The Writing Life
(and maybe some blood and tears)
It’s surprising how many parallels exist between high-grade athletics and top-level creative work. There are strategies that will help optimize, improve, cultivate…but the main ingredients are always the same.
The effort — focused positively and generously — is what matters. The time. The energy. The willingness to try — over and over again.
The readiness to exert, to sweat.
— Death to the Stock Photo, “Sweat”
If you want to be a better writer, you must avoid passive voice. Not that you can’t use it; it should be exercised in some instances. In most cases, though, you should opt for active.
[Read more…] about How to Be a Better Writer: Choose Active Voice
You enter the savannah without any water or food. Next mistake: crashing through some brush and trampling a twig.
Good writing requires good grammar. However, it first demands a sound structure. To address the grammar without reinforcing or rebuilding the structure is not the sign of a good writer or writing. It defines the lazy writer, fiction or nonfiction, personal or business, or one yet unaccustomed to the realities of the writing life.
“…that’s the beauty of blog writing—it’s an invitation to enter into the middle of a story without the pressure of either having to know the beginning or close it up neatly.
“A blog is often a collection of middle narratives, reflections that happen in between beginnings and endings.”
— Emily P. Freeman, “Before Helpless Turns to Hopeless”
