Tag: On Writing

• December 21, 2020

  Songwriters on songwriting

  I’ve been baffled lately that there aren’t more songwriters in the world who write about writing. Luckily, there are centuries worth of novelists, essayists, and other author types who have written so lucidly and honestly about the craft of writing, its messiness, its need for discipline. (Some of my favourites are On Writing by Stephen…

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  November 22, 2016

  Writing Tips from George Orwell

  One of the most incisive essays I have ever read on the art of writing is the short and stunning piece, ‘Politics and the English Language‘, written by George Orwell in 1947. Here, Orwell described a cliche as a ‘dying metaphor’. Orwell follows up with a succinct list of guides to follow: Never use a…

• August 4, 2016

  I Have a Confession to Make

  I have a public confession to make. I have a serious problem—a profound weakness, and it only gets worse with age. I am completely, totally, helplessly in love with reading. But not just one book. I find myself embroiled, entangled, enmeshed, ensnared, and ensnarled in reading sometimes more than 10 books at a time. It’s not healthy.…