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: gouache… My late mother, Ethel, was an artist. Her medium was pastel chalks so I never heard her mention the word gouache […]
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Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever fought with how to get unstuck when writing? Here are seven tips that will help you put an end to that sticky problem…. You’re trying to write a book or long report and you’re feeling tired and uninspired. You peck out a
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Reading time: About one minute This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the internet to help other writers. Today I examine a new app that isolates questions in your writing… What role do questions play in your writing? Do they make it better or
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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 Belinda Bauer…. I didn’t used to read many mysteries, but the Belinda Bauer book, Snap, was a gift from a friend. I
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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: quondam…. I always enjoy stumbling across words I’ve never before seen. Part of me is always astonished, because I read so much
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Reading time: About 3 minutes If you’re trying to become a better writer, having a forgiving writing practice will make a huge difference… I led a writing workshop for an organization last week. In the Zoom-based meeting, I challenged the 10 participants to interview me and, then, write a lede
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Reading time: About 1 minute Writers are often told they should join a critique group. I have never done this because I know when critiques become dangerous… Some writers get a great sense of satisfaction from belonging to a writing group. I don’t. While I’m 100% in favour of peer support,
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Reading time: About 2 minutes In his life as a journalist, James Fitzgerald has relatively recently turned to book writing and his 2010 memoir shows a keen eye and ear for figurative language… The first book of journalist James Fitzgerald was, Old Boys: the Powerful Legacy of Upper Canada College
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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: chifferobe… I read a number of positive reviews of the novel An American Marriage by Tayari Jones before it scampered to fame
What’s a ‘chifferobe’? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you find yourself ignoring the writing you need to be doing? Or avoiding thinking about what went wrong in the past? You may be suffering from recency bias…. Even if you don’t know it by name, I’ll bet you’ve experienced recency bias. That’s the
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