I cite David Mamet’s “master class memo on writing” so often I’ve probably worn a groove in the Internet. It’s must reading if you haven’t seen it — witty, insightful, profane … terribly punctuated. I was reminded it of...
I remember reading The Sun Also Rises in high school and wondering why Hemingway insisted on taking readers on an intricate, turn-by-turn journey through the streets of Paris, literally naming every Rue and Place and Cafe along the way. (And wouldn’t it be...
All corporate annual reports should come with a disclosure notice on the inside cover, detailing the amount of staff hours invested in creating the report and the number of drafts/rounds of approval it went through on its way to completion. That, more than the...
I came across an excellent article in a little journal known as the New York Times about the “music” of language. It really spoke to me, as I’ve always said that while I have no actual musical talent, I do seem to have a knack for understanding the...
I talked the other day about how writers squander their most powerful words and ideas by burying them. Just as bad is the opposite problem: growing overly fond and even dependent on certain words to the point we repeat them incessantly. In the book I call them crutch...
Writers constantly struggle to find just the right words. But then we go and squander them by burying them somewhere in the middle of a sentence, undermining the strength of the point we’re trying to make. The issue is captured in a book I often reference:...
