Writers Resources

Finding Inspiration in the Written Word on the Anniversary of September 11th

I was inspired today, and also humbled. I was moved, saddened and carried away by storytelling. As we reach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, The Washington Post published a series of articles featuring individuals who had been directly affected by the terrorist attack. The articles may be too difficult, too heart-wrenching, for some to read. […]

Should This Blog Post Have Been Written in Cursive?

I recently learned that Indiana, my beloved home state, is no longer requiring schools to teach cursive writing, focusing instead on printing and typing. I remember struggling to perfect my cursive writing in Mr. Biltz’s fifth grade class. But I never came close to the beautiful script of my teacher. If there were an Olympics […]

Goodbye, Voice of God (in Journalism)

voice of god is dead in journalism, picture of speakers

For political junkies, there was no more bizarre and fascinating news night than the 2000 election returns. Among the embarrassing moments that night—and there were quite a few—was when anchorman Dan Rather announced that Al Gore had won Florida, and then proclaimed, “If [CBS News] says someone carried a state, you can take that to […]

This Blog Post is Brought to You by Paper…Mostly

This blog post was written mostly on a blank piece of paper. Yes, actual paper, with ruled lines and everything. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and scribbled away until I figured out what on earth I was writing about.

5 Reasons You Won’t Read This Blog Post

Whether I’m writing for print, online, or in cuneiform, my job as a content producer is to serve you, the reader. You are investing precious time with me, and I better not disappoint you. There are, after all, at least a few other sources you could visit instead. So why do I ignore this?

SEO Killed the Analog Star

Someone spouted this thought in the billion-voice echo chamber that is Twitter the other day: “Too many people are writing content for Google and not their readers.” The dude nailed it. Of course, five minutes later he Tweeted: “5 affordable ways to see Paris like a local”…which, of course, is something that’s been covered more […]

Conquer the Writing Process (Or Let it Conquer You)

The interesting part about writing is that much of the “writing” process involves staring at a blank document on the computer screen. I rock back in my chair, I play with my hair, I stretch out my back. But all the while, the ideas are churning in my head (and that’s not just what I […]

Editors Gonna Edit

I’m having a hard time saying this: I don’t really like being edited. (I also have a hard time saying the word “edited.”) And I’m an editor. Everyone thinks her words are just right, brilliant even, that there’s no better way to say what she’s trying to say, that she needs those 400 extra words […]

4 Tips to Develop Engaging Story Ideas

“That’s a story idea,” I would often think as a general assignment newspaper reporter and editor. So many of my friends’ and family’s stories about lively debates at their jobs, old friends they ran into or the TV shows they were obsessed with would often lead to an article idea relevant and interesting to our […]

Why I’m Deleting Your Press Release

Get a group of people from Match.com together and ask them: Ever gone on a bad date? Now get a group of editors together and ask them: Ever cringed at a press release? Chances are, (un)scientifically speaking, every single person answered with a resounding “YES” followed by their painful stories. That’s because mismatches and awkward […]

5 Ways to Break Creative Block

The blank Word document taunts me without saying a word. Writer’s block has set in, even though my imagination is working just fine. I close my eyes and picture hurling my computer out the window. I can see the cables, mouse and keyboard trailing behind it for eight stories, then catching up after multiple thwacks […]

What Being on the Radio Taught Me About Writing

Everything I learned about writing I learned on the radio. All right, that’s not entirely true. But I’ve learned a lot.

Want Infinite Blog Post Ideas?

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Facebook. OK, so maybe destroyed is a bit dramatic, but they were at least heavily distracted by it. And so it goes. We in the world of content marketing have a lot of things to click on. There are blog posts to read. There are […]

Lead and I Will Follow: On Writing Good Leads

You’re making me nervous. You clicked on this link expecting to learn something or to perhaps be entertained. I could boldly hope that you may even retweet or bookmark this article. But a lot of that depends on my lead. Here’s hoping it worked.

Don’t Worry, Be Content: 10 Rules for Creating Quality Editorial

No rules, just write, right? Not so fast. Though creating quality editorial is an art, there’s absolutely a science behind it, according to Kim Caviness, VP of content at TMG Custom Media (disclosure: the company behind this blog). Here are her 10 rules for quality editorial:

How to Lose Credibility with One Typoe

It seems like common sense: Look over your work before you share it. But sometimes – especially in the era of “do more with less” – that simply doesn’t happen. In the name of timesaving, we skip the review and let it fly. We hit “send” or “submit” or “publish” without giving work a once-over […]

4 Secrets to Building a Good Website

Eureka moments can happen anywhere. Mark Zuckerberg first tinkered with the code that would spark the social media revolution in his Harvard dorm room. Harry Potter came to J.K. Rowling in a dream. Howard Schultz envisioned a coffee empire while standing in line at a café in Milan. In the case of Schultz, the Brooklyn-bred […]

The Most Interesting Writer in the World

I dig beer. And if you’re going to concoct an advertising campaign with attendant brand building that appeals to my need for suds, please, for the love of the almighty marketing gods, tell me your pitch man is the most interesting man in the world. That’s audacious. And better yet, tell me things about him […]

7 Grammar Mistakes that Make Editors Hyperventilate

grammar mistakes for editor hyperventilation

It’s time to declare a war on bad grammar, misuse of words and cringeworthy punctuation and capitalization. In today’s fast-paced media environment, perfection seems to have been traded for speed, making room for these unwelcome villains on the pages of publications everywhere. But who is enemy #1? Do all editors loathe the same mistakes, or […]

5 Rules of Content That Will Never Change

At least half of what I do all day long didn’t exist when I studied journalism in college. And I’m not that old. At that time, you wrote an article and it was published. The end. There was no updating it and certainly no tweeting it, no blogging about it, no linking it to other […]

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Tweet

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All right, it’s confession time: I used to hate Twitter. Like many of my journalist brethen, I was skeptical, if not dumbfounded, by this microblogging platform. As a pen-to-paper, Microsoft Word kind of girl, I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the Twitterverse stepping on the toes of the print I’m still so enamored by. […]

5 Tips to Fight the Writing Procrastination Gremlins

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For every 300-word blog entry or 2,000-word article they write, many writers spend a substantial part of that time doing everything they can to not write the story. Writing may be something you have wanted to do since you started a class magazine in the sixth grade, wrote editorials for your college paper, or had […]