Barbara McNichol Editorial Services

Add power and persuasion to your books, articles, and one-sheets

Adventure Author Making a Splash

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Note from Barbara: I just received this email from adventure author Heidi Siefkas whose wonderful books I edited. I’m excited to share her publicity and news about her upcoming live writing retreat in South Florida. Details about her books and retreat are linked on the CBS-Miami website. 

Take three minutes to listen to Heidi’s fun TV interview about how she reinvented her life, wrote about it, and turned it into a new career.

Dear Barbara,

Aloha from Fort Lauderdale!

It has been a busy fall with the second book launch. I’m making a splash with my post-traumatic growth story, Life 2.0, and adventure is my meditation. Check out this feature that recently aired on CBS Channel 4 Miami.

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2015/10/18/focus-on-south-florida-south-florida-writing-retreat/

Thank you for being a part of this journey. On Saturday, I will be co-hosting a writing retreat and sharing my path, highlighting your editing business as well as my publisher’s, Wheatmark.

Here’s to looking up!

Heidi

Heidi's follow-up book

Adventure author's first book

Heidi Siefkas is author of When All Balls Drop and With New Eyes. 

What Pickleball and Business Writing Have in Common

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Playing pickleball

Playing pickleball

by Barbara McNichol

A group of over-50s in my neighborhood are learning to love playing pickleball on our brand new pickleball courts. Players with a mixed bag of talent show up—from non-athletic newbies to proven tournament champs.

One of those tourney players recently told me that, to comply with the rules, I needed to change my serve. Not only that, she shared strategy tips I’d not heard before. Playing with her as a partner gave me the chance to practice those tips—both when she reminded me and when she didn’t.

Feeling a little scrambled, I came away thinking, “How many new techniques can I apply at once?”

Back at my computer, I can better empathize with writers as they struggle to apply a number of new techniques that will improve their writing game. Practicing my pickleball serve again and again can be like rewriting paragraphs repeatedly until they work!

That’s Why We Attend Workshops

Applying writing tips in a WordShop session provides an optimal opportunity for new habits to “stick.” That’s why I invite you to participate in an upcoming Business Writing Skills WordShop in Tucson, Arizona, sponsored by Association of Talent Development (formerly ASTD).

It’s Tuesday morning April 21, 2015, at Viscount Suites in Tucson—breakfast included. Full details here.

Just as practicing my new serve is worth my while, I encourage you to invest time learning and applying new writing techniques. I guarantee you’ll gain a lot in this interactive session—and you’ll know what to practice going forward.

Did I say it will be fun? With breakfast, too! Sign up today!

How do you learn new techniques best, whether it’s on the pickleball court or at your writing desk?

Content Writing: How to Get It All Done

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Creating Content Club

Content Writing Support

by Barbara McNichol

Ever wonder how you can finally prioritize all that content writing you’re determined to do for your business or your own book? How can you dig deeply into your soul to accomplish this?

My colleague Dawn Goldberg Shuler aka Content Creator Extraordinaire has created an amazing experience for busy people who want to write and need support NOW!

She calls her innovative program “Creating Content Club—Tools, Classes, Time, and Support” to get you writing with more confidence, ease, and power!

As part of launching her program, she interviewed me on November 19th. Our fun, half-hour interview was filled with ways to STRENGTHEN Everything You Write. Join us at this link.

Check out Dawn’s Creating Content Club. Her extremely reasonable membership fee gets you access to trainings and interviews, writing tools and checklists, support from Dawn, and writing workshops to give you time to write.

Dawn offers all of this for only $19 a month, but here’s the GREAT news: You can get one month trial for only $1. 

Find out more about the Creating Content Club here and start your $1 trial today!

P.S. After you’ve listened to this interview, please give me your feedback. Which content writing comments did you find most helpful?

Techniques You Can Use to Save Time and Money in the Editing Process

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by Barbara McNichol
 
My colleague Cathy Fyock recently featured an hour-long FREE learning event with yours truly. She has generously shared the recording for you to see and listen to at your leisure. Questions? Share them here.

Webinar link here

Webinar with Cathy Fyock

Webinar with Cathy Fyock

Description:

How can you employ techniques editors use in everything you write-whether it’s for your book chapters, promo materials, or business emails? Barbara McNichol shares critical tricks of the editing trade. More than that, she appeals to authors to use them in the initial writing phase so they can save time and money in the editing phase.

Over the past 20 years, Barbara has provided expert editing of more than 300 nonfiction books in the categories of business, spirituality, self-help, how-to, health, relationships, and more. She is the creator of Word Trippers: Your Ultimate Source for Choosing the Perfect Word When It Really Matters–a handy word choice guide to clarify your writing.

Please share your feedback on this webinar. What points were significant for you? Which techniques will you consciously apply?

 

Memoir Writing Made Easy – a Program to Get You Started

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by Barbara McNicholmemoir studio

My colleague Gail Woodard loves  to encourage people to write their memoirs.  The stories of lifetimes, the reminiscences that hold families together, the special places, fishing techniques, cake recipes, songs, as well as the secrets and heartaches — all of these facets of one’s life are gems  worth preserving for future generations.

So often when she talks with people about writing memoirs, it’s the younger people in the group who become impassioned.

  • “If only my grandfather had been able to write down the stories of his life before the war…”
  • “I vaguely remember what my mother told me about her aunts and uncles – I wish I could read their stories now so my kids would know more about where we all came from.”
  • “My dad kept saying he would write his stories, but he didn’t and then it was too late.”

Gail has taught classes in memoir writing and coached individual authors. She is now offering a new course, Memoir Writing Made Easy.

You are among the first to know about this course!

  • If you have thought about writing your memoirs but didn’t quite know how to start, Memoir Writing Made Easy might be just what you need.
  • If you have a friend or relative who isn’t a writer but has stories they’d like to preserve for family, Memoir Writing Made Easy would be a terrific gift.
  • If you’ve already started writing your memoirs, but aren’t sure you’re doing it right, or what to do when you’re finished writing, Memoir Writing Made Easy can help.

Memoir Writing Made Easy is a 10-week home study course with lessons delivered to your email box each week. You can work on each lesson at your leisure.

In addition to the weekly lessons, you’ll have access to four monthly Q&A calls and you get templates and other resources to help you on your memoir writing journey.

The regular price for the course is $147. However, for the first 20 people who sign up (and agree to complete the short survey mid-way through the course), the full course is only $47.

If you’re interested, please click here now.

 

Boost Your Productivity by STRENGTHENING Your Writing

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Barbara model poseby Barbara McNichol

 

For years, I’ve been on a crusade to help people boost their productivity by strengthening their writing so they can avoid the problems that come with sending unclear messages.

As part of this crusade, I offer a WordShop to organizations and individuals, including:

  • Business professionals
  • Administration assistants
  • Marketing copywriters
  • Grant proposal writers
  • Journalists, bloggers, authors

My next public WordShop called STRENGTHEN Everything You Write comes up on Oct. 25th at Tucson College. This 3.5-hour hands-on session helps you improve everything you write—from business emails to proposals, reports, blog posts, articles, book chapters, and more. All attendees will received the 2nd edition of Word Trippers, my word choice guide.

At the end of this WordShop, you’ll be able to:

  • Get results you want with clearer, more concise writing.
  • Save readers’ time by reducing wordiness and repetition.
  • Plan your ideas before you write for maximum effect.
  • Select the right tone to fit your audience, purpose, and topic.
  • Eliminate errors that create confusion and mar your reputation.

Saturday, October 25, 2014

9:30 am – 1 pm

Tucson College – 5151 East Broadway Blvd. at Rosemont, Tucson AZ

Only $69*

Register here 10/25.

“Great new tools, great tune-up of existing knowledge!”

– Mark F., career consultant

Whacking Wordiness: Delete Wobbly Words

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by Barbara McNichol
4-13 Barbara 6

It’s time to whack those wobby words!

What do I mean by wobbly words?

Well, words that are vague, indefinite, and don’t add much. In fact, they can clutter your sentences and take away from the clarity you’re striving to create.

Here are five examples of wobbly words. Whack them from your writing whenever you can:

  • really      “I really think it’s time to go.” (extraneous)
  • some       “We rely on some long-standing methods.” (be specific and say a number)
  • very          “Get ready to do a very good job.” (overused; be more descriptive!)
  • that          “Find information that you can apply easily.” (unneeded 9 times out of 10)
  • much       “Jobs posted on the Internet reach a much larger audience than those in newspaper ads.” (doesn’t add value)

In their classic guide The Elements of Style, Strunk and White call word clutter “the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood out of words.” Amen!

(Featured in my Wordshop STRENGTHENING Everything You Write. Details about the upcoming session in Tucson here.)

Writers: Ever Been Embarrassed by an Unintentional “Bump” in the Road?

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By Barbara McNichol

As a member of Society of Southwestern Authors, I receive the group’s e-newsletter The Write Word. One article that tickled my fancy lines up perfectly with my Wordshop’s intentional writing theme. It goes like this: Before you press the SEND button, always ask “Is what I say what I intend to convey?”

[quote style=”1″]Is what I say what I intend to convey?[/quote]

In his article, Dan Baldwin refers to writers’ unintended mistakes (catch the redundancy?) as “bumps from a dip in the road.”

Let me share my favorite 7 “bumps” from several that Dan listed:

  • Include Your Children When Baking Cookies
  • The Humane Society offers a free spay/neutering to senior citizens…
  • Try our cough syrup. You will never get any better.
  • FOR SALE: Bulldog. Will eat anything. Loves children.
  • Now you can borrow enough money to get completely out of debt.
  • The patient has no past history of suicides.
  • Beauty Queen Unveils Bust At Dedication Ceremony

Yes, these examples are highly entertaining, but do you see how they get in the way of stating the meaning intended—and could lead to embarrassment?

Intentional Writing Reins

The fix: First, write with intention. Then, proofread everything with fresh eyes and do so from the readers’ perspective, not your own!

Have you come across embarrassing “bumps” like these? Please share them here. All “bump” originators will be kept anonymous, I promise.

Get Your Story Straight from Page and Stage – Workshop

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by Barbara McNichol

In today’s competitive arena, entrepreneurs and leaders of organizations can’t rely on only conveying facts and figures to call people to action.

People need to feel moved to act. They have to get the message deep in their bones why you or your organization merits investing precious resources.

Giving a strong emotional appeal strengthens your chances to rise above the crowd. This is true whether you’re speaking to a single person or a roomful, whether you’re writing website copy, press releases, articles, or pitch letters.

But how can you do it effectively?

I offer a half-day workshop with professional speaker Andrea Beaulieu. Titled “Get Your Story Straight: Tell Your Story Powerfully on the Stage and on the Page,” this programshows you how to tell your story with skill, persuasiveness, and confidence.

Participants explore ways to personalize their story to share from the heart—both on the stage and on the page. They learn to honea fresh new way to tell their stories with persuasion and ultimately improve their results.

  • Clarify, organize, and refine your message with a specific focus.
  • Balance factual content with the drama of storytelling.
  • Learn editing tricks to adapt the story told on stage for the page.
  • Ensure your written story retains its effectiveness.
  • Inject emotional connections and theatrical techniques into your stories to engage audiences .
  • Leverage what you’ve created for multiple uses: website, email, articles, marketing materials, and more.

This “on the Stage/on the Page” program is offered to organizations and individual participants on request. Contact me with your questions.

Summary of Content

1. Story Development for the Stage and the Page

  • Determine the main point and key messages of the selected story.
  • Identify a key situation, experience, or person on which to base the story.
  • Determine an open and close for presenting the story, including techniques to capture the audience’s attention and set up a call to action.
  • Set the scene with descriptions/information and develop the characters while identifying who the organization helps.
  • Define a key obstacle the organization faces based on the situation, experience, or person: what the problem is, how it meets that problem, why that’s important.
  • Resolve the storyline and make a clear point that moves members of the audience.

2. Presentation Skills

  • Model how an organization’s story can be told effectively.
  • Work with the participants to identify and refine their natural speaking styles.
  • Provide specific, individual coaching on how to “live” the story, not just tell it, through emotional and theatrical/speaking techniques.

3. Writing Skills

  • Take the story prepared for the stage and brainstorm where it needs to be told in print—website copy, fundraising letter, article, and so on.
  • Select one of these formats and begin crafting a piece.
  • Share written pieces and get feedback in the round table.

This “on the stage/on the page” program is offered to organizations and individual participants on request. Contact me with your questions. 

“On the Stage / On the Page” Experts

Andrea Beaulieu: Andrea is a certified coach, author, and award-winning consultant. As founder of Andrea Beaulieu Creates, LLC, Andrea has served dozens of clients in several industries, and worked as the contracted executive director for two nonprofit organizations, and the interim executive director for two others. She is a professional speaker and has been a performing artist for more than 30 years, acting in numerous productions and singing before millions. She traveled with the international organization, Up With People, singing and dancing at the Super Bowl X halftime show, the Indianapolis 500, and Bob Hope’s Birthday Party. She is currently represented by Dani’s Talent Agency in Phoenix. She is the author of Ah Ha! 100 Flashes of Insight and Inspiration from Your Authentic Voice and Finding Your Authentic Voice: Seven Practices to Free the Real You and Experience Love, Happiness and Fulfillment. She created the Your Authentic Voice® Intuition and Creativity System, which is at the heart of these books.

Barbara McNichol: Barbara brings three decades of writing and editing experience to helping professionals add power to their pen. Before founding Barbara McNichol Editorial in 1996, she worked in both corporate and small business environments. Today, she specializes in editing marketing materials and nonfiction manuscripts, including Andrea’s book, Finding Your Authentic Voice: Seven Practices to Free the Real You and Experience Love, Happiness and Fulfillment. Barbara has worked first-hand with Andrea as her presentation coach.

This “on the Stage/on the Page” program is offered to organizations and individual participants on request. Contact me with your questions. 

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Barbara McNichol Editorial
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Tucson, AZ 85750

Phone: 520-615-7910

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