September 8, 2014 Business, Personal, Writing 2
Well.
It’s September.
How did that happen?
I don’t know what happened to my summer. It blew by in a whirlwind of errands, appointments, campouts, projects, events, and kid ferrying endeavors. What quiet moments I did have were spent largely on volunteer work. (more…)
“We write to taste life twice.” — Anais Nin
I don’t know where the time goes.
It’s been more than two months since I posted anything here. There are dozens of reasons for my lapse, but they can largely be summed up in one word: motherhood.
Hello, friends.
How time does slip away when one is caught up in life! It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost a month since I last posted here. Between a scheduled vacation, a semi-scheduled stint on a jury, and the standard ridiculous schedule of a mother of four, updating my blog sort of slipped to the bottom of my priority list.
BUT!
The good news is that I am, at last, home again! (more…)
April 17, 2014 Business, Writing 0
Despite the trend toward more casual business copy, I’ve noticed that certain words still crop up on websites, in letters, and on blogs with a fair amount of frequency. These are words I dub “Businessese”–words that sound formal and business-like but don’t add any real strength to the copy itself. They’re words that may have been meaningful at one point, but due to overuse, they’ve lost any real punch. They may be words that came with the author from some other setting, such as the military or law enforcement. Or they may be words that are stuck in our heads from middle school composition classes when our teachers encouraged us to write “formal” business letters.
The problem with most of these words is that they put up a wall between the business and the audience. (more…)
April 9, 2014 Business, Writing 0
I’ve been tinkering with business copy off and on for over 25 years, and there are certain weaknesses that crop up over and over again. In this series of posts, I’ll be looking at some of the most common flaws that weaken business copy. Today’s weakness: Copy Flab.
Copy Flab is my term for the unnecessary words and phrases that clutter our writing. (more…)
April 1, 2014 Funny, Writing 0
Well, it would appear that Google is going to put freelancers like me right out of business:
Who needs those pesky “letters” anyway? Let’s just speak in Emoji from now on. It is, after all, the next phase in linguistic development.
(Note today’s date before you take this too seriously.)
H/T Language Log
Some of you may be curious why I would mention some of the more personal aspects of my life on this blog. “Why on earth,” you may ask, “would you blog about motherhood and knitting? And I understand how you are powered by coffee, but good books? How is that possible?”
Excellent questions. After all, I am a commercial writer, not a fiction writer (at least, not a publishing fiction writer). There’s really no reason for me to get so personal, is there?
Except that there is. (more…)
March 25, 2014 Business, Personal, Writing 4
“Let us step into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.“
— J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Not all of my adventures are extraordinary. Some, in fact, have been quite small.
The first time I knitted a sock was an adventure. (more…)