Ever receive a link to a business web site where you can’t figure out what the company does? The home page sounds like something from the company’s fancy and non-sensical mission statement. Unfortunately, many companies rely on content from their business plan and other internal documents. I had a brief client who did this. The … Read more
I enjoyed reading Great Writing from a Small Child. When I read the post, my 5-year-old had written a poem. The requirements were the poem had to be about you and the end of every line must rhyme with dog. Can you believe not many words qualify? His poem: I have a dog. I like … Read more
Call me goofy, but I loved singing “The Name Game” as kid: Meryl, Meryl, bo-beryl, Banana-fana fo-feryl Fee-fi-mo-meryl Meryl! Yeah, yeah… I know how some immature kids like to use names like Chuck and Mitch. I’m sure you’ve heard your share. I’ve always been fascinated with names, how they came to be, and their origins. … Read more
TechCrunch reports that Microsoft calls its next operating system (the one after Vista) Windows 7. Mickey comments: I’d love to see them start using logical numbers again, but it doesn’t add up: Windows 3.1 (“Windows 3”) Windows 95 (4) Windows 98 (5) Windows ME/2000 (6) Windows XP (7) Windows Vista (8) Windows 7 (9?) I … Read more
I try to avoid using any variation of is because that turns a sentence into telling instead of showing. Is and was appear less in my writing, but they slip (the little stinkers) in on occasion. These tips come from my journey to do more showing and less telling in my writing. Before we dive … Read more
Working on a press release, I stumbled in my journey to find a fun expression to use in a paragraph. Hubby came along and asked what I was doing. I explained and he suggested using “A cat in a room full of rocking chairs.” “Huh?” I like to think I’m up on my slanguage, idioms, … Read more
Stumped me. What do these words have in common other than double letters (my answer)? Banana Dresser Grammar Potato Revive Uneven Assess To see the answer, click and drag your mouse over the below to read the invisible ink. In all of the words listed, if you take the first letter, place it at the … Read more
I’ve seen Joanna Young’s writing over time, but it wasn’t until Poewar’s March Madness that I became a regular at her Confident Writing blog. Since then, she has inspired me to think deeper about describing things and ideas. Her powerful writing shows how we can have so many answers to one question. How To Add … Read more
My mom sent me this joke (have yet to see proof this is a true story) and it’s making its way around inboxes everywhere. Regardless, it makes me laugh. Some five-year old students are learning to read. Yesterday one of them pointed at a picture in a zoo book and said, “Look at this! It’s … Read more
Our guest blogger is Jamie Grove of How Not to Write. However, he means the opposite… he knows how to write and does it well as you can tell from this entry. Thank you, Jamie. We’ve known each other a short time, but it feels longer as he’s easy to talk to and get to … Read more