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 3 minutes Some writers worry about or are embarrassed by their spelling. Today I tell you why this is an unnecessary concern and when you should ignore spelling… I try to read about 80 blogs a week. Most of them are related to writing, productivity or creativity and these missives inspire me, inform me […]
When you should ignore spelling errors Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you need to get more done in less time? Here’s how to dramatically increase your writing productivity…. Are you one of those people who sees writing as a creative act? If so, you’re right. But only partly. Writing is perhaps 20% creative. But the rest of it — the
How to increase your writing productivity by more than 113% Read More »
Reading time: Just over 4 minutes Is your writing filled with long, winding sentences? Here’s a guide to achieving better sentence length…. When I talk about sentence length at workshops, people sometimes object to my advocacy for short sentences. “I don’t want my writing to sound like a grade school book,” they tell me. “My
A step-by-step guide to better sentence length Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes Looking for some recommended books in time for summer reading? Here’s my semi-annual roundup of books I’ve read this year. I aim to read 52 books every 12 months, and my habit is to post a complete list of the names of them for you, twice a year. Here is a
Recommended books: summer 2022 Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you suffer from holiday guilt? Not only is this unnecessary, it’s also a really bad idea. With inadequate breaks, you’ll see your productivity decline and your writing will worsen…. Do you postpone holidays? Or feel guilty about taking time off? The purpose of my column today is to
Why you shouldn’t feel holiday guilt Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Have you ever kept a writing tracking record? This simple document — you can create it easily in your own word processing software — will revolutionize your productivity…. When I wrote my first book, I made so many mistakes. I didn’t have a daily writing goal that was specific enough
Why writers should use a secret sauce — tracking Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Has it ever occurred to you to plan for the worst while hoping for the best? This is precisely why preparing for imperfection is such an integral part of the writing process. If I had a dollar for every person who told me they couldn’t write because they were a “perfectionist,” well,
How do you prepare for imperfection? Read More »
Reading time: About five minutes The human brain is powerful, but it also makes mistakes. Scientists consider some of these mistakes to be what they call cognitive biases… Is cognitive bias harming your writing? Even if you are unfamiliar with the term, the answer is almost certainly yes. Cognitive bias, which is studied in psychology
How to avoid cognitive bias in your writing Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Are you fastidious about planning for your desired word count? If not, you should be. Read on to learn why…. Whenever a writer asks me why it’s so important to know their word count goal before starting to write, I tell them the following story. I used to be an
Why your word count is so important Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Do you usually try to hide your mistakes? Or have you had the opportunity to learn why mistakes are good? I’ll never forget a mistake I made early in my career as a journalist. I was 24 years old and running a community newspaper. A civic election was coming up,
Why mistakes are good Read More »
