Running, Writing, and Rhythm
Back in my marathon running days ( way back!), I had a system—a rhythm—for training that worked every time. I trained 6 days a week. I rotated off mild running days, with moderate running days, punctuated by one long run each week. I then took the day after my long...
Twitter Tip: Twitter Lists and Signal:Noise Ratio
A common problem with Twitter is there is a whole lot of noise and very little signal. By this I mean you have to sieve through a lot of junk to get to useful content. But, by using Twitter Lists thoughtfully, I can target my scrolling; it's a quick and easy way to...
My Favorite June 2022 Blog Post
My favorite post that I wrote in June is A Fond Farewell To My Disabled Parking Placard. It’s about a key milestone in my adult life; a reflection on getting older, and the need to seize each day as if it’s my last. I will not take health or life for granted.
Being a Lazy Writer
In the Apple series Home, the architect Anna Chavepayre said: A good architect is a lazy writer; doing less is more. Here I think she’s talking about the practical and aesthetic value of minimalism—doing what is essential, but no more. Subtracting rather than adding....
My Keystone Problem?
We often think of terms such as cornerstones, lynchpins, and keystones in the positive sense: this is a cornerstone skill, she’s a lynchpin in our organization, that's our keystone supplier. But I wonder if we can also use these terms to help shed light on our own...
Don’t Try To Boil The Ocean
It's very difficult to boil the entire ocean. The ocean is so vast, that if you tried to boil it with fire or natural gas or lava or a nuclear bomb, you may be able to induce a few minutes of boiling within a small volume, but quite soon the boiling will stop. The...
A Tweet-Craft Tip for Writers
In my physician days attending medical conferences, whenever I tweeted about the physician speakers I “mentioned” ( by using the @ symbol) both the speaker's Twitter handle and their organization’s Twitter handle. Example: I just heard a great talk from @DrX from...
The Internal Arena?
Most of us have run across Teddy Roosevelt’s “Arena” speech. Here’s part of it: “It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually...
One Of My Favorite Blog Writing Spots
The bench pictured above is one of my favorite early morning blogging spots. It’s about 5 minutes away from my home, located in a small park in Medina, Washington, right on Lake Washington. In the background is Mercer Island. It’s reasonable quiet, without any car...
Writing Tools: Rereading Until It Falls Apart!
My book, Writing Tools: 55 Essential Strategies For Every Writer, is falling apart. It's binding on the spine is torn halfway up, and this tear extends through several pages. It has stains and has been “dog-eared” throughout. It's a book on the last leg of it's...