Reading time: About 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 Tana French. Generally, I don’t read murder mysteries. I find the genre too predictable and, often, the writing is pedestrian. I make […]
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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: shambolic…. When I read the word shambolic in the a memoir by Steve Jobs’ daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs, I knew immediately what she
What does ‘shambolic’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you want to improve your writing productivity? Your best step is to plan on doing LESS…. I am intensely motivated to be productive. But I draw a very clear line against the tactics currently being used by some employers. Amazon’s notorious habit of clocking
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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 other writers. Today I discuss a creativity book by Joel Friedlander…. I always had a great deal of respect for Joel
How a creativity book can help you meet your muse Read More »
Viewing time: 3 minutes and 52 seconds 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 #21, addressing how to handle a creative dry spell. The post first
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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 a series of similes from Dwight Garner…. Dwight Garner is one of my favourite book reviewers in the New York Times. I especially enjoyed his recent take-down
The figurative language of Dwight Garner… 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: serried…. My husband is reading the 1950 book Escape to Adventure, by Fitzroy Maclean. Not quite my cup of tea, the 419-page book
What does ‘serried’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you understand the difference between self-doubt and idea doubt? It’s a really important distinction for most writers… I first heard about what’s called “the progression of creativity,” from my son, Duncan. It goes like this: This is awesome This is tricky This is crap I
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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 other writers. Today I discuss a BBC blog post describing how commas save lives… I have a copy editor who saves
Commas save lives (and money) Read More »
Viewing time: 5 mins 35 secs 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 #20, addressing how to deal with beta readers. The post first ran on June
How to deal with beta readers (video) Read More »
