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: Less than 3 minutes Does the mere thought of writing make you feel exhausted? There are some good scientific reasons explaining why writing is so tiring… Do you spend most of your day sitting? And does it astonish you that you’re exhausted by the time the day ends? Our […]
Why is writing so tiring? Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Establishing the writing habit will pay you big dividends into the future. It doesn’t matter how many words you produce each day. What matters is that you DO it…. When you read the subject line to this post perhaps, you thought, “Nah, it’s summer.
How to develop a rock-solid writing habit Read More »
Reading time: Less than 6 minutes It’s hard to find good help, and that issue becomes particularly challenging when you need to learn how to hire an editor…. When I worked in the newspaper business, several decades ago, I interviewed then-famous Canadian writer June Callwood, and I wrote a piece
How to find and hire an editor Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Sometimes, being “sticky” is a desirable trait. At other times, it’s a bad idea. Here’s how to figure out if you’re using too many sticky words…. Ever since Chip and Dan Heath wrote the 2007 bestselling book Made to Stick, many of us have seen the
Do you use too many sticky words? 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, in June
Recommended books: Summer 2017 Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Are you still editing WHILE you write? This broken writing process is only slowing you down, as a clever little app can help demonstrate to you…. I spend a good chunk of my life trying to persuade people to stop editing while they write.
Do you have a broken writing process? Read More »
Reading time: Just over 2 minutes There are many routes to becoming a better writer. Here’s one I favour: become a better writer by improving your sense of well-being… My brother-in-law, Doug — who’s a civil engineer — likes to tell a joke about people in his own profession. What’s
Work on your personality before you work on your writing Read More »
Reading time: Just over 5 minutes How can you improve your writing? Here are 33 lessons I’ve learned over the past 33 years…. I accepted a job as a senior editor at a metropolitan daily newspaper some 33 years ago. Little did the company understand I knew almost nothing about
33 writing lessons from 33 years of writing… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Ignoring advice may seem like a misguided idea, but sometimes it makes sense to do that. Here’s a description of when to go against what you’ve been told… After my blog post about an easy productivity hack last week, I received an email from a
When ignoring advice makes sense Read More »
Reading time: Less than 3 minutes Do you know how to boost your productivity? It starts with making a list… I started writing lists when I was 10 years old. I recall sitting at the whitewashed student desk in the corner of my childhood bedroom and itemizing all the tasks
How to boost your productivity with one easy hack Read More »
