Power Writing began as a weekly newsletter in April 2006. Its purpose? To give tips and advice about writing, to tell interesting stories and to help writers everywhere work faster, better. I distribute the newsletter by email to thousands of readers around the world every week and, since March 2012, it has become the Tuesday entry of my blog.
You can read many Power Writing entries here – I back-entered all columns until the beginning of 2009, and a handful of ones that were earlier than that. But I hope you’ll consider subscribing, too. Just enter your name and email in the box next to my photo on the home page of my website. If you do that, you’ll not only receive Power Writing by email each week, you’ll also automatically get access to a 10-minute video on how to unblock your writing.
Reading time: About 4 minutes If you want to write a book be sure to avoid these seven toxic book-writing strategies, because they’ll just gum you up. When I was a child, I was a pack rat. I saved every toy, game, book, piece of paper and photograph. So, my mother (who was actually pretty […]
Book writing strategies that DON’T work Read More »
Reading time: Just over 3 minutes If you’ve ever spent a weekend afternoon making pickles, you might understand the similarities the task has with writing… I’m a pretty serious cook. In fact, I managed to turn my three kids into picky little foodies by the age of three. (I tried to see it as an
How writing is like making pickles Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes No one is perfect. But it doesn’t make sense to badmouth yourself. If you’re a writer, here’s why (and how) you need to stop putting yourself down… When I was in high school and university, I saw myself as a procrastinator. Not inaccurately. I usually didn’t start essays until the
Stop putting yourself down! Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Perhaps this will surprise you, but you need to learn how to fire a client. It will make you feel better and perhaps even help you make more money…. If you work as a freelancer, did you know you can fire clients? Here are 10 legitimate reasons for considering taking
How to fire a client — and why you should Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you want to improve your writing productivity? Your best step is to plan on doing LESS…. I am intensely motivated to be productive. But I draw a very clear line against the tactics currently being used by some employers. Amazon’s notorious habit of clocking its warehouse workers by every
How to improve your writing productivity by doing less Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you understand the difference between self-doubt and idea doubt? It’s a really important distinction for most writers… I first heard about what’s called “the progression of creativity,” from my son, Duncan. It goes like this: This is awesome This is tricky This is crap I am crap This might be
How to embrace idea doubt Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes If you have difficulty writing, consider using the tool of CBT — Cognitive Behavioural Therapy — to help give yourself a boost. It’s easy and inexpensive and you can do it yourself… Are you familiar with CBT? If you’re not, I apologize for using the jargon-y abbreviation but it stands
How Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help writers Read More »
Reading time: Less than 4 minutes Do you struggle with getting words on paper? If so, it may surprise you to learn that 11 highly counterintuitive strategies may help get you in to the write mindset…. In case you didn’t know, money doesn’t buy happiness. Science tells us that most of us are much more
How to get the ‘write’ mindset Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you need to learn the art of stopping procrastination? Here is a three-step hack that should make it relatively easy…. I frequently work with writers who procrastinate and delay. They want to write faster and better, and they may even be highly motivated to do it (as a result
The three-step hack for stopping procrastination Read More »
Reading time: About 5 minutes Are you looking for business tool recommendations? Here are nine tried-and-true options that make a big difference to my working life every day of the week…. Each of my grandparents was born in the late 1800s — not just before computers, but before domestic refrigerators, airplanes and televisions. All of
9 business tool recommendations for writers Read More »
