Here’s a question for you: When you write an email, do you include a salutation? You know, the “Dear John,” or even something as simple as a person’s name at the top. I was reading an old blog post on Linda Formicelli’s excellent Renegade Writers site the other day that…
Being Carded
Let’s talk about business cards, shall we? It’s true that a lot of business is done electronically, these days, and it’s not like we pay polite visits that require calling cards anymore. (Though, let’s pause a moment and reflect on a society that used to have time to ramble from…
What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?
Here’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. If I were doing something else, what would it be? Or, how about: If I could do anything I wanted, what would it be? Sometimes life imposes changes that you have to make, and this can be hard and frustrating.…
What Have You Written for YOUR Business Lately?
Physician Heal Thyself: The Writers’ Edition How can you call yourself a copy-writer if you can’t sell yourself? Here’s a nice little catch-22 for you. How many copy-writer freelancers do you know? People who write sales copy (and other things) for their clients? More importantly—Are they promoting themselves? Everyone is…
Word Crimes
I never thought I would love Weird Al Yankovic, well, at all, but right now? I think he’s wonderful! If you haven’t seen/heard this yet, you absolutely must. No, seriously. You must hear this!
Get it Out There
So, say you’ve been writing for years. You’ve pretty much mastered the niceties of punctuation, you know your grammar and can parse a sentence with the best of them. Your vocabulary would blow away the SAT people, and you read, read, read just like all the writing books recommend. Yet,…
Has Communication Really Changed?
I was watching Downton Abbey the other night, and there’s a scene where the Dowager Countess, played by the wonderful Maggie Smith, is trying to work her wiles on a bureaucrat via telephone, and at one point looks at the receiver and says something* like, “Is this a a communication…
Have You Seen My Writing Mojo?
Where did my Mojo Go? Have you seen it? I’ve been looking all over for it. For whatever reason, I seem have lost all my motivation to write. I put it down before the holidays because I was so busy with other things and now I can’t remember where I…
Why Is Writing Harder Than it Used to Be?
Has writing gotten harder? In those halcyon days when you were younger (last month, maybe?), it all seemed so easy. You sat down with your computer or your notebook, positioned the cursor or the pen at the ready and … words flowed. You didn’t have to work at them, you…
Make-Believe Until You Make It
You know the old saying, “Fake it ’til you make it?” I’ve gotten distracted by the three million other things I have to do each day, along with temptations like lounging with a good book or summer television, or just the sheer bliss of sitting on the couch with my…