Reading time: About 3 minutes Do your emotions ever interfere with your ability to write? Here’s how you can learn how to write when you don’t want to… Many years ago I took on the (unpaid) job of producing a one-time magazine for a volunteer effort. Two days before the […]
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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 to help other writers. Today I discuss a blog post about writing dialogue… Are you a novelist faced with writing dialogue? If so, you
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Viewing time: 4 min. 17 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 #54, with advice on taking interview notes. The post first ran on April
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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 metaphors from Ruth Ozeki… Ruth Ozeki is a writer, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her breakout first novel, which was published in 1998, was based on her work
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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: scagliola… In Rachel Cusk’s plot-free novel Outline, she presents a word I had never before seen, scagliola. Upon using the dictionary, however,
What does ‘scagliola’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 6 minutes (easy to scan, though) You’ve probably read a lot about artificial intelligence in the last few weeks. What about ChatGPT for writers? I started paying attention to chatter about artificial intelligence and writing late last year. I was reading a post about it by a
ChatGPT for writers: does it work? Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find info to help other writers. Today I talk about permission for epigraphs… Last Monday I wrote about the need to check the source of quotes and epigraphs— those
Do you need permission for epigraphs? Read More »
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 #53, with tips for improving English fluency. The post first ran on April
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about some similes from Reema Patel… Reema Patel is a Canadian writer and lawyer based in Toronto who has spent the last ten years working in provincial
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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: scion…. If you’d asked me if I understood the meaning of the term scion, I would have said yes. But I would
