Reading time: About 3 minutes If you were give five extra minutes, what would you do with them? Say, could you spend them writing? Sometimes I catch myself wasting time, especially when I’m doing something I don’t like (such as working on my accounts for my bookkeeper. Yuck!) If you’re […]
9 productive ways to spend 5 minutes instead of checking your email (again) Read More »
Reading time: About 1.5 minutes I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a New Yorker article on the driverless car written by Burkhard Bilger. I’d heard of cars that parked themselves. But I hadn’t heard of driverless cars. Well,
The driverless car and other images Read More »
Reading time: Just over 1 minute I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I’ve encountered. I write today about a simile from the TV show Chopped. I try not to watch too much television but I have one very guilty pleasure: the TV program, Chopped. A cooking show
Do you want to be chopped? Read More »
Word count: 641 words How did you fall in love with writing? Here is my story…. I’ve sounded off many times about the difficulties I’ve had with writing – the horror of producing my honours’ thesis, my mean Scottish editor, and my struggle to stop editing while I wrote. But
How did you fall in love with writing? Read More »
Word count: 748 words Reading time: About 3 minutes Many writers tell me they don’t have difficulty writing — they just don’t know WHAT to write about. Here’s a creative solution if that nitty-gritty problem bugs you…. I once had to interview a neuroscientist for an article I was writing.
Hey, fill in some blanks! Read More »
Reading time: About 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. In today’s post you’ll see an interesting use of figurative language by Ken Auletta I encountered recently. What could be more noble than the task of eliminating cliches? While I’m not afraid to wield my
Instead of eliminating cliches, tweak them! Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. In today’s post you’ll see an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently, this time focusing on personification. You know, I never fully realized how much I appreciated personification until I started keeping
Personification doesn’t need to be reserved for fiction… Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. Here, catch an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently in the novel The Grief of Others. It took writing this blog to teach me something important about myself. Every Thursday I produce
Finding personification in the grief of others Read More »
Reading time: Less than 1 minute I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. Here, catch an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently, which comes from a New Yorker article describing Steinway Hall. I remember exploring Steinway Hall’s quiet corridors about two years ago, when my
Steinway Hall has the ponderous stillness of a funeral home Read More »
Reading time: About 1.5 minutes I read widely, watch movies and listen to the radio. Here, catch an interesting piece of figurative language I’ve encountered recently. For many years, I subscribed to the magazine Cook’s Illustrated. I liked its old-fashioned appearance, complete with botanic drawings and the kind of fonts
Cook’s Illustrated dissed by NY Times Read More »
