Category Archives for Articles
How to Create Engaging Content: 10 Steps to Writing Greatness
Great articles come in all shapes and sizes, from transient internet lists to verbose, lengthy musings in the London Review of Books.
Truly engaging articles, however, don’t happen by accident.
The mark of a great piece of engaging content (for our purposes here, at least) is not how long it is, how fancy the language is, how qualified the author is, or how technical the subject matter is. It’s how the reader feels while (and after) they read it.
Improve Your Writing Process by Building a Mind Palace
I have written articles in under two hours that got over half a million views in less than 24 hours.
For me to sit and write 5,000 to 6,000 words in one evening writing session is not unheard of (first draft, of course).
A couple decades of experience and habit certainly help with being able to write this way, but I definitely am not the most disciplined daily writer you’ll meet. For that, you should seek out Stephen King or some other prolific creative person.
Why Do We Miss Typos? How Proofreaders Improve Content
“Hey, Mom, did you see this? ‘Caesar salad’ is spelled wrong. And look, the text in this line is smaller than the text in the next line. Why don’t people check their menus?”
Misspellings, typos, and inconsistencies have always been major pet peeves of mine. Ever since I was a little kid, I have noticed typos in menus, advertisements, books, and public signs. Thankfully, I didn’t have access to email back then, because I would have sent angry emails all the time!
Ugh. Errors and typos are the worst! They are so irritating.
I’m Tired of Being Nice: One Crotchety Soul’s Wish for a Whole New Email World
Anyone who knows me personally knows how much I appreciate direct, no-BS people.
In my ideal world, we would all be honest, perhaps to a fault (see: The Invention of Lying). We would, from a young age, learn to communicate and be communicated to in earnest, and accept the hard facts without always having them couched in a compliment sandwich.*
This preference toward straight-shooting Ron Swanson types is why I don’t play well with gaggles of catty people or fit into highly politicized workplaces. I like to know where I stand.
That isn’t the world we live in, though, so we all have to adapt to some degree, myself included.