Podcast appearances and mentions of William Zinsser

The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows of our tiny department office as I ran in to grab the papers I'd just printed. As I waited for them to finish, I examined the old books stacked on the shelf above the printer, brought to our school in  Bulgaria by another ex-pat teacher many years ago, judging by the dust. One caught my eye - William Zinsser's guide to writing nonfiction - On Writing Well. I snagged it with my papers and headed upstairs. Little did I know, I had just picked up my new favorite writing book, and the one that would give me my most consistent improvement for my own writing. It's the switch that made me start this podcast with “The late afternoon sun filtered through the windows” instead of “It was late one afternoon.” Did you spot it?  Welcome to the Thursday edition of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies. Today we're talking about a simple but highly impactful piece of writing advice you can give to every student. I heard it first from William Z all those years ago, and now I want to share it with you. OK, here's the simple rule. Students need to watch out for the verb “To be.” Sure, it's useful. I just used it. But it's actually too useful. It can quickly become the driver of any piece of writing with constant lines like: “He was bored,” “they were hungry, “she was late,” “we're tired.”  When we see writing like this, we might be tempted to launch into a fairly complex explanation of show don't tell. But it's even easier to give students a highlighter and ask them to find all the “to be” verbs in their piece. Have them highlight “was,” were,” and “are,” then pause to take in the fact that their whole piece is now bright yellow. Then show them how to flip the switch. Let's take “he was bored” as our model. How can a kid write “he was bored” without the “to be” construction?  How about this: “After six hours of waiting at the airport gate, Ben had finally mastered the art of sleeping standing up.”  Or we can try “They were hungry,” switching in “Jen and Jenny felt sure they could eat a dozen of the salted caramel cream donuts immediately. Each.”  As you can see, in general the switch away from “to be” leads to far more specific descriptive writing. It's like a game, shifting writing from black and white to full color.  Will there still be times when “to be” makes sense? For sure. You don't want kids to change it every single time. But making them aware of the potential can make a huge impact on their writing. I know it has on mine over years of writing for you!  If you're looking for a way to help students remember this tip, try spending fifteen minutes on a poster project. Invite every student to create a poster featuring a boring “TO BE” sentence in black and white, with the “To be” verb construction in red. Then have them make a second poster for a new version of the sentence with more vivid description matched by more vivid, colorful imagery. Put the best ones up on your wall as a reminder of this tip, then refer back to your models when students are editing their writing.  Such a simple rule, but it makes such a big impact. Remind your students that “to be” can BE boring, and you'll help them level up their writing game across genres.    Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram.  Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!   

Watch this episode on YouTube -- https://youtu.be/ZbO7WegbCnE I discovered Alberto on Medium.com and was impressed by the quality of his writing. Alberto is an Italian writer and blogger who helps aspiring content creators become prolific by building custom systems that fit their busy lives. He started blogging in Italian in 2010 but then boldly stepped into the world of English writing to reach a wider audience. In this conversation, you'll hear him talk about: His early beginnings in digital content creation His transition from writing in Italian to writing in English Recommended resources for non-native English writers Writing on Medium.com His writing process and approach Using ChatGPT ...and other things related to writing, content creation, learning English, and digital entrepreneurship. If you find this useful, please email me to let me know. All my contacts are on my website -- https://fabiocerpelloni.com/ Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 01:38 - Switching to English 13:08 - Gaining Confidence 16:30 - Loving English 24:38 - Writing on Medium 35: 26 - Getting Better at Writing 43:30 - Writing & ChatGPT 52:08 - Books for writers 55:10 - Alberto's course 01:01:44 - Conclusion Links & Resources: - Medium: read Alberto's articles on Medium.com -- https://albertocabasvidani.medium.com/ - The Unstoppable Creator (Alberto's newsletter + free email course) -- https://albertocabasvidani.ck.page/052d7c645d - The Tilt for content strategies and business insights -- https://www.thetilt.com/ - Ali Abdaal and Nicolas Cole -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIfEgvpEufU Books we mentioned: - "Storyworthy" by Matthew Dicks - "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield - "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser - "The Art and Business of Online Writing" by Nicolas Cole - "The 4 Hour Work Week" by Tim Ferris Find out more about me and my work on my website -- https://fabiocerpelloni.com/

Be sure to visit https://dwtbpodcast.com for more information and add your name to start receiving their newsletter. If you'd like to support this show, rate, subscribe and leave a review on your podcast app. Books/Resources Mentioned:On Writing, Stephen King: https://a.co/d/hYTMnA6On Writing Well, William Zinsser: https://a.co/d/04sdUOrIn Search of You, Kasey Compton: https://a.co/d/1tK7DSqEmbrace the Power of You, Tricia Montalvo Timm: https://a.co/d/di2yWV5I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations Their People Never Want to Leave, Clint Pulver: https://a.co/d/gOlMlN8Pre-submission Checklist (Editing Tool): https://writeamustread.com/tools Connect with AJ & Mike:AJ Harper: https://ajharper.comWrite A Must-Read: https://a.co/d/4H0xQ7GFree resources_:_ https://writeamustread.com/toolsMike Michalowicz: https://mikemichalowicz.comAll books: https://mikemichalowicz.com/books/Socials: IG: https://www.instagram.com/mikemichalowicz/FB: https://www.facebook.com/MikeMichalowiczFanPage/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemichalowicz/

Chapter 1 Interpret what On Writing Well is aboutOn Writing Well by William Knowlton Zinsser is a renowned and influential guidebook for nonfiction writing. The book provides valuable advice and techniques for improving writing skills, focusing particularly on nonfiction forms such as journalism, memoir, and business writing. Zinsser emphasizes the importance of simplicity, clarity, and brevity in writing, aiming to help writers communicate their ideas effectively to readers.The book covers a wide range of topics related to writing, including principles of good writing, avoiding clutter and jargon, finding one's voice, structuring articles and books, editing and revising, and maintaining consistency and coherence. It also addresses specific challenges that writers often face, such as conducting interviews, conducting research, and writing about technical or specialized subjects.On Writing Well combines practical advice with engaging examples and anecdotes, drawing from Zinsser's extensive experience as a writer and teacher of writing. It has become a classic in the field of writing instruction and is widely used in writing courses, journalism programs, and by aspiring writers and professionals alike. The book has been praised for its timeless advice and accessible style, making it a valuable resource for anyone looking to improve their nonfiction writing skills.Chapter 2 Is On Writing Well A Good BookYes, "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser is widely regarded as a good book for improving one's writing skills. It has been a popular and influential guide for both professional writers and beginners since its publication in 1976. Zinsser provides practical advice, writing exercises, and engaging examples to demonstrate various principles of effective writing. The book covers a wide range of topics, from grammar and style to the art of storytelling, making it relevant and helpful for writers in different genres and fields.Chapter 3 Key Features of On Writing Well"On Writing Well" by William Zinsser is a guidebook for aspiring writers that emphasizes the importance of simplicity, clarity, and humanity in writing. Zinsser believes that good writing is a result of hard work, discipline, and a willingness to constantly revise and edit.The book is divided into four parts: Principles, Methods, Forms, and Attitudes. In the Principles section, Zinsser discusses various principles of good writing, such as simplicity, brevity, and empathy. He encourages writers to focus on their audience and to use plain, understandable language.In the Methods section, Zinsser provides practical advice on different aspects of writing, such as grammar, usage, and the importance of revision. He emphasizes the importance of revising and editing, and encourages writers to cut unnecessary words and phrases.The Forms section discusses different forms of writing, such as memoirs, travel writing, and science writing. Zinsser provides examples from various genres and offers tips on how to approach each form.Finally, in the Attitudes section, Zinsser explores the emotional and psychological aspects of writing. He encourages writers to be honest, to find their own voice, and to take risks in their writing.Throughout the book, Zinsser provides numerous examples and anecdotes to illustrate his points. He also emphasizes the importance of reading widely and learning from other writers.Overall, "On Writing Well" is a practical and insightful guidebook that offers valuable advice for writers of all levels. It emphasizes the importance of clear, effective communication and encourages writers to...

Welcome to Episode 86 of The Perfectionist's Guide to Mothering! Today I want to talk to you about something I've been hearing about lately: limiting beliefs. In this episode we talk about: What are limiting beliefs? What are your limiting beliefs? How changing your limiting beliefs can change your life Resources I mention in this episode include: The Global Leadership Summit Soundtracks by Jon Acuff* On Writing Well by William Zinsser* "1,000 Names" by Phil Wickham The Microdelivery Vitamin C Resurfacing Peek Kit by Philosophy* The MomCo by MOPS International Just a reminder that you can connect with me via: Instagram: @andreafortenberry Facebook: @andreabfortenberry My website: andreafortenberry.com ⁠⁠Subscribe to my monthlyish magazine, Restore.⁠⁠ Yay for happy email! *Affiliate Link --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/andreafortenberry/support

English grammar passive voice: The secret weapon you never knew you needed. Have you ever been puzzled by the passive voice? Do you wonder why native English speakers use it so frequently in everyday conversation? Say hello to the ultimate guide that'll unravel all the intricacies of the #passivevoice in English! Here's Why This Lesson Is a Game-Changer:

================================================== ==SUSCRIBETEhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNpffyr-7_zP1x1lS89ByaQ?sub_confirmation=1================================================== == DEVOCIÓN MATUTINA PARA ADULTOS 2023“YO ESTOY CONTIGO”Narrado por: Roberto NavarroDesde: Montreal, CanadáUna cortesía de DR'Ministries y Canaan Seventh-Day Adventist Church 17 DE JULIO "SOBRE MUCHO TE PONDRÉ" Su señor le dijo: "Bien, buen siervo y fiel; sobre poco ha sido fiel, sobre mucho te pondré. Entra en el gozo de tu señor" (Mateo 25:23). William Zinsser comenzó su carrera como escritor de obituarios para el Buffalo News. Cansado de buscar palabras para honrar la memoria de los muertos, se armó de valor y le dijo al editor en jefe: "¿Cuándo me permitirán escribir una historia decente?". Cuenta John Ortberg que, con tono refunfuñón, el viejo editor le dijo: "¡Escucha, muchacho! Nada de lo que escribas será leído con tanta atención como esos obituarios. Si escribe mal una palabra, si confundes una cita, una familia se grabará herida. Sin embargo, cuando le haces justicia a una abuela oa la madre de alguien, haces que alguien cante una canción, y te estarán eternamente agradecidos. Pondrán tus palabras en un cuadrito". *Desde ese momento, el joven Zinsser comprendió que su tarea no era pequeña y se empeñó en cumplirla con fidelidad. Ese muchacho llego a convertirse en uno de los mejores escritores de lengua inglesa. Su libro On Writing Well ha sido el libro de texto para la formación de una nueva generación de escritores.Si Zinsser no hubiera sido fiel al realizar la pequeña, pero importante tarea de escribir obituarios, no se hubiera convertido en el gran maestro del arte de pulir la prosa. Fue lo pequeño lo que lo preparó para lo grande. En la famosa parábola de los talentos encontramos a Jesús dictando esta sentencia: "Su señor le dijo: 'Bien, buen siervo y fiel; sobre poco ha sido fiel, sobre mucho te pondré. Entra en el gozo de tu señor" (Mateo 25 :23).Campo en lo poco; fiel en lo que no parece trascendental, esa es la propuesta de Jesús. Es la fidelidad en el servicio humilde lo que abre las puertas de las grandes oportunidades. La fidelidad nos augura más trabajo y la aprobación del Señor. No hay cámaras, ni luces, ni likes (me gusta); pero el Padre, lo que estamos haciendo en privado, pronto nos recompensará en público. Todo el que asuma con fidelidad las tareas que Dios le ha encomendado recibirá una recompensa maravillosa: entrar "en el gozo del Señor". ¿Acaso hay un mejor premio que ese? Quizá nuestra fidelidad a Cristo sea motivo de lágrimas en nuestra circunstancia actual, pero muy pronto seremos llenos del gozo inacabable del cielo.* John Ortberg, El ser que quiero ser (Miami: Editorial Vida, 2010), p. 247.

I det här avsnittet hör du om cloud.microsoft som är den nya domänen för Microsoft 365, Viva och andra produktivitetstjänster. Ett intranät är ganska dåligt om det inte finns något nytt där att läsa. Hur gör vi det så enkelt som möjligt för dig och de andra att skriva artiklar? Och hur skriver man? Jag själv försöker följa fyra principer som William Zinsser formulerat. Och så blir det förstås nyheter.

William Zinsser once said, "Good writing is good thinking clearly expressed." This statement rings true, especially when it comes to website content. Your website is your digital storefront, and the content you put on it directly impacts how visitors perceive your brand. So, how do you write website content that's not just good, but great?

Megan Freeland joins Mike and John to discuss her career in medical writing. Having gone to school for pharmacy with an interest in public health, Megan was able to pivot into a career as a medical writer and now works to provide resources for those interested in a similar path. They discuss the roll of AI in writing, where to find foundational writing resources, and how to maximize your current writing opportunities through networking.  Megan's Youtube: Health Writing for Health Professionals American Medical Writers Association On Writing Well by William Zinsser

We cover making intentional career shifts and leadership challenges navigating multi-product expansion with Kris Rasmussen, CTO @ Figma. He shares his experience transitioning from contractor work with Figma to a full-time role & the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages. We also address Figma's transition from a one-product company to a two-product company, Kris's process for determining the eng org's core areas of focus, challenges faced when becoming a multi-product org, frameworks for determining solutions to challenging projects, and lessons learned around releasing products with heavy collaboration.ABOUT KRIS RASMUSSENKris Rasmussen is the Chief Technology Officer at Figma, where he leads the engineering, security, and data science teams. Prior to joining Figma in 2017, Kris served as engineering lead and a technical advisor at Asana, where he co-authored many aspects of the framework and infrastructure that powers the company's real-time collaborative features. Before Asana, Kris co-founded RivalSoft Inc., a web-based application that gives companies an internal hub for market information and served as Chief Architect at Aptana."One of the things that's helped me is just really kind of focusing on the outcome that I'm trying to create and trying to think about the most effective way to do that. All of us want to feel respected. We want to feel valued. We want to feel heard, but at the end of the day, we also want to create something that's greater than ourselves. We want to work on something that kind of outlives us and if you really want to do that, it doesn't really matter whose idea it was or who said what. All that really matters is that you come to the right solution as a group.”- Kris Rasmussen   Check out QA Wolf!Looking for a way to increase end-to-end test coverage, speed up your release cycles and reduce bugs from shipping to production? QA Wolf will build, run and maintain your test suite - so that you don't have to.QA Wolf gets you to 80% automated end-to-end test coverage in 4 months - and keeps you there – So your team can stay focused on shipping!Learn more & schedule a 30 min demo at qawolf.com/elcLooking for ways to support the show?Send a link to the show to your marketing team! https://sfelc.com/podcastsIf your company is looking to gain exposure to thousands of engineering leaders and key decision-makers, we have sponsorship opportunities available.To explore sponsor opportunities, email us at hello@sfelc.comSHOW NOTES:Kris's backstory with Figma & transitioning from contractor to CTO (1:02)What factors validated Kris's decision to join Figma full-time (4:50)Leveraging the benefits of joining an eng org during its early stages (7:27)Figma's recent milestone shifts & how Kris's responsibilities changed in response (9:09)Transitioning from a one-product company to a two-product company (12:15)Kris's process for identifying the most important problems (13:57)Strategies for determining core areas of focus (17:09)Knowing when to shift to become multi-product (19:12)How processes / org structure shifted in response to Figma's second product (21:59)Defining Figma's vertical product-related org structures (23:22)Challenges faced when getting to the multi-product moment (24:44)Frameworks for determining when an idea is validated enough to staff it (29:57)Kris's process for determining a solution to a challenging R&D project (31:52)Lessons learned around releasing highly collaborative products (36:06)Strategies for letting go of your ego (39:46)Rapid fire questions (40:47)LINKS AND RESOURCESOn Writing Well - On Writing Well, which grew out of a course that William Zinsser taught at Yale, has been praised for its sound advice, its clarity, and for the warmth of its style. It is a book for anybody who wants to learn how to write or who needs to do some writing to get through the day, as almost everybody does.This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/

In this episode, I share a few books I did and didn't enjoy reading since 2020.Overall favourites in no particular order:Not a life coach by James SmithHow to win friends and influence people by Dale CarnegieAtomic Habits by James Clear or Tiny Habits by BJ FoggNot a diet book by James Smith or Eat it! by Jordan Syatt and Mike VacantiRelevant links:My InstagramMy TwitterMy TikTokMy FacebookMy YouTube channelMy articlesClick here to inquire about working with me onlineClick here for a free workout plan and/or nutrition for fat loss guideSubscribe to my email list

There's writing, and then there's writing well.  Every form of communication in business requires a solid handle on the written word. From marketing and sales copy to public talks to pitches, if you can't write it, you can't share it.  William Zinsser's On Writing Well is different from our other recent Must-Read (Stephen King's On […] The post MBA2208 Must Read: On Writing Well by William Zinsser appeared first on The $100 MBA.

There's writing, and then there's writing well.  Every form of communication in business requires a solid handle on the written word. From marketing and sales copy to public talks to pitches, if you can't write it, you can't share it.  William Zinsser's On Writing Well is different from our other recent Must-Read (Stephen King's On […] The post MBA2208 Must Read: On Writing Well by William Zinsser appeared first on The $100 MBA.

Today's show is our attempt to answer this question: How do you add more impact to every single sentence? It started last week when I read this article from The Economist. It's a British magazine, and it used to be my favorite. I hardly read it at all anymore. But… I was scrolling through Twitter and the AKA, also called the All-Knowing Algorithm, served up an ad for an article in The Economist with the headline, “What to Read To Become a Better Writer.” So, I clicked. You know, many people say that the AKA knows even more than Google! The article starts with a very strange picture. Three women at an outdoor café. Two are having a drink, laughing, having a great time. The third one is writing on an old-fashioned portable manual typewriter. Scowling and trying desperately to concentrate while her friends are partying. I have always thought the British have a strange way of looking at things. The article recommends five books. I cherry-picked some tips from three of them that would be especially useful for copywriters when you want to add more impact to your writing. The main thing I was looking at when I was cherry-picking these ideas from more than 1,000 pages of books is: What's going to give each sentence in your copy more impact? I know a lot of people recommend power words or startling statements, but a reader can only take so much of those things. Too much electric intensity can wear out a reader. For most of your copy, what's important is clarity and momentum. Clarity often comes from leaving things out or fine-tuning some of the words you use. Momentum comes from moving your reader emotionally, which is what we usually think of as entertainment. In movies, novels and songs, that emotional movement comes from the reader's or listener's reaction to a story about someone or something else. In copy, we focus on something else: The readers themselves. People get moved when they think about something wrong in their lives, and they get just as moved, though in another direction, when they think about getting something they want that they couldn't get before now. The books I went through are not copywriting books, and so they cover things that are different from what we're concerned about when we write copy. But there's one area of nearly 100% overlap: Impact. Writing that keeps the reader reading. And that's what I was looking for when I got these tips for you. I found the best stuff from three books, and we'll put links to them in the show notes. They are: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. I first read this book nearly 50 years ago, when I was a journalist. I've come to appreciate it more over the years, and have assigned it to mentoring clients to polish up their writing skills. Other copywriting teachers also assign this book. It's mostly for journalists and business writers, but many of his ideas work for copy, too. The second book I learned about in the Economist article: Style Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. Williams and Joseph Bizup. The two Josephs go into a lot of depth about little things that make a big difference. We'll cover a few of those things today. The third book, I didn't like a whole lot, even though the writer of the Economist article did. I don't think there was too much we could use, but there was one very important thing in there. So I'm not recommending it, but I'll include a link just in case it piques your curiosity. It's called A Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, by Steven Pinker. Book Links: On Writing Well, by William Zinsser https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0090RVGW0 Style Lessons in Clarity and Grace, by Joseph M. William and Joseph Bizup https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134080416 The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century by Steven Pinker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00INIYG74/ Download.

This week's featured Sunday Story Time book: “On Writing Well” by William Zinsser. Join the author conversation in Ink Authors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com Learn more about me, “Christine Ink,” and how I support authors: https://christine-ink.com/ 5 Things To Know Before Hiring a Book Coach: https://christine-ink.com/book-coaching-2/

LSAT Instructor and Admissions consultant Jimmy D explains the importance of simple, clear, and direct language in your writing, particularly personal statements. He highlights the classic, On Writing Well, by William Zinsser. Free electronic version of On Writing Well: http://richardcolby.net/writ2000/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/On-Writing-Well-30th-Anniversa-Zinsser-William.pdf If you'd like to purchase a hard copy or audio version: https://amzn.to/3Tf3z4q Book a free consultation to work with Jimmy one on one: http://www.jdlsat.com/free-consultation.html --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jdlsat/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jdlsat/support

In the 99th episode of The Strength Connection Podcast, Mike and our special guest, Host of The Pat and Flynn Show, Co-host of Philosophy For The People, Owner of Chronicles of Strength, Personal Trainer, and Fitness Writer, Pat Flynn, will talk about Pat's writing style, steps for laying down the structure, Pat's reason behind never having a writer's block, and Writing 45K in one day.Join us in this insightful and captivating talk! In this chapter, you will discover:(0:55) Introducing our special guest, Host of The Pat and Flynn Show, Co-host of Philosophy For The People, Owner of Chronicles of Strength, Personal Trainer, and Fitness Writer, Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(1:20) Extreme(2:25) Yellowcard @yellowcard(3:20) Why is the first album always the best?(5:00) “Be AC/DC!” - Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(6:05) The Pat Flynn Show(6:05) Shout out to Dan John @coachdanjohn(7:15) Pat's writing style(7:40) Importance of laying down structures(9:05) “It's all about repetition, finding the right intensity and laying down structures.” - Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(9:10) Steps for laying down the structure(10:00) On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King Twitter: @stephenking(10:25) Importance of ranges(10:55) Pat's writing range(11:30) Pat's writing warm-ups(11:50) Fast warm-ups(12:00) “Part of good writing is learning to write fast.” - Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(12:40) Working on primary writing assignments(13:25) Moving onto secondary writing assignments(14:40) Reading warm-ups(14:50) On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser(15:25) Six Great Ideas by Mortimer J. Adler(16:50) Shout out to Fabio Zonin @x_fab_69(16:50) Warm-up vs. ramp-up(17:35) The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron @juliacameronlive(18:20) Pat's reason behind never having writer's block(18:45) Write a lot, read a lot(20:00) Common reasons behind writer's block(20:20) Go fast!(21:50) More about Pat's writing routine(22:30) Natural ebb and flow(23:55) Writing 45K in one day(26:15) What to do on 1/10 days?(27:20) Structure vs. intuition(28:10) “You better know the rules before you start to break the rules. But if you want to be good, you do have to start to at least bend the rules at certain points.” - Mr.s Krakow, Pat Flynn's Music Teacher(28:50) Pat's creative side as a kid(31:15) Being a hack vs. being creative(32:00) Story of Robin Williams(32:40) Shout out to Brian Grasso Facebook: Brian Grasso(34:25) Importance of variety(35:45) Evolution of Mike's training style(36:20) Shout out to Tim Almond(36:45) Be specific!(38:25) About a study on velocity and accuracy(39:25) “Practice faster sooner than you think that you should be practicing faster.” - Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(40:20) About muscle training(40:40) Living on the extreme(41:45) Pat's current strength training routine(42:30) Running as a warm-up(43:20) About Mike's new article(44:30) More about Pat's daily routine(46:45) “Routine is not a prison you live by.” - Michael Kurkowski @mike_strength_connection(47:00) Understanding your natural rhythm(47:55) Pat's new books(50:20) Culmination of previous work(50:45) Release date!!!(51:15) What's next?(52:25) How to Be Better at Almost Everything by Pat Flynn @chroniclesofstrength(52:35) The Strength Connection: Ep 46 - Pat Flynn: Generalism Vs Hyper-specialization(52:55) Where to find Pat Flynn? @chroniclesofstrengthThe Pat Flynn ShowPhilosophy for The People

The acclaimed poet Diana Goetsch has now published “This Body I Wore,” which our reviewer, Manuel Betancourt, called an “achingly beautiful memoir” about “a trans woman's often vexed relationship with her own body.” On this week's podcast, Goetsch talks about her approach to writing.“My assumption always, as a poet and as a writer, is — I'm a generalist. And I just think the most idiosyncratic thing about ourselves also happens to be the most universal, if we can get to it and present it in the right way,” she says. “It was never my primary objective to give information about a transition, even if somebody's initial attraction is prurient. They can now get that on Wikipedia or something. I particularly love artists who have what I call the common touch — Bruce Springsteen has the common touch. my old mentor William Zinsser has the common touch; the ability to say something very well, but also not exclude anyone from it at the same time.”CJ Hauser visits the podcast to talk about her new essay collection, “The Crane Wife,” the title essay of which became an online phenomenon after The Paris Review published it in 2019. She describes her attempt to overcome the idea that love needs to have a grand narrative attached to it.“In my family, we love stories. We're sort of Don Quixote people. We've read so many stories and we self-mythologize and we tell stories,” Hauser says. “By the end of the book, I come out into a place of telling a kind of static love story or slow-growing love story. What does it mean to not conflate drama with love, and does love need to be dramatic? Because I think that's a thing that I inherited.”Also on this week's episode, Alexandra Alter discusses new novels about race and racism that find freedom in satire; and Lauren Christensen and Joumana Khatib talk about what they've been reading. John Williams is the host.Here are the books discussed in this week's “What We're Reading”:“Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow” by Gabrielle Zevin“Mating” by Norman Rush“Norwood” by Charles PortisWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review's podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Gotta get my old tuxedo pressed, gotta sew a button on my vest,'cause tonight I've gotta look my best, Lulu's back in town!Okay, you probably never heard of a songwriter named Harry Warren. But we bet that you know —and can even hum — many of his tunes. Warren was nominated 11 times for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and he won three of those Oscars, for “Lullaby of Broadway” in 1935, for “You'll Never Know” in 1943 and for “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” in 1946.In a career spanning six decades, Warren wrote more than 800 songs. Besides those Oscar biggies, Warren's better known pieces include novelty tunes like “Jeepers Creepers,” “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby” and “Chattanooga Choo Choo” (which was the first gold record in history). And ballads like “I Only Have Eyes for You” and “There Will Never Be Another You.” He also penned signature tunes like “That's Amore,” which Dean Martin claimed as his own, and — best of all! — “At Last,” which simply belonged to the great Etta James.At the MoviesDespite his million-dollar portfolio, Warren remains “the invisible man,” observed journalist William Zinsser, “his career a prime example of the oblivion that cloaked so many writers who cranked out good songs for bad movies."Uh, LOTS of bad (and, well, some good) movies. Harry Warren songs have been featured in more than 300 films over the years. He wrote the music for the first blockbuster film musical, 1933's “42nd Street,” choreographed by Busby Berkeley, with whom Warren often would collaborate. But perhaps an even greater claim to fame for our generation is that fact that Warren songs starred in no fewer than 112 Warner Bros., Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.Welcome Home, Lulu!In 1932, Harry went to work for Warner Brothers studio, where he was paired with an old friend, lyricist Al Dubin. Over the next six years, the two would churn out five dozen songs for 33 musicals, including a long-time favorite of ours.“Lulu's Back in Town” was first performed by the Mills Brothers in the 1935 musical “Broadway Gondolier.” While the film was a highly forgettable Dick Powell-Joan Blondell vehicle, the song itself had legs, especially when it was recorded that same spring by Flood hero Fats Waller, who charted with “Lulu.”Subsequently, the song charmed everyone from Mel Tormé and Wingy Manone to Art Tatum to Oscar Peterson. In the Floodisphere, an especially influential rendition of the song was Leon Redbone's performance on his 1975 “On the Track” debut album. Our first recording of it was 20 years ago on our 2nd album. And Lulu has has come back to visit us with each new configurations of the band.Our Take on the TuneWe'll be returning next week to one of our all-time favorite local venues, playing for the good folks up the hill at Woodlands Retirement Community. It's a wonderful place where we've played regularly for the past 20 years or more. And this time, our old buddy, Floodster Emeritus Paul Martin, is back to sit in with us. Here's something we're dusting off for the evening … you know, just in case Lulu is in the audience. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 1937flood.substack.com

Temos um convidado especial: Ricardo Mioto! Começamos o papo falando sobre o processo de escrita: é método ou talento? Depois disso falamos um pouco sobre qual a real capacidade dos pais deixarem lições para seus filhos. A pergunta do ouvinte é sobre degrowth. No “Tudo Nosso X Nada Deles”: Tarantino X Almodóvar; jornal impresso x versão online; show individual x festivalDicas culturais:- Feira do Livro no Pacaembu e depois almoço no Bubu;- Série A escada, HBO;- O exercício da Incerteza, Drauzio Varella; - Fernando Meirelles: Dois papas, NetFlix;- Como escrever bem, William Zinsser;- Peaky Blinders, sexta temporada no NetFlix;- Sobre a escrita, de Stephen King;- Maria Bethânia recitando Grande Sertão Veredas;- O Filho Rico, de Felipe Miranda e Ricardo Mioto.

Hoy llegamos al programa número 100 de Música para Gatos y por ese motivo hemos estado pensando cual podía ser la mejor forma de celebrarlo. Y se nos ha ocurrido una que nos parece interesante. Vamos a mezclar dos conceptos habituales en este espacio. Por un lado vamos a intentar responder a una de las preguntas más difíciles que le pueden hacer a un aficionado o a un músico de jazz. ¿Qué es el jazz? Este fue además el tema que utilizó el gran Juan Claudio Cifuentes en la primera edición de un programa mítico para todos los aficionados que ya peinamos canas, Jazz Entre Amigos, emitido, contra todo pronóstico, durante 7 años en TVE . Y para intentar responder a esta pregunta hemos echado mano de artículos y entrevistas, algunos como documento sonoro y otros como texto, que hemos podido encontrar de muchas de las más importantes estrellas del jazz, todos ellos verdaderos iconos de esta música. Además le hemos hecho esta misma consulta a varios en nuestra opinión brillantes divulgadores del jazz en España y Latinoamérica y les hemos pedido que acompañen su comentario con un tema jazzero que consideren absolutamente encantador, haciendo referencia a otro de los programas que hacemos de forma habitual, nuestro Canciones Encantadoras, que ya lleva 6 ediciones. Con la intención de escuchar de forma práctica cual ha sido la evolución del jazz durante sus más de 100 años de existencia, a lo largo del programa os vamos a acercar diversas versiones de un mismo tema, todas ellas interpretadas en momentos diferentes de historia de esta música. El standard que hemos escogido para ilustrar este punto es All The Thing You Are original de Jerome Kern. All The Thing You Are es el segundo standard más interpretado de la historia tan solo superado por Body and Soul de Johnny Green. William Zinsser, escritor, editor, critico literario y profesor universitario además de autor de The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs considera que este tema es el standard mas perfecto y bien construido de la historia de la música popular. Su primera versión apareció en el musical Very Warm for May, estrenado en Broadway en el año 1939 y os la vamos a ofrecer a continuación. Creemos que este ejercicio nos permitirá entender una máxima que siempre acompaña a todos los músicos de jazz y que es una primera definición de las muchas que os vamos a ofrecer hoy. La frase es: lo importante no es lo que toques sino como lo toques. COLABORAN Ramón García de Taberna de Jazz Esteban Novillo de Cloud Jazz Francisco Salazar y Guillermo Arriaga de Viaje al mundo del jazz Lorenzo Orriols de Radio Jazznoend Standard escogido: "All the Things You Are" Versiones: 1º versión: Jerome Kern 2ª versión: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, Max Roach y Charlie Mingus 3º versión: Ella Fitzerald con la Orquesta de Nelson Riddle 4ª versión: Paquito D'Rivera

How do you balance rationality and irrationality as a business leader? How do you position your company and product to disrupt the market? Kipp and Kieran go on a deep dive on how playing it safe is actually hurting your business, how to know when to hire a head of marketing vs. a product marketer, using emotions to position your product, and more! Plus, We answer one of YOUR questions. Shoutout to Fanny Kuhn for leaving their review! Do you want to be the next featured listener question? Leave your questions in the reviews and we may feature you next. Links Mentioned: Loom https://www.loom.com/  Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari https://www.ynharari.com/book/sapiens-2/  The Hard Things About The Hard Things by Ben Horrowitz https://a16z.com/book/the-hard-thing-about-hard-things/  Hooked by Nir Eyal https://www.nirandfar.com/hooked/  Rework by Jason Fried https://www.amazon.com/Rework-Jason-Fried/dp/0307463745  The Platform Revolution https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Markets-Transforming/dp/0393249131  Stratechery https://stratechery.com/  Not Boring Newsletter https://www.notboring.co/  The Hustle Newsletter https://thehustle.co/  Milk Road Newsletter https://www.milkroad.com/  Positioning The Battle for your Mind by Al Ries https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/0071373586  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-Ernest-Cline/dp/0307887448  Principles for The Changing World Order by Ray Dalio https://www.amazon.com/Changing-World-Order-Nations-Succeed/dp/1982160276  Shoe Dog by Phil Knight https://www.amazon.com/Shoe-Dog-Memoir-Creator-NIKE/dp/1471146723/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1654105299&sr=1-1  Direct Mail Copy That Sells by Herschell Gordon Lewis https://www.amazon.com/Direct-Mail-Copy-That-Sells/dp/0132147505/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2544SEVJ4RL7Q&keywords=Direct+Mail+Copy+That+Sells&qid=1654105342&s=books&sprefix=direct+mail+copy+that+sells%2Cstripbooks%2C68&sr=1-3  On Writing Well by William Zinsser https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548/ref=sr_1_1?crid=30RQWSPYFT6FV&keywords=on+writing+well&qid=1654105374&s=books&sprefix=on+writing+well%2Cstripbooks%2C78&sr=1-1  New Rules of Marketing PR by David Meerman Scott https://www.davidmeermanscott.com/books/the-new-rules-of-marketing-and-pr  The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley https://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-s/dp/0061452068  Twitter Blue https://help.twitter.com/en/using-twitter/twitter-blue  Thank you for tuning into Marketing Against The Grain! Don't forget to hit subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts (so you never miss an episode)! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/marketing-against-the-grain/id1616700934  If you love this show, please leave us a 5-Star Review https://link.chtbl.com/h9_sjBKH and share your favorite episodes with friends. We really appreciate your support. Links: Kipp Bodnar, https://twitter.com/kippbodnar  Kieran Flanagan, https://twitter.com/searchbrat ‘Marketing Against The Grain' is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by The HubSpot Podcast Network // Produced by Darren Clarke.

My Book Club series isn't dead! These are the juiciest tidbits from William Zinsser's On Writing Well, a book that's always on my list of recommended books on writing. “Can you recommend a book for…?” “What are you reading right now?” “What are your favorite books?” I get asked those types of questions a lot and, as an avid reader and all-around bibliophile, I'm always happy to oblige. I also like to encourage people to read as much as possible because knowledge benefits you much like compound interest. The more you learn, the more you know; the more you know, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more opportunities you have to succeed. On the flip side, I also believe there's little hope for people who aren't perpetual learners. Life is overwhelmingly complex and chaotic, and it slowly suffocates and devours the lazy and ignorant. So, if you're a bookworm on the lookout for good reads, or if you'd like to get into the habit of reading, this book club for you. The idea here is simple: Every month, I'll share a book that I've particularly liked, why I liked it, and several of my key takeaways from it. I'll also keep things short and sweet so you can quickly decide whether the book is likely to be up your alley or not. Alright, let's get to the takeaways. Timestamps: 0:00 - Please leave a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to subscribe! 4:28 - Triumph Male & Female are 25% off this week only! Go to buylegion.com/triumph and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% on anything else you order or get double reward points! Mentioned on the Show: Triumph Male & Female are 25% off this week only! Go to buylegion.com/triumph and use coupon code MUSCLE to save 20% on anything else you order or get double reward points!

In this episode I share my February, March & April 2022 Writing stats.  I share a writing tip that I picked up along the way and I tell you about what I've been reading.  I also read and reflect on a free-writing piece, which can be found at: spuntoday.com/freewriting.    The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope.  Give it a whirl.      Twitter: https://twitter.com/spuntoday  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spuntoday/  Website: http://www.spuntoday.com/home  Newsletter: http://www.spuntoday.com/subscribe      Links referenced in this episode:     Derek Sivers notes On Writing Well by William Zinsser https://sive.rs/book/OnWritingWell   The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. (Buy Here)   1984 by George Orwell (Buy Here)   Video SparkNotes: Orwell's 1984 Summary: https://youtu.be/h9JIKngJnCU   Free-Write Post: Levels of Reality - https://www.spuntoday.com/freewriting/levelsofreality   Check out my Books: Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way   & FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale  http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book & Paperback are now available).    Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft.  I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/      Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F    Shop on iTunes using this link, to support the Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?genreId=38&id=27820&popId=42&uo=10    Shop at the Spun Today store for Mugs, T-Shirts and more: https://viralstyle.com/store/spuntoday/tonyortiz    Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com    Spun Today Logo by: https://www.naveendhanalak.com/     Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk    Listen on: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Google Podcasts | YouTube | Website 

Neste podcast, entrevistamos Cris Camargo, CEO do IAB Brasil. Ela acabou de voltar de um evento nos Estados Unidos, reunindo os 45 IABs do mundo, para alinhar as grandes questões que a publicidade digital enfrenta no momento. Na conversa, Rodrigo Ghedin e Jacqueline Lafloufa questionam Cris a respeito de cookies de terceiros, consentimento na coleta de dados, relações com a Big Tech, influenciadores digitais e outras questões pertinentes da área. Indicações culturais Cris: Os livros Fundações, associações e entidades de interesse social [Amazon, editora]1, de José Eduardo Sabo Paes, publicado pela Forense; Jogos finitos e infinitos [Amazon]1, de James P. Carse, publicado pela Nova Era; A riqueza na base da pirâmide [Amazon]1, de C. K . Prahalad, publicado pela Bookman; e Planejamento Circunstancial [Amazon]1, de Maria Cecília Medeiros de Farias Kother, publicado pela EdiPUCRS. Jacque: O livro Não aguento mais não aguentar mais [Amazon, Magalu, editora]1, de Anne Helen Petersen, publicado pela HarperCollins Brasil. Ghedin: O livro Como escrever bem [Amazon, editora]1, de William Zinsser, publicado pela Fósforo2. Recados Quer mandar seu alô para nós? Escreva para podcast@manualdousuario.net. Gosta do podcast? Toque aqui e torne-se um(a) apoiador(a). A partir do plano II (R$ 16/mês), você ganha o direito de acompanhar as gravações do podcast ao vivo, incluindo um animado bate-papo pós-gravação, além de outros mimos. O Guia Prático é editado pelo estúdio Tumpats. Link citados na conversa IAB ALM 2022. Ao comprar por estes links, o Manual do Usuário recebe uma pequena comissão das lojas. O preço final para você não muda. ↩ A cópia que li foi gentilmente cedida pela editora. ↩

“Don't try to visualize the great mass audience. There is no such audience - every reader is a different person.” - William Zinsser. Revisiting my "laser beam vs. spotlight" theory of your book's target reader. Or... Laser theory 2.0. Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

Books play an important role in building our competence. But there are so many books. If you go to Amazon and search on any domain, you will get thousands of books. Which one read?Wouldn't some kind of classification help?Elon Musk said we should view knowledge as a semantic tree. We should first understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before we get to the leaves, which are details.Wouldn't you say it is a great metaphor for classifying books?Going by what Elon Musk said, we can classify books into three categories:- Trunk books- Branch books- Leaf booksTrunk books are those that explain the fundamentals of a domain.Ram Charan's What the CEO wants you to know, Steven Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and William Zinsser's On Writing Well are all trunk books.The content of the books remain relevant for decades. So you should probably buy the books in physical form and read and re-read them.Next are branch books.They deal with one area of the field. I talked about William Zinsser's book - On Writing Well. Whether you are writing novel or a business email the principles are applicable. But Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots is specific to fiction writing.There is a book called "Finance for non-finance managers." It doesn't talk about entire finance field, nor about management. It teaches corporate finance to manager. It is a typical branch book.Branch books also remain relevant for many years. So probably you should get them in physical format too.The last ones are the leaf books. A leaf book teaches you a specific skill or a trend. Say Excel 2019 or membership economy. Leaf books teach you all you need to know about an emerging trend. But to build a successful venture out of the trend, you still need trunk and branch knowledge.Leaf books are transient. So it doesn't make sense to buy them. Better to read them through a subscription service like Scribd. Or if you want to support the author, buy as an e-book.You gain from all three types of books - the trunk, the branch, and leaf books.It is possible to start with a leaf book and go down the journey into building trunk knowledge. You might begin with Excel 2019. Because of early success with it, you might become interested in data visualization in Excel and then onto data modeling using it.Even leaf books give you short-term gains. You need to be cautious because you could chase one shiny object after another, never building a strong foundation to a lasting success.If you aspire to stay successful, you should lay a strong foundation on solid principles. Only trunk and branch books teach you those rock-solid principles.Do you agree with this classification?If you liked the episode, hit the subscribe and like buttons. And share with at least one friend.Connect with me: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jjude Website: https://jjude.com/ Newsletter: https://jjude.com/subscribe LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjude/ Email: podcast@jjude.com Executive Coaching Program: https://gravitaswins.com Thank you for listening. If you enjoy the podcast, would you please leave a short review on Apple podcast? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in finding this podcast. And it boosts my spirits.

This week I read a book called, ‘On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction' by William Zinsser. It's the best book I've read all year. He says there are four principles of writing well: “Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.” Whether you're writing your next email, blog post, or Instagram caption, here are four helpful rules to keep in mind.Put your name on the waitlist for Personal Brand Accelerator, enrollment opens in two weeks! Our signature framework will equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to build your personal brand and create highly-compelling content. Never again will you have to suffer from imposter syndrome or wonder what to post online. You are special. There is a reason you are here. You have something important to say, and others want to hear it.Get a One Week Free Trial at Carr Workplaces

Are you one of many millions of people who say they'd like to write a book but never get it started or worse, never get it finished? Be honest.If you're a speaker or would like to be a paid speaker, having a book that relates to your speaking topics can make all the difference and might even enable you to demand higher fees for your speeches and events. It regularly gets said that having a book is the best business card and my guest Léandre Larouche of Trivium Writing is an expert in helping people conceive, start, write and publish their books.Léandre shares the best publishing strategiesHow to get your book finishedHow long your book should beHow to overcome the things that trip up most writersHow to bring your emotion to the pages instead of the processHow to beat writing procrastination and more...You can find out more about Léandre's book coaching at Trivium Writing and you can get Léandre's free training here and his book recommendations were Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr and On Writing Wel, by William Zinsser.If you'd like to connect with Léandre, here are his socials:FacebookInstagramLinkedInTwitterWe had a great chat and I hope you enjoy the show. If you find it useful, please let us know. This show relies on listeners like you to share the show and help us grow so we can keep bringing you great guests and great content. Please consider sharing episodes you enjoy with your social network and following the show on social media.Please consider supporting the show by buying me a coffee, joining my VIP gang or sponsoring the show, all available here: https://speakinginfluence.supercast.tech/ Your support means the world to me and means I can keep making the show and making it better. Much love, JohnnyWith the amount of screen-time we have these days, it's a good idea to think about protecting your eyes. Baxter Blue glasses can filter out up to 80% of the blue light we get from our screens, easing eye strain and improving sleep. Baxter Blue are available in prescription strength and they give a pair of reading glasses to a person in need every time someone buys a pair. Get 10% off as a listener to this show https://baxterblueglasses.pxf.io/c/2544961/1031264/11471

On Writing Well by William Zinsser (1922-2015) is one of the best books on nonfiction writing. In 300 pages, it goes over writing principles, methods, forms, and attitudes. Zinsser was a master of writing, and one of the people who taught writing with gusto. He leaves an immense legacy, having influenced an entire generation of writers. In this episode, I read some excerpts from the “Principles” section in On Writing Well to give you an idea of the golden pieces of advice you'll find in this book. You can get your copy of On Writing Well here.Join The Word Leader Facebook Community to learn more about writing, connect with like-minded fellows, and get support in your writing journey.

“Examine every word you put on paper. You'll find a surprising number that don't serve any purpose.” ― William Zinsser. For this week's "Friday Fact" episode, interesting data about adverb use in books that have withstood the test of time - and so much more! And as always, a learning question so you can apply the lesson to YOUR writing. Data packed article mentioned in today's episode: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/one-writer-used-statistics-reveal-secrets-what-makes-great-writing-180962515/ Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

An all NEW Sunday Story Time with memoir writing tips from a writing master, William Zinsser. As always, the excerpt is followed by a way you can apply it to your writing. Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

“Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be confused. Be tired. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.” ― William Zinsser. 3 tips to strengthen your nonfiction storytelling skills, especially for memoir authors! Join the author conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors/ Learn more about YDWH and catch up on old episodes: www.yourdailywritinghabit.com

Some valuable memoir writing lessons in today's Sunday Story Time and, some ways I can help you write your book that you might not be aware of. Check out my Writers Club Live group program - affordable access to teaching, accountability, and coaching by me: https://christine-ink.com/wcl/ Join the author conversation in Ink Authors: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inkauthors Today's book - Writing About Your Life by William Zinsser: https://amzn.to/2KrHjqm

This week the Buddies discuss their experiences moving, the importance of not living in your head, and what it means to have pride. Share with a friend!Recommendations: Man From UNCLE stories (1960's magazines/books), Jay Foreman (Youtube Channel), On Writing Well (book by William Zinsser)

Is it possible to learn a method that will help you get published in high-impact journals? And is there such a thing as a writer’s block? In this first episode of Season 3 of Science on surfaces we talk to Dr Anna Clemens, Scientific writing coach & editor, about the challenges of scientific writing. Dr. Clemens has a PhD in Chemistry and she is also a journalist. In her company “Scientists Who Write”, she helps scientists to improve their writing skills, to write more efficiently, and to get published in high-impact journals. In this episode, we really get to the bottom of the writing process and we get to reveal all the secrets of how to methodically, step-by-step, write a successful manuscript. Dr. Clemens starts by talking about the core of a good paper, which is also the key to success - the storytelling framework. She then guides us through the five step-process that will make sure all the bits and pieces are in place and that they all fit nicely together within the storytelling framework. Also, as we discussing the challenges of scientific writing, we of course had to bring up the phenomenon of the writer’s block – this unwelcome nuisance that most of us have experienced at one point or another in our lives, and which simply makes it impossible to get any words down on paper. Of course, Dr Clemens has reflected on this topic and shares her thoughts on how to address it.Thanks for listening! If you are interested in surface science and related topics, you should also check out our blog - the Surface Science blog Episode linksBooks discussed in the episode Deep work, Cal Newport: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-workOn Writing Well, William Zinsser: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53343.On_Writing_WellWriting Science, Joshua Schimel: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13122323-writing-scienceGet in touch with Dr Clemens Website: https://www.annaclemens.com/Blog: https://www.annaclemens.com/blog-overview (or navigate to Blog button) Work with Anna: https://www.annaclemens.com/work-with-me (or navigate to "Get Writing Support" button) Twitter: @scientistswriteLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaclemens/

Walter Bowne reads Zinsser's useful essay about how to "cut the fat" from writing.

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Bopha Phorn (@bophaphorn) tells of hunting down a Russian pedophile and fearing for her life as she reported on deforestation in Cambodia. The International Women’s Media Foundation has honored her brave reporting with its Courage in Journalism Award. Bopha now reports for Voice of America’s Khmer language edition, a rare source of unrestricted news as Cambodia increasingly stifles press freedoms. Countries featured: Cambodia, USA Publications featured: Cambodia Daily, Asian Correspondent, Associated Press, ABC News, Voice of America, Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) Bopha discusses how seeing a movie at a pagoda as a child inspired her to be a journalist (5:42), how a string of unlikely connections led to her first internship at German wire service DPA (13:18), starting at the Cambodia Daily and grappling with the problems it created with her family (20:47), the harrowing story that led her to receive the IWMF's Courage in Journalism Award (32:44), moving to the U.S. to study, work for the AP and as a science journalist for ABC News (39:48), VOA's role in an increasingly restricted media environment (46:55), her "story that got away" about a Cambodian-American fraud scheme (50:34), her story on hunting down a Russian pedophile in Cambodia (53:21) and finally the lightning round (1:03:31).   Here are links to some of the things we talk about:  Bopha’s english language work for VOA - https://bit.ly/3fFOR2f Video of Bopha accepting the IWMF Courage in Journalism award - https://bit.ly/3kkmcDv Bopha’s story tracking down Russian pedophile - https://bit.ly/3gFGIwb Her story on the pedophile’s arrest - https://bit.ly/31C6tqC Her story on the larger problem of pedophelia in Cambodia - https://bit.ly/30Gr91z Rachel Aviv at The New Yorker - https://bit.ly/31qNMWM Refinery29 video "The Dark Secret Behind Your Favorite Makeup Products" - https://bit.ly/3fF4Z3W Associated Press story “One meal a day: Yemeni mothers try to feed their families” - https://bit.ly/2DBcSud On Writing Well by William Zinsser - https://bit.ly/3gRM0EA   Follow us on Twitter @foreignpod or on Facebook at facebook.com/foreignpod Music: LoveChances (makaihbeats.net) by Makaih Beats From: freemusicarchive.org CC BY NC

Coronavirus has changed our lives for the foreseeable future. With social distancing a reality, and in a work-from-home world, we're all experiencing "found time." For those of you, and there are many, who aspire to be writers, perhaps now is the time to take your first steps.  In this Podcast, the first of our solo series, I'll share with you steps you can take today to move forward with your writing.  Here are links to the topic expert and books I recommend; - Tune into Jenna Moreci's excellent video series for authors on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jenna+moreci - In my humble opinion, there is no better study on the economy and efficiency of word use than "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-William-Zinsser-1985-04-30/dp/B01JXOFNHI/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1584473270&sr=8-6 - For a brilliant and thorough treatise on fiction writing, try "Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein - https://www.amazon.com/Stein-Writing-Successful-Techniques-Strategies/dp/0312254210/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=stein+on+writing&qid=1584473476&s=books&sr=1-2 Hope you enjoy! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dointhething/message

Welcome back to The Literary Life Podcast and our discussion of the Art of Writing! If you missed last week’s discussion, you can go back and catch up here. We start off today with Angelina Stanford asking Karen Glass about the principles of good writing. Karen talks a bit about William Zinsser and his ideas about writing and education. Our hosts give some practical encouragement to the average homeschool parent listening to this conversation. Cindy highlights the value of waiting to teach specific skills until students are old enough to process them. Angelina, Cindy and Karen talk about narration in the Charlotte Mason education, its benefits and its challenges. They emphasize the importance of guiding children to think well instead of just learning mechanical skills devoid of context. Angelina brings up the sensitive topic of assessing and grading writing. Karen leaves us with a challenge to narrate this podcast discussion in writing in order to apply what you've learned!  Loving In Truth by Sir Philip Sydney Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,— I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe, Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain, Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburned brain. But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay: Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows, And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way. Thus great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: “Fool,” said my Muse to me, “look in thy heart and write.” Book List: Writing to Learn by William Zinsser Support The Literary Life: Become a patron of The Literary Life podcast as part of the “Friends and Fellows Community” on Patreon, and get some amazing bonus content! Thanks for your support! Connect with Us: You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/ Find Cindy at https://cindyrollins.net, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy’s own Patreon page also! Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let’s get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB

Unboxing del pacco Amazon dei quattro libri acquistati a Febbraio 2020Link Amazon:I miti nordici - Gianna Chiesa Isnardi: https://amzn.to/2SOqabREdda - Sturluson Snorri: https://amzn.to/39TtyrlOn writing. Autobiografia di un mestiere - Stephen King: https://amzn.to/37MpFTPScrivere bene - William Zinsser: https://amzn.to/32fmG57Sito Libri: https://www.qualilibrileggere.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/qualilibrileggere/Sito film-games-tech: https://www.qantkodarwin.com/Sito professione: https://www.danilotorresi.it/Video: https://youtu.be/HXzkKzcdfdACanale Telegram: https://t.me/DaniloTorresiStudioper contribuire: https://www.paypal.me/GeometraTorresiLa mia attrezzatura foto e video:Sony Alpha 7M3: (https://amzn.to/2HfAa5H)Obiettivo Sony FE 24-105 F4 G OSS: (https://amzn.to/2HeCldx)Sony Alpha 5100: (http://amzn.to/2BOLiXD) Obiettivo Sigma 30 mm f2.8 AF DN E-Mount: (http://amzn.to/2FlgSL5) Batterie e Caricabatterie per Sony (http://amzn.to/2ywluKl) Custodia in pelle per Sony A5100 (http://amzn.to/2yvPMNg) Gorillapod: (https://amzn.to/2HixxEk)Treppiede Manfrotto: (https://amzn.to/2kDeird) Tascam DR-05 – Registratore Audio: (http://amzn.to/2pcIhsA) Antivento in nylon Movo: (http://amzn.to/2Dui3pK) HAMA mini treppiede: (http://amzn.to/2IraLaf) Neewer 700W Softbox: (http://amzn.to/2FLEBEm) Maxtor HDD 4TB: (http://amzn.to/2HB4Tdf) Antivento per microfoni (http://amzn.to/2CqfSnI )#Libri #Unboxing #Febbraio2020 #DaniloTorresi

Welcome to Paperback by The Open Library Project- Ep. 35 We have as our guest today, Himali Kothari, creative editor of a performance initiative Readings in the Shed. In the first half of the episode we discuss Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn . Himali shares her experiences as a writer, ways to improve writing and her creative writing workshops. In the second half we discuss Face to Face by Ved Mehta, Strange Pilgrims by Gabriel García Márquez, The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. We also discuss Getting the Words Right by Theodore Cheney, On Writing Well by William Zinsser - an ideal for aspiring writers who want to hone their craft. You can find about Himali Kothari's organization Readings in the Shed on: https://twitter.com/ReadShed You can find more details about The Open Library Project on www.openlibrary.in You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: https://ivm.today/android or iOS: https://ivm.today/ios, or any other podcast app. You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/

Animalz is quickly gaining a reputation for being one of the top content marketing shops in the B2B SaaS world. Here's how they approach content creation... This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, Animalz marketing director Jimmy Daly dives into his process for creating content for Animalz. As the guy in charge of both marketing AND sales for Animalz, he splits his time between marketing/lead generation and closing deals. When he's on sales calls, Jimmy pays close attention to the questions he gets from prospects and turns each of those questions into an article on the Animalz blog. This process has netted strong sales results that the company can track directly back to the individual articles Jimmy creates. This week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live,  the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford, Connecticut, and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with special guests including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel. Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code "SUCCESS."   Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live Some highlights from my conversation with Jimmy include: Jimmy is responsible for marketing and sales at Animalz, which is a B2B content marketing agency. Because Jimmy is involved in both sales and marketing, he is constantly listening on sales calls for the questions prospects are asking and turning them into articles on the Animalz blog. Jimmy thinks that a lot of marketers do buyer personas wrong and focus too much on creating fictional characters. In his case, he thinks of his audience on a spectrum from tactical to strategic. If he's writing to a tactical audience, that person needs instructions on how to do something. If he's writing to a strategic audience, they need a framework for how to make a big decision.  By focusing on creating content about the questions he gets in the sales process, Jimmy can in some cases attribute three or four deals worth $50,000 to $75,000 to an individual blog article. When new articles are published, Animalz emails them out to its newsletter distribution list, but Jimmy is also a fan of using Tweet storms to gain traction and visibility online. Another form of content that Animalz has seen get strong results for its clients is thought leadership articles. They define thought leadership as essays that express a strong, original point of view. The average new article on the Animalz website gets 3,000 to 5,000 views in the first two months after publication.  Resources from this episode: Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS" Connect with Jimmy on LinkedIn Follow Jimmy on Twitter Check out the Animalz website Listen to the podcast to learn more about how Jimmy leverages the conversations he's having with sales prospects to build a more effective marketing strategy for Animalz. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm Kathleen Booth and I'm your host. And today my guest is Jimmy Daley, who's the marketing director at Animalz. Welcome, Jimmy. Jimmy Daly (Guest): Thanks so much, Kathleen. I'm happy to be here. Jimmy and Kathleen recording this episode together . Kathleen: Yeah, I'm excited to have you here because your agency has come up twice on this podcast before. As my loyal listeners know, I always ask my guests who is doing inbound marketing really well, company or individual, and two times now I've had one of my guests say Animalz. I think most recently it was Barron Caster at rev.com. So whenever I hear that sort of pattern happen, I think I need to talk to that person. Jimmy: That's awesome. That makes my day. Kathleen: Yeah, so I'm glad you're here. And for the listeners, can you just talk a little bit about who you are, your background, as well as what Animalz does? About Jimmy Daly and Animalz Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm a longtime B2B content marketer. I've been working in some capacity in content marketing for almost 10 years. I started as a writer, evolved to kind of managing freelancers and other writers, and now as a marketing director at Animalz, I'm responsible for new business. So I'm in charge of marketing the company and then also doing our sales, which has been a very interesting evolution, as I think we'll probably get into a little bit. Jimmy: Animalz is a content marketing agency. Primarily, we work with B2B SaaS companies. We've been around for about four years. We're a distributed team, a fantastic team too, we have some really great people. We work with awesome customers. I feel we've built a model that allows us to hire great people, pay them good salaries, that allows us to create really, really high quality work, which helps us attract fantastic clients. So it's a great system and a really fun place to work. Kathleen: That's great, and obviously, it's contributing to you guys producing great work, because the word on the street is that you're a good agency to work with. Aligning Sales and Marketing Kathleen: One of the things I was fascinated by when you and I first connected is how you talked about, I asked you what was really moving the needle and you talked about some of the ways that you're kind of aligning sales and marketing. Because you kind of are like a one-man sales and marketing team, correct? Jimmy: That is correct, yes. Kathleen: Yeah, and it's funny we talked about- Jimmy: To caveat by saying... Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. It feels unfair to take too much credit for all the amazing business that we get because so much of it is driven by word of mouth. I feel fortunate that in my first role doing sales that we have very low volume requirements, right? We're not like a SaaS company that needs hundreds or thousands of new customers a month. We only need two or three or four for a really fantastic month. Kathleen: Yeah, but it's interesting to me because I think there's a lot of conversations that happen amongst people that work at really large companies about what is the best way to achieve sales and marketing alignment. I think that sometimes the fact that there are just a lot of people involved kind of serves as a barrier to seeing what could be a much simpler and more elegant solution. I liked when you talked about how you address this issue that you could be a larger team doing what you're doing, you just happen to be one guy. It shows how when you're one person and you have to do it all, how you align with yourself. So I want to talk about that a little bit. Jimmy: Yeah, definitely. Well, certainly, it's easier with just one person, right? I'm a writer at heart and so I'm constantly looking for ideas to spark what will be the next blog post for the Animalz blog. Luckily, I get so much of that through our sales process, right? So I spend a lot of time on the phone, meeting potential customers, trying to close deals, onboarding new customers, and that provides me with a lot of fodder for blog posts. Jimmy: We have a very, very lean process where basically I am just constantly observing the things that I'm hearing in those sales calls, and then documenting them on the blog in one form or another. So if I hear two or three different people on a sales call mention a similar thing, then that gets jotted down. That goes in the editorial calendar. There's probably two dozen of those in the editorial calendar right now that have not even been written yet. Actually, one thing I've learned very related to this is that most B2B SaaS companies have very, very similar problems. Because we're so specialized in that niche, it allows us to by speaking to one company, we can speak to almost all of them. Kathleen: Yeah, that's a great point, and it really hits home, because one of the owners of IMPACT is a man named Marcus Sheridan, who has literally written a book called, They Ask You Answer. He wasn't a marketer by trade, he was a pool guy. He had a pool company, and he just started listening to the questions he was getting from customers because he was out on sales calls all the time, and then answering them. The answers that he wrote in the form of blog posts generated a tremendous amount of traffic, leads, and then eventually sales for the company. Now of course he's a marketing speaker and an author. But what I love about that approach and what I so appreciate is it's so elegant in its simplicity. I often say, at least in the case of Marcus, it took a non-marketer to figure out that that was a thing. Jimmy: Yeah, that's so interesting. Kathleen: It's common sense, right? It's solving for the people. If one person has a question, odds are there's like hundreds, if not thousands of them, out there with the same question. They just haven't happened to reach out to you directly to ask it yet. Jimmy: Absolutely. Now that I've had this experience of experiencing the full circle of someone finding a blog post, reaching out, talking through problems, realizing there's another blog post to be written that sparked someone else to reach out, et cetera, et cetera, I, thinking back on previous jobs, realized that I hadn't spent hardly any time talking to customers. I was just so focused on optimizing a piece of content for search or doing keyword research or trying to build links to a piece of content that I overlooked this very, very obvious fact that you have to actually talk to the people that you're trying to reach so that you can have a very nuanced understanding of their problems. Do You Really Need Buyer Personas? Kathleen: Yeah, and it's funny that you say this because I also have had long conversations with Marcus about the concept of buyer personas, because he actually says you don't need buyer personas in marketing, which is somewhat controversial because I feel like go to any marketing conference, read any marketing book, talk to any marketing expert, and then I'll be like start with buyer personas, right? Jimmy: Right, right. Kathleen: His point is, it's kind of related to what you're saying, which is that instead of spending a month doing all this research and interviews and this and that, and then creating this like fictional profile, if you spend that same month and just sit down and catalog 50 questions and write 50 answers out in the form of blogs, you'll be so much further ahead than you would have been had you done a month's worth of audience persona research, which I think is true. Jimmy: Fascinating. Kathleen: That's sort of what you're saying. Like, no staged interview can substitute for an actual live sales conversation. Jimmy: No, it's so true, and I would agree with Marcus that I'm personally not a huge believer in buyer personas. I'm sure in some cases they're executed in a way that's really useful. Typically, the way that we see them executed is like, Software Sally is a mid-career manager and she has this problem. It's so fictional that it's hard to take this fake demographic and turn it into a marketing campaign. Jimmy: We actually think about that in a very different way, which is so like when I'm writing a post for the Animalz blog, I'm thinking of the reader on a spectrum from tactical to strategic. If we're writing to a tactical audience, that person needs instructions on how to do something. If we're writing to a strategic audience, they need a framework for how to make a big decision. And a lot of little steps is actually not very helpful. They need more of an overarching principle. There's kind of a mix of those different things, but I found that to be a much more effective way to think through, okay, we have this topic, there's this tactical way we could go about it, but if we want to reach this more decision maker level person, we have to kind of take a step back and try to understand the higher level problem and address it from that angle instead. Kathleen: No, I always say we get caught up in this term buyer persona, and as you say, people tend to create these somewhat useless but entertaining profiles of people who don't exist. What we really need is buyer persona, it's good audience research, which essentially is what you're doing when you have these conversations with people and catalog what they're saying. Jimmy's Process For Capturing Content Ideas Kathleen: So let's talk through an actual example. You're having these sales calls, you're getting these questions. Walk me through your process. Is it simply you just make a note and you say, "Oh, I better go write a blog on this?" Or do you have a structured process around it? Jimmy: I wish I could say I had a very structured process. I don't though. I think over years of doing content marketing, I'm tuned in, right? I'm observing very carefully what people are saying, how they're saying it. Are they frustrated? Are they excited? I sort of pull those threads as I uncover that we're onto something. Jimmy: A very good example of this happened, I don't know, probably almost a year ago now, where I got on three sales calls in a week and three different people told me they had this exact same problem, which was that their organic traffic was actually declining over the last three months or so. I thought that was very interesting, and in each case it had prompted them to do some research about why their traffic was declining, reach out to some friends to try to help them figure out what was going on, and then that prompted them to reach out to an agency to potentially help them. Jimmy: To me, that was like the most obvious example because it happened in such a short period of time. But we wrote a blog post about that, about why organic traffic declines and things you might do to reverse that trend. That post has been hugely successful for us. It turns out a lot of people have that problem. Just through our very, very lean process, we made sure that it was documented, published, distributed, and I could attribute probably three to four more deals that were closed, at least in part, as a result of that exact article, and those deals are good for, $50,000 to $75,000 a year each. Kathleen: Wow. Jimmy: So, it's a easy, simple process with a big payoff. Kathleen: I love hearing that kind of data because you always have people who say, "I don't have time to blog," but I don't know anybody who's billable rate is as high as $50,000 an hour, or let's say it took you four hours, $10,000 an hour. Even some of the best attorneys I know don't charge that much. So, there's a good case there for spending the time. Jimmy: Absolutely. Animalz Content Promotion Strategy Kathleen: Now you've mentioned you write it, you edit it, you optimize it, and then you distribute it. Can you just talk through a little bit, I mean, is this a case of you write these blogs, you put them on your site, and it's, if you build it, they will come? Or is your content distribution or promotion strategy somewhat responsible for the results you're getting? Jimmy: That's a good question. So a few things happen. I should again caveat this by saying, as an agency, we have very low volume requirements. Our blog frankly doesn't get all that much traffic, doesn't need a ton of traffic in order to really help the business. Two to three new deals in a month is a fantastic month. So I actually don't go crazy distributing content. Jimmy: We have an email list with a few thousand people on it. They get everything. I have a personal email newsletter with about 5,000 people on it. I include our stuff in that. We have a really strong network of customers that we will sometimes ask to help us amplify content. Then other than that, I'm a fan of tweet storms. Whenever I publish something new, tweet storms have been a really useful way for us to get stuff out. Then I ask our team to help re-tweeting or sharing stuff. So again, it's simple. The reach is not enormous, by any means, but it's big enough that it works. Kathleen: That's great. Have you done this with clients or have you advised clients on doing this and have they seen similar results? Jimmy: Hmm, that's a great question. In a few cases, yes. In some cases, it just doesn't quite work. So like for example, many of our customers are B2B SaaS. Their primary objective is growing organic search traffic. So we're doing the things you would probably expect. We do a lot of keyword research, we write really long informative posts, we optimize them for search, et cetera, et cetera. That provides a certain amount of leverage in their distribution, because over time they can get a lot more traffic out of organic search than we'll ever be able to get for them doing one-off promotional things. Jimmy: For some of our other customers though, there's this bucket of customers that we work with, and we produce thought leadership content for them. That type of content also works very well using the same very simple mechanisms that we use for our own content, because it's more about making an impact, sharing an idea, and less about the more traditional content distribution where it's about basically page views. Kathleen: Now can you define what you mean by thought leadership content? Because I know people use that term in different ways. Jimmy: It's funny you ask that. I have a half-written blog posts about this exact topic, because you're right, people do think of it in very different ways. The way that it typically manifested Animalz, a thought leadership content strategy is built around sort of this idea that we internally call movement first, where the emphasis is really on sharing strong original ideas and that is like the core of the strategy for that type of content. It often looks more like an essay than it does regular content marketing. It often lives on Medium or a different part of the site than the rest of your blog content. Those things don't all have to be true. Jimmy: We do have a couple of cases with customers where we're doing SEO-driven content with thought leadership characteristics. Simply meaning that we've started with a keyword, but then we've taken a very different approach to the style and the tone of that article. I guess ultimately it means different things. To me the thing that it really means is this piece of content is born from a great idea and it is hopefully encapsulated in that article in a very concise way. Kathleen: That's interesting, and I love that you mentioned not all of this content lives on your site. You mentioned Medium, which I'm always curious about Medium. I think it has so much potential, but you can also, if you don't do it right, spend a lot of time with no results. Jimmy: No, totally. I'm actually personally not a huge fan for the problem that you just stated. We have encouraged a couple customers recently to launch personal blogs that are affiliated with the company that they work for, which is a strategy that I'm liking so far. Obviously, there are institutional hurdles to jump over when you do that kind of thing. Kathleen: Right. Jimmy: But owning the platform provides a bunch of advantages that tend to make it worth it. How To Approach Bottom of the Funnel Content Kathleen: Yeah. Going back to this notion of sales and marketing alignment, at a very, very simplistic level, what you're talking about is being very mindful of the questions you're getting in the sales process, and then answering those questions in your articles. I feel like this has the potential to be incredibly powerful, but it also has the potential to be insanely misused by content creators who venture into the territory of being overly self-promotional. In other words, using a sales question as an excuse to write a blog that is all about the company and their products as opposed to bigger picture questions that a prospect has. Can you talk me through, like do you have any personal guardrails around how you handle that type of content, what topics you'll cover, what you won't, and how often you venture into that very, very bottom of the funnel kind of topic area? Jimmy: Wow, that's a really interesting question. I don't know that I have come across a situation yet where the only answer to the question is you should hire Animalz. I mean, certainly I drop mentions in there occasionally, but just as a company we think about this so differently. Jimmy: I'll give you an example. You know our core business is content marketing services. Through this process of closely observing the problems that come up on sales calls and then also the problems that come up with customers, because there's plenty of those too, we're in the very early stages of building out some software solutions to address those problems. I anticipate that in the future, this problem that you bring up will become more top of mind because we're going to have more things to promote, right? There's just so few companies that are interested, willing, and ready to hire an expensive content marketing agency, that hopefully there will be many, many more that would be interested in paying $10 or $50 or $100 a month to use a piece of software that would solve some of these same things. So yeah, that's interesting. I imagine that's something that we'll have to be asking ourselves more closely over the next six to nine months. Kathleen: Yeah, I think a good example is a question that everybody gets at some point in a sales process is how much does it cost, right? That's a very different question than what do I do if my organic traffic is declining? How much does it cost in the wrong hands could be answered in the form of an article. That's basically like a substitute for your pricing page. In the right hands, it's an opening point for discussion around the factors that impact cost. Jimmy: Got it, okay. I think I better understand your question now, so that's a great point. In general, I would like for us to be as transparent as absolutely possible. Interestingly, we find that many of our customers do not have strong Google Analytic skills. So as I write the post about how to diagnose problems with the organic traffic, I just explain exactly the steps I would take in Google Analytics to start doing the research. We're happy to tell you exactly what those steps would be. Then the hope is, and often the reality as well, is that that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's one of so many possible things going on that they ultimately possibly could need help with. It sounds Cliche, but we established that little bit of trust early on, so hopefully they'll think of us when the time actually does come. Kathleen: Yeah, it sounds like your focus is much more on educational topics than it is on, I would call them sort of sales topics, but it's really that bottom of the funnel, those types of questions, which I like. So you're answering questions that are educating the audience and making them smarter, not so much answering questions that help them choose to pull the trigger and purchase from you. Jimmy: That is correct, yes. Kathleen: Yeah, there's an important distinction there. Jimmy: Definitely. The Results Kathleen: Can you tell me a little bit about, do you have any sort of data around like the traction? Do these posts tend to get, percentage-wise, more traffic than some of your other articles? You mentioned that some of them have led to deals. What have the results been from using this approach? Jimmy: That's an interesting question. I can tell you, as I mentioned, none of the posts on our blog are what I call whales. None of them are just like outliers getting tons and tons of traffic. For the most part, they all are, I don't know, they probably 3,000 to 5,000 visits in their first two or three months of publication, which is just okay, but it's not- Kathleen: Which is great, if that's the right 3,000 to 5,000 people, that's all that matters. Jimmy: Totally, yes. Kathleen: You could have 300 to 500 people, and if they were the 300 to 500 people that are looking for an agency, then that's all you would need. Jimmy: Yes, totally. The reason I'm having a little trouble giving you a really specific quantitative answer on how effective they are is because something I've noticed in our sales process is that almost no one reaches out as the result of one interaction or mention of Animalz. It's always two. So they might say, "I heard about you guys at a conference, or a friend mentioned they liked a blog post by you guys, or I'm in this Slack group and someone shared an article that you guys had written." Then sometime later on, they were on Twitter or they were searching for something, and they came across a second piece. It seems to be the power of those two things together that prompts people to reach out, but it's very difficult to track what what those two things are, because usually one of them, or in many cases, one of those things has happened offline and we're not going to be able to get data on it. Kathleen: It's funny that you mentioned that because as I mentioned at the beginning, I reached out to you after hearing your name twice. Jimmy: Yes. Kathleen: I think I'm proof in the pudding. Jimmy: Totally, yes. I think this is probably a little different than the way that most SaaS companies operate. So agencies are able to grow by word of mouth in a way that SaaS companies simply are not. I know I keep throwing out caveats, but we are writing about SaaS content marketing all the time, but we are not a SaaS company. Therefore a lot of it is like do as we say, not necessarily as we do. Kathleen: Interesting. Well, I love that. I love the process. Any other guidelines for somebody listening around how to write those articles or how to make them especially useful? Jimmy: Get feedback on them from people that don't work at the same company that you do. So that's something that I do. I don't do it as often now, but I did it quite a bit when we were initially getting the Animalz blog rolling. I just reached out to friends in the content marketing world and asked them to review drafts of our posts, and I got a lot of really good feedback on that. Kathleen: I love that. That is so simple. It's so simple and something that so few people do. Jimmy: Yes, totally. You can just get better feedback if you don't talk to the person you're asking to review it on a daily basis. I'm part of a couple of Slack groups full of content marketers, a Facebook group full of content marketers. Those have been really amazing resources for getting good feedback on work. I discover things in those feedback sessions that I can't imagine I ever would have figured out any other way. Kathleen: Oh, can you share any of those Slack or Facebook groups, the names of them? Jimmy: Yeah, so there are a couple. So there's a Facebook group I'm in that I believe is just called Content Marketers with an exclamation point. Very good group. I started a Slack group of my own called Content Marketing Career Growth. There is another one I'm in. It is called Content in UX, which is also very good. It's a huge one. There's a ton of people in there, a really, really good community. I'm sure there are others. If you'd like, I can send you links. Kathleen: Yes, please do, and I will include them in the show notes. That would be great. Jimmy: Cool. Kathleen: Yeah, I found similarly some of those groups to be incredibly helpful. I mean, we have our own group which has IMPACT Elite, that's a Facebook group, and then I am a member of Online Geniuses, which is huge. It's all different marketing disciplines. Then I think I might be a member of Content in UX. Sometimes there's so many groups I lose track. Jimmy: Yes, it is easy to lose track. Kathleen: But that's a great tip, to just go outside. If you were talking to a company that had a larger sales and marketing team, any thoughts or advice or insights for bigger company teams on how to operationalize a process like this? Jimmy: Yes, so the first thing, in a perfect world, this would be easy to do, I would have content marketers get on sales calls and I would have sales people write blog posts. Not as a way to test them, but just to have them operate in the other person's world every now and then. I feel like it's trendy, especially for SaaS companies to say every one of the company does customer support twice a year or something like that. I think that if you are going to be doing marketing to support a sales team or you're doing sales that is hopefully the result of high quality marketing, you have to be in the other person's shoes at least every now and then. I would definitely recommend that. Jimmy: Also, there was a thing, I spent a year working at QuickBooks doing content marketing for them, and they had a program set up where once a week they would have a real live QuickBooks customer in the office. They were there for the day and people from around the company could book time with them and ask them questions. So you knew that every Thursday from 9:00 to 4:00 a customer would be there and you could schedule time with them and you could ask them whatever questions you want about how they found QuickBooks, what did they find useful, what do they not, et cetera, et cetera. Jimmy: I think for companies of a certain size, assuming you have enough customers to support a program like that, it's a great idea because we would find that in our weekly content meetings, our team would get together and questions would come up that we just didn't have answers to. Then somebody would say, "Oh, well, why don't we just ask the customer on Thursday?" So we'd book time and we would do that. Kathleen: That is so nice to be able to do that. Jimmy: Yeah, it was fantastic. Maybe it's once a quarter, maybe it's twice a year for smaller companies, but formalizing the process is important. Kathleen: I love that. I wish that I could have a customer in the office every week, but alas, we are not in that position at this point. But no, that is a great point about switching roles and sitting in the other seat, because I do think sometimes there's this very natural tension that builds up between sales and marketing, I think you and I talked about this, I used to be on our sales team. Now I'm on our marketing team and I have much more empathy for our salespeople than I think I would have otherwise. Jimmy: Yes. Kathleen's Two Questions Kathleen: Yeah, it helps a lot. Well, shifting gears, I'm curious to hear now that I told you several people have mentioned Animalz name when I've asked this question, I'm curious to know who you're going to talk about. So company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now? Jimmy: Such a good question. So there's a few that come to mind. Am I allowed to offer more than one? Kathleen: Yeah, go for it. Jimmy: I tend to find that companies that do inbound marketing really well build steam and build a strong reputation over time. So I'm a big fan of not just people who are kind of off my radar today, but who have been there for a couple of years and a few that stand out. One company that I think has just done an incredible job over the past five or six years is Wistia. One, because their branding has evolved from, well, it's still friendly and kind of playful, but it's so refined now. It's tangible. The good vibes are tangible when you visit their site. They write really high quality stuff. Their videos are excellent. I mean, I'm not really a video person, but I find myself on their site all the time because I'm just curious what their marketing team is up to, because there's always something new and a little different going on. So that's one that I would call out. Kathleen: That's a good one. Jimmy: You mentioned Barron Caster from Rev at the beginning of this podcast, and it's funny, I was actually just on a call with him this morning. As I've been exposed to what he and the team over there are doing, I am increasingly impressed. One thing that I like about what they do is that their product marketing is straightforward, obvious, but not overly promotional at all. Jimmy: A good example is they have their product marketing team, and they've tied this into their content strategy as well, their product marketing team has come up with solutions for all the possible entry points to a transcription service, and I find that they've just done it in such a perfect little way. So for example, they built iPhone apps for phone call recording, right? That creates this very easy transcription workflow for journalists or anyone who has to do research or interviews for their job. They did the same thing with a voice recording app. They have a Zoom integration. They've just figured out all the little ways that people might work transcription into their day-to-day, and they've addressed that. Jimmy: I find that type of subtle, very useful product marketing to be inspiring, right? Because they're not hammering you with ads and obnoxious copy. They're just kind of offering you a dozen different ways to build their really, really good product into the work you're already doing. So I love that. Kathleen: Yeah, I would agree. They do a nice job of really tightly aligning marketing and product. Jimmy: Yes, yes, definitely. Kathleen: Well, a second question, digital marketing is changing so quickly, and the number one gripe I hear from marketers is that they have a really hard time keeping up with everything. So how do you personally keep up and stay up to date and educate yourself? Jimmy: I do most of that offline, to be honest. There's a couple of blogs that I keep track of, like Tomasz Tunguz blog I really like, especially now that I work in sales. He talks about sales quite a bit. He also talks about just the SaaS industry, which I find to be increasingly useful information as I spend less time on the ground doing the marketing and more time talking to customers. So that's one. Jimmy: I'm a very loyal reader of Ben Thompson's Stratechery blog. Similar thing, like his really deep dives on business strategy I find to be useful. I feel like that has provided me with a lot of context for conversations that I have with customers. Jimmy: But like I said, I try to do quite a bit offline too. So one really fantastic resource that I read recently was Jim Collins, Good to Great. Kathleen: Yeah, that's a great book. It's such a classic. Jimmy: It's so good. You know, the examples that he uses in there are just timeless. They've stood up so well. Kathleen: Absolutely. Jimmy: So that's one. I have a book on my desk that I keep keep with me all the time, called On Writing Well by William Zinsser, which helps me with the day-to-day writing of blog posts and emails, but also sales proposals now. Whenever I find myself getting stuck on something, I'll open up that book and the answer is always in there. Kathleen: And it's called Unwriting. Jimmy: It's called On Writing Well. Kathleen: Oh, On Writing, got it. Jimmy: Yes. William Zinsser is the author. Kathleen: Great. Oh, lots of new good ones here. I always like when I hear new ones, because this is how I stay up to date is I just ask other people and then follow their lead in my podcast. Jimmy: That's a great idea. How To Connect With Jimmy Kathleen: Well, Jimmy, if somebody wants to learn more about Animalz or wants to reach out and connect with you online, what's the best way for them to do that? Jimmy: Yeah, animalz.co, we have a kind of outdated, not very fancy website, but hopefully the content there is helpful to you. We also have a podcast and you can find all that stuff on there. Kathleen: Animalz with a z, important to know. Jimmy: Yes, Animalz with a z, and then if you'd like to reach out, please do. Probably the best way to do that is Twitter. I spend a lot of time on Twitter, probably too much, but it's just Jimmy_Daly. Yeah, if you ever want to chat content strategy, hit me up. I love chatting about it. Kathleen: Great, well, thank you so much. And if you're listening and you liked what you heard, you learned something new, I would love it if you would give the podcast a five star review on Apple Podcasts. If you know somebody else doing kick-ass inbound marketing work, tweet me at WorkMommyWork, because I would love to interview them. That's it for this week. Thank you so much, Jimmy. Jimmy: Thank you, Kathleen. That was fun.

Jonathan and Russ go back and forth about the fine line between fact and fiction, the fallibility of human memory, and where truth comes from, specifically as these issues pertain to Russ's memoir Struck. Show Notes: This conversation starts with a quotation from Annie Dillard. It comes from the book Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir (edited by William Zinsser). Russ mentioned the "Free Brian Williams" episode of Malcolm Gladwell's podcast Revisionist History. Russ mentioned Jonathan's memoir, "Drunk Mailman." Here's the link. Subscribe to The Habit Weekly newsletter. Find out more about The Habit Membership. Support the show: https://therabbitroom.givingfuel.com/member See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week we’ve caught Wiemer Snijders. A Dutchman with a famous banana, Wiemer is one of the most prominent figures at the forefront of Marketing Sciences. Currently a Partner at The Commercial Works, he recently published Eat Your Greens: Fact-Based Thinking to Improve Your Brand’s Health, which features contributions from 35 of the world’s top marketers, including the likes of Byron Sharp, Mark Ritson and Bob Hoffman. Listen to him talk on how the scientific approach is helping to turn around marketing, the possible root causes of the lack of long-term strategic thinking in the industry, and a whole lot more. ///// Wiemer's Links: Twitter: @wiemersnijders (https://twitter.com/wiemersnijders) Eat Your Greens (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Eat-Your-Greens-Wiemer-Snijders/dp/1789016754/ref=asc_df_1789016754/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310623486223&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2182702425048267567&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1007247&hvtargid=pla-565474847988&psc=1&th=1&psc=1) by Wiemer Snijders The Mind Is Flat (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Flat-Illusion-Mental-Improvised/dp/0241208440/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2YE8R8MJ5W316&keywords=the+mind+is+flat&qid=1560433977&s=books&sprefix=the+mind+is+flat%2Cstripbooks%2C137&sr=1-1) by Nick Chaker Bad Science (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Science-Ben-Goldacre/dp/000728487X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=22F00JXZAZRGE&keywords=bad+science+ben+goldacre&qid=1560434006&s=books&sprefix=bad+science%2Cstripbooks%2C137&sr=1-1) by Ben Goldacre It’s A Little More Complicated Than That (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Think-Youll-Find-More-Complicated/dp/0007505140/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) by Ben Goldacre How To Lie With Statistics (https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Lie-Statistics-Penguin-Business/dp/0140136290/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1P3L1OS1GD21O&keywords=how+to+lie+with+statistics+by+darrell+huff&qid=1560434023&s=books&sprefix=how+to+lie+with+%2Cstripbooks%2C140&sr=1-1) by Darrell Huff Naked Statistics (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Naked-Statistics-Stripping-Dread-Data/dp/039334777X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=naked+statistics&qid=1560434038&s=books&sr=1-1) by Charles Wheelan Economics Facts And Fallacies (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Economic-Facts-Fallacies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/0465022030/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Economics+Facts+And+Fallacies&qid=1560434057&s=books&sr=1-1) by Thomas Saul Factfulness (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Factfulness-Reasons-Wrong-Things-Better/dp/1473637465/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3PD5CUX13C725&keywords=factfulness+by+hans+rosling&qid=1560434073&s=books&sprefix=Factfulness+by+Hans%2Cstripbooks%2C125&sr=1-1) by Hans Rosyln Progress (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Progress-Reasons-Look-Forward-Future/dp/1786070650/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=progress+by+norberg&qid=1560434090&s=books&sr=1-1) by Johan Norberg The Consuming Instinct (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Consuming-Instinct-Gad-Saad/dp/1616144297/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=The+Consuming+Instinct&qid=1560434108&s=books&sr=1-1) by Gad Saad On Writing Well (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Writing-Well-30th-Anniversary/dp/0060891548/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=On+Writing+Well&qid=1560434130&s=books&sr=1-1) by William Zinsser /////

photo by by Dejan Golić, 2016 Srđan Tunić is an art historian, freelance curator and cultural manager from Belgrade, Serbia, currently living between Serbia and Montenegro. From 2010 till 2011 he worked in The Museum of African Art in Belgrade, as a curatorial associate/program animator in the department of education. Since 2012 he has been working as an independent curator, researcher, writer and project manager. As part of Mediterranean Cultural Innovators Network, he took part in projects such as Trans-Cultural Dialogues. Since 2011 he has been working with Civil Association ARTIKAL, Belgrade, on independent project “About and around curating / Kustosiranje”, an educative and research curatorial program, developed with colleague Andrej Bereta. More recently, together with Ljiljana Radošević, we're working on Street Art Walks Belgrade (STAW BLGRD), popularizing street art and graffiti of Belgrade. Since 2017, he came back to making crafts, inspired by pop culture (fan art), that you can see here. For more info on his professional activities, visit: https://srdjantunic.wordpress.com At the moment he is reading "On writing well" by William Zinsser and just finished with Neil Gaiman's "Norse Mythology." Street Art Walks tour, Belgrade, 2019 Gorbash (The Flights of Dragons), 2018 (starchild’s crafts)

The Writer's Diet—a book and companion website—won't spiff up your prose for you, but it will point you toward the flaws that can make writing dull and stodgy. Helen Sword wrote the book and developed the Writer's Diet Test after noting the uneven quality of writing by students and academicians. A professor with a PhD from Princeton in Comparative Literature, she takes aim at zombie nouns, prepositional podge, waste words, and more. This brief writer's guide is a favorite of mine. Listen to this episode to learn about five common trouble spots in writing, how to spot them in your own prose, and what you can do to fix them. Not everyone has a zombie video to their credit! Links and Stuff (scroll down for a transcript of our interview) HelenSword.com The Writer's Diet website Books by Helen Sword: The Writer's Diet Air & Light & Time & Space Stylish Academic Writing   Other books mentioned: Joseph F. Williams' Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace William Zinsser's On Writing Well   Transcript of our interview with Helen Sword Amy:                         00:09         I love reading writing guides and you have such an interesting take on what you've done. But first, could you start by telling the listeners a little bit about your background and why you've decided to make a specialty out of helping people improve their writing? Helen Sword:   00:25         Sure. Well, I started out as a literary scholar. I have a PhD in comparative literature, taught in an English department for long time and still do a little bit. But at some point I moved into working in faculty development, which is more working with academics to try to improve their teaching and that meant that I started reading research also in, in higher education as well as in literary studies. And I think that made me really aware of the different kinds of writing styles that people use in these different academic disciplines. And it made me really start thinking about why white people didn't communicate more clearly. I guess I'm at the same time. I was also, as always teaching students, reading colleagues work, doing my own writing. And so my first book on, on writing the writer's style really kind of came out of that work. Helen Sword:   01:26         I was just trying to figure out how to help people write better sentences, was what it came down to. And one of the things that I observed was that as people spent longer in school, particularly like advanced undergraduates and people just starting Grad school, the writing often got worse rather than better, you know, there's sentences got longer and longer and the words got more and more sort of jargon-y. They're praised for doing that because that is kind of the secret handshake into the discipline in some instances. And so I was just trying to show that you can say the same things often in about 60 percent of the words. I'm not the first person who has done this, but with the writer's style that I developed a particular algorithm to help people see if, as I put it, they're writing is sloppy or fit. Helen Sword:   02:22         Or you could just say kind of soggy, sharp, you know, different ways of different metaphors you could use on that and then really give some quite clear principles, not rules but principles for writing, clearer, sharper, more energetic sentences. And then that work led me to looking more broadly at academic writing, research, writing and all the different disciplines and John was that people write in. So that led to my book Stylish Academic Writing, where I just trying to distill the principles used by the best writers to try to kind of jolly along those who had fallen into the, into this trap of the long winded boggy prose. Show them how to get out of that by telling stories, by having introductions that make people actually want to keep reading, writing stronger sentences, all that sort of thing. And then working on that book meant that I started running lots of writing workshops for academics. Helen Sword:   03:31         So both for faculty but also often graduate students. And then I started hearing about all the human problems involved in writing. You know, the lack of time, lack of confidence, power struggles. Like when you're trying to write a really interesting first person narrative in your thesis, advisor says, no, that's not what we do in this discipline, even though sometimes it is what other people do in the discipline, but the gatekeepers can be really conservative. So that led to my most recent book, which is called Air and Light and Time and Space. How successful academic right now, both of those last two books have the word academic in them, but I really want to emphasize that they're not just for academic writers. I think the kinds of people who listened to your podcast, who are writing histories, family histories, that sort of thing. I'm pretty much all of the same principles apply. Helen Sword:   04:32         People who have moved into historical writing are somewhat less likely to have fallen into these particular traps, but they still can. And, and I think some of the, a lot of the ideas and the information and the research and these books could be really helpful to them as well. So the most recent book is much more about writing habits. How people learn to write in these different genres, how they make time for writing and how they feel about the writing. There's a whole section on the emotions involved in academic writing. So, for that book I established a kind of rubric. Again, like the writer style. You can find it online and I can tell you more about that if you like that. Again, I think this is applicable not just for writers but for people to just about anything, whether it's learning a sport or becoming better at art or music, but I've found that it's not just about behavioral habits. Helen Sword:   05:32         You know, you can read these advice things that tell you should wake up every morning at 5:00 and write for two hours every day and that will make you the perfect prolific writer. Well, if you really hate doing it and you feel incompetent at it, you probably won't keep doing that for very long because there are lots of other things that go into a productive writing practice. So I talk in that book about what I call the writing base, which looks at the behavioral aspects of writing that also the artisanal aspects. So that's the craftsmanship because I see writing as an artist and like activity, but then also the social aspects. So that's getting feedback from others, being part of a community of writers, not just trying to do it all in solitude. And then the fourth aspect of this writing base is the emotional side of writing. Helen Sword:   06:25         And that's what my, what my next book is going to be on. It's called writing with pleasure because what I found was that the most successful writers come to the writing with some kind of deep well of desire and passion and pleasure that gets them through all the frustrations, gets them through the fact that writing can be hard and slow. And yet there's very little written about this. A lot of the productivity literature is much more, you know, crack the whip just right. This is not a real writer or, or if you think that you need to have a nice room with a beautiful view, you know, you're just looking for excuses and you know, when it comes down to it, if you give me a choice between writing in an unheated basement while I'm feeling really stressed and agonized and writing in a nice light filled space when I'm feeling good about myself and good about my writing, I would take the latter. Helen Sword:   07:30         I would recommend it to anybody else. So the book is trying to help writers find that air and light and time and space metaphorically as well as you know, in, in the actual world. So lots and lots of different aspects of writing. Each one seems to lead onto another, but I'll say one more thing and then I'll let you pop in. But that's my topic I'm working on now. Right with pleasure. I think actually feeds right back into all three of those books. I think the craft of writing a really great kick ass sentence is a deeply pleasurable activity or should be. I think that learning to write stylishly, means learning to communicate with your audience in the most effective way and there's a real pleasure that comes from doing that and from having people respond and really get what you're trying to do. And then of course the pleasure is an important part of all the kind of behavioral and habit aspects of writing as well. Right. Well, and I think probably for a lot of people who do live story books, you know, there's, you were talking about the artist side of things and that's pretty much what I want to focus on mostly because we don't have the option of writing or not writing. If you're, if you're not writing then you're not making living doing this. Amy:                         08:56         So you have to have been the chair. Do you have to get the job done? whether it's pleasurable or not that you know, that at least for me it depends on the day. It depends on what section of a book I'm working on and I would absolutely love to have a little bit more insight into what can make that happen, you know, on a more consistent basis where it is a pleasurable exercise. But what I, what I really wanted to talk about was because so many people come into this, people are drawn into this industry for various reasons, but something that I hear all the time from listeners is that they want to come into this industry because they want to listen to people's stories. They want to help them get their stories recorded and help them share them with their families. And so they're not necessarily. Amy:                         09:43         Some people are writers and some people are not, but they're not necessarily focused entirely on, you know, building super strong writing skills. and I think, or the flip side is that maybe they're feeling a little bit weak with their writing skills, but they still know that they want to do this and they still know that they, they can help people. So I think that's why I was so drawn to your first book, The Writer's Diet: A guide to fit prose. Besides all of the good information that you gave, I absolutely love your writing style. I mean it's just very tricky and it can be funny and you use, you know, you talk about helping academics, but you have examples from Shakespeare and you know, classic literature, all kinds of great examples, but the, the promise that you make to your readers in that book, and here I'm going to read it, you say this book will help you energize your writing, boost your verbal fitness and strip unnecessary padding from your prose. Amy:                         10:43         And then you go on and you give very concrete ways of helping writers do that. So that's what I would like to address in greater detail by know, it's not your latest book. I know it's your first one, but I think it's something that can really help life story writers out there just with the Zombie nouns, propositional package. There's some very specific ways that you steer people towards improving their writing. So can you give us just a brief overview of the main topics and then I'd like to talk a little bit in more detail about each of them. Helen Sword:   11:16         Yes, absolutely. And it all comes back to the same stuff. You know, I wandered far away from style as I talk to writers and yet in the end it's all about sentences. And I, I like to think of sentences as being the bricks and mortar of building your, your house, of writing, building, whatever it is that you're producing. You just are not going to do it. If you go out in the backyard and take a few handfuls of mud and sit them in the sun to dry for a bit and then start building your house, you know, it's all going to collapse. I'm sentences are like bricks that need to be shaped and set and fired and really worked. That's how you're going to get that strength. That's a different metaphor from the Diet and fitness metaphor, but I think, I think they're both quite powerful. Helen Sword:   12:09         The Diet and fitness metaphor, what I really had in mind, there was not so much diet as in not eating. I had in mind diet as an eating well, and so the metaphor that I use there is that we all know that in order to be fit, physically fit, you've got to do two things. You've got to eat good food and you've got to exercise and I think sentences are exactly the same. You've got to fill them with good words and then you've got to put them through their paces and that often means working them again and again and again. For me, a sentence is never ever finished. And I think some writers might find that kind of disconcerting. Even a quite skilled writer will still be tinkering up till the last minute. But for me, it's helpful to link that craft back to the pleasure. Helen Sword:   13:07         Again, if you are wrestling with any media, whether it's clay or would you know anybody, any crafts person is, has got to love the medium and not allow themselves to be frustrated by the medium. So, you know, when you talk about getting through those hard days and those days where you just don't want to be doing it, I'm, one of the things I always try to do is to just remind myself why I'm there in the first place, which is a real love for the medium of language and for the communication that it can do, have these ideas or in the cases that you're talking about these, these stories, but every single sentence is a story in microcosm. And so that gets us down to the nitty gritty of how sentences work. I'm in the writer's style. I have five main chapters. One looks at nouns, one looks at verbs, one looks at adjectives and adverbs, one looks at prepositions, and then the last one's kind of grab bag of categories, that I call called the waste words. Helen Sword:   14:12         But it's four words that don't necessarily have anything grammatically in common, but they often tend to end up in sentences together. And when you see a lot of them congregating together, the sentences may end up being a bit long. And then we'll do use. So those are the words, it, this, that and there, and I talked to them about each of those in turn in the book. But really if I had to boil, boil it down to just two things that would be nouns and verbs. And if I had to boil it down to just one principal, it would be the principal of concreteness of concrete language. Nouns can be concrete or abstract. Verbs can be concrete or abstract, even adjectives and prepositions for that matter can be concrete or abstract. So understanding the distinction is just absolutely key to understanding how a sentence works. There's a, I don't know if you've seen the youtube video on the Ted Ed site, but, there's a hilarious video that was made from an article that I wrote about Zombie nouns in the New York Times. And that kind of animates, shows you what they are and how they work. But zombie nouns is just the phrase that I use to describe nominalizations, which is such an unwieldy word that I have trouble even saying it. Amy:                         15:50         So I'm going to jump in there for a second. Nominalization. Did you come up with that word because it's, it's brilliantly funny. I mean, because it is what you are telling people not to do. Helen Sword:   16:04         It is a nominalization, but no, I didn't come up with it. It's a grammatical term. You can find it in the dictionary. I think it was some of the best writing about nominalizations is in Joseph Williams. Really Fabulous. It's classic book: Style: Lessons in clarity and grace, and any of your listeners who don't already know that book should raise that and buy it. It's been around for decades, but it's a, it's really a great book on how sentences work. So in some ways, I'm not saying anything that, that he doesn't say or the William Zinsser doesn't say in, in his book, On Writing Well. Well, but it seems to be a lesson that needs to be repeated over and over again. Partly because so many people have not ever been taught to recognize nominalizations or to understand what they're doing. Amy:                         17:00         So the fact is, I mean you're. You're citing some really good, prestigious. I'm writing books, but the fact is that I'm. I have it in front of me, The Writer's Diet, and I've read William Zinsser. I haven't read the first guy that you were talking about, although I have a note to do so Amy:                         17:15         because you mentioned him in your book, but you've done it in 73 pages and you've done it very, very clearly in, you know, you're talking about using concrete now and said, I'm staying away from abstractions. You, you give app, you give exercises, you give ways of testing, like taking something that a writer is already written and seeing where the tweaks need to happen and I think that's something that's so important for people who maybe are new to the craft of writing and they haven't read tons and tons craft books. This is such a good primer to get started with. So I, I interrupted you there, but if you could tell people what a nominalization is and in my mind I'm going to let you describe what it is, but in my mind sometimes we just like academics try to write smart and I think that's when things like nominalizations creep in and it's, you know, masking maybe some inexperience and if you want to get into the psychology of it, I think it's probably the fear of coming across as not being a good writer. So we tried to spruce things up and that's where we go wrong. Helen Sword:   18:27         Yeah. And sometimes we get a lot of that same kind of language in bureaucratic prose, in all kinds of different places. And sometimes it's just easier. It's easier to come up with a nominalization followed by a weak verb followed by something like is or shows or you know, sort of what I call the usual suspects. rather than to find a verb that really has a lot of energy and uniqueness to it, which really is the key even more than nouns. But what a nominalization is. it's a, an abstract noun by definition. All nominalizations are abstract, it's an abstract noun that has been created from other parts of speech, so usually either a verb or an adjective, occasionally another noun even. So a nominalization itself. It comes from, well, the in French nom is is a name, but it's also a noun, right? So nominal. Helen Sword:   19:37         One meaning of nominal is having to do with nouns, so that's already an adjective, a descriptive word that's been formed from a noun. So the noun or noun becomes the adjective having to do with nouns, nominal. And then you can turn that into a verb to nominalize. So if you take a noun and you turn it into a verb, you have nominalized. It. Nominalization takes the final step of turning it into a noun by adding one of these endings. Like in this case t I o n. So a nominalization is a noun that has been created from other parts of speech and nominalization as a process is a way of describing the process of creating nouns from other parts of speech. So it's quite a. it's, it's a big word that's describing a complex process, but the beauty of it, as you said, is that it's a word that enacts would. Helen Sword:   20:39         It describes a nominalization is a nominalization that has undergone nominalization. So what's wrong with nominalizations? Well, nothing at all. We use them all the time. We need them. We need to abstract language in order to communicate it. That ideas. So the word education is a nominalization. Does that mean that we shouldn't use it? Of course not. It's very useful to be able to talk about education, but a writer who is using the word education in every sentence, sometimes more than once. I might want to think about the verb that it came from educate, which has a kind of energy to it that education doesn't have education or any abstract noun is something that we can conceptualize. We can talk about it right at that edge, but we cannot visualize it. We cannot touch it and that's the problem really with abstract nouns in general, but nominalizations just seem to be a version of them that were especially drawn towards an English for whatever reason and that are easily minimized by if you become aware that you used in a lot of nominalizations, you can just look at them and say, okay, what if I take half of these and release? Helen Sword:   22:06         So word that's hiding inside there? So what a past. The Times I say education, I try to talk about educating and educate and maybe that will actually get me thinking about where it's like teaching and learning so that I have a bit more variety in my vocabulary, you know, so it's just a way of doing that. But the greater issue of abstract versus concrete nouns is just so important to think about because I've read academic articles where people use six, seven, eight, nine abstract nouns in a sentence. Sometimes just in the title, you know, a reflection on the normalization of the this, the, that you know, and it's just this big string of these saints. Lots of examples in the book of real world writing that does these things and not just from the academic sphere. So, the, the problem with that kind of writing is that the reader can visualize anything and so they just get lost. Helen Sword:   23:13         So in the zombie nouns video, I take a sentence that has a bunch of nominalizations in it and I cut it down to just one, so because it's an active sentence in which the one abstract term is really foregrounded and you can see what it means and you can see why it's being used instead of being in there with, with all these others. So just think it's such. I mean it seems like this kind of dry concept, why should I have to learn this? But it's like learning how to hit your nail with your hammer. If you haven't learned some of these really basic things about how a sentence works, you're going to be building them the much more hit and miss way. So my, my kind of rule of thumb is to make sure even when I'm doing or I would say especially when I'm writing about quite abstract things to make sure that in every paragraph, if not in every single sentence, I've got some concrete nouns and congregate nouns are things that exist in the world that you can visualize, that you can perceive with the senses. So you know, in family writing, historical writing, you've got an advantage that you're writing about real people in the world and yet it can be really easy to start talking about them in more abstract ways by letting these zombie nouns creep in there. Amy:                         24:48         Exactly. And that's always a danger with zombie nouns and with other ways of having the, the prose go a little bit lifeless because generally we're going out, we're interviewing the storyteller and then we are reshaping the storytellers words to put down onto the page or you know, maybe doing some editing for videos or are probably less so with audio. But definitely for the written format. We're taking a transcript and those words have a way of getting stuck in your head. And sometimes you, it's hard to see beyond the way that they have expressed something and you and I both know the way we express things in speech is not how we want to be reading things on the paper and, and so the challenge is probably a little bit different from an academic trying to write in a lively manner, but it's still a challenge because, because we're trying to reshape what somebody else has said and so if, especially if you haven't really studied the craft of writing so much to be able to hear something like nominalizations, you're going to be much more aware of what you're seeing on the paper. And especially for nominalizations because they have a few different word endings, right? I mean the words that end in men and yeah. So M, e n, t a, T I o n or ion, right. So, so those are visual clues that we can see on the paper and that we can, that can alert us like, hey, maybe we need to Helen Sword:   26:22         better website the writers start Amy:                         26:25         I have. And that's something that. Yes, I know. Let's, let's, let's talk about one or two of the other things and then I definitely want to talk about the website because it's such a good tool for us so listeners are just going to have to wait and wait until the end and then we're going to talk about it, but. So I'm jumping around in the book a little bit, but one thing we all, you know, we have definitely heard to use strong verbs and a concrete nouns, but something that you brought up that I had never really heard of before is that there's different qualities to different prepositions and you also give a few rules and I'm sure that these rules are meant to be broken if the need arises. But. So I'm, I'm reading from your book again, avoid using more than three prepositional phrases in a row. That's something that as readers we can all understand. We can all intuit when somebodies piling on prepositional phrase after propositional phrase and we'll probably lose interest, but it might not necessarily be something that we consciously understand and can apply to our own writing. So I, I so appreciate that. You just Amy:                         27:34         putting a, putting a number on it, and then the other thing that you say is do not allow a noun and its accompanying verb to become separated by more than about 12 words. That's brilliant. You're telling us 12, you know, it's not, it's not the kind of advice that I've seen before and it's just, it's so exciting to be able to have something that you can just in a very practical way apply to your own writing. So and. But the thing that I started talking about was you, you, you mentioned that some propositions are just a little zippier than others. Can you talk about that? Helen Sword:   28:09         So I have some examples in the book of people who use a lot of prepositions in a sentence because they're physically taking us someplace. So if you're describing somebody who walks through the garden into the shed, behind the lawn mower, into the pool of darkness, you know, you're, you're breaking the three preposition. I don't call it a rule, but a rule of thumb. It's kind of like good one to stick to unless you have a really good, clearly defined stylistic reasons for doing otherwise, but if you are somebody who's trying to kind of pull out the suspense of that movement through the space back behind around, then you're using those prepositions really, really well and really effectively, but often we're using them just to hook a bunch of, in many cases, abstract nouns together, a demonstration of the efficacy of the practice of, you know, these sorts of things where it's, Amy:                         29:22         oh, that rolls right off your tongue. Helen Sword:   29:24         I actually think it's easier to write this kind of soggy buggy prose than it is to write tight sippy pro. Some people are fortunate and they just seem to have been born with that gene or they've been trained into it. But I find, I once a paper in which I was kind of parodying prose that broke all of these rules and I found it dead easy. It was way, way easier than trying to find the concrete language and what I call the fresh unusual for. So prepositions, there's, I would say for most writers, prepositions are not a big issue and yet what I do with all in all five categories as I do put numbers on things and I basically say if you're going over this percentage of prepositions in your prose, you might want to think about that. You probably want to make sure you have a good reason for doing that. Helen Sword:   30:26         And if you do, you know, if you're able to articulate well, I'm using all those propositions because I'm walking us through landscape. Getting us to a particular place and the prepositions helped me draw the suspense. Then great. Ignore the principles. But if you're just piling them on because somehow you haven't figured out how to get to the end of your sentence. That's one where you need to go back or it would be a good idea to go back and have a look and think about the work that each of those prepositions is doing. And as with I think any part of speech varieties part of it as well. So you can. You can start to see if you use the same five or six prepositions over and over again. If you are, then that writing will be much more monotonous than if you're. If you're using quite varied ones that really are taking us spatially or prepositions are connecting words and if you're using prepositions consciously and imaginatively, then there's gonna be some variety and some interest in the way that you're doing it. So I would put. I would put thinking about prepositions as being, you know, kind of at the nerdy and the specialist end of, of thinking about how to craft a strong sentence. Amy:                         31:43         I think you just called me. It's funny because this has become a favorite book. This, the writers your yearbook because of the content and because of your writing style. Another one that I have sitting on my desk right now, his sister Bernadette sparking dog, which is all about diagramming sentences. Something I love, but it's also, you know, it's, it's using grammar to serve, to serve a bigger purpose which is writing sentences that convey meaning in a, in a pleasurable way to read. Okay. So we're getting a little bit close to the end. So I do. I, I wanted to go through more of your, your rules of thumb, but I think people are just going to have to go out and buy the book themselves because I do want to give you the chance to talk about the website and that website. Helen Sword:   32:35         The very beginning when I started working on the rider stud, I thought, well, if I'm using kind of going to the gym analogy and let's say you're going to the gym because you want to start a personal training routine to get stronger and fitter. Your personal trainer is going to get out the calipers to measure the fat on your arm and they're going to make you. Do you know the treadmill tests? They're going to put you through your paces and they're going to say, here are some things where you really could could improve or where we'd like to see the numbers change and that will indicate your fitness stuff. So I just thought, I wonder if it's. Is it possible to do that with some of these grammatical and syntactical principles? In a way that's not saying you must do this, and I think this is really important, the writer's style test you, you copy in between 100 and a thousand words and you click this button. Helen Sword:   33:38         This is at writersdiet.com. You click the run the test button and then you get this diagnosis of whether your sample. I won't say your writing and it's certainly not you. It's just the sample that you've put in whether it is so I say flabby or fit. Now I'm working on a version of this right now that is actually going to be a plugin that you can run in Microsoft word on your own machine or in the cloud. That will allow you to look at an entire document of whatever length and not just something up to a thousand words. It's turning out to be quite complicated to program, but we will get there eventually and as part of that, I'm going to have some customization options. So anybody who doesn't like the words flabby and fit can rename it to red and green. You know, or whatever they want to apples and oranges, but they at the idea of it all, it's showing you when it puts you over from lean and fit into needs, toning or flabby or the most dire emergency category is heart attack. Helen Sword:   34:51         All it's saying is that you've got a lot of words in that category, a high percentage higher than we would expect somebody writing vigorous prose to have and you really should go and have a look and think about why. Again, if you're doing it consciously for repetition or because you need to use a certain word over and over or for a stylistic effect, then you ignore the results and you'd go on with what you're doing. But for most people it shows them things that they aren't aware of. So with the nominalizations for example, if you get a reading of a heart attack, I think it's showing you that six percent or more of the words your sample are nominalizations and it's just saying, you know, that's kind of dangerous zone. You may be losing your breeders because if you have that much, that many zombie nouns, you probably have a whole bunch of other abstract nouns that aren't even getting you know that the that the algorithm won't find because it's only looking for certain word endings. Helen Sword:   35:57         And if you have all that abstract language, you probably don't have very much concrete language. So the way it's working is it's an algorithm. It's doing is counting you, put in your words, it spits out a result and we all love algorithm thinking because you know you push a button and you get an answer, but what it's trying to teach you is what I would call her ristick thinking, which is thinking in terms of principles rather than rules. So that's where you can see the principle is that if you have too many prepositions, your sentences are probably quite long and stringing together a whole lot of nouns and you may be losing your reader. But the heuristic is saying, oh, but if I understand how prepositions work and what the different effects are, then I can make my own choices based on what the algorithm is telling me. Helen Sword:   36:50         It's just giving me a very simple diagnosis and now I take that diagnosis and I, the human being with a brain, you know, look at, look at my writing with new eyes and, and think about how to improve it. So, you know, I do get comments every now and then from people. I'm usually undergraduates, often undergraduates for whom English is not their first language. Saying this tool doesn't fix my writing. It doesn't tell me what's wrong. It tells me all these that I have to get rid of all these words. Well, it's not telling you that at all. It's just saying you've got a lot of words in this particular category. So the nouns category, all it's looking at our nominalizations. So that is nouns with anyone of seven word endings and both the book and the website will tell you what they are, but we'll tell you how to identify them yourself. Helen Sword:   37:49         And you can even do the whole thing with just the book by counting and color coding. It tells you how to do that in the back. So it's giving you a formula but it's not meant to be a formula that any thinking person is going to, you know, Kowtow to and, and follow without thinking about it. Quite the opposite. But it's data that can shed a light on problems that you might not be seeing yourself. So like you said, it's not, it's a diagnostic tool and you can do what you want with the results, but it can definitely show us where we are falling down when we don't realize it. And I think that's the beauty of it because it, it can really, it can eliminate some things that you didn't understand about your own writing. I follow those principles myself very rigorously, but I can also tell when I'm moving away from them and it's often when I'm doing a certain kind of academic writing. Helen Sword:   38:47         Like writing an abstract often is quite abstract and I'll, I can, I can start to feel that I don't have great verbs in there. And then I've got an awful lot of these, the zombie nouns, you know, more than I would like to. And if I start to feel that I can almost always put that segment through the test and Yep, sure enough it will have gone over over the line. Now having said that, it doesn't tell you whether your writing is good or bad. it doesn't even tell you whether it's interesting or boring. It's just looking for characteristics of sentences. Set tend to be types of words that tend to be associated with a certain kind of foggy longwinded prose. That's all it's doing. But that turns out to be quite a helpful thing to have a mechanism to do. Because what I used to do before I developed it is I would hand back students' papers or sometimes colleagues draft articles or whatever and I'd say go through circle all of the forms of the word to be. Helen Sword:   40:02         So that's: is, was, were, all of those verb forms and get rid of half of them, which was a pretty, a pretty random, you know, pretty scatter shot sort of thing. Whereas now with this particular algorithm, you can, you know, I basically said generally if I read something where it's up to three percent of these, be verbs, it's fine, and generally if it gets to more than that, either the language is quite passive. You're using passive for constructions which always then brings in a be verb. You know, the research was performed, mistakes were made. So if you're doing the passive then you've often got rid of the agent, the person or thing doing the action, or it may just be that you're writing a lot of kind of lazy sentences. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, you know, it's this kind of monotonous use of one verb over and over again, and it's just so common in all levels of writing that that seemed an interesting and important thing to flag. Now, what it won't tell you is how to replace or how to rewrite those sentences using more energetic verbs. The book will help with that because it gives you some exercises and lots and lots of examples, but it will not do it for you. Amy:                         41:35         Well, you're writing in this book is a great example of the things that you're trying to teach us in the book itself. So thank you so much for sharing all of this with us. Can you tell us again the name of your latest book and where the listeners can reach you? Helen Sword:   41:51         The latest one published last year is Air and Light and Time and Space. And if you go to The Writer's Diet website, so writersdiet.com down at the bottom, you can subscribe to my newsletter now having said that, I write to the newsletter about once a year, so it's not a very active one, but I do use it to inform people of new developments. Also at the bottom of the page, you will see a link to the writing base, which is where you can go and, do a little self diagnostic tests looking at your behavioral, artisanal, social and emotional habits and how they all intersect. And you'll also find links from The Writer's Diet site to my kind of main website, which is helensword.com. And there you can find links to all of all of my books on writing as well as various other things and things like the zombie nouns video, which is pretty much my favorite thing ever. Being able to take a piece of writing and then having somebody animated and add sound effects to see it. And I think I think practices what it preaches because it's taking this quite abstract. Know what is a nominalization, what's wrong with nominalizations? And it's, it's actually putting a story on it, the story about the zombie nouns that go and cannibalize other parts of speech and wreak havoc in our sentences.  

In our fast-paced and entertainment-saturated culture, it’s easy to let book-reading fall by the wayside. In fact, many studies show that after college, the average person only reads 3 more books for the rest of their life! And don’t be tempted to think that the reading of books is old-fashioned and no longer relevant. There is power in the written word. And whether you’re an entrepreneur, business person, or simply someone who wants to continue to grow, reading books is an effective way to continue your personal development.   “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” — Charlie “Tremendous” Jones Click here to download or listen to this episode now. Tip of the Week Since developing Parkinson’s in 2011, I have been receiving deep-tissue massage therapy as part of my treatment. I started with once a month, then once a week, and these days I get 3 massages a week. Here’s what this has taught me: your body is the frame through which you see the world. If the frame is bent, twisted, or in pain… you will experience the world that way. Get over your hangups, and go get a massage from a reputable massage therapist. Try it at least once per week for a month or more and let me know the difference it makes in your life! Spiritual Foundations Pray Prayers of Proclamation. When you have a need, do you pray or do you plead? Do you begin your prayers with words like, “Please God, please! God, I beg You to have mercy!” Prayers that plead and beg imply that your heavenly Father is not willing to help you. Yet, He is far more gracious and willing to give to you than you are willing to ask, think or imagine. (Ephesians 3:20) He desires above all things that you prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers. (3 John 1:2) In fact, long before you have a need, God has already met that need. Long before you knew you needed a Savior, He sent His Son to be your Savior. This is your God! He is a good God. So when you beg Him for something, you are actually saying that He is reluctant to give and needs to be persuaded strongly before He will move. Yet, He is not like that. Jesus knew the heart of the Father. When He saw the woman bound with a spirit of infirmity, He did not pray, “Oh Father! She has been suffering for 18 long years! I beseech You, Father, have mercy on her. Please, please heal her!” No, when Jesus saw her, He immediately proclaimed, “Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity!” He spoke this way because He knew the heart of the Father. He knew that the Father wanted her delivered from her crippling condition. At the end of a church service, I don’t stand and pray, “Oh God, please bless Your people. Oh God, do keep them. Oh God, be ever so gracious to them!” Instead, I proclaim, “The Lord bless you. The Lord keep you. The Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you!” Beloved, when you pray, proclaim your healing, protection and provision because your Father’s heart overflows with love for you. And when you declare it, He sanctions it. When you declare it, He establishes it! Feature Presentation “9 Reasons You Need a Book-Reading Plan“ Here are 9 reasons you need a book-reading plan: Reading helps keep you current. Books can help keep you current on business trends and strategies. You can either spend thousands of dollars flying around the country going to seminars and masterminds or spend a few dollars on a book! Consider reading Michael Hyatt’s book, Your Best Year Ever – A 5-Step Plan for Achieving Your Most Important Goals. Provides material for your own writing and podcasting. Reading books offers you fresh information, strategies for presenting that information, and great stories to share with your readers. Read Chris Ducker’s book, The Rise of the Youpreneur. Reading books exercises your brain. Joseph Addison wrote, “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” Believe me, in this competitive environment, you don’t want a “flabby” brain!  I challenge you to read a book like, Miracles by Eric Metaxas. I guarantee that book will give your brain a workout.   Expands your worldview. Let’s face it. Most of us live and work within a fairly small bubble of relationships. Our market is defined by what and who we know. Reading can broaden our perspective. Consider reading, Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W Chan Kim. Stimulates new ideas. Frequently, I’ll be reading a book and the content I’m reading launches me into a totally new idea. Reading does that! If you need some fresh ideas and new thinking for your business, read a book. Try reading, The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. Increases your vocabulary and conversational skills. Whether you realize it or not, when you’re reading, your mind assimilates new words and phrases. These new modes of expression become part of your vocabulary and find their way into your conversation without your conscious effort. Read Perry Marshall’s book, Evolution 2.0. Makes you a better writer. When you read a book that’s well written, your own writing begins to take on the qualities that you admire in others. Here’s a book that focuses on writing skills, but also features writing at its best: On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Corrects and/or corroborates your thinking. Reading what others think about a topic can either correct our misconceptions or confirm what we’ve held to be true. A best-selling classic that will either challenge or confirm your beliefs is Lee Strobel’s The Case for a Creator. Enriches your life. So far, we’ve been talking primarily about growing our intellect and our business. But reading for pleasure offers many benefits as well. Reading a book before bedtime is a great way to wind down and relax. Recreational reading opens a whole world of history, intrigue, humor, adventure, and fantasy. Reading kicks the borders off your imagination. Patrick Rothfuss’s epic novel, The Name of the Wind, is sure to provide you with an enriching experience. Creating A Reading Plan Commit to read a book a month. Create a list of books that you want to read. Read on an e-device or paper. (Consider the option of highlighting and scribbling notes in the margins of a printed book.) Find a reading buddy. Listen to audiobooks. (The retention rate for listening to a book drops significantly over reading it.) Resources Mentioned In This Episode Permission to Prosper is your key to unlock the vaults of wealth, wellness, and wisdom that will prosper you and everyone around you. Join us at this life-changing event, where we will help you construct your own prosperity blueprint… remove the inner conflicts about money, wealth, and possessions… and learn from our world-famous speakers, including Jeff Goins, and more surprise guests to be announced soon. VIP seating and red carpet perks are also available, including personal time with Ray. To get the details, and to get your ticket now at the lowest possible price, go to permissiontoprosper.com   Subscribe to the show through Apple Podcasts and give us a rating and review. Make sure you put your real name and website in the text of the review itself. We will mention you on this show. Get The Transcript Right-Click and “Save As” to Get the PDF Transcript.  

On the latest episode of the creative writing advice podcast, author Tim Clare (that's me) responds to listener requests to an episode dedicated to editing your work. What are the best rules for editing your fiction? What are some simple techniques you can apply right now to your work to make it immediately better? How can you make your novel more readable? How can you make your stories more pacy? How can you make your writing more vivid and engaging? How can a writer get the most out of adverbs? What are some tips for finding killer similes and metaphors? How can you make your prose lean and punchy? I answer all these (made-up) questions and more with my 7 Pillars Of Line-Editing Your Novel Like A Motherf*cking Laser Surgeon. If you want to support the podcast you can click this link to drop a few bucks to my Ko-fi page: ko-fi.com/timclare Otherwise, buying one or more of the books I discuss via the links below will help out while getting you some reading material that will help you grow as an author. Please buy my novel, The Honours, and support my writing career: THE HONOURS by Tim Clare: https://wordery.com/the-honours-tim-clare-9781782114765#oid=1908_1 ON WRITING WELL by William Zinsser: https://wordery.com/on-writing-well-william-zinsser-9780060891541#oid=1908_1 THE COMPLETE ACCOMPLICE by Steve Aylett: https://wordery.com/the-complete-accomplice-steve-aylett-9780956567703#oid=1908_1

Besoin d'informations supplémentaires ? Consultez juliencarcaly.com [Musique] Pepper's Funk par Audionautix est distribué sous la licence Creative Commons Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Dans ce podcast, je vous parle du livre "On Writing Well" de William Zinsser, qui pourra être une source d'inspiration pour tous les e-commerçants qui doivent rédiger la déscription de leurs porduits. Dans son livre, l'écrivain explique qu'il faut être clair, simple, concis et humain, pour bien écrire n'importe quel type de texte. Retrouvez l'article à l'origine de ce podcast ici:https://www.reussir-mon-ecommerce.fr/william-zinsser-on-writing-well/

Presentaciones EfectivasEn este video presento los principios de William Zinsser y los relaciono con elementos de las presentaciones de Steve Jobs, para desarrollar una presentación efectiva.

This week on "A Way with Words": People in ancient times could be just as bawdy and colorful as we are today. To prove it, we found some graffiti written on the walls in the city of Pompeii, and found plenty of sex, arrogance and good old fashioned bathroom talk etched in stone. Plus, British rhyming slang makes its way to our televisions through police shows on PBS. And a dictionary for rock climbers gives us a fantastic word that anyone can use to describe a rough day. Also, spitting game, hornswoggling, two kinds of sloppy joes, peppy sad songs, and endearing names for grandma. FULL DETAILS When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., parts of the ancient city of Pompeii remained intact, including the graffiti written on its walls. Much of what was written, not unlike today's bathroom etchings, is naughty and boastful, with people like Celadus the Thracian claiming to be the one who "makes the girls moan." A Tallahassee, Florida, mother who texted her daughter in a hurry accidentally asked about the "baby woes," meaning "baby wipes," and came to the conclusion that we need a new phrase: read between the autocorrect. If you watch British police procedurals, you'll likely come across the term to grass someone, meaning "to inform on someone" or "to rat someone out." It's a bit of British rhyming slang that originated with the 19th-century phrase to shop on someone. That gave us the noun shopper, which became grasshopper, and then got shortened to grass. A Japanese version of the idiom the grass is always greener translates to "the neighbor's flowers are red." The word hornswoggle, meaning "to embarrass" or "to swindle," is of unclear origin, but definitely seems of a piece with U.S. frontier slang from the 1830s and 1840s. Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game called Dictum wherein he gives us a word, like contrary or emasculate, and we have to guess the closest bold-faced word that comes after it in the dictionary. Tougher than you might think! A listener whose first language is Farsi wonders if the name of the grandma in the classic film An Affair to Remember, gave us the endearment nanu, for grandmother. In Mediterranean countries, words like nanu, nana, nene and nona are all common terms for "granny." Here's a truism that often appeared scribbled in ancient wall graffiti: I wonder, oh wall, that you have not yet collapsed. So many writers' cliches do you bear. The term spitting game, meaning "to flirt," comes from African-American slang going back to at least the 1960's, when game referred to someone's hustle. It's well covered in Randy Kearse's Street Talk: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop and Urban Slanguage. Martha recalls that as an English major, she nearly memorized William Zinsser's On Writing Well. He died this month at age 92, and she'll remember this quote, among others: "Ultimately, the product any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is...I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me — some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field." A listener from northern New Jersey says that in his part of the state, a sloppy joe was not the mashed-up ground beef sandwich many of us also know as a loose meat sandwich, spoonburger, or tavern. For him, a sloppy joe was a deli meat sandwich that consisted of things like pastrami, turkey, coleslaw, Russian dressing and rye bread. Here's a lovely bit of ancient graffiti found on the wall of an inn: "We have wet the bed. I admit, we were wrong, my host. If you ask why, there was no chamberpot." Pro wrestling, a fake sport with a very real following, has a trove of lingo all its own that can be found in the newsletter and website PW Torch. One saying, red means green, refers to the fact that a wrestler who winds up bloody will get a prettier payout for his or her performance. And kayfabe is a wrestler's character persona, which he or she often keeps up for any public appearance, even outside the ring. A fan of Bruce Springsteen's song "Dancing in the Dark" called to say that she's noticed the lyrics are awfully sad for such a peppy tune, and wonders if there's a word for this phenomenon. Lyrical dissonance would do the job, but there's also the term agathokakological, a Greek-influenced word meaning "both good and evil." One listener followed up our discussion of classic literary passages turned into limerick form by writing one of his own, a baseball-themed poem that begins, "There once was a batter named Casey." Vermont is one place—but not the only one—where non-natives are referred to as flatlanders, and people who've been around generations proudly call themselves woodchucks. It's written about on Shawn Kerivan's blog, Innkeeping Insights in Stowe. The Climbing Dictionary by Matt Samet includes a fantastic term that can be used by non-climbers as well: high gravity day, a day when all routes, even easy ones, seem impossible due to a seeming increase in gravity. The expression to a T comes from a shortening of tittle, a word meaning a little of something. The word tittle even shows up in the bible. There's also an idiom to the teeth, as in dressed to the teeth, or fully armored-up. This episode is hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette. -- A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donate Get your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time: Email: words@waywordradio.org Phone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673 London +44 20 7193 2113 Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771 Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donate Site: http://waywordradio.org/ Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/ Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/ Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/ Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2016, Wayword LLC.

Check out Ruby Remote Conf!   01:47 - Josh Earl Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Simple Programmer The Entreprogrammers Podcast 02:23 - Creating Email Courses 03:57 - Marketing vs Email Courses How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer 15:26 - Length 5 Learning Mistakes Developers Make 18:49 - Opt-in Forms 21:48 - Single vs Double Opt-in 26:28 - Keeping People Engaged 29:26 - Offering Discount Codes 33:35 - Content 41:32 - Tips for Telling Better Stories 44:45 - Agitation 47:22 - Competition and What Comes Next? 51:02 - Asking People to Share SmartBribe 54:39 - Selling Services   Picks The New York Times Mobile App (Reuven) Slate Plus (Reuven) Double Your Freelancing Conference Europe (Reuven) Discount Code: FREELANCER On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (Jonathan) Jonathan's Webinars (Jonathan) Fitbit One (Chuck) The Entreprogrammers Podcast (Chuck) Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron (Josh) Scrivener (Josh) Strides (Josh)

Check out Ruby Remote Conf!   01:47 - Josh Earl Introduction Twitter GitHub Blog Simple Programmer The Entreprogrammers Podcast 02:23 - Creating Email Courses 03:57 - Marketing vs Email Courses How to Market Yourself as a Software Developer 15:26 - Length 5 Learning Mistakes Developers Make 18:49 - Opt-in Forms 21:48 - Single vs Double Opt-in 26:28 - Keeping People Engaged 29:26 - Offering Discount Codes 33:35 - Content 41:32 - Tips for Telling Better Stories 44:45 - Agitation 47:22 - Competition and What Comes Next? 51:02 - Asking People to Share SmartBribe 54:39 - Selling Services   Picks The New York Times Mobile App (Reuven) Slate Plus (Reuven) Double Your Freelancing Conference Europe (Reuven) Discount Code: FREELANCER On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: An Informal Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser (Jonathan) Jonathan's Webinars (Jonathan) Fitbit One (Chuck) The Entreprogrammers Podcast (Chuck) Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence by Lisa Cron (Josh) Scrivener (Josh) Strides (Josh)

Want to be a better podcaster? Something I've seen over and over again is that the best podcasters spend a lot of time writing. Want to learn how to be a better writer? My guest this week – Glenn Leibowitz – wants to help you get there. Glenn has been writing and editing for the past 17 years, mostly for his company, but two years ago he started his own blog and also started to blog weekly on LinkedIn. He writes about professional development, technology, social media, and writing. In April 2015, he launched his weekly podcast – Write With Impact – where he interviews authors of nonfiction and fiction and tries to pick apart their secrets and have them share what they've learned over the years as writers. In December 2015, LinkedIn named him one of 90 “top voices” on LinkedIn (out of the 1 million people who blog there). He ranked #2 in the marketing and social media category. I asked Glenn to join me for a three-part podcast series to share what he's learning about writing and growing an audience, the benefits of storytelling, how to turn a podcast interview into a story, how to get started with publishing on LinkedIn, and more. In this episode, Glenn shares his top tips for becoming a better writer, we discuss why outlines are critical for success, why you should edit after you're done writing, how to write great titles, and so much more. Key Takeaways: Writing an outline is like creating a map for yourself. It will help you get to where you want to go. Sharing a story brings the topic down to earth for your reader and allows them to relate to whatever you're writing. Don't try to make all your writing perfect right away. Allow yourself to separate the writing process and the editing process. If you're not perfectly consistent with your output, that's okay, just keep trying and never give up. Publish something every single week, regardless of how you feel. You'll improve through doing. Your title needs to summarize your podcast or blog post well, and in a way that gets your audience's attention. Glenn: There's so much to learn when it comes to writing, but all the writers I've ever talked with gave this advice: if you want to get better, you just gotta write more. With that in mind, here are my top tips for becoming a better writer. Tip #1. Write to an Audience of One Glenn: Know who you're talking to. Visualize your reader if you can, and if you can't, that's fine, but try to write as if you're writing to just one person. Pretend you're writing an email to a friend or relative. That's a good way to break through any inhibitions you might be feeling when you try to put words down on the page for the first time. Aaron: This is great advice for podcasters as well. When you're podcasting, talk like you're talking to a single person; this makes your listener feel a more personal connection with you. Tip #2. Write Like You Talk Glenn: When writing, pretend like you're talking. Treat your writing as a form of transcription of your thoughts and of that voice running through your head. Just write whatever comes to mind. I wrote a blog post on LinkedIn about this recently — How to Find Your Writing Voice: Listen to the Voice on the Page. That one resonated with a lot of people because they could relate to that. It's how I write, and apparently it's how a lot of people write. As one of my guests on my podcast said, “If you can speak, you can write.” Don't get caught up with the style, the vocabulary, just focus on getting what's on your mind down on the page. Aaron: I agree, but I have a question. Sometimes when I'm writing, I'll think something funny and put it down, but then I look at it and wonder if other people will get it or think it's funny. Do you ever struggle with that? Glenn: That happens to me all the time. I write a lot of stuff that never sees the light of day, but you should edit after you've finished writing. Don't worry about editing while you write. I try not to delete anything during the initial writing. I like collecting words even if they don't end up going in the final version that I publish. Tip #3. Pick a Very Focused Topic Glenn: Whatever you're writing – show notes for a podcast, a blog post, the chapter of your first ebook on Amazon – you need to have a focused topic. Your entire blog post should support or relate to that topic in some way. Think about the main point of your podcast or blog post, and let everything flow from there. Tip #4. Jot Down a Quick Outline Glenn: Jot down a few sentences or a very skeletal outline of what you want to write about. Put the bones down on the page before you start adding the meat. The first sentence or two should be what the entire blog post or chapter is about. Then list out the 4, 5, or 8 supporting points before you start working on the individual paragraphs. These points will be the blueprint, the directions that will help you get to where you want to go. Aaron: I love using mind maps to write outlines. It's been a game changer for me. Writing an outline is like creating a map for yourself. It will help you get to where you want to go. Tip #5. Tell a Story Glenn: Storytelling seems to be all the rage these days and for very good reason; we all love stories. So many of the writers I've spoken to on my podcast have told me how they believe story is wired into our DNA, and I think that's true. We all want to see how a hero overcomes a tough challenge and what happens next, how they grow from that and learn from that. That all sounds like the elements of fiction, and that's how novelists write. But I believe, and my podcast guests agree, that the same elements of storytelling apply to writing nonfiction like blog posts, nonfiction books, essays, and I would argue, even show notes for a podcast. I start most of my blog posts off with a personal story of when I was a kid or teen or twenty-something or even something that happened recently. I relate the topic to something that happened to me personally, a challenge I faced, and then I describe how I dealt with it, and what I learned. My latest post on LinkedIn was about self-driving cars, and I started that one off with a story of how my mom put my brother and me in a defensive driving course even before we could drive, just so she could scare the heck out of us and make us better drivers. I then followed that story up with the news of Google's self-driving car, which got the green light from the National Transportation Safety Administration. Sharing a story brings the topic down to earth for your reader and allows them to relate to whatever you're writing. Aaron: I love hearing those personal stories. I find it hard to connect with people who don't ever share any personal stories. Tip #6. Edit, Edit, Edit Glenn: This is where your logical, analytical brain kicks in. You need to take a microscopic look at each sentence and word on the page, review your punctuation, and read through your writing over and over again in your mind (or out loud) to see if it all fits together logically. You want to make sure you are delivering your message clearly, which is critically important, and also that it's grammatically correct. If you're not good with grammar or punctuation or word usage, or if you're not a native writer of English, ask a friend or family member to take a look at it, or hire a freelance editor on one of those freelancing websites. But edit edit edit until it's something you feel comfortable publishing (and ideally, something you feel proud of). Aaron: Something I've started doing lately is allowing myself to write a first draft without trying to make it perfect. I used to try to make everything perfect the first time, which really slowed me down. Now, I write an outline, then write a first draft as fast as I can, then go back to do the editing afterwards. I'm much happier now that I've stopped trying to edit while I write. I have to thank the guys who wrote Write. Publish. Repeat. for sharing that tip about writing your first draft as fast as you can. Don't try to make all your writing perfect right away. Allow yourself to separate the writing process and the editing process. Tip #7. Be Consistent Glenn: One thing I see a lot of bloggers do is write a post here, write one there, maybe 5-10 posts, or maybe they go for 6-12 months and then give up. If you're not perfectly consistent with your output, that's okay, just keep trying and never give up. Take Sean McCabe's advice; you have to show up and create content every day for at least two years before you'll see substantial results. If you do see results before that two year point, consider it a bonus. But you've got to look at writing as a long-term play, and not something you just do whenever you feel like it. Don't quit just because you feel bored or if you aren't seeing results yet. Publish something every single week, regardless of how you feel. Aaron: “Show up every day” applies to podcasting too. I've seen amazing results in the past 10 months because I showed up every day and released an episode every week. I've become a better writer and a better podcaster, all because I keep trying. I keep showing up and I give it the best I can every single time, and I get a little better every week and my audience keeps growing. Recap: Aaron: Those were some great tips, so I want to do a quick recap: Write to an audience of one Write like you talk Pick a focused topic Write outlines Tell a story Edit, edit, edit Be consistent Connect with Glenn Leibowitz Aaron: Glenn, you'll be back next week, but in the meantime, where can people go to find you online? Glenn: You can head over to WriteWithImpact.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter so you can get my latest podcast episodes and blog posts, as well as recommendations for books and resources for writers. I'm also on LinkedIn and encourage you to connect directly with me there. You can find me on Twitter at @glennleibowitz. Q&A Levi Allen asked: What are the top books/blogs you'd recommend for growing as a writer? Glenn: I have two books that I recommend to everyone; On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and On Writing by Stephen King. For websites/blogs, I'd recommend checking out Joanna Penn, Jeff Goins, Monica Leonelle, and Chris Fox. You can also check out my website and podcast to find even more great resources. Aaron: I'm currently reading a fantastic book called Write. Publish. Repeat. and I think anyone interested in writing should pick that up. I'm also a fan on both On Writing and On Writing Well, although I'm only about 60% of the way through On Writing Well. Scotty Russell asked: How do you balance injecting value and sharing your own life experiences? Making your audience the hero yet establishing credibility. Glenn: I keep that in mind every time I sit down to write a blog post. I don't want to write what I call “navel-gazers”, that is, posts where I just talk about myself. I try to avoid that, but I do try to include myself or my experiences in the story if it's relevant. I try to always orient the message of the post towards the reader. I'm always trying to think about what would be valuable for the reader. Aaron: Always start with wanting to give your audience something valuable. But I'm wondering; do you ever struggle with qualifying what you're saying with, “This is just my experience, it might not work for you”? I find myself doing that a lot. Glenn: Yeah, of course. That's something I struggle with all the time. It's why I have so many unfinished blog posts in my drafts folder. But I try to push through and publish anyways. Even if the blog post doesn't help everyone, as long as it helps a few people than I'm doing good work. Joseph asked: How do you come up with good titles without making them sounding like click-bait? Glenn: You definitely don't want to use click-bait. Click-bait means that your title promises something that your article doesn't deliver, and you never want to do that. Just be honest and clear with the headline. I often write out a list of possible headlines, and sometimes I'll ask my kids which one they think is best. That usually works out well. Your title needs to summarize your podcast or blog post well, and in a way that gets your audience's attention. Aaron: I think a lot of people – especially if they're new to publishing online – worry about writing titles that sound click-baity, or about doing list articles with titles like 7 Things Every Podcaster Should Know. Glenn: I can tell you this; the LinkedIn editors don't like list articles anymore. List articles are fun, but they're all over the place; too many people are doing them. What I say is it's better to be clear than clever. Sometimes I try to write a clever headline, but before I hit publish I ask myself, “What am I trying to say with this post? Does my headline reflect that?” I try to be truthful and give my reader a clear idea of what they're going to get. Don't lie, don't mislead or promise something you can't deliver. Cool Stuff to Check Out: Recommended Gear: https://kit.com/thepodcastdude Podcast: https://thepodcastdude.simplecast.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodcastdude Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thepodcastdude Successful Podcasting: http://successfulpodcasting.com Simplecast Blog: http://blog.simplecast.com/ Glenn's website: http://www.writewithimpact.com/

Want to be a better podcaster? Something I’ve seen over and over again is that the best podcasters spend a lot of time writing. Want to learn how to be a better writer? My guest this week – Glenn Leibowitz – wants to help you get there. Glenn has been writing and editing for the past 17 years, mostly for his company, but two years ago he started his own blog and also started to blog weekly on LinkedIn. He writes about professional development, technology, social media, and writing. In April 2015, he launched his weekly podcast – Write With Impact – where he interviews authors of nonfiction and fiction and tries to pick apart their secrets and have them share what they’ve learned over the years as writers. In December 2015, LinkedIn named him one of 90 “top voices” on LinkedIn (out of the 1 million people who blog there). He ranked #2 in the marketing and social media category. I asked Glenn to join me for a three-part podcast series to share what he’s learning about writing and growing an audience, the benefits of storytelling, how to turn a podcast interview into a story, how to get started with publishing on LinkedIn, and more. In this episode, Glenn shares his top tips for becoming a better writer, we discuss why outlines are critical for success, why you should edit after you’re done writing, how to write great titles, and so much more. Key Takeaways: Writing an outline is like creating a map for yourself. It will help you get to where you want to go. Sharing a story brings the topic down to earth for your reader and allows them to relate to whatever you’re writing. Don’t try to make all your writing perfect right away. Allow yourself to separate the writing process and the editing process. If you’re not perfectly consistent with your output, that’s okay, just keep trying and never give up. Publish something every single week, regardless of how you feel. You'll improve through doing. Your title needs to summarize your podcast or blog post well, and in a way that gets your audience’s attention. Glenn: There’s so much to learn when it comes to writing, but all the writers I’ve ever talked with gave this advice: if you want to get better, you just gotta write more. With that in mind, here are my top tips for becoming a better writer. Tip #1. Write to an Audience of One Glenn: Know who you’re talking to. Visualize your reader if you can, and if you can’t, that’s fine, but try to write as if you’re writing to just one person. Pretend you’re writing an email to a friend or relative. That’s a good way to break through any inhibitions you might be feeling when you try to put words down on the page for the first time. Aaron: This is great advice for podcasters as well. When you’re podcasting, talk like you’re talking to a single person; this makes your listener feel a more personal connection with you. Tip #2. Write Like You Talk Glenn: When writing, pretend like you’re talking. Treat your writing as a form of transcription of your thoughts and of that voice running through your head. Just write whatever comes to mind. I wrote a blog post on LinkedIn about this recently — How to Find Your Writing Voice: Listen to the Voice on the Page. That one resonated with a lot of people because they could relate to that. It’s how I write, and apparently it’s how a lot of people write. As one of my guests on my podcast said, “If you can speak, you can write.” Don’t get caught up with the style, the vocabulary, just focus on getting what’s on your mind down on the page. Aaron: I agree, but I have a question. Sometimes when I’m writing, I’ll think something funny and put it down, but then I look at it and wonder if other people will get it or think it’s funny. Do you ever struggle with that? Glenn: That happens to me all the time. I write a lot of stuff that never sees the light of day, but you should edit after you’ve finished writing. Don’t worry about editing while you write. I try not to delete anything during the initial writing. I like collecting words even if they don’t end up going in the final version that I publish. Tip #3. Pick a Very Focused Topic Glenn: Whatever you’re writing – show notes for a podcast, a blog post, the chapter of your first ebook on Amazon – you need to have a focused topic. Your entire blog post should support or relate to that topic in some way. Think about the main point of your podcast or blog post, and let everything flow from there. Tip #4. Jot Down a Quick Outline Glenn: Jot down a few sentences or a very skeletal outline of what you want to write about. Put the bones down on the page before you start adding the meat. The first sentence or two should be what the entire blog post or chapter is about. Then list out the 4, 5, or 8 supporting points before you start working on the individual paragraphs. These points will be the blueprint, the directions that will help you get to where you want to go. Aaron: I love using mind maps to write outlines. It’s been a game changer for me. Writing an outline is like creating a map for yourself. It will help you get to where you want to go. Tip #5. Tell a Story Glenn: Storytelling seems to be all the rage these days and for very good reason; we all love stories. So many of the writers I’ve spoken to on my podcast have told me how they believe story is wired into our DNA, and I think that’s true. We all want to see how a hero overcomes a tough challenge and what happens next, how they grow from that and learn from that. That all sounds like the elements of fiction, and that’s how novelists write. But I believe, and my podcast guests agree, that the same elements of storytelling apply to writing nonfiction like blog posts, nonfiction books, essays, and I would argue, even show notes for a podcast. I start most of my blog posts off with a personal story of when I was a kid or teen or twenty-something or even something that happened recently. I relate the topic to something that happened to me personally, a challenge I faced, and then I describe how I dealt with it, and what I learned. My latest post on LinkedIn was about self-driving cars, and I started that one off with a story of how my mom put my brother and me in a defensive driving course even before we could drive, just so she could scare the heck out of us and make us better drivers. I then followed that story up with the news of Google’s self-driving car, which got the green light from the National Transportation Safety Administration. Sharing a story brings the topic down to earth for your reader and allows them to relate to whatever you’re writing. Aaron: I love hearing those personal stories. I find it hard to connect with people who don’t ever share any personal stories. Tip #6. Edit, Edit, Edit Glenn: This is where your logical, analytical brain kicks in. You need to take a microscopic look at each sentence and word on the page, review your punctuation, and read through your writing over and over again in your mind (or out loud) to see if it all fits together logically. You want to make sure you are delivering your message clearly, which is critically important, and also that it’s grammatically correct. If you’re not good with grammar or punctuation or word usage, or if you’re not a native writer of English, ask a friend or family member to take a look at it, or hire a freelance editor on one of those freelancing websites. But edit edit edit until it’s something you feel comfortable publishing (and ideally, something you feel proud of). Aaron: Something I’ve started doing lately is allowing myself to write a first draft without trying to make it perfect. I used to try to make everything perfect the first time, which really slowed me down. Now, I write an outline, then write a first draft as fast as I can, then go back to do the editing afterwards. I’m much happier now that I’ve stopped trying to edit while I write. I have to thank the guys who wrote Write. Publish. Repeat. for sharing that tip about writing your first draft as fast as you can. Don’t try to make all your writing perfect right away. Allow yourself to separate the writing process and the editing process. Tip #7. Be Consistent Glenn: One thing I see a lot of bloggers do is write a post here, write one there, maybe 5-10 posts, or maybe they go for 6-12 months and then give up. If you’re not perfectly consistent with your output, that’s okay, just keep trying and never give up. Take Sean McCabe’s advice; you have to show up and create content every day for at least two years before you’ll see substantial results. If you do see results before that two year point, consider it a bonus. But you’ve got to look at writing as a long-term play, and not something you just do whenever you feel like it. Don’t quit just because you feel bored or if you aren’t seeing results yet. Publish something every single week, regardless of how you feel. Aaron: “Show up every day” applies to podcasting too. I’ve seen amazing results in the past 10 months because I showed up every day and released an episode every week. I’ve become a better writer and a better podcaster, all because I keep trying. I keep showing up and I give it the best I can every single time, and I get a little better every week and my audience keeps growing. Recap: Aaron: Those were some great tips, so I want to do a quick recap: Write to an audience of one Write like you talk Pick a focused topic Write outlines Tell a story Edit, edit, edit Be consistent Connect with Glenn Leibowitz Aaron: Glenn, you’ll be back next week, but in the meantime, where can people go to find you online? Glenn: You can head over to WriteWithImpact.com and sign up for my weekly newsletter so you can get my latest podcast episodes and blog posts, as well as recommendations for books and resources for writers. I’m also on LinkedIn and encourage you to connect directly with me there. You can find me on Twitter at @glennleibowitz. Q&A Levi Allen asked: What are the top books/blogs you’d recommend for growing as a writer? Glenn: I have two books that I recommend to everyone; On Writing Well by William Zinsser, and On Writing by Stephen King. For websites/blogs, I’d recommend checking out Joanna Penn, Jeff Goins, Monica Leonelle, and Chris Fox. You can also check out my website and podcast to find even more great resources. Aaron: I’m currently reading a fantastic book called Write. Publish. Repeat. and I think anyone interested in writing should pick that up. I’m also a fan on both On Writing and On Writing Well, although I’m only about 60% of the way through On Writing Well. Scotty Russell asked: How do you balance injecting value and sharing your own life experiences? Making your audience the hero yet establishing credibility. Glenn: I keep that in mind every time I sit down to write a blog post. I don’t want to write what I call “navel-gazers”, that is, posts where I just talk about myself. I try to avoid that, but I do try to include myself or my experiences in the story if it’s relevant. I try to always orient the message of the post towards the reader. I’m always trying to think about what would be valuable for the reader. Aaron: Always start with wanting to give your audience something valuable. But I’m wondering; do you ever struggle with qualifying what you’re saying with, “This is just my experience, it might not work for you”? I find myself doing that a lot. Glenn: Yeah, of course. That’s something I struggle with all the time. It’s why I have so many unfinished blog posts in my drafts folder. But I try to push through and publish anyways. Even if the blog post doesn’t help everyone, as long as it helps a few people than I’m doing good work. Joseph asked: How do you come up with good titles without making them sounding like click-bait? Glenn: You definitely don’t want to use click-bait. Click-bait means that your title promises something that your article doesn’t deliver, and you never want to do that. Just be honest and clear with the headline. I often write out a list of possible headlines, and sometimes I’ll ask my kids which one they think is best. That usually works out well. Your title needs to summarize your podcast or blog post well, and in a way that gets your audience’s attention. Aaron: I think a lot of people – especially if they’re new to publishing online – worry about writing titles that sound click-baity, or about doing list articles with titles like 7 Things Every Podcaster Should Know. Glenn: I can tell you this; the LinkedIn editors don’t like list articles anymore. List articles are fun, but they’re all over the place; too many people are doing them. What I say is it’s better to be clear than clever. Sometimes I try to write a clever headline, but before I hit publish I ask myself, “What am I trying to say with this post? Does my headline reflect that?” I try to be truthful and give my reader a clear idea of what they’re going to get. Don’t lie, don’t mislead or promise something you can’t deliver. Cool Stuff to Check Out: Recommended Gear: https://kit.com/thepodcastdude Podcast: https://thepodcastdude.simplecast.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/thepodcastdude Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thepodcastdude Successful Podcasting: http://successfulpodcasting.com Simplecast Blog: http://blog.simplecast.com/ Glenn's website: http://www.writewithimpact.com/

Thanks for checking out this episode of Art of the Sermon! Be sure to subscribe through iTunes, Google Play Music, or your favorite podcast app. If you enjoy this episode, leave a review on our podcast’s page in the iTunes store. This will help others discover the show! How this new show works (0:18) Reflecting on the conversation with Rev. Magrey deVega (1:40) The phrase “both here and not yet” in the season of Advent (2:59) Giving Advent the time, space, and importance it deserves (4:49) Deleted Scene: What Magrey learned from spending a week with Eugene Peterson (7:08) The Discipline of Writing (12:41) “If writing seems hard—it’s because it is hard” – William Zinsser (15:12) Links to things mentioned in the episode Awaiting the Already: An Advent Journey Through the Gospels - Magrey deVega Defining Grace Blog Post: “Hard is Ok” Connect with the Show I would love to hear what you think about the show—especially this episode. You can connect with the show and send me your feedback through the following channels: Facebook - Facebook.com/ArtOfTheSermon Twitter- Twitter.com/ArtOfTheSermon Instagram- Instagram.com/ArtOfTheSermon Comment on the Show Notes post at ArtOfTheSermon.com Art of the Sermon is a project by Dan Wunderlich of Defining Grace. Learn more at DefiningGrace.com Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in these show notes may be “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. Defining Grace is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.

This week on "A Way with Words": People in ancient times could be just as bawdy and colorful as we are today. To prove it, we found some graffiti written on the walls in the city of Pompeii, and found plenty of sex, arrogance and good old fashioned bathroom talk etched in stone. Plus, British rhyming slang makes its way to our televisions through police shows on PBS. And a dictionary for rock climbers gives us a fantastic word that anyone can use to describe a rough day. Also, spitting game, hornswoggling, two kinds of sloppy joes, peppy sad songs, and endearing names for grandma.FULL DETAILSWhen Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 A.D., parts of the ancient city of Pompeii remained intact, including the graffiti written on its walls. Much of what was written, not unlike today's bathroom etchings, is naughty and boastful, with people like Celadus the Thracian claiming to be the one who "makes the girls moan."A Tallahassee, Florida, mother who texted her daughter in a hurry accidentally asked about the "baby woes," meaning "baby wipes," and came to the conclusion that we need a new phrase: read between the autocorrect.If you watch British police procedurals, you'll likely come across the term to grass someone, meaning "to inform on someone" or "to rat someone out." It's a bit of British rhyming slang that originated with the 19th-century phrase to shop on someone. That gave us the noun shopper, which became grasshopper, and then got shortened to grass. A Japanese version of the idiom the grass is always greener translates to "the neighbor's flowers are red."The word hornswoggle, meaning "to embarrass" or "to swindle," is of unclear origin, but definitely seems of a piece with U.S. frontier slang from the 1830s and 1840s. Our Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a game called Dictum wherein he gives us a word, like contrary or emasculate, and we have to guess the closest bold-faced word that comes after it in the dictionary. Tougher than you might think!A listener whose first language is Farsi wonders if the name of the grandma in the classic film An Affair to Remember, gave us the endearment nanu, for grandmother. In Mediterranean countries, words like nanu, nana, nene and nona are all common terms for "granny." Here's a truism that often appeared scribbled in ancient wall graffiti: I wonder, oh wall, that you have not yet collapsed. So many writers' cliches do you bear.The term spitting game, meaning "to flirt," comes from African-American slang going back to at least the 1960's, when game referred to someone's hustle. It's well covered in Randy Kearse's Street Talk: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop and Urban Slanguage. Martha recalls that as an English major, she nearly memorized William Zinsser's On Writing Well. He died this month at age 92, and she'll remember this quote, among others: "Ultimately, the product any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is...I often find myself reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me — some scientific quest, perhaps. What holds me is the enthusiasm of the writer for his field."A listener from northern New Jersey says that in his part of the state, a sloppy joe was not the mashed-up ground beef sandwich many of us also know as a loose meat sandwich, spoonburger, or tavern. For him, a sloppy joe was a deli meat sandwich that consisted of things like pastrami, turkey, coleslaw, Russian dressing and rye bread.Here's a lovely bit of ancient graffiti found on the wall of an inn: "We have wet the bed. I admit, we were wrong, my host. If you ask why, there was no chamberpot."Pro wrestling, a fake sport with a very real following, has a trove of lingo all its own that can be found in the newsletter and website PW Torch. One saying, red means green, refers to the fact that a wrestler who winds up bloody will get a prettier payout for his or her performance. And kayfabe is a wrestler's character persona, which he or she often keeps up for any public appearance, even outside the ring.A fan of Bruce Springsteen's song "Dancing in the Dark" called to say that she's noticed the lyrics are awfully sad for such a peppy tune, and wonders if there's a word for this phenomenon. Lyrical dissonance would do the job, but there's also the term agathokakological, a Greek-influenced word meaning "both good and evil."One listener followed up our discussion of classic literary passages turned into limerick form by writing one of his own, a baseball-themed poem that begins, "There once was a batter named Casey."Vermont is one place—but not the only one—where non-natives are referred to as flatlanders, and people who've been around generations proudly call themselves woodchucks. It's written about on Shawn Kerivan's blog, Innkeeping Insights in Stowe.The Climbing Dictionary by Matt Samet includes a fantastic term that can be used by non-climbers as well: high gravity day, a day when all routes, even easy ones, seem impossible due to a seeming increase in gravity.The expression to a T comes from a shortening of tittle, a word meaning a little of something. The word tittle even shows up in the bible. There's also an idiom to the teeth, as in dressed to the teeth, or fully armored-up.This episode is hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2015, Wayword LLC.

Long lost sisters meet in a writing class, healthy habits to deal with the loneliness of being a writer, the late William Zinsser’s advice, five websites to visit instead of writing, where you can get fab free pictures for your blog, Writer in Residence Pip Lincolne, how to manage passwords without losing your mind, approaching interviewees for article pitches, and more! Read the show notes.  Connect with Valerie, Allison and listeners in the podcast community on Facebook Visit WritersCentre.com.au | AllisonTait.com | ValerieKhoo.com

Yesterday, I awoke to the sad news that William Zinsser, the writer, teacher, and author of "On Writing Well" and many other books about writing, had passed away. I wrote about Zinsser in a blog post earlier this year, but in the past 24 hours, I’ve had time to reflect again on what I’ve learned from him. I thought I’d share a few of these thoughts here as my brief tribute to the man who has had a profound impact on my writing. Read the full text of this episode here: www.writewithimpact.com/william-zinsser

To write well, you need to continually exercise your brain muscle. As James says, one of the best books on writing is Stephen King's book, On Writing. King says that after a bad bicycle accident, he stopped writing for a few weeks while he healed. When he got back to it, he couldn't write. He couldn't quite connect the words. James writes seven days a week and he tries to do it at his peak productivity time. When Dan Ariely was on The James Altucher Podcast earlier this year, he explained that two to four hours after you wake up are your peak hours. So if you want to be a better writer, then this is probably the best time for you to sit down and write. James wakes up about 6:00 a.m. and spends a few minutes every day "meditating." He then reads for about two hours and makes sure to read some fiction. Then it's on to writing. If you want to improve your writing skills, write every day and give yourself permission to publish something that is not great. Regards, David Newman P.S. James says there are seven huge trends that will shape America. Understanding these trends before anyone else will give you a huge advantage in work, life, and investing.   ------------------------Recommended Resources------------------------- by Stephen King by William Zinsser by Ray Bradbury by Anne Lamott by Denis Johnson The James Altucher Show EP 65   Ask Altucher Ep. 91

Some people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that's not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who's battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they've read all day. Plus, koofers and goombahs, Alfred Hitchcock and MacGuffins, why we put food in jars but call it canning, and why ring the door with your elbow means BYOB.FULL DETAILSEver read a sentence that's so good, you just have to look up from the page to let it sink in? Grant offers one from Ezra Pound: "The book should be a ball of light in one's hands."When someone says, He didn't lick that off the grass, it means he's inherited a behavior from relatives or picked it up from those around them. This phrase is particularly common in Northern Ireland. Don't bother showing up to a party unless you're ringing the doorbell with your elbow. In other words, BYOB.Brian from Edison, New Jersey, is pondering this linguistic mystery: The Mid-Atlantic convenience store chain Wawa has a goose as its logo. The Algonquin term for "goose" is wawa, and the French for "goose" is oie, pronounced "wah." Is there a connection between the French and Native American terms? It's probably just another example from a long list of linguistic coincidences resulting from the limited amount of vocal sounds we can make. Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska invites us to play Categorical Allies, a game of two-word pairs where the last two letters of the first word lend themselves to the start of the second, and both words fit into one category. For example, what word might follow the name Job? Or the title A Christmas Carol?Say you've been busy all semester throwing a Frisbee and drinking juice out of a funnel, and now it's finals week. How are you going to study? Just get yourself a koofer! These old tests, which some universities keep around in their libraries, can be great guides in prepping for a current test. Virginia Tech alums claim the term originated there in the early 1940s. In any case, many universities now have koofers, and many are available online at koofers.com. Why do we call it canning if we're putting stuff in glass jars? The answer has to do with when the technique was discovered. The process of canning came about in the late 1700s, when thin glass jars were used. Factories soon switched to metal cans because they were durable and better for shipping. But after Mason jars came about in the mid-1800s, the process of preserving things at home kept the name canning. Sam Anderson, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, tweets the best sentence he reads each day, like this from D.H. Lawrence describing the affection of Italians: "They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips."Should people living with cancer be referred to as cancer survivors? Mary from Delafield, Wisconsin, a breast cancer survivor herself, doesn't like the term. Nor does Indiana University professor emerita Susan Gubar, who discusses this in an eloquent New York Times blog post. Many people living with cancer feel that the word survivor, which came into vogue in the early 90s, now seems inadequate. Some argue that having cancer shouldn't be their most important identifying feature. Others suggest calling themselves contenders or grits. Have a better idea?Kevin Whitebaum of Oberlin, Ohio, has a favorite sentence from P.D. James's A Taste for Death: "The original tenants had been replaced by the transients of the city, the peripatetic young, sharing three to a room; unmarried mothers sharing social security; foreign students—a racial mix which, like some human kaleidoscope, was continually being shaken into new and brighter colours."A while back, we talked about ishpy, a popular word among Nordic immigrants meaning something that a child shouldn't touch or put in their mouth. It turns out that lots of listeners with ancestors from Norway and Denmark know the term ishpy, along with ishie poo, ishta, and ish, all having to do with something disgusting or otherwise forbidden.When is it okay to correct someone's grammar? Grant offers two rules: Correct someone only if they've asked you to, or if they're paying you to. Otherwise, telling someone they should've used I instead of me is just interrupt the conversation for no good reason.Nick Greene, web editor for The Village Voice, tweeted, "Modern society's greatest failing has been letting Application defeat Appetizer in the War For What Can Be Called an App." There's always antipasti.Goombah, sometimes spelled goomba, is a term for Italian-Americans that's sometimes used disparagingly. Physicians use the same word for the blobs on CT scans indicating a possible tumor, but this sense probably derives from the evil mushrooms in Super Mario Bros., known as goombas. The game was released in 1986, right about the same time that doctors picked up the term.Here's a great sentence by Phil Jackson, tweeted by writer Sam Anderson: "I was 6'6" in high school ... arms so long I could sit in the backseat of a car and open both front doors at the same time."A MacGuffin isn't the name of a breakfast sandwich, but it could be -- that is, if a movie involves characters trying to get that sandwich. The MacGuffin, also spelled McGuffin or maguffin, is any object in a film that drives the story forward, like the secret papers or the stolen necklace. Alfred Hitchcock made the MacGuffin famous, and explained it this way in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original." Judy Schwartz from Dallas, Texas, sent us the best sentence she read all day. It's from William Zinsser's On Writing Well: "Clutter is the disease of American writing." Have a sentence that stopped you in your tracks? Send it our way.This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.....Support for A Way with Words comes from The Ken Blanchard Companies, celebrating 35 years of making a leadership difference with Situational Leadership II, the leadership model designed to boost effectiveness, impact, and employee engagement. More about how Blanchard can help your executives and organizational leaders at kenblanchard.com/leadership.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2014, Wayword LLC.

We discuss the role of design in the practice of law with renowned typographer-lawyer Matthew Butterick. The conversation ranges among very practical tips for making better documents, why so many legal documents are poorly designed, why lawyers should care about design, and what it even means to design a document. Matthew explains why IRS forms are some of the most well-designed legal documents around. Also, Joe manages to connect (positively) enjoying physical books with smelling gasoline. This show’s links: About Matthew Butterick, also here and @mbutterick on Twitter Nicholas Georgakopoulos, Knee Defender, Barro’s Error, and Surprise Norms Christopher Buccafusco and Chris Sprigman, Who Deserves Those 4 Inches of Airplane Seat Space? Keith O’Brien, America’s Chimp Problem The pronunciation of “chimpanzee” Cecilia Kang, Podcasts Are Back - And Making Money (sadly, not ours, but here’s Christian’s post on Podcasts and some of the reasons we started this show) Overcast, our preferred podcast app Episode 11: Big Red Diesel, in which we discussed typography, text editing, and the worst breaches of email etiquette Butterick’s Practical Typography (and how to pay for it if you choose!) From the book: Typography in Ten Minutes and Summary of Key Rules Matthew Butterick, Typography for Lawyers (and how to purchase physical and Kindle editions) Ben Carter, Typography for Lawyers: One Space, Double Spacing, and Other Good Ideas An example of a Supreme Court opinion, notable for its design Robin Williams, The Mac is Not a Typewriter Matthew Butterick, The Bomb in the Garden, text and images from a talk Matthew gave at TYPO San Francisco in 2013 Rob Walker, The Guts of a New Machine, reporting on the iPod’s first two years and including the quote from Steve Jobs that “design is how it works” (Note too the uncertainty in 2003 whether the iPod would go on to sell like the breakthrough Sony Walkman, which sold 186 million in twenty years. As of this article, the iPod had sold 1.4 million. It went on to sell 350 million in eleven years.) Dan Barry, A Writing Coach Becomes a Listener, a profile of William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well Mike Monteiro, Design Is a Job Lawrence Solum, Legal Theory Lexicon: Fit and Justification Patrick Kingsley, Higgs Boson and Comic Sans: The Perfect Fusion Matthew Butterick, Pollen, “a publishing system that helps authors create beautiful and functional web-based books” and that “includes tools for writing, designing, programming, testing, and publishing” Matthew’s Equity and Concourse typefaces Matthew Butterick, The Economics of a Web-Based Book: Year One Special Guest: Matthew Butterick.

SUMMARYSome people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that's not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who's battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they've read all day. Plus, koofers and goombahs, Alfred Hitchcock and MacGuffins, why we put food in jars but call it canning, and why ring the door with your elbow means BYOB.FULL DETAILSEver read a sentence that's so good, you just have to look up from the page to let it sink in? Grant offers one from Ezra Pound: "The book should be a ball of light in one's hands."When someone says, He didn't lick that off the grass, it means he's inherited a behavior from relatives or picked it up from those around them. This phrase is particularly common in Northern Ireland. Don't bother showing up to a party unless you're ringing the doorbell with your elbow. In other words, BYOB.Brian from Edison, New Jersey, is pondering this linguistic mystery: The Mid-Atlantic convenience store chain Wawa has a goose as its logo. The Algonquin term for "goose" is wawa, and the French for "goose" is oie, pronounced "wah." Is there a connection between the French and Native American terms? It's probably just another example from a long list of linguistic coincidences resulting from the limited amount of vocal sounds we can make. Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska invites us to play Categorical Allies, a game of two-word pairs where the last two letters of the first word lend themselves to the start of the second, and both words fit into one category. For example, what word might follow the name Job? Or the title A Christmas Carol?Say you've been busy all semester throwing a Frisbee and drinking juice out of a funnel, and now it's finals week. How are you going to study? Just get yourself a koofer! These old tests, which some universities keep around in their libraries, can be great guides in prepping for a current test. Virginia Tech alums claim the term originated there in the early 1940s. In any case, many universities now have koofers, and many are available online at koofers.com. Why do we call it canning if we're putting stuff in glass jars? The answer has to do with when the technique was discovered. The process of canning came about in the late 1700s, when thin glass jars were used. Factories soon switched to metal cans because they were durable and better for shipping. But after Mason jars came about in the mid-1800s, the process of preserving things at home kept the name canning. Sam Anderson, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, tweets the best sentence he reads each day, like this from D.H. Lawrence describing the affection of Italians: "They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips."Should people living with cancer be referred to as cancer survivors? Mary from Delafield, Wisconsin, a breast cancer survivor herself, doesn't like the term. Nor does Indiana University professor emerita Susan Gubar, who discusses this in an eloquent New York Times blog post. Many people living with cancer feel that the word survivor, which came into vogue in the early 90s, now seems inadequate. Some argue that having cancer shouldn't be their most important identifying feature. Others suggest calling themselves contenders or grits. Have a better idea?Kevin Whitebaum of Oberlin, Ohio, has a favorite sentence from P.D. James's A Taste for Death: "The original tenants had been replaced by the transients of the city, the peripatetic young, sharing three to a room; unmarried mothers sharing social security; foreign students—a racial mix which, like some human kaleidoscope, was continually being shaken into new and brighter colours."A while back, we talked about ishpy, a popular word among Nordic immigrants meaning something that a child shouldn't touch or put in their mouth. It turns out that lots of listeners with ancestors from Norway and Denmark know the term ishpy, along with ishie poo, ishta, and ish, all having to do with something disgusting or otherwise forbidden.When is it okay to correct someone's grammar? Grant offers two rules: Correct someone only if they've asked you to, or if they're paying you to. Otherwise, telling someone they should've used I instead of me is just interrupt the conversation for no good reason.Nick Greene, web editor for The Village Voice, tweeted, "Modern society's greatest failing has been letting Application defeat Appetizer in the War For What Can Be Called an App." There's always antipasti.Goombah, sometimes spelled goomba, is a term for Italian-Americans that's sometimes used disparagingly. Physicians use the same word for the blobs on CT scans indicating a possible tumor, but this sense probably derives from the evil mushrooms in Super Mario Bros., known as goombas. The game was released in 1986, right about the same time that doctors picked up the term.Here's a great sentence by Phil Jackson, tweeted by writer Sam Anderson: "I was 6'6" in high school ... arms so long I could sit in the backseat of a car and open both front doors at the same time."A MacGuffin isn't the name of a breakfast sandwich, but it could be -- that is, if a movie involves characters trying to get that sandwich. The MacGuffin, also spelled McGuffin or maguffin, is any object in a film that drives the story forward, like the secret papers or the stolen necklace. Alfred Hitchcock made the MacGuffin famous, and explained it this way in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original." Judy Schwartz from Dallas, Texas, sent us the best sentence she read all day. It's from William Zinsser's On Writing Well: "Clutter is the disease of American writing." Have a sentence that stopped you in your tracks? Send it our way.This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2014, Wayword LLC.

Some people proudly embrace the label cancer survivor, while others feel that's not quite the right word. Is there a better term for someone who's battled cancer? Writers and listeners share the best sentence they've read all day. Plus, koofers and goombahs, Alfred Hitchcock and MacGuffins, why we put food in jars but call it canning, and why ring the door with your elbow means BYOB.FULL DETAILSEver read a sentence that's so good, you just have to look up from the page to let it sink in? Grant offers one from Ezra Pound: "The book should be a ball of light in one's hands."When someone says, He didn't lick that off the grass, it means he's inherited a behavior from relatives or picked it up from those around them. This phrase is particularly common in Northern Ireland. Don't bother showing up to a party unless you're ringing the doorbell with your elbow. In other words, BYOB.Brian from Edison, New Jersey, is pondering this linguistic mystery: The Mid-Atlantic convenience store chain Wawa has a goose as its logo. The Algonquin term for "goose" is wawa, and the French for "goose" is oie, pronounced "wah." Is there a connection between the French and Native American terms? It's probably just another example from a long list of linguistic coincidences resulting from the limited amount of vocal sounds we can make. Our Quiz Guy Greg Pliska invites us to play Categorical Allies, a game of two-word pairs where the last two letters of the first word lend themselves to the start of the second, and both words fit into one category. For example, what word might follow the name Job? Or the title A Christmas Carol?Say you've been busy all semester throwing a Frisbee and drinking juice out of a funnel, and now it's finals week. How are you going to study? Just get yourself a koofer! These old tests, which some universities keep around in their libraries, can be great guides in prepping for a current test. Virginia Tech alums claim the term originated there in the early 1940s. In any case, many universities now have koofers, and many are available online at koofers.com. Why do we call it canning if we're putting stuff in glass jars? The answer has to do with when the technique was discovered. The process of canning came about in the late 1700s, when thin glass jars were used. Factories soon switched to metal cans because they were durable and better for shipping. But after Mason jars came about in the mid-1800s, the process of preserving things at home kept the name canning. Sam Anderson, a writer for The New York Times Magazine, tweets the best sentence he reads each day, like this from D.H. Lawrence describing the affection of Italians: "They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips."Should people living with cancer be referred to as cancer survivors? Mary from Delafield, Wisconsin, a breast cancer survivor herself, doesn't like the term. Nor does Indiana University professor emerita Susan Gubar, who discusses this in an eloquent New York Times blog post. Many people living with cancer feel that the word survivor, which came into vogue in the early 90s, now seems inadequate. Some argue that having cancer shouldn't be their most important identifying feature. Others suggest calling themselves contenders or grits. Have a better idea?Kevin Whitebaum of Oberlin, Ohio, has a favorite sentence from P.D. James's A Taste for Death: "The original tenants had been replaced by the transients of the city, the peripatetic young, sharing three to a room; unmarried mothers sharing social security; foreign students—a racial mix which, like some human kaleidoscope, was continually being shaken into new and brighter colours."A while back, we talked about ishpy, a popular word among Nordic immigrants meaning something that a child shouldn't touch or put in their mouth. It turns out that lots of listeners with ancestors from Norway and Denmark know the term ishpy, along with ishie poo, ishta, and ish, all having to do with something disgusting or otherwise forbidden.When is it okay to correct someone's grammar? Grant offers two rules: Correct someone only if they've asked you to, or if they're paying you to. Otherwise, telling someone they should've used I instead of me is just interrupt the conversation for no good reason.Nick Greene, web editor for The Village Voice, tweeted, "Modern society's greatest failing has been letting Application defeat Appetizer in the War For What Can Be Called an App." There's always antipasti.Goombah, sometimes spelled goomba, is a term for Italian-Americans that's sometimes used disparagingly. Physicians use the same word for the blobs on CT scans indicating a possible tumor, but this sense probably derives from the evil mushrooms in Super Mario Bros., known as goombas. The game was released in 1986, right about the same time that doctors picked up the term.Here's a great sentence by Phil Jackson, tweeted by writer Sam Anderson: "I was 6'6" in high school ... arms so long I could sit in the backseat of a car and open both front doors at the same time."A MacGuffin isn't the name of a breakfast sandwich, but it could be -- that is, if a movie involves characters trying to get that sandwich. The MacGuffin, also spelled McGuffin or maguffin, is any object in a film that drives the story forward, like the secret papers or the stolen necklace. Alfred Hitchcock made the MacGuffin famous, and explained it this way in a 1939 lecture at Columbia University: "It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is always the necklace and in spy stories it is always the papers. We just try to be a little more original." Judy Schwartz from Dallas, Texas, sent us the best sentence she read all day. It's from William Zinsser's On Writing Well: "Clutter is the disease of American writing." Have a sentence that stopped you in your tracks? Send it our way.This episode was hosted by Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett.....Support for A Way with Words also comes from National University, which invites you to change your future today. More at http://www.nu.edu/.--A Way with Words is funded by its listeners: http://waywordradio.org/donateGet your language question answered on the air! Call or write with your questions at any time:Email: words@waywordradio.orgPhone: United States and Canada toll-free (877) WAY-WORD/(877) 929-9673London +44 20 7193 2113Mexico City +52 55 8421 9771Donate: http://waywordradio.org/donateSite: http://waywordradio.org/Podcast: http://waywordradio.org/podcast/Forums: http://waywordradio.org/discussion/Newsletter: http://waywordradio.org/newsletter/Twitter: http://twitter.com/wayword/Skype: skype://waywordradio Copyright 2013, Wayword LLC.

How you communicate can make or break you in your personal and business life. The way you speak, write, your body language and good eye contact. Are you optimistic, patient, sincere, honest and a good listener? The way you dress, your posture and confidence. Are you approachable? The attributes of good communication are vast and can take time and practice to master. I want to focus on one today. Are you speaking to your customers in a language they understand? In your particular industry there may be words you use to describe certain components or products. Avoid using unfamiliar vocabulary or general terms that will leave people confused. One example would be financial planning and investments. There are many terms that can leave a novice confused and nervous. That is why best selling author and radio host Dave Ramsey insists that his endorsed financial service providers have ‘the heart of a teacher”. I follow this rule, “If I don't understand it, I don't do it.” William Zinsser stated in his book, On Writing Well, that many managers are prisoners of the notion that a simple style reflects a simple mind. In many cases, speaking and writing clearly can be more difficult, but is worth the effort. What is your goal? Are you more likely to gain commitment from a prospect if they are confused or when they have a clear understanding of what you are offering and how it will meet their needs? A word of warning. Do not appear condescending and insult your customer. Respect their intelligence and learn to ask great questions. They will tell you what they need if you pay attention. Have a great week! Pierce