Word count: 269 words Reading time: About 1 minute Here I tell you about a piece of technology that can help writers. Do you have the habit of regularly backing up your computer files? No? Let me tell you about my system. I am a backup freak. This isn’t because I’ve had a colossal failure […]
How BackBlaze stops me from awfulizing Read More »
Word count: 233 words Reading time: Less than 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week, liminality. When I read liminality, an image of a doorway floated through my brain. Here is the sentence in which
What is liminality? Read More »
Word count: 758 words Reading time: About 3 minutes If your son or daughter — or you — needs to learn how to write an essay or a shortish report, here is a column you might want to copy and tape to your fridge…. It’s a red-letter day in my household. Our 18-year-old triplets are all
How to write an essay without losing your mind Read More »
Word count: 262 words Reading time: 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. I had just finished reading an excellent New Yorker profile of Bruce Sprinsteen when a friend sent me a Tumbler #storyboard article
What you can learn from the man who wrote a Bruce Springsteen profile Read More »
Word count: 286 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute The best way to improve your writing skills is to emulate the work of others. For this reason I regularly write down sentences I’ve picked up in my own recent reading. Here is one by Patrick deWitt. The positive buzz surrounding the novel The Sisters
The sound the water made was like a voice…. Read More »
Word count: 323 words Reading time: Just over 1 minutes This is my weekly installment of “writing about writing,” in which I scan the world to find websites, books and articles to help writers. I figure I hit my 10,000 hours of writing a couple of years ago. But that I know the phrase
How Malcolm Gladwell helps writers Read More »
Word count: 293 words Reading time: Just over 1 minute If you build your vocabulary, you’ll not only benefit your reading, you’ll also become more precise in your writing. Here is my word of the week, carapace. When I started reading the novel The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff last month, I was enthralled
What’s a carapace? Read More »
Word count: 496 words Reading time: Less than 2 minutes Let me give you the reasons why you shouldn’t be terribly eager to accept the label “good writer.” Our society is pretty funny (funny-strange, not funny-ha-ha) when it comes to the word “good.” This one-syllable, four-letter word is both vague and imprecise and yet it’s
Are you a good writer? (I hope not!) Read More »
Word count: 691 words Reading time: Less than 3 minutes I know this will make me sound horribly old-fashioned, but I’ve been convinced that all writers — even non-fiction ones — should read poetry. Here’s why…. My relationship with poetry has been troubled. It didn’t start well. When I was a child, my father —
Why every writer should read poetry Read More »
Word count: 752 words Reading time: About 3 minutes Here are some writing tips if you ever need to change your style…. I remember walking by my daughter’s bedroom some four years ago and catching her at her computer, weeping. “Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” I asked with concern. “I c-c-c-can’t write t-t-t-this essay,” she said through
How to switch your writing style Read More »
