Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips A technique that I use in writing and editing concentrates on the paragraph. It works for me. As with all writing tips, I suggest you try it. If it work, use it. If it doesn’t, move on. Thirty years ago, Chris Bachman took the time to converse with a 21-year-old kid from […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A quick note about the writing aspects of the movie “Julie and Julia.” I took my wife to see the movie Julie and Julia this past weekend. My wife is an avid cook, so this movie attracted her (the last movie we saw was the action-packed District 9 – she didn’t like […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I am working a on process improvement this week. I wish I could state a brilliant insight. Alas, all I have is, “let’s try harder.” That reduces to having good people spend the time necessary to do a task well. Blogs don’t always announce breakthroughs in any field of endeavor. Let’s downgrade […]

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by Dwayne Phillips A recent manager wrote his thoughts in the air with his finger. There was some good, some bad, and some annoyances with this habit. But, as with most things people do, there was plenty to learn. I worked on a short project recently where the project manager wrote in the air. To […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are various techniques to start a piece of writing. One involves copying the words of another writer for a sentence or two until your brain warms and your own words flow. I think of those words as writing seeds. Staring at the screen with the little cursor bar blinking with a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips eBooks are taking over the world. Well, they won’t finish off the published paper books this weekend, but the trend is there. As with most things, I see some good and some bad in this. I think it is good that college textbooks are becoming available in digital form. Pay $10 for […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is the first post with this title. In the future, I will probably have more with the same or similar title. Just some thoughts about things I find essential, or at least somewhat important, for a writer. Essentials Paper and Pencil – Yes, let’s start with some real basics here. If […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Handwriting is not dead. It lives on despite the computer age. Cursive, however, is on the way out, and I for one am happy to see it go. (Start writing comments about how bad a person I am) Time magazine mourns the death of handwriting. That is a nice headline, but I […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I like writing exercises – things that make me think. I came across a good one today from Kenneth Davis at ManageYourWriting.com. He calls it the Alphabet Shift. choose a word you’ve written beginning with a letter from the first half of the alphabet. Replace it with a more effective word beginning […]

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by Dwayne Phillips For writers and those who name products and services: standard items have shorter names than special ones. Attach modifiers to exceptions to the rule, not the rule. Apple recently changed their line of laptop computers. As expected, the newer computers have more performance and a lower price than last year’s models. In […]

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