Just Write: Creating Unforgettable Fiction and a Rewarding Writing Life
James Scott Bell - 2016
Yet so many writers, from beginners to veterans, find their careers stuck in neutral.The solution is simple: Just write. Write yourself past fears, doubts, and setbacks, and use your desire for writing excellence to deeply immerse yourself in the craft.In Just Write, best-selling author and veteran writing coach James Scott Bell shows you how to develop unforgettable stories while leading a rewarding writing life. You'll learn how to master the nuances of fiction, discover what readers really want, and persevere through the challenges of getting started, conquering writer's block, and dealing with rejection. Look inside to discover how to:BRAINSTORM NEW CONCEPTS for your fiction and develop a believable premise.CREATE MEMORABLE CHARACTERS that keep your readers coming back for more.STUDY CLASSIC & CONTEMPORARY NOVELS to improve your writing.EFFECTIVELY MARKET YOURSELF as a writer.MANAGE YOUR TIME to maintain peak efficiency.Fulfilling writing careers are developed through hard work, an investment in practice, and complete dedication to the process. Don't succumb to excuses or procrastination. Dive into your career with gusto and enthusiasm. Fall in love with writing every day.
Just write.
Who's Your City?: How the Creative Economy Is Making Where to Live the Most Important Decision of Your Life
Richard Florida - 2008
We can innovate just as easily from a ski chalet in Aspen or a beachhouse in Provence as in the office of a Silicon Valley startup. According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Globalization is not flattening the world; in fact, place is increasingly relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. Where we live determines the jobs and careers we have access to, the people we meet, and the "mating markets" in which we participate. And everything we think we know about cities and their economic roles is up for grabs. Who's Your City? offers the first available city rankings by life-stage, rating the best places for singles, families, and empty-nesters to reside. Florida's insights and data provide an essential guide for the more than 40 million Americans who move each year, illuminating everything from what those choices mean for our everyday lives to how we should go about making them.
The Craft of Revision
Donald M. Murray - 1990
Murray takes a lively and inspiring approach to writing and revision that does not condescend but invites students into the writer's studio.
First You Write a Sentence.: The Elements of Reading, Writing … and Life
Joe Moran - 2018
Any writer should read it' Bee Wilson'Thoughtful, engaging, and lively ... when you've read it, you realise you've changed your attitude to writing (and reading)' John Simpson, formerly Chief Editor of the OED and author of The Word DetectiveThe sentence is the common ground where every writer walks. A poet writes in sentences, but so does the unsung author who came up with Items trapped in doors cause delays. A good sentence can be written (and read) by anyone if we simply give it the gift of our time, and it is as close as most of us will get to making something truly beautiful.Enter acclaimed author Professor Joe Moran. Using minimal technical terms, First You Write a Sentence is his unpedantic but authoritative explanation of how the most ordinary words can be turned into verbal constellations of extraordinary grace. Using sources ranging from the Bible and Shakespeare to George Orwell and Maggie Nelson, and scientific studies of what can best fire the reader's mind, he shows how we can all write in a way that is clear, compelling and alive.Whether dealing with finding the ideal word, building a sentence or constructing a paragraph, First You Write a Sentence informs by light example: much richer than a style guide, it can be read not just for instruction but for pleasure and delight. And along the way it shows how good writing can help us notice the world, make ourselves known to others and live more meaningful lives. It's an elegant gem in praise of the English sentence.'Moran is a past master at producing fine, accessible non-fiction' Helen Davies, Sunday Times'Joe Moran has a genius for turning the prosaic poetic' Peter Hennessy
Metaphors We Live By
George Lakoff - 1980
Metaphor, the authors explain, is a fundamental mechanism of mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experience to provide understanding of countless other subjects. Because such metaphors structure our most basic understandings of our experience, they are "metaphors we live by", metaphors that can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.In this updated edition of Lakoff and Johnson's influential book, the authors supply an afterword surveying how their theory of metaphor has developed within the cognitive sciences to become central to the contemporary understanding of how we think and how we express our thoughts in language.
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know about People
Susan M. Weinschenk - 2011
We want them to buy something, read more, or take action of some kind. Designing without understanding what makes people act the way they do is like exploring a new city without a map: results will be haphazard, confusing, and inefficient. This book combines real science and research with practical examples to deliver a guide every designer needs. With it you'll be able to design more intuitive and engaging work for print, websites, applications, and products that matches the way people think, work, and play.Learn to increase the effectiveness, conversion rates, and usability of your own design projects by finding the answers to questions such as: What grabs and holds attention on a page or screen?What makes memories stick?What is more important, peripheral or central vision?How can you predict the types of errors that people will make?What is the limit to someone's social circle?How do you motivate people to continue on to (the next step?What line length for text is best?Are some fonts better than others? These are just a few of the questions that the book answers in its deep-dive exploration of what makes people tick.
Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student's Guide to Earning a Master's or Ph.D.
Robert L. Peters - 1992
It will also help graduate students finish in less time, for less money, and with less trouble.Based on interviews with career counselors, graduate students, and professors, Getting What You Came For is packed with real-life experiences. It has all the advice a student will need not only to survive but to thrive in graduate school, including: instructions on applying to school and for financial aid; how to excel on qualifying exams; how to manage academic politics--including hostile professors; and how to write and defend a top-notch thesis. Most important, it shows you how to land a job when you graduate.
Periodic Tales: The Curious Lives of the Elements
Hugh Aldersey-Williams - 2011
Like you, the elements have lives: personalities and attitudes, talents and shortcomings, stories rich with meaning. You may think of them as the inscrutable letters of the periodic table but you know them much better than you realise. Welcome to a dazzling tour through history and literature, science and art. Here you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table. From ancient civilisations to contemporary culture, from the oxygen of publicity to the phosphorus in your pee, the elements are near and far and all around us. Unlocking their astonishing secrets and colourful pasts, Periodic Tales will take you on a voyage of wonder and discovery, excitement and novelty, beauty and truth. Along the way, you'll find that their stories are our stories, and their lives are inextricable from our own.
How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching
Susan A. Ambrose - 2010
Drawing upon new research in psychology, education, and cognitive science, the authors have demystified a complex topic into clear explanations of seven powerful learning principles. Full of great ideas and practical suggestions, all based on solid research evidence, this book is essential reading for instructors at all levels who wish to improve their students' learning." --Barbara Gross Davis, assistant vice chancellor for educational development, University of California, Berkeley, and author, Tools for Teaching"This book is a must-read for every instructor, new or experienced. Although I have been teaching for almost thirty years, as I read this book I found myself resonating with many of its ideas, and I discovered new ways of thinking about teaching." --Eugenia T. Paulus, professor of chemistry, North Hennepin Community College, and 2008 U.S. Community Colleges Professor of the Year from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education"Thank you Carnegie Mellon for making accessible what has previously been inaccessible to those of us who are not learning scientists. Your focus on the essence of learning combined with concrete examples of the daily challenges of teaching and clear tactical strategies for faculty to consider is a welcome work. I will recommend this book to all my colleagues." --Catherine M. Casserly, senior partner, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching"As you read about each of the seven basic learning principles in this book, you will find advice that is grounded in learning theory, based on research evidence, relevant to college teaching, and easy to understand. The authors have extensive knowledge and experience in applying the science of learning to college teaching, and they graciously share it with you in this organized and readable book." --From the Foreword by Richard E. Mayer, professor of psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara; coauthor, e-Learning and the Science of Instruction; and author, Multimedia Learning
Leaders Eat Last
Simon Sinek - 2013
His second book is the natural extension of Start with Why, expanding his ideas at the organizational level. Determining a company’s WHY is crucial, but only the beginning. The next step is how do you get people on board with your WHY? How do you inspire deep trust and commitment to the company and one another? He cites the Marine Corps for having found a way to build a culture in which men and women are willing to risk their lives, because they know others would do the same for them. It’s not brainwashing; it’s actually based on the biology of how and when people are naturally at their best. If businesses could adopt this supportive mentality, employees would be more motivated to take bigger risks, because they’d know their colleagues and company would back them up, no matter what. Drawing on powerful and inspiring stories, Sinek shows how to sustain an organization’s WHY while continually adding people to the mix.
Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation
Tim Brown - 2009
The reality is that most innovations come from a process of rigorous examination through which great ideas are identified and developed before being realized as new offerings and capabilities.This book introduces the idea of design thinking‚ the collaborative process by which the designer′s sensibilities and methods are employed to match people′s needs not only with what is technically feasible and a viable business strategy. In short‚ design thinking converts need into demand. It′s a human−centered approach to problem solving that helps people and organizations become more innovative and more creative.Design thinking is not just applicable to so−called creative industries or people who work in the design field. It′s a methodology that has been used by organizations such as Kaiser Permanente to icnrease the quality of patient care by re−examining the ways that their nurses manage shift change‚ or Kraft to rethink supply chain management. This is not a book by designers for designers; this is a book for creative leaders seeking to infuse design thinking into every level of an organization‚ product‚ or service to drive new alternatives for business and society.
Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches
John W. Creswell - 1994
It is a book that models the types of issues that best suit different approaches and allows students to understand when to use mixed methods. Furthermore, its focus on theory and paradigms is done in a way that helps students decode their meaning." --MARTHA MONTERO-SIEBURTH, University of Massachusetts, BostonNew to the Second Edition:Because mixed methods research has come into its own since the publication of the first edition, every chapter now shows how to implement a mixed methods design in your proposal or plan as well as showing how to implement qualitative and quantitative approaches Ethical issues that may arise in quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods designs have been added to a new section in Chapter 3 Writing tips and considerations have been expanded and moved to the first part of the book to get your research plan started in the right direction The latest developments in qualitative inquiry, including advocacy, participatory, and emancipatory approaches have been added to Chapter 10 Mixed methods procedures (Chapter 11) show readers how to identify types of mixed methods strategy, select data collection and analysis approaches, and plan the overall structure of the study
Public Relations: Strategies and Tactics
Dennis L. Wilcox - 1986
Now in its Eighth Edition, Public Relations: Strategies & Tactics combines numerous current real-life case studies with fundamental concepts of the field, helping students relate theory to the actual practice of public relations. Grounded in scholarship, the main text and features are all built on references to landmark studies and situations in today's headlines. In this age of corporate and political scandals, terrorism and national health issues, a new chapter, Conflict Management: Dealing with Issues, Risks and Crises, lays the groundwork for understanding and coping with various crises. Written in a disarming and accessible style, this edition also focuses technology in every application, and it leads readers to think about other creative ways to use new media. This edition continues to be the most definitive, comprehensive introductory text in the market, written by two leading public relations educators
The Non-Profit Narrative
Dan Portnoy - 2012
Applying the idea that all organizations have great stories to tell, Dan Portnoy encourages non-profits to interpret fundraising and engagement through the perspective of storytelling. This proven process has helped non-profits raise millions of dollars, attract donors and make a profound impact for their cause.
The Busy Writer's One Hour Plot
Marg McAlister - 2012
Non-fiction, writing, how-to book.