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: teasel… I keep a Word document containing all the new and interesting words I encounter in my daily reading. When I collected the word teasel from Maggie […]
What is a ‘teasel’? Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes You should stop being a people pleaser if you want to become a more effective writer… If you’re a writer and a people pleaser, I can tell you how your life is going to go. Your writing side will lose and your people-pleasing side will win. I started thinking about
Stop being a people pleaser! Read More »
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 Don Massenzio blog post on getting your computer to read your writing aloud…. I’ve long advocated always reading your written
Get your computer to read your writing aloud Read More »
Viewing time: 4 min. 32 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 #45, about how people who speak English as a second language can improve fluency. The post first ran
How to improve fluency in English (video) Read More »
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 simile from Belinda McKeon…. I can no longer recall how I discovered Belinda McKeon’s remarkable novel, Tender. I think, perhaps, I was browsing in a bookstore and the cover enchanted
The figurative language of Belinda McKeon… Read More »
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: caesura…. When I saw the word caesura, I knew it meant a gap or a pause and I assumed the term to be musical. But I wasn’t
What’s a ‘caesura’? Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes Do you really have impostor syndrome? If you want to improve your writing, it’s worth asking yourself this useful question… If I had been given $10 every time someone told me they had “impostor syndrome” that posed a threat to their writing, I’d be able to retire tomorrow. I’ve even
Do you really have impostor syndrome? Read More »
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 blog post about getting feedback…. Do you like the idea of getting feedback on your writing or does the whole
Getting feedback on your writing… Read More »
Viewing time: 3 min. 40 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 #44, about how you can improve thinking. The post first ran on Feb. 2/18. Transcript: Welcome to The
How you can improve thinking (video) Read More »
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 Megan Abbott. I seldom read mysteries or thrillers because I’m more interested in figurative language than plot. But when I find a writer who
The figurative language of Megan Abbott Read More »
