the foot. They might start out organized and sensible but become impatient and a little scared, so they rush the process.... Once you decide (a) that you have something worthwhile to say and (b) how and to whom you want to say it, take time... to determine (c) what it might mean to readers [or hearers—that is, how different segments of your audience might interpret it differently].... Maintain that perspective as your work progresses, checking now and then to ensure that your text is
presents continual and abundant opportunities to convey joy and excitement or comfort and compassion. Apply the math to those opportunities, let a smile be your punctuation, and in a single day feel the world hum with a more hopeful, peaceful, whimsical vibration…. |
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Write Better Right Now (It Could Save Your Life) (under revision) by Mary Campbell |
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Order or download this beautiful book of poems, prayers, meditations, songs, |
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Unfamiliar Territory: Prayers, Meditations, and Songs, Vol. 1, by Mary Campbell |
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Jon Winokur tweets Writerly Wisdom of the Ages. It's plenteous on his AdviceToWriters website. |
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require them to write. In my experience, about a third believe that they write well… or at least well enough.... [The truth is that not one of them] consistently communicates well in writing. This is bad news. It means that there are millions of writers who believe that their work is being read and understood, and millions of readers who think that they’re getting the information they need, and they’re all mistaken, and it’s making them cranky.... Does the following sentence mean anything to you?
advanced analytics to drive sustainable results. Me neither. This common and tedious business-writing style actually holds readers at arm’s length and fails... to forward the writer’s objectives. Beyond that, there’s a sly animus that I perceive in much of the writing for public audiences... [a sort of sneering at the reader that says, in effect, I’ m smart and you’re not, so I can feed you this word salad though it lacks both flavor and substance....] |
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by Mary Campbell. Click here for a PDF of the full chapter. |
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answer is to write. Every sentence you construct adds weight to the balance pan. If you’re afraid of what other people will think of your efforts, don’t show them until you write your way beyond your fear. If writing a book is impossible, write a chapter. If writing a chapter is impossible, write a page. If writing a page is impossible, write a paragraph. If writing a paragraph is impossible, write a sentence. If writing even a sentence is impossible, write a word and teach yourself everything there is to know about that word and then write another, connected word and see where their connection leads. A page a day is a book a year. —Richard Rhodes |
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to rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form of speech, very often employed by a single needy blockhead. —Thomas Baington Macaulay |
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