Every beginning writer I know abhors the idea of a crappy first draft. It's embarrassing, mortifying and humiliating. They know their boss or client or publisher is going to hate it. They're going to hate it themselves because they fear it will make them look inept and unskilled. Thus, they don't want to it exist on their hard-drive, even for a nanosecond. If this is your belief, I'm here to tell you you're wrong. You should LOVE your crappy first draft. You should worship it. You should seek to create it as soon as you possibly can.  Continue reading...

If you're looking for proof of the English language's remarkable flexibility, enter the word hack into the New York Times's search field. The newest results will include a mention of "hack politicians" and a reference to "the suspected hack of Sony Pictures by North Korea" in 2014.  Continue reading...

Writing at a standing desk is a principle that just kind of crept up on me.

You see, I have a bad back. Second, I love to walk. If ever there were a person ill designed for sitting all day at a desk, it would be me.  Continue reading...

The Americans is my favorite TV show. Set in the 1980s, it features a web of duplicity like I've never seen, as married KGB agents Elizabeth and Phillip Jennings lie to their neighbors, manipulate their children, steal deadly chemical weapons, murder a bunch of people, wear lots of wigs, and try to maintain a healthy marriage while destroying America. Unsurprisingly, the show's many dastardly deceivers often use euphemisms.  Continue reading...

Speakers are prone to misinterpret an expression for various reasons and then incorporate the incorrect usage into their lexicons. When such misusages become widespread, the question that arises is whether the new and nominally incorrect version of an expression should be regarded as acceptable.  Continue reading...