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 writers. Today I discuss an article about procrastination by Merrill Markoe. I’ve long believed that the secret to writing effortlessly is linked to writing first thing in […]
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Reading time: About 1.5 minutes When I ask if you have style, I’m not talking about your shoes, your blazer or your fascinator (see photo). I’m talking about whether you write St. or Street. Whether you write theater or theatre. And whether you use numerals for 175 or write it out like this: one hundred
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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 simile from Alan Lightman. I’m not certain I can say I truly understood the novel Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman. I mostly avoided sciences in high school, and this book
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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: concupiscent. I don’t usually read mystery stories; I’m much more interested in other genres. But someone recommended The Silent Wife to me and I agreed to give it a
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Tempting as it is to obsess on particulars, it’s always better to play the long game when writing… Here’s a problem facing most writers: We want our writing to be better, so we turn our laser-like gaze on what we are writing, the product. In fact, what we really
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Reading time: Just over 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 writers. Today I discuss an article from the Observer in which the writer mocks e-readers….. Did you get an e-reader for Christmas? I’ve been an enthusiastic
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute Here’s why your company needs to stop worrying about “pretty” and start concerning itself with readability… Look at the graphic I’ve attached to this post. Can you READ it? I mean, beyond the attention-getting headline saying The Three Rules Your Competitors Don’t Know Yet.” Even though the email version
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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 Adam Gopnik. I’m not sure I care enough about the Beatles to want to read a three-volume history about them, (frankly, I’m more interested in Linda Ronstadt’s book
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Reading time: About 2.5 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: scurf. I read the book Tinkers by Paul Harding in 2010, the same year it won the Pulitzer Prize. Although I didn’t find the plot — about an
Reading time: About 2.5 minutes Most writers aren’t terribly sporty but did you know you can help your writing by talking like an athlete? I’ve written before about how we writers seem addicted to self-sabotage by trash-talking to ourselves. I really don’t know how to write… My boss is going to hate this… Readers are
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