Recently I came across a book on decluttering called Clutter’s Last Stand by Don Aslett. Although it was published the year I graduated from high school, the advice is as relevant now as it was then. More so for me, since I’ve managed to accumulate so much clutter since then. Reading books on decluttering is sort of a hobby of mine. It’s a great alternative to...
Read MorePost by Scott VanVoorhis I don’t care whether it’s a business memo, a marketing pitch or an article. In order to write fast, and, even more importantly, to write effectively, you first need to take a step back and consider the landscape. As a veteran newspaper reporter, I became known around the office as a fast writer. The compliment puzzled even as it...
Read MoreI don’t expect everyone to like everything I write. Heck, I don’t like everything I write. The problem comes when you can’t quite figure out what’s wrong or worse when the person for whom you are writing just doesn’t like it. The trick to fixing it is to figure out what’s gone wrong. Is it the grammar? Is it the fact? Is it the set up of the document?...
Read MoreMy brother used to torture me with this little rhyme: “Pete and Repeat were out in the boat, Pete fell in and who was left?†Being the gullible little sister, I’d obligingly say “Repeat,†which he, of course, would do. Over and over and over. In writing it’s easy to fall into repetition, getting stuck using the same words repeatedly throughout a piece....
Read MoreThere will come a time when you are writing – for some it happens every time – when you are absolutely 100 percent sure that what you are writing is complete garbage. This especially happens when you are writing something long or something very important. You will hate it. You will wonder why you thought you could write in the first place. You will...
Read MoreWriting is hard enough when you know what you are supposed to write about. But what about when the field’s wide open and there are no parameters – like when you have a blog, for instance? Or, you’re in charge of the company newsletter? Where do you start? Staring at that blank screen is intimidating. It’s like being in a candy story with just $1 to...
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