Category Archives for Articles
How to Cut the Fat and Make Your Writing Lean and Mean
Raise your hand if you’re intimidated by public speaking. If you’re in public right now, maybe just agree discreetly to yourself so strangers at the next table won’t give you the side-eye.
What is it about talking to a large audience that gives so many of us pause? Is it the staring, potentially judgmental crowd? Is it the harsh lights and wailing microphone feedback? Is it the possibility that we’ll forget to wear pants?
For most people, it’s the pressure of being “on”—front and center, live, in the hot seat.
Unless the words of your speech are graven upon your soul, you’re prime for derailment at any moment.
But what if, while you were up on that stage, there was a way to freeze or rewind time, without anyone knowing but you? You could choose your words perfectly or even reverse and rescue yourself from a disastrous quagmire of word salad.
How many people would be afraid of public speaking then?
Writing for an audience is public speaking, and your backspace key is your DeLorean.
How Hemingway Taught Me to Be a Better Writer
Ernest Hemingway’s writing hasn’t always intrigued me.
In fact, when I was a high school student and had to read A Farewell to Arms for my AP Literature and Composition class, I happily employed the use of Sparknotes summaries at least twice for sections of the book I hadn’t read.
I mean, I tried to read the whole novel … OK, maybe I could have tried harder.
Taking a lot of literature and reading classes throughout my education, Hemingway had been substantially built up. To me, Hemingway felt like a micro-deity English teachers and students told me about: He was in the sky or somewhere very distant from me, wearing a white robe with a cigar in his mouth, watching life happen below him—but I couldn’t touch him.
I couldn’t even speak to him. I just pictured him in my mind and wondered what it would be like to be in his presence.
I know it sounds a little magnified, and I wish I could say it’s an exaggeration.
Then I finally had the chance to read one of his works. And I was crestfallen.
Don’t Shy Away From Self-Promotion: The Case for Making Public Relations a Priority
Entrepreneurs wear many hats—no surprise there.
Planning, budgeting, customer service, emailing, writing, invoicing, marketing—the list is endless. However, there’s one key responsibility many content creators and marketers tend to neglect: public relations (PR).
Believe me, I get it. As the founder of Jessica Lawlor & Company (JL&Co), a boutique communications agency I started in 2016, PR is the last task I want to think about when I have a laundry list of to-dos to keep my business afloat.
However, with nearly a decade of PR experience, I know firsthand the importance of developing stories and sharing them with the media. I’m well aware of the power that a successful PR campaign can have on a business.
4 Tips All Professional Writers Can Learn From Poetry
Poetry. There aren’t many other words in writing that are quite as divisive as this one.
Those who love poetry tend to be completely enamored with it. Those who don’t exactly love it? Well, they may often not only dislike it, but may actually view it as annoying, over-the-top, or gratingly dramatic and flowery.
But if you’re a professional writer of any type (copywriter, journalist, tech blogger, novelist, essayist, non-fiction author, etc.), there’s a lot you can learn about writing from poetry, even if you’re one of its dissenters who find it all but useless.