Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Relentlessly search If you dig deeply into the source of profitability for most companies today, you’ll find that it’s based on the fact that they’ve created a monopoly of time, space, or…
Writing tips Prepositions First, the preposition, which we love for its startling power to affirm and reframe relationships. Think, for instance, how much prepositional theology is imbedded in the words of the hymn…
Writing tips On Word Counts for First-Time Authors For some time now in coaching sessions with brand-new authors, I’ve noticed a good majority of them telling me that they are writing a small book - many times less…
Writing tips A deep-down-ness “...to begin seeing anyway that there is pain in every life, even the apparently luckiest, that buried griefs and hurtful memories are part of us all...there is so much to…
Publishing tips, Writing tips My Fourteen Semi-Brilliant Quotations for Working Authors by Jay Payleitner “IF YOU WRITE, GO AHEAD AND CALL YOURSELF A WRITER.” “IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A WRITER, EMBRACE WRITING OF ALL KINDS.”“DOING SOMETHING WELL LEADS TO MORE CHANCES TO…
Writing tips Opening Salvo In the musical 1776 there’s a classic scene in which Thomas Jefferson starts his solitary work of drafting the Declaration of Independence. Quill in hand, he scribbles down a line,…
Writing tips Precision of expression Precision of expression is neither taught nor appreciated in a culture that has prostituted language in the service of propaganda. To the degree that we consent to cheap hyperbole, flip…
Writing tips The Anti-Opening Opening Going against expectations to capture attention is a theme found in many of the options already mentioned. We can also go even further by starting with something that isn’t an…
Writing tips Felicity Let us pause here and reflect on one example of this kind of casualty. Felicity is a good case in point - a loss to the language of emotional life…
Writing tips Write It. Forget It. Rewrite It. A side note: it’s been said and is good advice to write the book (article, poem, song etc), leave it alone for a few days, then go back and rewrite…
Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Is the dog barking? One of the great honors of my life was studying under the great American author and consultant Peter Drucker, perhaps the most respected business strategist in history. He would teach…
Writing tips Reclamation work The pleasure of savoring words cannot be attained without some reclamation work. Words have to be “taken back,” brushed off, and sometimes healed. The business of reclaiming words from erosion…
Writing tips A good book is measured by the response it evokes A good book is measured by the response it evokes from the reader. It captures the heart of the reader. The goal is to help the reader understand and stay…
Marketing tips, Publishing tips, Writing tips Innovation through the strength of weak ties In the late nineties, a Stanford Business School professor named Martin Ruef decided to investigate the relationship between business innovation and diversity. Ruef was interested in the coffeehouse model of…
Writing tips The more writing practices you have, the better Ample practices of engagement I really love how prayer can happen in so many different ways. If traditional prayers with words offer no sense of connection, then maybe centering prayer…
Marketing tips, Writing tips Combining boxes Plan a brainstorming session with at least 10 diverse people. Really shake up the diversity in every way you can. And the more people involved the better. I’ve done this…
Marketing tips, Writing tips Be sober, be watchful Those of us who preach and teach and minister to each other need to focus on words more explicitly, intentionally, and caringly as part of the practice of our trade.…
Marketing tips, Writing tips The simplest composite of my audience One of the things I do, even in editing, is google the topic I am working on and see who is saying what about it. Then I check out who…
Writing tips Are there in us? In 2007, an English professor named Dale Brown became the Director of the Buechner Institute at King College in Bristol, TN. The institute’s aim was to further the conversation of…
Marketing tips, Writing tips A highly developed discourse of justification Because of the immense influence that English wields around the globe, those of us who speak English have tremendous power and consequently tremendous responsibility. The legacy of the English Bible…
