Newsletter 42: Make an effort or fade away, labelling killer foods, don’t trust NPS braggarts, plus three people to follow and three books to read. The effort is the point Everything about our modern world — at least in the prosperous part of it where you probably live — is designed to make things easier….
A lot has been written about collaboration. But at its base, it depends on two sometimes opposed attitudes: honesty and respect. I’ve been considering this as I work on several highly collaborative projects right now, including a ghostwriting project with four contributors on the client end, and a survey and white paper project with more…
Writers need to grow, or else the work gets boring. You’ll be more versatile, more employable, and happier if your always looking for ways to expand your capabilities. Seek opportunities to grow your experience in these four dimensions: Pivot and grow based on what you’re comfortable with Work can be simpler if you hold one…
I’ve been thinking about the work I do for authors — and the work lots of other service people and consultants do, too. Our most valuable work rarely gets compensated in a way that aligns with the value it creates. And that’s okay — so long as you understand why it works that way. For…
Great writers, thinkers, and researchers see patterns that others cannot. They then tell you about what they see and what you can do about it. Of course, of the things AI is best at is recognizing patterns. Does this mean writers, thinkers, and researchers are going to become obsolete? Not quite. First off, people see…
I’m happy we had the time to sit down and talk. What’s on your mind? I’m in college now and I want to be a writer. Wow, that’s great. What kind of writer? Well, I like writing both fiction and nonfiction, and I want to make a living writing books. Awesome. I’ll be honest, it’s…
People have so much trouble with the flaws in AI tools because they are so different from everything else we do with our computing devices. Consider any productivity application you use: a spreadsheet, a programming language, an app, anything, doesn’t matter. All of these applications have two qualities: AI chatbots violate both of those rules….
A typical editing checklist includes things that editors should identify, like failures of parallelism, mixed metaphors, sentence fragments, and factual errors. But this is your motivational editing checklist. Follow this to make sure that the person you’re editing will understand, appreciate, accept, and address the problems you point out. Why bother? It’s a lot easier…
I never write anything without the thread in mind. What is the thread? It is the throughline of any blog post, essay, or book chapter. Start with the end in mind. What is the point? Write the title and the lede based on that. Then, the setup. What is the problem? What is have I…