Reading time: About 4 minutes Are you working too hard? Finding a better work-life balance for writers should be a top priority…. I’m probably showing my age by admitting I remember Erma Bombeck (1927-1996). She was a humour writer with a syndicated newspaper column describing suburban home life in a […]
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Reading time: About one 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 morning pages… Do you worship at the temple of Julia Cameron? I know
Are morning pages for you? Read More »
Viewing time: 3 minutes and 57 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 the first issue, which ran on Jan. 20/17. Transcript Hi and welcome
The case against outlining (why mindmapping is better) (video) 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 similes and metaphors from Ross Douthat… I always enjoy a good medical mystery story and the true-to-life tale of Ross Douthat certainly falls into that category. Struck
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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: fissiparous… From time to time, I like to read books that I’d describe as unchallenging but engaging. Political thrillers fall into that
What does ‘fissiparous’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes Some writers think their worth is measured only by their writing. Not true. The most successful writers always learn how to care more… I recently resigned from a job I’ve been doing for more than 20 years. I’m not retiring from this column or from
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 ask the question why are you talking? Not infrequently, clients will ask me to help them burnish their
Writers: Why are you talking so much? 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 a series of metaphors from crime writer Tana French…. I’ve become a recent fan of the Irish crime writer Tana French. I like the way she uses
More figurative language from Tana French 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: katabatic… I had heard of the book The Golden Spruce, by John Vaillant, more than 10 years ago but for reasons I don’t
Why does ‘katabatic’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 8 minutes (you can scan much faster, though) This list of the 50 best memoirs I’ve read over the last several decades might help you become a fan of the interesting and often sophisticated genre. My reading tends to fall upon fairly predictable lines: literary fiction (with the
50 best memoirs from the last 25 years Read More »
