Reading time: About 4 minutes Rejections are a challenge. But they are also inevitable, so you’d be wise to learn how to deal with rejection as a writer…. Most of us have had jobs we didn’t get, partners who dumped us, schools we didn’t get into and teachers who didn’t like us. We’ve all had […]
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Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world for material to help other writers. Today I discuss the question: will copy editing change your manuscript? When I wrote my first book, I assumed my professional editor wouldn’t have that much work to do.
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Viewing time: 3 min. 54 sec. The Write Question is a weekly video podcast about writing that I started in 2017 and that ran, more or less weekly, until April 2022. This is a republication of issue #65, with advice on how to make a business case for books. The post first ran on Sept. 14/18.
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Reading time: About 2 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about similes and metaphors from Jonathan Rosen… I have mixed feelings about a new memoir by Jonathan Rosen. On the one hand, I believe The Best Minds explores important societal questions about serious
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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: marled…. My adult children tease me about being a fashion disaster. Sure, I can “clean up” for speeches and meetings with clients, but I have little interest
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Reading time: About 4 minutes Here’s some practical advice on how to write more concisely…and if you can’t do that, how to edit the extra verbiage you’ve produced… When I started writing, 40 years ago, I always wrote short. If a client or boss wanted 750 words, I’d struggle to produce 675. If the total
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Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world for material to help other writers. Today I discuss blog post about how to get better publishing advice…. Have the fates ever tempted you to ask a successful author for some publishing advice? They tempted
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Viewing time: 4 min. 15 sec. The Write Question is a weekly video podcast about writing that I started in 2017 and that ran, more or less weekly, until April 2022. This is a republication of issue #64, with advice on how to write sample chapters of your book. The post first ran on Aug.
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about similes and metaphors from the masterful writer Eleanor Catton…. The New Zealand novelist and screenwriter Eleanor Catton is a phenomenon. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and
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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: bawn When I read the book The Innocents by Newfoundland writer Michael Crummey, I sometimes felt as though I was reading a work written simultaneously in two
