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: Brobdingnagian. I don’t typically welcome distractions when I’m writing, but I appreciated writer Marie Myng-Ok Lee’s spirited defence of the Internet in a recent article in the […]
What is Brobdingnagian? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever considered how much influence doubt may have on your writing? It could be one of your secret enemies — although, in truth, it’s relatively easy to turn it into a friend. I have a new companion. Or, at least, a new recognition of a longtime acquaintance. Its
How to befriend doubt Read More »
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 writers. Today I discuss the 22 rules of story-telling from Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats… I like Pixar films (Up is my absolute favourite), but even
If you’re a corporate communicator, my new Friday blog topic is going to interest you. Its focus? Corporate communications….
Flip sides of the same coin Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about an extended metaphor from Tabatha Southey. A friend and I have been sharing our admiration for Canadian journalist Tabatha Southey. A Saturday columnist for the Globe and Mail newspaper, Southey is a
The figurative language of Tabatha Southey… 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: ambivert. I recently hosted a birthday dinner for my brother-in-law, Doug. Over the meal we started talking about extroversion and introversion. Doug is an engineer but a
What’s an ambivert? Read More »
Looking for some book suggestions in time for Christmas? Here’s my roundup based on my reading so far this year. My habit is to post for you the names of all the books I’ve read, twice a year. Last June, I told you about the 27 titles I’d read by that point. Here is a
Recommended books: Christmas 2013 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 of interest to writers. Today I discuss the book Punctuation..? published by the UK company User Design… When I very briefly worked in book publishing many years ago, colleagues
Book review: Punctuation..? 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 one written by Michael Pollan. Thanks to the urging of my email buddy, Bob, I am now reading the
What looks very much like a sly smile… Read More »
Reading time: About 1.5 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a New Yorker article on the driverless car written by Burkhard Bilger. I’d heard of cars that parked themselves. But I hadn’t heard of driverless cars. Well, not since I’d seen the
The driverless car and other images Read More »
