Reading time: Just over 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: jiggery-pokery… As a youth, I wasn’t a huge David Bowie fan. But of course I grew up to his music and his Ziggy Stardust and Thin White Duke personas. […]
What is jiggery-pokery? Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes The price of groceries is rising these days. But that’s not true of everything. The Internet allows us to do so much at absolutely no charge. Here’s a digest of great no-cost tools for writers… Do you ever feel that there’s just not enough time in your day to accomplish everything
26 fantastic no-cost tools for writers Read More »
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 an book written by Washington Post copy editor Bill Walsh…. I recently read an article on the term the the American Dialect Society
Yes I could care less Read More »
Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Have you ever considered using speech recognition software? Here’s what it can do for you… I am writing this blog post without moving my hands. That’s because I’m using speech recognition software. Here are five reasons why you might want to consider using such software, too: It allows me to write faster than
Here’s a device to help you write faster… 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: jink…. I’d heard rave reviews of Anne Enright’s writing since 2007 when her breakout novel The Gathering won the Man Booker prize. Nevertheless, I’d never managed to read a
What does it mean to jink? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Is your writing as fast as you want it to be? If not, perhaps it’s time to think about email productivity for writers… I typically receive somewhere between 200 and 350 emails a day, by which I mean emails that I must answer. (In other words, I’m not including
Is email derailing your writing? Read More »
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 an article about the exclamation point written by Lauren Katz… I confess: I sometimes overuse exclamation marks. Mostly, I do this in
I’m not kidding about the exclamation point… Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute Could taking a fresh start — apart from on New Year’s Day — help you accomplish something important? Two classes I ran this week ended up being better, livelier than usual. One, for my Get it Done group, seemed friendlier and more engaged. The other, for my Extreme Writing
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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 metaphor — and a simile — from Guy Lawson. I read a New York Times Magazine piece about new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, some time before Christmas. Written by Guy
The figurative language of Guy Lawson… 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: riparian. As a youth, I was a serious canoeist. I had belonged to the Girl Guides (known as the Girl Scouts in the US) and, when I hit
What does “riparian” mean? Read More »
