Broken Mornings
The bathroom light flickered once before steadying, as if deciding whether today was worth the effort. She stood at the sink, [...]
The Editor Who Makes Language Disappear
Recently, someone told me, quote: "Imagine two editors. The first says: "This isn't how a native speaker would say it." The [...]
Every day or everyday? Why the difference matters
The difference between every day and everyday is small on the page but huge in meaning. I remind myself of this [...]
Learning Love as a Foreign Language
Is Love a Language? Some people inherit houses. Some inherit debts. Others inherit recipes, family photographs, strange habits, old watches, impossible [...]
Paragraphs and Modern Writing
Why Modern Writing Looks Like This A curious thing has happened to writing. Open a Victorian novel, and you may encounter [...]
The Promotion
Harold spent thirty years hoping his boss would finally notice him. He arrived early. He left late. He volunteered [...]
The Psychology of Rereading
There is a strange little habit that many readers carry around like a secret charm. They return to books they have [...]
When Perfectionism Dresses as Professionalism
Every writer knows the feeling. The cursor blinks. A sentence appears. A sentence disappears. Another appears. Three words survive the [...]
What happens when a fictional performer feels more real than some real performers?
What unsettles me is not Sarah Thomson. Or Michael Bennett. It is the mirror. I discovered two singers who do not [...]
Show, Don’t Tell: The Most Misunderstood Rule in Writing
If you spend enough time around writing advice, you’ll encounter the phrase “show, don’t tell” with almost religious intensity. It’s repeated [...]
