Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you ever forget to do something important? Here is a quick tip to help all speakers and writers improve their memories. It was the woman’s voice. Mellifluous. It made a small thrill run down my spine. She sounded like a college professor, accustomed to […]
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Reading time: About 2.5 minutes Need some advice on how to start writing? Professional trainers and time management executives all know that teaching people how to begin a task will often be enough to ensure they complete it. Read below for more detail. In last week’s column I mentioned writing
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you ever feel too much writing pressure? Keep reading to learn how certain types of pressure can actually HELP your writing! Maybe it’s aging, but I don’t usually like the idea of writing under a whole bunch of pressure. When I was younger,
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Reading time: About 2.5 minutes Do you appreciate a good story? More importantly, do you use it in the best possible away? This is one of the most important writing lessons you can ever learn. Once upon a time, a man who now is a naturalist at the Grand Canyon
Writing lessons from the Grand Canyon Read More »
Reading time: About 2.5 minutes How are your reading skills? Do you attack books like a pit bull with a bone or do you stack them up by your bedside and ignore them? Scroll down to learn how to read like a writer. I typically read a book a week
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Learn how a fight with a clerk in a back shop reminded me of the importance of not saying no. I have a twitchy back. Like many people, I was born with some scoliosis — an S-curve if you look at the back from the rear. And I
A writer’s aching back and the “saying no” problem Read More »
Reading time: 2.5 minutes Did you read last week’s excerpt from William Zinsser’s book? If not, I provide a link to it, below. Most importantly, I give you the grade level at which it was written. Read on for the final part to my series on how to edit like
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Reading time: 2.5 minutes Have you been wrestling with the idea of readability statistics? Do you see them as unfair? Unliterary? Even illiterate? Here is part 3 of my series on how to become your own best editor. Just about every time I write about readability statistics I hear back
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Do you struggle with rewriting yourself? Here is part 2 of my series on how to edit like a professional. Following up on last week’s column about how to edit, let me revisit the passage I rewrote and explain what I did and why. Here again is the original piece,
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Do you ever struggle with rewriting yourself? Here’s the first installment in my 4-part guide on how to edit. There are pros and cons to moving house, as I did recently. On the one hand, you inevitably lose some stuff. I’m still mourning the disappearance of my Kitchen Aid dough
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