Out of town
I’m out-of-town for a few days taking a brief holiday. I’ll be back in time for my column on Tuesday, July 10. Happy 4th of July to my American friends. Have a great week!
Recommended books: Summer 2018
Reading time: Less than 5 minutes Looking for some recommended books in time for summer reading? Here’s my semi-annual roundup of books I’ve read this year. I aim to read 52 books every 12 months, and my habit is to post a complete list of the names of them for you, in
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How to do book marketing
Have you written a book and then struggled with marketing it? I get regular emails from readers in this situation. Many of them, it seems, are allergic to book marketing…
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How to find more time to write
Reading time: Just over 3 minutes Do you regularly “run out” of time? Psychologist Gay Hendricks has some intriguing ideas that can help writers find more time to write. How do you visualize time? Perhaps you see it as a bucket full of water, being drained? Or maybe you imagine
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Writing lessons from Steve Martin
Reading time: Less than 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 actor and writer Steve Martin…. As a long-term fan of Steve Martin,
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How to protect the important from the urgent
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you ever struggle with ‘important writing’ versus ‘urgent everything else’? Here’s how to change your mindset, so you actually accomplish your writing…. I have a date with myself to write this column at 9 a.m. every Thursday. But guess what happened last week?
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More figurative language from Robert Harris…
Reading time: Less than 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 Robert Harris… I’ve read a number of Robert Harris books and I see him as a journeyman thriller writer rather than
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How to handle writing while travelling or on holiday
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes When you take a vacation should you also take time off from writing? Here’s a quick guide to handling holiday writing… Even if I didn’t have a calendar and was oblivious to the days getting longer and the temperatures becoming warmer, I would still
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Writing lessons from Tom Wolfe
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes When you write, write. Don’t distract yourself with concerns about publication. That was the lesson Tom Wolfe learned with his book The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby… When veteran writer Tom Wolfe died at the age of 88 last week, I reflected on the first
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Why the best readers make the best writers
Reading time: Just over 3 minutes I’m sure you’ve read elsewhere that good writers are always good readers. Here are the reasons why…. A grade 2 teacher reported to my parents more than 50 years ago that I wasn’t reading enough. The reaction? It was like an alarm going off in a nuclear
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