Cross-Writing to Improve Writing Skills
Add cross-writing to your writing training as a way to use and build new creative muscles.
practice
Self-compassion for writers (it’s not what you think)
We are all busy. We are all easily distracted. Some of our brains have been hijacked by the election season. Finding time not only to write but to have a writing life of purposeful reading, daily practice, long-term goal setting, and regular submissions may feel like anything but self-compassion.
30 Days of Small, Sustainable Changes
Thirty days hath September… All the rest have 31. That leaves 30 days left in July, the perfect opportunity to think about this short TED Talk by Matt Cutts urging us to make “small, sustainable changes” 30 days at a time: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnfBXjWm7hc] What can we do for the rest of the month? Write for ten …
Deliberate Practice: Plain and Fancy Words
It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn’t use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like “What about lunch?” ~ Winnie the Pooh One of my favorite books when I was in high school wasn’t a novel or a biography or even a narrative of any kind: It was a well-thumbed …
Willa Cather’s Tantalizing Opening Paragraphs
The Tantalizing Power of Opening Paragraphs When you are in a library or bookstore, how do you choose which books to take home? In addition to checking out the back cover for blurbs from either published authors I admire or prominent book reviews, I usually read the first page or first paragraph, and I know. …