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In my freelance writing days, I’d obsess over word count like a marathon runner counting steps. It wasn’t just an important metric for me; hit that magic number, and the heavens would open, blessing me with more pageviews, satisfied editors, and maybe a check with an extra zero. Or so I thought. But does word…
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“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.” – Benjamin Franklin If you think you have something that you should write about, chances are you probably should. Really, there is plenty worth writing about that hasn’t been written yet. What you learn as a writer is that the success of a written piece…
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Have you ever stumbled upon a forgotten drawer while cleaning and found it filled with old letters, photos, or even mix tapes from the ’90s? That’s sort of how it feels whenever I dig through what I call my “Death Pile,” a digital treasure trove containing many previously discarded works. It’s much like a graveyard…
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It’s likely that you may have heard the saying “most editors are failed writers,” and this sentiment is not only untrue, but quite insulting. The idea actually came out of a parlay between T.S. Eliot and his future editor Robert Giroux. Of course, Eliot being Eliot said, “Perhaps, but so are most writers.” But, as…
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The Age-Old Debate of Writing as a “Real Job” Even now in the 2020’s, many folks still see writing as a lovely little hobby where you scribble down your thoughts, sip tea, and wait for inspiration to strike. Meanwhile “real adults” do real jobs like constructing skyscrapers or assembling Chinese-produced IKEA furniture. It’s almost as…
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Since the 2020 pandemic, my primary focus in my life was to make the best of my writing archives. As of September 2022, however, my focus has shifted slightly: make my writing archives better. This is, in fact, a very straightforward process. Find the posts that used to get love and improve them, then find…
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So you want to become a better article writer? Here is my simple three-step process to do just that! OK, there you have it. Now go forth into the world and write your heart out! Right, there’s a bit more to it than that. Isn’t there? Obviously, being highly literate definitely helps anyone. But as…
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Growing up in the nineties, grunge was king and the internet made a noise like a dying robot when it connected. Back then, getting to the top of your class involved being really bad at something first. But to get better, you had to actually know you were bad, understand why you were, and then,…
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As I sit here this morning, I’m still churning through yet another batch of “back burner” essay projects. I can’t help but marvel at how, after all these years of getting my writing organized, I still have over 400 essays that feel completely unworthy of publishing. It’s not even that I’m overly picky with what…
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A writer’s life is an endless collection of bits and bobs, odds and ends, and other assorted nonsense that don’t quite fit together. It’s like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle where the picture on the box keeps changing, then some sadist throws in a handful of pieces from another puzzle just to keep things…