I'm a big believer in the magic of three. You know — the three little pigs, the three Musketeers, the three Stooges. There's something ineffable but magical about a list of three. So, when I had three unrelated people forward me a Wall Street Journal article on the Pomodoro technique in less than a week, well, I took it as a sign. This was something I needed to investigate!  Continue reading...

Inspired by Elmore Leonard's "10 Rules of Writing," the Guardian asked noted authors for their own rules for writing. Everyone from Margaret Atwood to Zadie Smith chimes in. Read part one here and part two here.

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon looks at how writers from Shakespeare to Tolstoy have understood the power of bringing opposites together.  Continue reading...

One of my three children is dyslexic, but I taught the other two to read myself. It wasn't hard, but here's the deal — what I taught them wasn't so much reading as it was decoding. That is, I explained to them the various sounds that all the letters in the alphabet represent. For example, the letter e can sometimes sound like "eh" as in pen. But it can also sound like "ee" as in we.  Continue reading...

Last month, I held forth on the art of getting your students — or, for that matter, yourself! — to write more. By now, you no doubt have sheaves of scrawl-covered loose-leaf sitting about. So, what's next? Editing and revising.  Continue reading...

Michael Lydon, a well-known writer on popular music since the 1960s, has for many years also been writing about writing. Lydon's essays, written with a colloquial clarity, shed fresh light on familiar and not so familiar aspects of the writing art. Here Lydon explores how metaphors have the power to "fuse fact and fancy."  Continue reading...