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 the value of getting enough slack time… Many people who are self-employed believe […]
Do you have enough slack time in your day? 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 similes from Michael Lewis…. Many readers know Michael Lewis (pictured above) from his ultra-successful book The Big Short, about the 2008 financial crisis. (It
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Reading time: Not quite a 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: slaked…. I have always associated the word slake or slaked with thirst. But when I recently encountered it in a recent and
What does the word ‘slaked’ mean? Read More »
Reading time: About 5 mins (faster if scanning) Here are my 10 favourite articles or posts from last month, focusing on the most useful, helpful and entertaining pieces for writers. With rates of COVID vaccination increasing, those of us in the developed world may be able to enjoy something approaching
PubCoach top 10: May 2021 Read More »
Bridges, connectors or transitions are the words, phrases and stylistic devices that help direct readers through our writing. Sometimes I even like to imagine them as cables that pull our readers along, or hidden invisible stitches that help knit our whole piece of writing together. As an editor with more than 40 years of experience, I can often
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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 tackle the question of whether we’re all too busy to write…. Are you struggling with chronic overload that
Are we all too busy to write? 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 Emma Donoghue…. I am a fan of the writing of Emma Donoghue, pictured above. The Irish-Canadian writer achieved significant fame in 2010
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Reading time: About 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: chivvied… I love encountering words for which I already know the meaning but have no idea about their history or etymology. Chivvied is
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Reading time: Fewer than 4 minutes If you want to learn how to be a successful freelancer, today’s post pulls together my experience from 40 years of being an editor… I was a teenage editor. I started by editing the essays of friends then advanced to the high school yearbook.
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For six years, I worked in a massive open-area office — a newsroom. More than a hundred people in one room with no privacy dividers. I shared a desk with four other people. The desk was large, mind you. But the person sitting directly across from me was only about three feet away. I heard
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