For a while now, I’ve been meaning to write a post about ways to jump-start creative thinking and generate new ideas. I just finished reading Manoush Zomorodi’s book Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, and it got me thinking about this topic again.
Tag: Writing
Happy Birthday, Alexigraph!
After just a few days of planning, I started Alexigraph on January 8, 2017. It took me nearly a full day to set up the site, but then I made my first post and I was off and running. It’s hard to believe I’ve been at this for a full year! I love sharing my thoughts and experiences with you, and I truly appreciate you taking the time to read them, respond, and share.
In celebration of one year of blogging, I’m rounding up some of my personal favorite posts from the past year (in no particular order). I know, it’s a long list — I had trouble narrowing it down! Read more
Poetry, Part Two: My Poems
In response to my recent post The Power of Poetry, a reader asked me to share some of my own poems. Here are two, both of which were written as assignments for the Coursera Sharpened Visions workshop class I took last year. I hope you enjoy them. Read more
The Power of Poetry
While searching for Monday’s Quote of the Week, I found myself traveling down a rabbit hole of poetry about autumn. I don’t often take the time to read and contemplate poems at length, but when I do, I’m rarely disappointed. There’s something about a poem that can communicate a feeling so profoundly. Free from prose’s need to explain everything in complete sentences, poetry can make its point through images and metaphors, playing with rhythm and structure in ways that make the reader appreciate language like never before. A great poem has the power to make me feel connected to its author through universal human experience, conveyed with just the right words.
Grammar and Usage Rules that Aren’t
As a lawyer, writer, and general nerd, I consider myself a bit of a grammar and usage stickler. Language is always changing, though, and there are many rules to keep straight, so when I’m not sure about something, I look it up. That’s what I did recently when I came across a post on social media declaring that people shouldn’t use the word “entitled” when they really mean “titled” (when referring to the name of a book, for example). This person vehemently insisted that a book could not be “entitled” anything, but could only be “titled.” It turns out he was wrong, though I’m not sure he could be convinced. Read more