It's a truth universally acknowledged that first drafts are too long. Even in conversation, working through an idea for the first time usually requires a meandering recipe of spontaneous seasoning and invented methodology--you respond to your listener, divert into interesting tangents, and hem and haw until you risk losing their interest entirely. In the process … Continue reading How to Stew your Mess
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How to Start Turning Mess Into Magic
It's really common to hear marination as a metaphor for the thinking work of writing: most of us need some amount of time to consider what we're going to say and how we're going to say it. I prefer stewing. Thinking is hot and exhausting work; pulling the last bits of substance out of your … Continue reading How to Start Turning Mess Into Magic
How to Mess en Place
While the initial writing is necessary, and accepting its imperfection is the first step, this is not the best-writer face that we want to share with the world. The next part of the process is arranging that mess into prepared parts, ready for assembly and development into what will eventually become the final piece. Most … Continue reading How to Mess en Place
Make Some Mess
None of us is just good at writing, the first time or even the thousandth time: getting to the good stuff takes wading through an awful lot of mess on the way. And we can't do that unless we're willing to sit down and get our hands dirty. It's a lot harder to wade in … Continue reading Make Some Mess
Shakespeare and Swift
You can take the girl out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the girl. Despite my best efforts, I'm still prone to spontaneous lectures on the material I spent fifteen years teaching. Last night, over a friendly beer at Book Club, someone got me going on that favorite old conspiracy … Continue reading Shakespeare and Swift
Business writing at its best
Look, I know this guy can write: I picked up Fix This Next at a mentor's suggestion and immediately started reading two of his other books. I also know that the manpower and time put into a book is going to wildly differ from what's invested in weekly or daily email marketing bids. But look … Continue reading Business writing at its best
Even Spam could be Great
Look, I'm not a monster. I'm not out to help spam email get more successful and I don't want you to open it just because it looks legit. But. What is it exactly that sets off our inner alarm bells? And why can't I seem to stop mentally revising these unpolished gems of modern text … Continue reading Even Spam could be Great
Talk to Yourself: It’s not that Weird
I have a few go-to pieces of advice when business owners or other writers ask me for help. Standard networking event conversation: What do you do?I help writers sound the way they do in their headsOh! I write! When I can. But I'm stuck right now...halp? From here, I have a few options--assess exactly what … Continue reading Talk to Yourself: It’s not that Weird
Total Ryu Martial Arts
One of my current clients approached me with a plea for help: he wanted to "clean up" his website content, newsletters, current blog posts; he also needed some help developing learning materials for a newly-birthed online course. With an evaluation, I was able to break that need for help into several immediate needs: Prose clarity … Continue reading Total Ryu Martial Arts
A clear call to action
You've put all this effort into building your brand. You have a clear sense of what you have to offer customers. But do they? Writing, especially for our customer-facing materials, is all about convincing our audience--it's an argument for further engagement, for the worth of our services or products. And if there's one thing I've … Continue reading A clear call to action
Something Polished 