Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Non-fiction books should be useful and recommendable. It is easy to lose sight of these qualities. A book by Rob Fitzpatrick is full of these qualities. I recently finished reading a book of simple fundamentals for writing non-fiction. “Write Useful Books. A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction,” Rob Fitzpatrick, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, the audience knows more than the designation teacher or expert. Great. There is much good that can come from this. Let’s discuss teaching adults or at least a situation where someone says you are the teacher and everyone else in the room is an adult. It is common for one of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When someone is quite specific in what they convey, they often mean the opposite. “I will inject some humor here,” often means that nothing funny will be said. “I don’t care about the money,” often means that I really do care about the money coming my way. “We are transparent here,” often […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I must have missed something in my life as the title of this post was very confusing the first time I heard it. I was being interviewed for a job. This was on the telephone. There were several people on the other end of the line. The principal interviewer asked me something […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I stumble on something that everyone else in the world has already heard. It is still brilliant. The only apology is changed behavior. I heard that on TV the other day. It seems that in various forms, it goes back to ancient times. It was new to me. Still, it is brilliant. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Three generations ago, an eight-year-old told us the reason for the season. The most-heard sermon of all time was delivered by an 8-year-old boy voicing a cartoon in 1965. Christopher Shea spoke the words below in A Charlie Brown Christmas. That sermon has been heard by millions or hundreds of millions of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips An apology is just that—an apology. It is neither an explanation nor a justification. Rats! An apology is simple: I did this wrong. I am sorry for that. I ask your forgiveness. An apology does not contain an explanation: I was trying to do such-and-such and … An apology does not contain […]

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by Dwayne Phillips In which I consider what is the ultimate purchase for the home, family, and home business: the table. Consider the humble flat horizontal surface. Narrow the consideration to the kitchen table with four chairs. A quick search shows plenty of choices from $100 on up. Let’s settle for $150. A family eats […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Busy at work? But are we doing the real work? Consider for a moment the “fast food industry” in America. I think we Americans invented this endeavor. What are the key words? I believe #1 is “industry” and #2 is “fast.” The concept of “food” is … well, not so important. This […]

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by Dwayne Phillips It may be a good idea to have your friends test your system. Who should test your system? Who should tell you what they think about your idea? Who should read the manuscript of your novel? Friends or a “friendly audience” may be the answer to these and related questions. Consider the […]

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