Reading time: About 1 minute Writers are often told they should join a critique group. I have never done this because I know when critiques become dangerous… Some writers get a great sense of satisfaction from belonging to a writing group. I don’t. While I’m 100% in favour of peer support,
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Recording time: 56 seconds You can be forgiven for quickly answering “no” to the question: Can grammar ever be fun? But you’d be wrong. Just ask Karen Elizabeth Gordon. Transcript: Grammar books put many writers to sleep. This one does the opposite. The Transitive Vampire, by Karen Elizabeth
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes and metaphors from Gene Fowler…. Gene Fowler was always eminently quotable. My favourite line of his is: “Writing is easy. All you
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Reading time: About 2 minutes Mahtab Narsimhan says that she’s written in the morning for so long now, it’s become a firm habit and she feels as though something is missing if she doesn’t do it. Mahtab Narsimhan is an internationally published, award-winning author of 25 critically acclaimed books in
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Reading time: About 3 minutes What to do when you can’t write: some days the words won’t come. Four research-backed strategies to get them moving again. Some days the words won’t come. You sit down at the desk you tidied for the occasion. You open the file. The last paragraph
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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 how to write about difficult topics…. My video editor emailed me a few moments ago. She was
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Viewing time: 1 minute Writing perfectionism keeps you staring at a blank page. Good writers aren’t better at first drafts. They’re better at revision. Transcript Here’s a myth that keeps writers stuck: good writers get it perfect the first time. They don’t. Not one of them. The blank-page genius
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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 series of similes and metaphors from Francis Spufford…. I can no longer remember where I heard about the marvellous work by Francis Spufford, The Child
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Reading time: About 2 minutes Vansh Malhotra says that “done” is better than perfect because you can always revise a rough draft, wheras you can’t revise a blank page… Vansh Malhotra has been writing poetry, creative nonfiction, and, more recently, a hybrid of lyric and narrative poems. His curiosity about
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Reading time: About 4 minutes Writing motivation always fades on a long writing project. Here are seven ways to keep going, starting with why you should never reread from page one. There’s a moment in every long writing project when you realize you no longer care about it. You once
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