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Three books crossed my path recently that share a message, albeit in different ways. They are about the power of resilience and the value of looking inwards for answers. In 1995, grieving her mother, not knowing what she was doing in life, dabbling in heroin, loving the wrong men, losing the right ones, Cheryl Strayed made …
Continue reading "3 resources for mental strength – and all from women!"
I just disappeared down a rabbit hole. Sales, business coaching, marketing, sales, Snap Chat, Zoella, millennials, sales, vlogging. Anything you can read, you can read to screen. Better. Faster. I learnt that blogging is passé. If you want to, you can write it down later, from the vlog. There’s your blog. In words. But it’s …
Trying to get noticed? Want to get people to see YOU? To pause their feverish scrolling? The interweb is overrun with how to guarantee clicks! Wanna go viral? Here’s how! Just this morning ‘7 insane headline ideas that will give you more traffic’ floated into my in-box. The advice follows a recurring theme—success, speed, effortlessness, …
Last week, I went to Forest for the Trees—a Sydney Writers’ Festival workshop—to hear industry insiders talk about the state of writing and publishing in Australia in 2016. A panel chaired by David Hunt, author of Girt: the unauthorised history of Australia and the podcast Rum, Rebels & Ratbags, talked about the rise of audio …
Continue reading "What publishers think about the future of books"
The other day my mother noted, surprised, that I’d been doing taekwondo at the Australian Martial Arts Academy in Marrickville for five years and I realised how it’s become a part of my life. With three kids, full-time work and a general disinclination towards exercise, how did I get here? I think it’s a combination …
Continue reading "How to fit martial arts into your life (and stick at it)"
Everybody likes a system. The smooth operation of our civilisation depends on following rules. Sure, some are ill-designed, some are just stupid and others are unfair. We all flout some rules, sometimes with excellent reasons but, in the main, they stand between us and that other law—the jungle. I was reminded of this today. Volunteering …
I’ve never been sure about ‘Mother’s Day’. It wasn’t a thing where I grew up and my own mother was ambivalent (‘every day is a mother’s day’). But I’ve decided that if the world wants to offer you a day, take it. Use it in whatever way you want. Maybe think about what you want …
It wasn't the day we'd envisaged. Arriving at breakfast, too early to check in, we dumped our bags and went for a walk. Boston in the spring was nude—the shutters and lace skirts of the grand old ladies sweeping the boulevards visible through the bare branches of the trees. Taking in the old city, walking …
With technical, operational, or business writing, banish anything that makes the reader work too hard understanding you—they need their energy to understand the topic. Let them see what lies ahead. Don’t trigger anxiety.
I love hyperlinking. Opening up a portal to another world through the simplest tools of highlighting, cutting and pasting has always been a special piece of magic. I am writing and editing suites of technical documents for a legal company and adore playing in the references sections. All those arcane statutes with their Parts, Divisions, …
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