by Matthew Rehrl MD | Writing, Writing Habits
I love tools which do one thing exceptionally well. The photo above is of a pair of 3M Optime 101 headphones which do one thing exceptionally well: noise reduction. Sure, they aren’t “noise-canceling,” and they don’t play music. They also aren’t stylish or...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Blogging, Writing
Who am I blogging for? From one of my favorite writing books: You are writing primarily to please yourself, and if you go about it with enjoyment you will also entertain the readers who are worth writing for. If you lose the dullards back in the dust, you don’t want...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Writing, Writing Habits
If Simplicity and Clarity had a child, that child would be called Delete. As I approach my 181st consecutive post this year, I have finally discovered my favorite key on my keyboard: Delete. It’s this key which makes my writing more simple. And it’s this...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Creativity, Writing
Limit self-criticism in early drafts. This is the title chapter of Roy Peter Clark’s 48th tool, from his book on craftsmanship, Writing Tools, 55 Essential Strategies For Every Writer, and it was where I was introduced to an exceptional essay by Gail Godwin about...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Poetry, Writing
In the forward to The Haiku Handbook, I read a lovely term : word-nest. Some word-nests come easily. … That is what haiku is all about, It teaches us to build a nest of words to protect our inspiration until a reader can experience it in his or her own way as...
by Matthew Rehrl MD | Creativity, Poetry, Writing
We are all familiar with this quote by Archimedes: “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Well, perhaps it’s the engineer in me (I was an engineer long before I attended medical school), but I’ve...
