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: scalawag. I’m the eldest of five children and, when I was a youngster, my parents used to call all of us kids “scalawags.” (I don’t think I’d […]
What does scalawag mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes It took a less than perfect vacation to remind me of the value of stories…. As vacations go, it was more like a prison sentence. Time: seven days. My husband Eric and I had long planned an October trip to Washington, DC. He’d never been, and, for me, it
What I learned from my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad vacation Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes It’s no trying to overcome fear of writing. Trust me. I’ve dealt with a bellyful of fear in my lifetime… Here’s the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done: When I was about 25, I went on a spur-of-the-moment hiking trip with an athletic friend who was back in Vancouver for
How to overcome fear of writing Read More »
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 a New York Times Opinionator column by Carol Kaufmann. I love to walk while I write. But before you envision me clutching
Why do we try to write while held hostage… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 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 a sentence written by Hendrik Hertzberg I read the New Yorker enthusiastically but unreliably. So, to keep the magazines from
Improbable and inexorable 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 metaphorical sentence by James Wolcott. American journalist James Wolcott produces elaborate, labyrinthine sentences, seeping with metaphors. The cultural critic for Vanity Fair magazine and a contributing writer for the New Yorker,
The figurative language of James Wolcott… 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: faience. When I read Ian McEwan’s wonderful new novel, Sweet Tooth, I encountered a word I’d never seen before: faience. Here is the sentence in which it
Reading time: 2 and a half minutes Is perfectionism spoiling your writing? Here’s what you can tell yourself to deal with that problem… I’ve made many mistakes in my life. One of the most embarrassing ones relates to my brief but exciting life as a newspaper books editor in 1984. My main responsibilities? I had
It’s a great day to make mistakes Read More »
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 the recent foofaraw created by intemperate remarks from Canadian author David Gilmour… There are times to talk, and times not to. Sadly,
Not interested in teaching books by women Read More »
Reading time: Less than 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 a sentence written by American novelist John Williams. Every once in awhile, I like to read a really old-fashioned
Year by year, the earth would take them… Read More »
