Over the past few months, I’ve taken a writing course from my new online friend Jeff Goins. It’s the most significant thing I’ve done this year (perhaps ever) to grow as a writer. And with as many things I’ve done, that’s saying a lot. I was part of the inaugural class and now Jeff is […]
Category: Writing and Publishing
Writing and publishing articles by author Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Recently a blogging guru encouraged me to write some reader profiles for my blog. Intrigued by the exercise, I gave it some thought. Before long I had penned profiles for five types of readers for my main blog, “Pursuing Biblical God.” I edited them today and have a bit more tweaking to do, but already […]
The November 23 edition of “On the Media” (Publishing: Adapt or Die) focused on recent developments and trends within the publishing industry. (It was an update of coverage from April 2012, so some portions were a repeat). The segments include: You can listen to Publishing: Adapt or Die online or download the recording. While I […]
Last week, in “Four Steps to Becoming a Writer,” I mentioned the guy who said, “All my life I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t writing.” My story’s the opposite. All my life I was writing, but I only recently knew I wanted to be a writer. So I went to […]
In a podcast about writing, the speaker said, “All my life I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I wasn’t writing.” I’ve met many people like this. They call themselves “aspiring writers.” Some have a dream of writing but will never pursue it. Others, in reality, wish to have written but don’t want […]
How concerned should we be over passive sentences? My response has included both extremes: ignore every one of them and kill each one. Right now, I’m somewhere in the middle. Years ago spell check shocked me by showing all of the passive sentences I used when I wrote. Seemingly every sentence. It was so bad […]
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How to Improve as a Writer
I recently read a piece I wrote a short five months ago—an article I worked hard to perfect—and was shocked. It wasn’t that my writing was bad; it was that I’ve improved in the intervening time. For most of my life writing has been something I did as part of my job; it was secondary. […]
Every Writer Needs a Tribe: A Practical Guide to Finding (and Writing For) Your Audience By Jeff Goins (reviewed by Peter DeHaan) Every Writer Needs a Tribe is essential to book for all writers who desire others to read their work. Merely writing a great book is not enough. A writer needs a platform, an […]
November is National Novel Writing Month, “NaNoWriMo” for short. The idea is to write with abandon throughout the month, completing the first draft of a novel by November 30. Writers who embark on this annual quest, do so within a community of other sojourners who encourage and support one another to keep moving forward. (In […]
When I was in high school, I remember sitting in my parent’s living room watching the USA hockey team play the Soviet Union in the medal round of the 1980 Olympics. My dad, like most everyone else, predicted a sound defeat for the USA, but I held out hope a miracle would happen. And it […]