By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD Last month, we surveyed TAS Trader subscribers. We were pleased and encouraged by the high response rate, as well as the positive and insightful feedback. The bottom line is that TAS Trader is well-received, well-read, and enjoys much support. Here are some of the details of what we learned: This […]
Proofing your own work is hard for most people. After all, you know what you intended to say, so that is what you tend to see when you proofread your writing. Proofing is a huge challenge for me, as you have likely seen in past posts. I am much more likely to catch errors when […]
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What Are You Reading?
In last week’s post, I pointed out the value and importance of reading in order to become a better writer. The question then becomes, What should I read?
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The Total Cost of Ownership
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I love to have the latest, fastest, and most powerful tools and toys, but I hate the time it takes for implementation, requiring that I preempt more important activities to install, fine-tune, and master my new technology. Therefore, I tend to stick with […]
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A Positive Perspective
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, Ph.D. Having just returned from an industry convention, I, like every traveler, have many travel stories; here are three: Once, while awaiting my connecting flight to return home, an announcement grabbed my attention, “Now boarding all rows, all passengers; this is the final boarding.” That’s strange; I had apparently tuned out […]
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Are You Reading?
A piece of writing advice that shocked me was to spend as much time reading as writing. That’s ridiculous. If I do that, the little time I have to write will be cut in half. Not counting my day job, I can only carve out a couple of hours a day to write, so cutting […]
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Why I Back Up My Writing
Early in my career, I worked as a tech writer. I knew the importance of making copies of my work, so I would faithfully make a backup each Friday as I wrapped up the workweek. One Friday was particularly hectic and in a rush to begin my weekend, I postponed making my backup, planning to […]
A concept not fully realized by the reading public is the idea of “ghostwriting,” sometimes called work-for-hire. Ghostwriting is when other people pay you to write for them, which they then legally claim and market as their own work—and you can’t. Ghostwriting is more widespread than most people realize. At some publishers, I’ve heard that […]
An earlier post was titled “Write Every Day.” This advice was a bit hyperbolic. It was designed to garner attention and encourage aspiring writers to pursue writing diligently and take the craft seriously. Even so, it is far from an absolute law or inflexible rule. The points are: For some that may dictate writing every […]
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Read Any Good Books Lately?
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD As a magazine publisher and editor, I receive frequent pitches from publicists wanting me to read (and hopefully review) their client’s book. Of course, they are all too happy to mail me a free copy – and sometimes the books just show up unannounced. Since I like to read, their […]