Author Archives: John
The best writing mistakes and how to make them.
Make mistakes. Make a lot of them. And make them often. It’s the only way to get your thoughts on paper, and you’ll enjoy the writing process more. I actually damaged some muscles in my hands several years ago, because I was so excited about something I was writing that I spent too many hours [...]
Posted in Communication Tips, General Writing 9 Comments
Three grammar rules that are okay to break.
Grammar is great. You should learn the basics of good grammar and stick to them. It’s not that hard. Just remember that grammar is supposed to add clarity to your communication. Not confusion. So if it comes to a choice between clear communication and “correct” communication, always choose clarity – even if you have to [...]
Posted in Grammar & Spelling, Uncategorized 13 Comments
What your English teacher never should have taught you.
It’s a dark art. Most of us learned it first as schoolchildren and then perfected it later as college freshmen. We did it because the teacher asked for a three-page paper, but we only had two pages worth of meaningful thoughts. So we blathered on about nothing, repeating ourselves…rambling…struggling to reach the bottom of page [...]
Posted in General Writing, Presentations 11 Comments
What I learned from a film critic about good and bad writing.
A number of years ago, I created some TV spots for a major metro newspaper. The idea was to showcase some of the paper’s better-known writers and offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse into their world. Instead of scripting the ads ahead of time, I would stand behind the cameraman and interview each journalist. Then we would [...]
Posted in General Writing 5 Comments
How to write like Julia Child.
Suddenly, America is taking a fresh look at one of its great communicators, Julia Child. And love is in the air. Her magnum opus, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, has rocketed to dizzying new heights atop other New York Times bestsellers. Health-crazed, 21st century Americans are now secretly slipping into rich crème sauces and [...]
The Affect Effect and how to get it right.
I completely empathize with anyone who struggles over the uses of affect and effect – words that sound the same, but aren’t. I gained my empathy for the spelling confused by traveling to England for a couple of weeks. The weeks turned into months and the months eventually added up to nine years. This was [...]
Posted in Grammar & Spelling 3 Comments
What kind of writing ends up in my bucket of scraps?
In my previous post (Helpful advice on saving your scraps.), I explained how I became a bolder, faster editor by creating a section for scraps at the end of my documents. If there’s a sentence or paragraph in my rough draft that doesn’t quite fit, I no longer fret over whether to keep or delete [...]
Posted in General Writing 5 Comments
Helpful advice on saving your scraps.
One of the all-time toughest choices for any business writer is deciding what to leave in your rough draft and what to take out. This vexed me for years. I would waste precious hours trying to decide whether a particular phrase, sentence, or paragraph should stay in my text or go. Finally, I figured out [...]
Posted in General Writing 4 Comments
Why you don’t have to write in straight lines.
A lot of people assume that good writers always start at the beginning of their documents and write straight through the whole thing until they reach the conclusion at the end. Not me. I start at the easiest place first. Sometimes it’s the beginning. But often it’s not. Here’s why.
Posted in General Writing 1 Comment
Life is too short to memorize 25,376 writing tips.