Tag Archives: writing

Are Writers Made or Born? by Jack Kerouac (transcribed for the first time!)

I transcribed this article from two image files at the Writer’s Digest website. I have introduced line breaks of my own to make the text more readable online. This is a six minute read. Kerouac reserves the word “genius” (and … Continue reading

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The Content Mill as Crime: A Look at Urban Writers

May 12, 2023 Update: If you’re really desperate to work for these fools, try using the A/I tool ChatGPT to produce your content. You’ll get nicely done writing in literally seconds on any topic imaginable. If they say it’s A/I … Continue reading

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A Few Good Lines From a Few Good Men

Thomas Guy Farley Testifies in Court on thomasfarleyblog.com LTJG Kaffee: Mr. Farley. Did you build the website thomasfarleyblog.com? Judge Randolph: You don’t have to answer that question! Farley: I’ll answer the question. You want answers? LTJG Kaffee: I think I’m … Continue reading

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An Incredible Paragraph from Stanton Delaplane (Updated post)

This is San Francisco Chronicle reporter Stanton Delaplane (internal link) interviewing a rancher in 1941 about the poor roads in Siskiyou County, California. Delaplane quotes the cattleman enough as needed for a newspaper article and then rephrases the farmer’s thoughts … Continue reading

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What Content Authority Means in SEO and Why it is Important

January 2, 2021 What Does Content Authority Mean? Content authority means a website that Google considers an encyclopedic reference to a particular field or topic. Any practitioner in a highly competitive market should have this Wikipedia like presence if they can … Continue reading

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Proust and Thinking about Thinking

Proust and Thinking about Thinking Did anyone ever think more about thinking than Marcel Proust? (internal link) Or is that the wrong question? We hold more conversations with ourselves than with anyone else. But do we record them and write … Continue reading

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Problematic

Overly sensitive types at the start of the Snowflake Era began substituting the word “problem” for the word “issue.” Today, “issues” is everywhere. Your car no longer has any problems but instead a number of issues to be taken care … Continue reading

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Let’s Return to Direct Lead Paragraphs

A Wandering Lead and Three Revisions Writers must compose direct lead paragraphs or risk losing readers. A wandering opening finds readers lost, wandering somewhere else. A direct opening can’t guarantee that a reader will continue but a clear, direct path … Continue reading

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CBS Claims Unbiased Reporting

CBS claims in their latest advertising that they offer unbiased reporting. How stupid do they think we are? Everyone knows that reporting is biased to a greater or lesser degree. Every reporter and every editor and every network CEO has … Continue reading

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Fighting Wordiness

I once revised copy for a painter’s home page. The original text was only 250 words or so. These changes were the most important. It’s not just about reducing word count but making text more direct and impactful. Fighting wordiness … Continue reading

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