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: clerihew. Earlier this week I wrote about Ben Davis’s marvellous article on 30 art-writing clichés that writers should ditch. But his excellent column also gave me my word […]
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Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you find it difficult to let go of your writing? Here are some of the reasons why — and exactly what you can do about them… My three children are approaching the end of their college careers. We’re lucky in that they’ve been able to live at home
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Reading time: Less than one 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 written by Ken Davis. Back when I was a features editor at a metropolitan daily newspaper, I felt particularly
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Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Have you ever had to hire a communications contractor? How did it work out for you? If you had any problems, here are three suggestions for how to make your next hire more effective… I was having breakfast with some colleagues who work in communications yesterday. One of them
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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: cloisonné. I’m not hugely interested in things, unless perhaps they are books. I hold no love for fashion or shoes (as most people can intuit by looking at the
What does cloisonné mean? Read More »
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. They know their boss or
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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 actually make you happier
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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 from Janet Malcolm… As a person with four siblings — three sisters and a brother — l love hearing or reading family stories. They remind me of home. Perhaps that’s why
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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 his non-fiction book Double Fold: Libraries
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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 of my life. I’m thinking,
Is grandiosity hurting your writing? Read More »
