I shot myself in the foot today. Well, not literally -- though in some ways, that might have been less painful, but as my mother used to say, "At least I learned a little lesson." I was working on a writing assigment -- a messaging kit for one of my projects -- and it was not coming together very well. At first, I didn't understand why and just spent more time on it. More research, more drafting, more interviewing. More of the same stuff I always do when I work on a messaging project.But th... Read Full Story

I shot myself in the foot today. Well, not literally -- though in some ways, that might have been less painful, but as my mother used to say, "At least I learned a little lesson." I was working on a writing assigment -- a messaging kit for one of my projects -- and it was not coming together very well. At first, I didn't understand why and just spent more time on it. More research, more drafting, more interviewing. More of the same stuff I always do when I work on a messaging ... Read Full Story

I've gotten 10 emails this week from friends and friends of friends asking for book recommendations to give as gifts for writers. Since there is no way I could respond to all the emails (and get my Christmas cards out before New Year's), I'm going to cheat and post my answers here.   (Disclosure: After much prompting from people who know more about blogging than I do, I finally set up an Amazon affiliate relationship so if you buy from the links below, I get a cut. I only recom... Read Full Story

An open letter to my eleventh grade English teacher. Dear Ms. Bates, I know we haven't spoken in many years. Well, okay, so we haven't spoken since I finished my exam in your class in June 1985, but that doesn't mean I've forgotten you. I know we had our differences, and that you felt I never properly appreciated the brilliance of Henry David Thoreau or the horror of the comma splice. (Still a problem for me, actually). But I do want to apologize for mocking the "I Brake ... Read Full Story

The best class on writing I have ever taken -- bar none -- was called "Sentence Power." It was taught by a man named Ed Perlman in the part-time graduate writing program at Johns Hopkins and it changed the way I think about revision. Ed's class was all about understanding the power of individual sentences. I can't even begin to do the curriculum justice, there was so much amazing material, but one of the key points was the power of the final revision. He had us pick individ... Read Full Story

A few months ago, I did the unthinkable. I started cheating on my Moleskine with a Nomad Adventure Journal. It started the way these things always start. An innocent Google search. I was just looking. Just wanted to see what was out there. I never intended for it to go beyond looking. I swear. Of course, it did. For several years, I've used a Moleskine journal when I'm working on stories in the field. It's durable and highly portable and I've dragged Moleskines on ... Read Full Story

Kivi Leroux Miller over at Non-profit Marketing Guide tagged me with a meme today and totally caught me reading about GIANT SQUID. Everyone else has these profound books in their memes, Social Butterfly has one on "What I know now: letters to my younger self" and Kivi is reading the Metaphors Dictionary, which sounds so cool I'm going to have to order one from Amazon as soon as I finish this post. Me? I'm reading about Architeuthis (pronounced Ark-i-tooth-is) in a book ca... Read Full Story

I admit it. I'm on the Twitter bandwagon. And I sometimes find myself obsessively hitting the refresh button just to find out what's going on. I've found so many interesting new people and blogs from a just a couple of weeks reading Tweets from the few people I follow. Just 68 (as of today) -- I am not even a bug on the windshield of the Twitternaut. (Quick aside: If you came here looking for a post on "How to use Twitter" or even "Why I should use Twitter," ... Read Full Story

I'm having a crisis. Well, I'm having severally actually, but this one is potentially relevant to other people so I'm going to use it for blog fodder. Consider yourself warned. It all started with a little yellow bird that zipped past my office window while I was helping my third-grader with his math homework. Kids are dangerous to your peace of mind, in case you didn't know. Mine is prone to asking unanswerable questions like "why does 'answer' have a 'w&... Read Full Story

On deadline this week so the posts will be short. I'm working on messaging projects and thought I'd share the filter I use to test message effectiveness (and to keep everything on track) because nothing can get out of control faster than messaging projects. I use The 5 Questions to develop and test messaging through all stages of the process, from the beginning drafts to the final polish. What is the issue? [What you are talking about and why you are talking about it. Try to make ... Read Full Story