Fully Alive

“Do not ask for what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do it. For what the world needs is people who are fully alive.”-Howard Thurman 'But you're not thinking like an entrepreneur!' This was a (well-intentioned) observation made to a friend of mine recently. He had shared with a group of…

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Throat Clearing

Today I want to suggest one way you can improve your short fiction. Stop clearing your throat. Throat clearing is what many writers do at the beginning of a short story. They set the scene. They ease us in. But as the name of the concept implies, much of it is an unnecessary and ineffectual prelude to the good…

Left Brain, Right Brain – can you be an editor and a writer?

I often get asked how I can be an editor/proofreader and write creatively.  How do I switch from analytical precision to free-flowing creativity?  One activity seems very left brain, the other right. When I launched my proofreading and editing business I did wonder at first whether my anal retentiveness and perfectionism when it comes to…

Endings

Today I'd like to say a brief word about endings. We hear a lot about beginnings, and how difficult/important they are. "A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." (Lao Tzu) "The beginning is the most important part of the work." (Plato) "Every moment is a fresh beginning." (T.S. Eliot) "For fucksake…

Punctuation is SEXY (and using it properly will get you more dates online)

So I have a gripe. A grammarian gripe, if you will. A punctuation protestation. I'm pissed off. I'm aghast. I'm fed up. I'm THIS CLOSE to giving an unsuspecting passer-by a good slap. And you, lucky readers, are about to hear all about it. Read that sentence again. Take particular note of the plural: readers.…