Everyone seems to want to be a writer. And to meet the demand of all these aspiring writers wanting to learn to become writers there are myriad of books and courses on offer, depending on what kind of writer you’d prefer to be. You can become a ‘Premium Ghostwriter’ a ‘Sales Conversion writer’ an ‘online…
Category: ideas
The violence of lying
It was Sam Harris who first introduced me to the concept of lying as violence. I read his book on lying, aptly named, Lying and thought it interesting, agreed with most of it and decided to tell the truth wherever possible. If you read the last sentence again you’ll note I left myself wiggle room…
What we measure
“Have you done your homework?” When it came to my homework nothing else mattered to my parents. They didn’t ask how well I had done it or what I had learnt. ‘Done’ was what we measured when it came to homework in my house growing up. We’ve all heard a variation of the phrases, what…
Remembrance Day – what we forgot
The armistice signalling the end of fighting on all fronts during World War 1 was signed just after 5:00 in the morning on the 11th November, 1918. However, hostilities would only end six hours later at 11:00. 11th of the 11th at 11 was more elegant than 11th of the 11th at 5 in the…
Can you tell the difference between a JRR Tolkien character’s name and the name of an antidepressant
Ted Gioia shared a link to an online quiz called antidepressant or Tolkien. If you’re struggling with character names for your fantasy novel search the pharmaceutical industry. Are chemists big fantasy fans?
The true definition of words used in office jobs
Writing online – and writing that matters
The g-spot is a distraction. That’s what I’ve been telling myself for the past six months, which is when I last published an article here. I’ve been focusing on completing the third draft of the novel I’m writing, on writing that’s ‘important’, which implied that the articles I wrote here were frivolous. However, if I’m…
Thinking and living
I have COVID, again. This is my second dance with the ‘Rona, and on this spin, it hasn’t hit me as hard as it did a year ago. But being home and avoiding people has given me time to think about things. I’ve been thinking a lot about thinking and what we get from thinking,…
Practicing in Public
I haven’t published an article for over 4 months. I had been neglecting my novel and decided to focus on finishing the second draft. Outside of work and my morning pages, the only writing that’s received my attention has been my novel. I finished the second draft on the 25th of February and since then…
3 pieces of advice from the only person I ever considered a mentor
The ad agency was in trouble. Morale was low, our creative product sucked, and our clients were bullying us into making some really crap ads. We just didn’t seem to be able to do anything right. It’s not like we didn’t have creative or strategic talent. We did. We lacked the leadership to stand up…