Reading time: Less than 3 minutes People often laugh when I use the phrase “crappy first draft,” but I’m serious about it. Producing one is exactly what will turn you into a professional writer… Every beginning writer I know abhors the idea of a crappy first draft. It’s embarrassing, mortifying and humiliating. […]
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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 New York Times article headlined “Writing your way to happiness” by Tara Parker Pope. Can
Writing your way to happiness Read More »
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 from Janet Malcolm… As a person with four siblings — three sisters and a brother — l love hearing or reading family stories. They remind me
The figurative language of Janet Malcolm… 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: exegetical. Recently, I’ve become a fan of the very fine American writer Nicholson Baker, pictured here. A winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award (for
What does exegetical mean? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you suffer from the toxic combination of writing and perfectionism? If so, I suspect the heart of the issue may be your own grandiosity… I’m not typically grandiose about my writing but I do have overblown, elaborate or pretentious moments in other parts
Is grandiosity hurting 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 a New York Times article on product naming written by Neal Gabler… That I read the
What’s in a (product) name? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I speak convincingly and passionately. But I’ve recently learned a secret to giving better presentations thanks to nervousness of a client… In a couple of weeks I’m going to be doing three important workshops for a client. They have 60 senior people who need to become
Practicing til you can’t get it wrong Read More »
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 simile featuring US senator Bernie Sanders. I’m no expert on American politics but I read the New Yorker weekly and the New York Times (online) daily.
As if he were conducting electricity… 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: hoyden. I read the novel Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger when I was about 13-years-old. I enjoyed it moderately, as I recall,
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Change can be both exciting and difficult. I confess I’ve held both feelings as I’ve worked on my website redesign… When I was features editor at a large metropolitan daily newspaper — this was in my previous life — I had one experience I will
Why I’ve changed my website Read More »
