read More »
Reading time: About 1.5 minutes If you think your yearly publication is going to be able to change anyone’s mind, think again! Here’s why your readers need more touches… Clients sometimes ask me to produce yearly or quarterly publications for them. Unless they’re asking for an annual report (or a
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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 simile from Jonathan Letham…. I read the 1999 novel Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham on the strength of a radio interview I heard with him. I
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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: piebald. The Salley Vickers novel Miss Garnet’s Angel holds an honoured spot in my lifetime list of top 10 books. (My list, I must
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Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever struggled with how to make writing easier? Here are some tips I’ve picked up as I’ve aged… I have a weird psychological quirk. Significant birthdays — ones ending in 0 — never upset me. Instead, I get freaked out by ones ending
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