Writing is hard, even for people like me who make a living doing it, so sometimes it helps to have a writing partner. I’m not talking about an editor who reviews your final drafts for focus and clarity or a proofreader who checks for typos. I’m referring to someone...(Read More)
“Communication doesn’t take place because you tell somebody something. It takes place when you observe them closely and track their ability to follow you.”
Alan Alda wrote that in his charming book If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science...(Read More)
To market my writing workshops, I’ve produced a video. I was taped giving a one-hour lunch-and-learn session—new in my lineup of offerings—and then interviewed by my producer. How did you get started? she asked. What can companies expect when they hire you? And why should they choose you? Be...(Read More)
When Hervé Pierre, sometime stylist to First Lady Melania Trump, sits down to sketch, he asks himself, “Where is this woman going?”
“If you don’t have a purpose,” he told Vanessa Friedman, fashion director at The New York Times, “it’s just an idea on paper and the dress means nothing.”
The...(Read More)
Next week I’m running a workshop for a client who came to me saying, “We take too long to get to the point, and in the rush of the approval process everyone starts tinkering with the copy. By the time they’re all finished, the news is at the bottom...(Read More)
Why do people try so hard to have coffee with famous entrepreneurs when reading a book they’ve written is like getting many hours of their most crystallized thoughts? Drew Houston, the chief executive of Dropbox, posed that question when he was interviewed for “Corner Office,” one of my favorite...(Read More)
We want what we say (or what our clients say) to live on—in print and online. So in addition to sounding good, quotes should read well. I’m regularly surprised by how unclear or boring many businesspeople sound when they talk for attribution, uttering bewildering statements like, “They would cannibalize...(Read More)
It happens to us all. We sit down to write but struggle to get out clear consecutive sentences. Or we hammer out a draft and somebody says, “I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
This happens because we’ve given short shrift to the thinking that has to come first.
Every...(Read More)
