Category: Productivity

Peggy Bechko on Enhancing Your Writing

From Peggy’s blog:

Three Observations On How to Add Punch In Your Writing – by Peggy Bechko

Okay, first, as writers, we (at least most of us) know we need to flavor our writing with sensations that go beyond sight and sound. We add things like the aroma of chicken grilling, the smell of tangy perfume, the feel of a too-heavy gold chain dragging against the back of a neck, the feel of a chilled breeze ticking up one’s back beneath a jacket or the really sour taste of overdone lemonade to add life to our writing. You know, stuff everyone experiences, maybe notices. read article

Avoiding Stress the Way the Ancients Did

In the words of Cato the Younger: “Uh-oh…”

Cheatsheet from Liam McLennan via William B. Irvine

Stoicism for Modern Stresses: 5 Lessons From Cato – by Rob Goodman & Jimmy Soni

Julius Caesar wanted to end him. George Washington wanted to be him. And for two thousand years, he was a singular subject of plays, poetry, and paintings, with admirers as diverse as Benjamin Franklin, the poet Dante, and the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius.

Yet, for all that, you’ve probably never heard of him… read article

munchman: The Writer of GROUNDHOG DAY Tells How He Does It

Danny Rubin, whose credits include GROUNDHOG DAY and HEAR NO EVIL, has a book out called How to Write Groundhog Day. Inasmuch as I love the film, I’m hoping the book is great. Here’s a helpful sample:

How to Write Groundhog Day: 10 Rules for Screenwriters – by Danny Rubin

Last summer another list of writing rules popped up, this one in a Sunday edition of The New York Times.

The comfort of rules can be very important to a writer’s motivation because telling them the truth (there are no rules and nobody knows anything) is for most people not useful and a little intimidating. read article