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 for her book Room, which […]
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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 one such word. I read
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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. From there I began work
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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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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 why writers should not be their own editors… I teach people how to be better self-editors. Yet I
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from Meredith Hall… I had never before heard of author Meredith Hall, a writer and professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire. I wish
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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: shillelagh…. As soon as I read the exotic-looking word, shillelagh, I knew I had heard it before. I just couldn’t put my finger on the meaning. The word
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Reading time: Fewer than 3 minutes Do you allow yourself enough thinking time? Surprisingly, many writers don’t…. How much time do you spend thinking? Not worrying. Not writing. Not organizing. Just thinking. Smart guy George Bernard Shaw said, “few people think more than two or three times a year.” Then he added a little smugly,
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Having backups of your writing is incredibly important. Many years ago, I heard a radio interview with a fiction author. I’m sorry I can’t remember her name, but I will never forget her story. Just before she was about to turn in a manuscript to her publisher, her house burned down. Really! She lost her
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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 and metaphors from Raven Leilani… A 2020 debut novel by writer Raven Leilani, Luster, received significant attention at its publishing. It earned praise in the New York Times,
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