Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips How to Make A Great First Impression When people meet your brand, it’s as though they are meeting a person. They’re wondering if the two of you will get along, whether you can help them live a…
Writing tips The Long, Poetic Opening The rule: start with something short and punchy. So what’s any self-respecting author going to do to surprise readers? Break the rules, of course. It was the best of times,…
Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Cultivating serendipity While the creative walk can produce new serendipitous combinations of existing ideas in our heads, we can also cultivate serendipity in the way that we absorb new ideas from the…
Writing tips Two disciplines make for a whole life. If you want to write about spirituality, then prepare always to practice double disciplines. One discipline is the craft of writing; the other discipline is the intentional practice of spirituality.…
Uncategorized Social Implications By now, you might be thinking that the Matthew Effect could be connected to the convulsions of civil unrest occurring throughout the world. Perhaps you suspect this idea has very…
Uncategorized Through A Writer’s Eyes by Philip Yancey https://philipyancey.com/through-a-writers-eyes
Writing tips The Understated Opening Sometimes when emotions are hot and debates are combative, trying to yell even louder won’t work. Doing the opposite can make people listen. Sometimes, if you whisper, people will strain…
Writing tips Read, Learn, Write, Revise: 10 Assignments for the First-Time or Aspiring Author by Jevon Bolden https://www.jevonbolden.com/blog/2021/7/7/read-learn-write-revise-10-assignments-for-the-first-time-or-aspiring-author
Marketing tips, Writing tips Commonplacing Scholars, amateur scientists, aspiring men of letters - just about anyone with intellectual ambition in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was likely to keep a commonplace book. The great minds…
Writing tips What Authenticity Is and Why It Matters People who work in communications, such as television or book publishing, now say that authenticity is the new authority or authenticity is the new cool. It’s a shame that the…
Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Will I Let My Age Limit My Stage? by Patricia Raybon https://www.incourage.me/2021/08/will-i-let-age-limit-my-stage.html
Marketing tips, Writing tips It makes a difference where and when we grew up Malcolm Gladwell brings the Matthew Effect to popular attention in his book Outliers, which I warmly recommend. Gladwell blows apart the fanciful notion of rags-to-riches success. “People don’t rise from…
Uncategorized The Intriguing Opening We’ve become all too used to clickbait headlines we see on the web (“10 Surefire Ways to Lose Weight: You Won’t Believe #7”). Creating intrigue is a valid approach, but…
Marketing tips, Writing tips Breakthroughs usually take time to develop The snap judgments of intuition - as powerful as they can be - are rarities in the history of world-changing ideas. Most hunches that turn into important innovations unfold over…
Writing tips How to Make Your Story a Story for Others Around my workplace, we often refer to our mission as “people for others.” St. Ignatius and his companions formed the Society of Jesus for the purpose of “helping souls.” Helping…
Marketing tips What is Cumulative Advantage? Since Merton’s original paper debuted more than 50 years ago, the Matthew Effect is also more commonly referred to as Cumulative Advantage. The most accepted description of this idea is…
Writing tips Creative Writing as a Spiritual Practice by Debbie Bronkema I say these words, and whatever room I’m in, I see a light go on in somebody’s eyes. There are stories in us that are too… 1 Comment
Uncategorized Humble Beginnings Our exploration of the inner workings of Cumulative Advantage starts in 1968 with a Columbia University professor named Meyer Robert Schkolnick Meyer was born into a poor family of Russian…
Writing tips Memoir’s Small Frame Memoir revolves in an orbit of its own choosing, and therefore its pieces are often unified by a theme or period of time. The material is always the author’s life,…
Writing tips Understand the Difference between Personal and Public Writing I’ve lost track of all the manuscripts that have come to my editorial desk from people who survived tragedy, who processed the experience through writing, and who then came…
