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Language

Social media marketing – why make it hard?

by Bill on July 8, 2010

You’re a small business owner and you have to get on that social media thing. Everybody says so. Everything you read says so. You can’t turn around without someone asking what you’re doing with social media. And you’ve looked at it. You’ve been on Twitter and Facebook and you’ve read articles and you’ve talked to [...]

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How to be a better writer – three tips

by Bill on June 29, 2010

Here’s how to become a better writer: 1) write 2) read 3) listen They seem obvious, at least to me. Especially the first one. How does anyone improve a skill except by practice? Whether they’re athletes, artists, entrepreneurs, doctors — whatever — people get good at something by doing it. A lot. It’s the same [...]

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The only reason I have a job

by Bill on June 9, 2010

I know a bit about a lot of things but I can’t really claim to be an expert on any level except in the area of stringing words together. Although I have had positions that involved technical work (audio engineer, radio ad producer, a degree of coding for web sites), I’ve only managed to keep [...]

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Writing is acting

by Bill on March 10, 2010

I’m not big on rules or posts that say “do this” and “do that,” so this post is to simply describe how I approach writing. It might be better to say it describes what writing feels like to me. What is that approach? Exactly what the title says: writing is acting. This isn’t an idea [...]

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Words and how they sound

by Bill on March 8, 2010

The way words sound is critical to their effectiveness. How they are arranged is also critical. Language is musical; sentences are rhythmic. We don’t usually think in these terms though. But poets know it. Rappers know it. And writers of prose, if they’re good, they know it too. I’m currently reading Seth Godin’s latest book, [...]

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Deviled by the wind

by Bill on March 5, 2010

My dog and I are deviled by the wind. Our devilments differ but they have the wind in common. Take note that the word “the” is important. Were we deviled by wind that would be quite another matter, one of social indelicacy. Molly is made anxious by the wind itself. I think that for her [...]

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Ten off-the-cuff writing rules

by Bill on February 22, 2010

I began this list last Thursday. I finished it off Saturday morning. Surprisingly, on Saturday I also came across Ten rules for writing fiction. It seems I wasn’t alone in putting together a list. (Those writers, by the way, are much better than I am so their lists should carry a good deal more weight [...]

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