I am now a writer and a writing coach. I wanted to reflect on the relationship between those two activities. Is writing unconscious? Does deconstructing it for coaching purposes make you self-conscious? Or does coaching help, not just the person coached, but the person doing the coaching? When people are good at something — standup comedy, tennis,…
This blog crossed 1 million page views this weekend. It got there in ten months of blogging every weekday. Not bad. I try to spend my time looking outward, not inward, but I thought you’d be interested in how I got there. Steady growth with spikes Things first took off in May with one popular…
This time last year I was just scheming. Now I’m rolling. Thanks to all of you, I’m on my way to something new. Here’s a recap of what happened in 2015 and what I expect in 2016. 2015 milestones March 2: Escape. I leave Forrester Research after 19 years 10 months. I’ve reveal my scheme…
I blogged every weekday for 6 months (150 posts). I got lots of advice and didn’t listen to it. I did popular posts on writing, politics, social media, and corporate doubletalk. And damned if I didn’t create an identity for myself. My friends told me that I shouldn’t use bad words. They said daily blogging was…
I’ve run a little experiment on this blog in the last three months. I’ve attempted to start every post with around 50 words that would draw you in. It’s working. In my view the title and first few sentences of a blog post should: Intrigue the reader. Promise what’s coming, accurately. Incorporate a clever or counterintuitive…
Editing is like going to the dentist — nobody likes it, but you’ll avoid a lot of pain and ugliness if you get the right help at the right time. And you need to pick the right intensity of editing to match what your writing needs; you can’t fix a toothache with just a cleaning. Good…
Responding to several requests, here’s a follow-up: one viral post on writing tips has made my blog more popular, improved my search rankings, and given me the confidence to take the next step in my journey. Here’s what I learned. Viral blog posts taper slowly. Here’s a chart of the traffic on my blog for the last…
Here’s what I learned when last Monday’s writing tips post went viral: smart people stick to their goals in the middle of a viral storm. I’ll tell you what happened, what it felt like, and what I learned. Let’s start with what I’m trying to do here. When I started this blog, my goals were, in order of importance:…
Based on the 23,000 people who viewed and shared it, you liked my post on writing tips and psychology. But those in academia were displeased. A typical comment: I can only hope that the college students whose papers I have to read do not see this. Academically, this could be titled, “How to Fail a Research Paper”. How…