Word count: 270 words Reading time: Just over 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 writers. Today I discover a variant of WrittenKitten! I know just enough about things technical to make […]
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Word count: 288 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute A great way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. That’s why, every week, I present a sentence that I’d happily imitate. Today’s comes from Salman Rushdie. I bought Salman Rushdie’s 1988 book The Satanic
Blackened, bloodied, bird-pecked eye sockets Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. In today’s post you’ll see an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently. David Gilbert is a short story writer who lives in New York City. He’s author of the book The
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Word count: 274 words 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: urtext. Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted in 1979 for the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. At the time of
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Word count: 717 words Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you frequently find yourself asking, “why is writing so hard?” (with or without an expletive!) I wrote today’s column expressly for you… Twenty years ago, if you’d ask me to describe the single task I found most difficult, I
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Word count: 220 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute Here is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help writers. Today I focus on a website that reveals the kind of writer you are. My friend
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Word count: 217 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute A great way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. Here is a sentence I read recently that I’d happily imitate. It shows how writers can have fun with numbers…. I’m pretty much allergic to
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Reading time: Less than 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. Here, catch an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently in the novel The Grief of Others. It took writing this blog to teach me something important about myself. Every Thursday I produce
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Word count: 206 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you increase your vocabulary you’ll not only help your reading, you’ll also make your writing more precise. Here is my word of the week, tenebrous. I’ve already told you about reading a profile of Christopher Kimball in the New
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Word count: 745 words Reading time: About 3 minutes This will sound counterintuitive, but, in order to improve your writing, sometimes you may need to stop writing. Just as making great music isn’t always about being pitch perfect (think of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen), writing isn’t always about, well, writing.
10 non-writing activities that will improve your writing Read More »
