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: fumarole…. I live on the Pacific West Coast, in an earthquake zone. Perhaps that’s why I’m familiar with seismological terms — and mostly unfamiliar with ones related […]
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Reading time: Just over 1 minute Most of us would like to be faster writers. But how do we get there? Today I address the question: How long does it take to write 1000 words… Do you know how long it takes to write 1,000 words? Or do you know how many words you can
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Reading time: About 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 explore the question: why write fiction? Do you have romantic ideas about the life of being a fiction writer? Do you think it’s
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Viewing time: 4 min. 58 sec. The Write Question is a weekly video podcast about writing that I started in 2017 and that ran, more or less weekly, until April 2022. This is a republication of issue #55, with advice on hiring editors. The post first ran on May 4/18. Transcript: Welcome to The Write
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a simile and a metaphor from Jenny Jackson…. Jenny Jackson has an unusual back-story for an author. She’s a Vice President and Executive Editor at Alfred A. Knopf. A graduate of Williams College
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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: mellifluously… Every once in a while in this column, I like to focus on a word I already know. Mellifluously falls into that category. When used in certain
What’s the origin of the word ‘mellifluously’? Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do your emotions ever interfere with your ability to write? Here’s how you can learn how to write when you don’t want to… Many years ago I took on the (unpaid) job of producing a one-time magazine for a volunteer effort. Two days before the magazine was due to go
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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 a blog post about writing dialogue… Are you a novelist faced with writing dialogue? If so, you almost certainly know that dialogue
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Viewing time: 4 min. 17 sec. The Write Question is a weekly video podcast about writing that I started in 2017 and that ran, more or less weekly, until April 2022. This is a republication of issue #54, with advice on taking interview notes. The post first ran on April 27/18. Transcript: Welcome to The
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Reading time: About 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about metaphors from Ruth Ozeki… Ruth Ozeki is a writer, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her breakout first novel, which was published in 1998, was based on her work in Japanese television. Titled My
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