Reading time: About 1 minute A great way to improve your writing is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. I comment today on one written by novelist Cathy Marie Buchanan. I picked up the novel The Painted Girls by Cathy Marie Buchanan on the […]
A bobbing little nod…. Read More »
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 novelist Stephen Gauer. This weekend I read the book Hold Me Now, by Stephen Gauer. A crime fiction novel — not a genre I typically read — the
The figurative language of Stephen Gauer… 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: paladin. This Friday, November 22, marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of JFK. I remember being in grade 2 and having our (Canadian!) class interrupted to
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Many of us have plenty of bad habits. But how many of us have taken the trouble to develop good writing habits? Here is something that always astonishes me: Every time I cite a principle that I’ve mentioned what feels like a million times (let’s use mindmapping as an
More lessons from my piano Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute A great way to improve your writing is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. I comment today on one written by Jeanette Walls. I am in the minority when it comes to writer Jeannette Walls’ famous memoir, The
Bringing those big crazy birds back home… Read More »
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 series of metaphors from Kathryn Schulz. I had never heard of writer Kathryn Schulz before I read her hilarious article “That Goddamned Blue Bird and Me: How Twitter Hijacked My
The figurative language of Kathryn Schulz… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 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: minatory. I go to a lot of opera these days. Not because I’m highly cultured (and, in any case, before the 20th century, opera was the music
What does minatory mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Many of our excuses for not writing might sound convincing, if we don’t think about them too much. But when it comes right down to it, the only person we’re hurting is ourselves. Check out this list and see if any of these excuses for not writing are ones
83 excuses for not 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 writers. Today I discuss an amusing and educational post that appeared on the Bigstock Photo blog. As a Canadian, I live in a country that sees itself
Unexpected challenges of cross-cultural writing Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute A great way to improve your writing is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. I comment today on one written by New Yorker writer Ian Frazier… How do you deal with homelessness? Do you walk by the beggars
Several thousand of them would have to stand… Read More »
