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Writing and Publishing

Is Quality or Quantity More Important in Writing?

There are some who think you can either write well or write a lot, but you can’t do both at the same time. I disagree. Just as it takes practice to write well and practice to write fast, it likewise takes practice to turn out good work quickly. However, I wouldn’t recommend pursuing both at […]

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Writing and Publishing

Beware of Commonly Confused Words

In last week’s post, Check Your Writing, I mentioned the need to watch out for commonly confused words. Spell checkers point out some of the most typical—such as its versus it’s—but I suspect all writers have certain words that trip them up. Knowing what these words are is the first step to avoiding them when […]

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Writing and Publishing

We Only Need to Check Two Things in Our Writing

I heard there are only two things we need to check in our writing. Can you believe that? Only two things. How exciting! I thought there would be an unlimited number of considerations, but I can handle two. Even a short checklist might overwhelm, but a pair of items seems doable. When I learned this, […]

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Writing and Publishing

13 Movies About Writing

There are a lot of movies about writing and even more when you consider movies that have writers as characters. Here’s my initial list:

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Writing and Publishing

Watch Out For That

I heard an author mention her memoir—weighing in at 103,000 words—was too long and she needed to shorten it. The first thing she did was the search for all occurrences of the word “that.” By removing their unnecessary appearances in her manuscript she cut a thousand words—or about one percent—from her book. Although she still […]

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Writing and Publishing

Would You Rather Publish a Book or Earn a PhD?

I’ve heard that having a published book is more highly respected than having a Ph.D. I’m not sure if this came from research, the author’s opinion, or merely emerged as a clever quip. But, it does give me pause. In completing a PhD there is (usually) a dissertation to produce. A dissertation is the length […]

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Writing and Publishing

Creative Formatting is Not Creative Writing

All too often I see people who seem to think “creative writing” is embellishing their words using bold, underline, and italics—for various combinations thereof. They also like to further emphasize words by TYPING IN UPPER CASE. Then there is abusive punctuation, such as using ellipses…needlessly…avoiding the chore of completing sentences or thoughts. Or how about […]

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Writing and Publishing

2012 Festival of Faith and Writing Conference

Last weekend I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing conference. It was in Grand Rapids at Calvin College. With 2,000 in attendance, it is by far the largest writing conference I’ve attended. At three days in length, it is also the longest. There were sixty presenters and since I am currently working on two […]

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Writing and Publishing

What’s Your Life Story — in 150 Words?

The Reader’s Digest recently asked readers to submit their life story—in 150 words or less. With over 6,000 submissions, Facebook followers voted and RD picked the best from the top 100. The winners are all excellent. If I had to pick my favorite, I’d go with “A Meaningless Diagnosis” or perhaps “I’ve Got Dirt: Memoirs […]

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Writing and Publishing

My First Writers’ Retreat

A few years ago, I attended my first writers’ retreat, not a writers’ conference or a writers’ seminar, but a writers’ retreat. For twenty-four hours we immersed ourselves in writing. There were times of instruction and teaching, as well as food and fun, along with a bit of sleep, but the focus was on writing. […]