The Culture of Sharing: Why Releasing Copyright Will Be the Smartest Thing You Do


Sharing can be difficult, and lovely.

By Leo Babauta

Recently I stirred up a roar of controversy with a post at Zen Habits: Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway (or, The Privatization of the English Language). I had no idea the post would bring out such strong reactions in people, but I feel very strongly about freedom of speech and allowing ideas to be freely circulated.

And while I was a bit dismayed at some of the anger that was aimed at author Susan Jeffers (a number of people posted angry reviews for her book on Amazon), what did give me hope was that people made it clear that they have strong feelings about the issue.

A large number of us want people to be able to share ideas and communicate freely, without legal restrictions. And I’d go even further: we like it when creative people freely share their work with us, and allow us to use their work (or derivatives of it) in our own work. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Business

Writer’s Block…A Thing Of The Past

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By Nadia Ballas-Ruta of Happy Lotus

The one thing that can shake any writer’s sense of cool is writer’s block. It is one of those little secrets that no writer wants to think about – let alone acknowledge suffering from it. It is like a deadly disease that writers are afraid to catch. Actors are afraid that saying “Macbeth” before a performance will bring bad luck. Writers feel the same way about the phrase “writer’s block”.

When Ernest Hemingway Crossed My Path

As a person who has been writing professionally  for nineteen years, I have had my battles with writer’s block. But that all stopped when Ernest Hemingway crossed my path. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction, Habits

Essential Blogging Question: How Can You Help Your Readers Today?


Help others and it will come back to you.

By Leo Babauta

When you sit down to write a blog post, the question posed in this headline should be the one question you’re asking yourself. How can I help my readers today?

This might seem obvious to some, but it’s not really apparent to many bloggers. I can’t count how many times I’ve read a blog post that obviously took a different route, or how many times I’ve read blogs about blogging that encourage people to ask different questions. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Freelancing

Three Tips to Avoid Being a Boring Writer

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By Mary Jaksch

Do you want to be a boring writer? No, of course you don’t!
But how to avoid it?

Do you sometimes read a piece that moves at an agonizingly slow pace? I do. Well, let me be honest here – I tend to read only the first paragraph, and then I put the boring book aside or flick over to another website.

Boring is bad. Boring is slow.

Enter Sol Stein. A master-editor who knows a trick or two. His book Stein On Writing
lies on my bedside table and is a source of constant inspiration.

Stein’s take on ‘boring’ is that we need to accelerate the pace of our pieces. This means compressing the perceived flow of time.

Pace is often the deciding factor whether what we write is read, or not.

That’s especially true when it comes to stuff we publish on the Net, as internet savvy readers all seem to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction - Tags: , , ,

7 Easy Ways to Energize Your Creative Writing Powers

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By Dean Rieck of Direct Creative

My wife and I were driving to one of our usual restaurants a few days ago. Like most people, we fall into a daze whenever we travel along familiar roads. But about halfway there, purely on a whim, I turned onto a new street. And we both instantly perked up.

Along the way we discovered a beautiful suburban neighborhood, a quaint old bookstore, and a new restaurant where we had a fabulous meal. It turned a routine evening into an exciting adventure. These places were there all along, of course, but we would never have known about them if we hadn’t tried something different.

The same is true when it comes to writing. When you’re feeling like you’re in a creative daze, take a new path. Do something different. That’s one way to discover fresh ideas and energize your creative powers. Here are a few others. Read more »

Categories: Blogwriting, Craft, Fiction, Habits

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