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 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 »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Are you using too many words — deliberately? It’s a bad habit and you’ll be a much more successful writer if you deal with it now… Are you the type of person who deliberately writes more words than you need? I’m not talking about people who write too many words
How to stop using too many words Read More »
Reading time: About 5 minutes Want to improve your ability to put words on the page or screen? Pay attention to the neuroscience of writing…. Most of us like to think of ourselves as independent and full to the brim with self-will. But, in fact, many of us are directed by the chemistry of and
Consider the neuroscience of writing to help yourself write faster Read More »
Reading time: About 3 minutes Both careful planning and a respect for reality are crucial components of any successful writing routine… Are you too perfectionistic about your writing routine? I work with many writers who are. My perfectionist clients give themselves goals — like write 500 words a day — or write for at least 60
How to create a better writing routine Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes Are you working too hard? Finding a better work-life balance for writers should be a top priority…. I’m probably showing my age by admitting I remember Erma Bombeck (1927-1996). She was a humour writer with a syndicated newspaper column describing suburban home life in a funny way. She also published
Better work-life balance for writers Read More »
Reading time: About 4 minutes Some writers think their worth is measured only by their writing. Not true. The most successful writers always learn how to care more… I recently resigned from a job I’ve been doing for more than 20 years. I’m not retiring from this column or from any of my coaching —
Reading time: About 8 minutes (you can scan much faster, though) This list of the 50 best memoirs I’ve read over the last several decades might help you become a fan of the interesting and often sophisticated genre. My reading tends to fall upon fairly predictable lines: literary fiction (with the occasional mystery or thriller) and
50 best memoirs from the last 25 years Read More »
