Tag: writing
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Self-Talk for Writers
Writers are notorious self-talkers. We have to be. All of our employees live in our head. Self-talk is our way of motivating them to do their jobs. But not all our self-talk is helping. Some of it is de-motivating those employees. Yes, it’s true that there are a few uniquely-wired writers who seem to be…
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The Maybe (An Imaginary Conversation Between Writer and Editor)
Writer: Which is the better career – janitor or hairdresser? Editor: I take it you got my editorial notes. Writer: Yeah. So tell me. Which one? Editor: You already have a job. Writer: Humor me. Editor: Hairdresser. Writer: Wrong. Janitor. Editor: I didn’t know there was a right answer. Writer: Exactly! Do you see what…
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Once Again, With Feeling: The Empty Page
Life happens. And then it keeps happening. And by the time it starts to happen a little less – by the time you might actually have a little mental space for thinking thoughts and time space to write them down – you realize you’re used to the empty page, at peace with the simplicity of…
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The Shiver
It goes by many names. The Tingle. The Aha. The Wow. I call it The Shiver. It’s that moment when you know you’ve written something good; something worthy of sharing. The words themselves aren’t anything special. They’re common words, words you’ve used before. But this time it’s different. The words…they…you have no words to describe…
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The Buoyancy of Words
Fair warning: I’m going to stretch a swimming metaphor well beyond my non-metaphorical comfort level. Feel free to believe that this discomfort serves some greater meta-metaphorical purpose. Then let me know what it is so I can say “yeah, I meant to do that.” Writers spend a lot of time going nowhere. We start out…
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True Stories
They tell you to tell the truth and this sounds reasonable but you’re not quite sure how to do it. They also tell you to do other things. Kill your adverbs. Kill your semi-colons. Kill your darlings. Kill your prologues. Oh, you say, those I can do. So you set the truth aside and head to…
