Andy Unedited
Exploring Books, Life, and Writing
Do I get letters? Yes. I get letters. Dear Mr. Editor Person: Often I read words or phrases that make my grammatical hair stand on end, my syntactical stomach churn, and my semantical head bow in grief. Someone uses “impact” as if it were a verb or “ask” as if it were a noun, and …
Should authors blog through the books they are writing? This does not have a one-size-fits-all answer. I wish I could have said a bit more about it in Write Better where careful readers may have thought they spotted a contradiction. In the preface I say, “Some of what is found in this book was originally …
Building an author platform continues to be a key challenge for people who want to get their work out to a wider audience. One piece in the ongoing task of becoming better known is an author website. Ken wrote this to me in response to a recent post on Andy Unedited: One thing that is …
We’ve all seen it at work, at church, in families, or in other groups. Conflict, gossip, territoriality, defensiveness, and withdrawal. Patterns of dysfunctionality like these persist often because we just don’t have the skills to deal with them or we are afraid that confrontation will just make it worse. The Drama-Free Office considers four common …
I have a one-question survey that will reveal with near perfect accuracy whether or not you are an individualist. Set? Here it is: Would you readily consider allowing your parents to arrange a marriage for you? Those of us from a Western culture would never give this the slightest bit of serious consideration. But in …
The problem with talking to strangers is that most of us think we know how to “read” people. Gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions seem self-evident. As Malcolm Gladwell reveals in his book Talking to Strangers, they are not. Both Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax met Hitler multiple times and thought him trustworthy. Why? Dozens, …
Coauthors have a problem. How do you speak about yourselves in a book or article? Who is the “I” in your piece? Do you always use “we”? But what if you are telling a story of one author but not the other? Do you always say “I (Andy) once . . .”? But that can …
Teachers and nonfiction writers are sometimes hesitant to tell stories. Just giving the content straight seems so much better. People can get the wrong point from a story, after all. Stories can be subjective, vague, striking different people different ways. We don’t want people confused. And some may like a particular story and others not. …
Recently a friend asked an interesting question after reading my blog on writer’s block. He wrote: Andy, I wonder if I need some writer’s block. I don’t have a problem with getting started. Rather, as I jokingly tell students, I’ve never met a word count I couldn’t exceed. I am working on my first solo, …
Retirement isn’t an idea you find in the Bible. Yes, the march of time slows us down, and we need to transition to a new rhythm, allowing the next generation to take the lead. But sipping drinks with little umbrellas by the beach for months on end is not the ambition recommended by Peter, Paul, …