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from Write to Done by Mary Jaksch A guest post by Stefanie Flaxman of Revision Fairy Everyone wants to be Batman. He’s cool and edgy, but has benevolent intentions—and the man gets results. Luckily for you, it’s easy to adopt Batman’s intriguing qualities to perfect your writing and make others believe that you rock as hard as the Caped Crusader. Whether you’re writing for yourself (a blog, a novel, a business document, etc.) or a client, mistakes aren’t going to cut it. Your text has to be poignant, useful, and error-free. Here are three aspects of the Batman persona that you can apply to your proofreading habits. Costume – The importance of writing drafts When speaking in front of an audience, it is said that the crowd forms 70% of their opinions on how you look, 20% on how you sound, and only 10% on what you say. When you apply the theory to written text, the 70% of “how you look” reflects the content and structure of your writing. How your writing “looks” involves its appe...

Kathryn Hughes on a clever and generous book about a neglected strand of English modernism Kathryn Hughes Stonehenge, Wiltshire, 1981 (ink & wash) by John Piper. Photograph: The Bridgeman Art Library The modernism we know about, or think we do, was fierce and sharp-edged, all the better to scythe down the past and start all over again. During the interwar period, making things new became the mantra. History was a jumbled lumber-room of habits and beliefs that we would all do much better without: it had led, after all, to the carnage of the trenches. All those bits and pieces from previous centuries – the clutter, the junk, the sheer bulk of countless pointless objects – needed to be swept away. Homes, in the words of Le Corbusier, were to become "machines for living", complete with kitchenettes and pull-down beds. And instead of watercolour landscapes ...

Some people think poke engine optimization is the dim as well as puzzling art. But for online writers as well as calm producers, its really as simple as 1, 2, 3: First, we need the right keywords, so we understand the denunciation your readers, customers, or clients have been using when they search. Second, we need compelling calm which people love as well as poke engines know is applicable to those searchers. Third, we need incoming links so poke engines provide your site as the trusted as well as applicable source. Im proud to announce which chronicle 3.0 of Scribe now goes beyond on-page calm optimization. Weve added upfront keyword investigate (in addition to our keyword idea tool), as well as three good link-building facilities which assistance we cover all your poke optimization bases. Scribe 3.0 creates these three SEO fundamentals easier as well as some-more fit than ever: First, the Scribe keyword investigate apparatus tunes we into the right denunciation prior to we write. On...

By Mary Jaksch Have we ever had to give a open presentation? If so, we might remember damp palms, butterflies in your stomach, as good as an strenuous instruct to hide in a cupboard instead of striding onto a stage. If we spin in to a successful writer, chances have been youll have to get used to open speaking. The great news is which we can sense to verbalise publicly with certainty as good as even suffer it. There have been dual keys factors which shift a approach we experience open presentations, a single factor is a have make make make make use of of of of of of mental strategies which capacitate we to feel assured as good as in charge. The alternative factor is a credentials which formula in a display which rocks this is what this post focuses on. In tandem with this post, Ive published an essay upon Goodlife ZEN which covers a psychological as good as earthy strategies which we can have make make make make use of of of of of in sequence to become a cool presenter: How to Speak ...

The Mental Floss History of the United States: The (Almost) Complete as well as (Entirely) Entertaining Story of America by Erik Sass with Will Pearson as well as Mangesh Hattikudur Publisher: Harper Publication Date: Oct 5, 2010 ISBN: 9780061928222 432 Pages Nonfiction Publisher's Description: Was Abraham Lincoln unequivocally the heroic defender of liberty as well as freedom? Were the Sixties essentially the groovy time of assent as well as love? Has the U.S. always been contingent upon unfamiliar oil? Does internet dating unequivocally work? Americans are nationalistic people: the 2008 poll showed 72% hold the U.S.A. is the best republic in the world. But it turns out which nationalistic as well as historically knowledgeable are two different things: in new surveys, roughly half of Americans didnt know who led the Continental Army to victory (some man named George), 25% of high propagandize students believed which Columbus set cruise after 1750, as well as the third couldnt ...

from Write to Done by guest A guest post by Oleg Mokhov of Soundtrackster Feel like you’re stuck with the current level of your writing ability? Struggling to get better, or maybe you don’t even know how to go about improving? Then the following 5 quick-start tips to help improve your writing are for you. I’ve personally used them to un-suck-ify my writing within a matter of a few weeks. Now granted, I’m consistently improving all the time of course, but these 5 quick-start tips gave me a quick boost to start improving my writing. And that’s the point with these tips. They’re not magic pills to go from bad to great, but simple tips to quickly un-suck-ify your writing and get on the right path to consistently improve. Without further ado, here are 5 quick-start tips to help improve your writing: 1. Write How You Talk If you wouldn’t use it in a conversation, don’t use it in your writing. Just write how you would say it. It’s a lot easier to start writing this way, because ...

For years, he sat in this bare office, blocking out the world with earplugs – and nothing came. So how did Jonathan Franzen end up writing the Great American Novel, on the cover of Time magazine and read by Barack Obama on holiday? Ed Pilkington asks him Ed Pilkington 'I take a certain amount of pride in not being a ­professional novelist, in apparently being a lifelong amateur. I don?t want to be slick.' Photograph: Chris Buck for the Guardian Last month, Jonathan Franzen became the first author in a decade to appear on the cover of Time magazine . Over a shot of him looking characteristically serious appeared the words "Gre...

Holy crap am you excited....I am FINALLY reading THE book which you have been waiting for allllll year! My super-duper uber-fabulous husband surprised me with it yesterday as well as you should have seen me jumping up as well as down as well as squealing like a small kid! I am a HUGE fan of Ken Follett's The Pillars of a Earth as well as World Without End so you know you just had to read his newest historical fiction novel, which is a first book in The Century Trilogy as well as titled Fall of Giants. The hardcover is genuine trainer with smooth, silky pages as well as you can't wait for to dive in. Will you be reading? SYNOPSIS: Ken Follett's World Without End was a global phenomenon, a work of grand historical sweep, dear by millions of readers as well as acclaimed by critics. Fall of Giants is his magnificent new historical epic. The first novel in The Century Trilogy, it follows a fates of five related families-American, German, Russian, English, as well as Welsh-as ...

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (17361783) is one of those elusive eighteenth-century total who confront us with a nocturnal side of a enlightenment. In a eyes of his contemporaries, he was not usually a madman though additionally a insane artist. At a same time which he began to withdraw from society, he proposed to work upon a project which would isolate him artistically as well, a Kopfstcke, or impression heads, in which he strong his efforts to etch a passions as well as emotions of humanity. The pardonable titles reserved to them by an unknown writer ten years after Messerschmidts deathAfflicted by Constipation, A Hypocrite as well as Slanderer, The Incapable Bassoonistare zero though an try to resist their social illegibility. The Neue Galeries muster of no fewer than twenty-one impression heads displays a full spectrum of Messerschmidts studies of expression. Facial muscles contract, eyes squint, eyebrows rise, mouths contort. These twisted faces have been disturbing since you cannot ...

How the Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer BY NANCY G. BRINKER REMEMBER ABOUT THE BOOK: Suzy as good as Nancy Goodman were some-more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, as good as partners in the grand adventure of life. For 3 decades, zero could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not miles. Then Suzy got sick. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1977; 3 painful years later, during thirty-six, she died. It wasnt ostensible to be this way. The Goodman girls were lifted in postwar Peoria, Illinois, by relatives who believed which small acts of gift could shift the world. Suzy was the large sisterthe homecoming black with an spreading unrestrained as good as the generous heart. Nancy was the small sisterthe hoyden with an outsized clarity of probity who wanted to right all wrongs. The sisters common makeup tips, dating secrets, skeleton for glamorous fantasy careers. They outlayed the single memorable summer in Europe finding the ...

WELCOME TO BOOKIN' WITH BINGO'S " WEDNESDAY MEANS WINNERS DAY ". I AM EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE THIS WEDNESDAY'S "WEDNESDAY MEANS WINNERS DAY" ... THE WINNERS HAVE BEEN NOTIFIED BY EMAIL AND HAVE UNTIL NOON, OCTOBER 1 , TO REPLY WITH THE INFORMATION OR A NEW WINNER WILL HAVE TO BE CHOSEN! ************************************ THE HYPNOTIST BY M. J. ROSE THANKS TO TRACEE AT NOVEL NOISE I HAVE ONE COPY OF THIS EXCITING BOOK TO GIVE AWAY THE WINNER IS: #17 Cindy W ********************************** A SECRET KEPT BY TATIANA DeROSNAY READ BY SIMON VANCE THANKS TO STEPHANIE AND THE GOOD FOLKS AT MACMILLAN AUDIO BOOKS, I HAVE THREE COPIES OF AUDIO BOOK TO GIVE AWAY! THE WINNERS ARE: #57 LoveMy2Dogs #40 Bonnie #73 Christine H ********************************* LET'S TAKE THE LONG WAY HOME A Memoir of Friendship BY GAIL CALDWELL THANKS TO DEBORAH AND GOOD PEOPLE AT RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHING, I HAVE 5 ADVANCED COPIES OF THIS BEST SELLING NEW BOOK TO GIVE AWAY THE WI...