Reading time: About 3 minutes If you can’t answer the question, “what is bike shedding,” you may be doing it yourself — to your own disadvantage as a writer… My son phoned me recently to talk about… bike shedding. When he used the word, I was certain I must have […]
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Reading time: About 1 minute Did you ever think that an Olympian can teach writers anything? Perhaps surprisingly, yes. Here’s a great message from champion skater Nathan Chen… My husband has had his head buried in his cellphone, over the last few weeks, watching the Olympics. (He found the women’s
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Viewing time: 4 mins The Write Question is a weekly video podcast all about writing. Today’s question? How do you plan your writing time? If you have a question you’d like me to answer you can email me, tweet me @pubcoach, or leave a message for me at the Skype
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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 Jesmyn Ward…. I’m not usually drawn to books best described as “bleak.” I usually prefer to live on the
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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: marmorated… I have little interest in insects but a March 12/18 New Yorker article on stinkbugs (one is pictured above) captured my attention
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Reading time: About 4 minutes Are you a person who thinks slow writing is inevitable? It needn’t be. If you want to bump up your speed, question the assumptions you’re making…. I’ve just read a marvelous non-fiction book by self-confessed productivity geek Oliver Burkeman. The name of it is, Four Thousand
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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 what an agent does, written by editor Shawn Coyne…. I had coffee
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Viewing time: 4 mins 55 secs The Write Question is a weekly video podcast all about writing. Today’s question? How does copyright protect you? If you have a question you’d like me to answer you can email me, tweet me @pubcoach, or leave a message for me at the Skype
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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 from Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich…. A rivetting hybrid of murder mystery and memoir, The Fact of a Body by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, was named one
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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: scuttlebutt… I’ve used the word scuttlebutt on many occasions — it means rumour or gossip, as in “what’s the scuttlebutt? And I’ve
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