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Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing some of the ways you can get results with clever use of words. I’ll teach you how to attract someone’s attention, hold it, and get a result. Writing for outcomes is a blend of basic elements which can be ticked off in a checklist, and poetry …
This is the beginning of a series I’m writing to recommend some literary gems. In the vast crush of information today, what is the longevity of a novel? There are so many that deserve to be remembered. If I can help other readers find some new ‘old’ books, I’ll be repaying some of my debt to writers. Find them! And enjoy.
I went to a party on Saturday night and got talking with friends about bookclubs. I'm a fan of anything that gets people reading, books circulating and authors rewarded. While reading is essentially a private activity for me, I love sharing suggestions and my lovely friends in book clubs asked me for my top ten. …
Continue reading "For my friends in book clubs, looking for ideas…"
Where is home? What is it? Does it convey a house, a city, a country? The Oxford defines it as ‘the place where one lives permanently, especially as a member of a family or household’; the Macquarie says it is your ‘fixed residence’. When we’re kids, I think it means ‘where our parents live’. I grew …
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 …
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