“Yes, but How?”: Mindfulness and Writing
We often offer tips, tricks, tools, and discussions of basic decency and kindness to help writers. This helps some people, but not others. Depending on who’s reading, any given tool […]
writing skills
The Plain Language Ideal
This week, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) released their plain-language standard for written communication. This marks the first internationally accepted statement of what clear communication means. The movement towards […]
Working with “Ugh”
We want writers to live happy and productive lives, for several reasons. Among these, it’s just good to be happy and engaged with writing. But also, it means more writing […]
An Editor Goes to a Writing Retreat
One of us (Alex) is currently on a writing retreat for academics. Here’s the setup: we have a room full of early-, mid- and late-career academics, we’re all on a […]
The Zen of Writing (Part 5): When Motivation Disappears
This week we’re reflecting, as we often do, on the fickleness of motivation. While it’s often possible to adjust to natural fluctuations of energy, sometimes motivation disappears as a package—we […]
On Being a Writer and Draft -2
Clients sometimes tell us that they are “not writers”. What they usually mean is that they’re not looking for suggestion on how to take their writing to the next level—they […]
Writerly Akrasia
We have written about writers’ difficulties in quite a few places because our clients often face these challenges. This is an enormous topic, spanning culture, psychology, theories of education, social […]
How to Keep Trying in the Stuck Places
Writing is hard. Learning to write is hard, and the more we learn the more sensitive we get to ways we could improve. Learning and growing is magical and wonderful, […]
Attention, Writing, and Editing
Following from last week’s post on deep work, we’ve been thinking a bit more about attention. Skill in writing is, among other things, skill with subtleties of attention. So let’s […]
Deep Work in Writing, Editing, and Coaching
We’re always reflecting on how our editing and academic coaching adds value to the world. We think a big piece of it has to do with helping people find deep […]