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2020 Word of the Year – What is YOUR Word?

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by Barbara McNichol

Every year, Dictionary.com selects a word to describe the year coming to a close. About the incredible year of 2020, it said: “At Dictionary.com, the task of choosing a single word to sum up 2020—a year roiled by a public health crisis, an economic downturn, racial injustice, climate disaster, political division, and rampant disinformation—was a challenging and humbling one. But at the same time, our choice was overwhelmingly clear. One word kept running through the profound and manifold ways our lives have been upended—and our language so rapidly transformed—in this unprecedented year.”

The 2020 Word of the Year is PANDEMIC,

What is my personal Word of the Year? FORTUNATE

For all the misfortunes and tragedies people have faced in 2020, our family and friends can call ourselves FORTUNATE (cross fingers). We’ve been healthy, warm, and well-fed. We’ve been able to enjoy the outdoors a lot (except when fires ravaged nearby mountains in the super-hot, dry summer). We’ve done our best to stay connected, learning, exercising, and dancing online. We’ve been motivated to share our fortune through charities and support local businesses along the way. And we’ve counted our blessings that we could still serve our clients as usual. Truly fortunate on this one!

And GRATITUDE

Given all that we CAN’T do—like visiting loved ones including attending Barbara’s mother’s memorial in September—we fill our cups with gratitude. We feel especially grateful for those fighting Covid, teaching kids, and caring for others. We HOPE a better 2021 awaits!

What is YOUR personal Word of the Year? ________ Please share you response below or email me.

Need some ideas? Check these.

WISHING YOU HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND A FORTUNATE NEW YEAR!

WORD OF THE YEAR

 

Do You Resist Improving Your Writing?

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by Barbara McNichol

improving your writing

If you resist the effort needed for improving your writing, here’s my suggestion: Make friends with good writing. A shift in attitude—from resisting to embracing—just might make all the difference. And here’s the payoff. When you better your writing skills, you advance your career and make a positive impression.

To meet that objective, here’s a fresh resource filled with must-have skills to jumpstart your resolve: an e-guide called—ta da—Making Friends with Good Writing.

This brand new e-guide comes with a special introductory offer. You’ll save $$ when you use the Coupon code FRIENDS at checkout. Check it out here.

“Barbara’s Making Friends with Good Writing is helpful and first class—just like she is! If you want to know when and why to use or create a style guide or enhance your writing, this e-guide provides answers with clear examples. ” – Peggy Henrikson, editor

Do you know the definition of a chiasmus? It’s a phrase that mirrors itself. 

Making Friends with Good Writing offers a compilation of chiasmi that are fun. After reading this e-guide, a reader sent this chiasmus by Garrison Keillor: “When it comes to finding available men in Minnesota, the odds are good, but the goods are odd.” She had a fun response, too. “I don’t take his message seriously, though. Thankfully I found a good man!”

Can you create your own chiasmus? Please write it here! 

Take 18 Days to Become a Better Writer

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by Barbara McNichol

Incremental learning makes a difference when you set any goal for yourself, including becoming a better writer.

Why would you desire to have better writing? To get hired or promoted, to attract more clients, to build your reputation and boost your book sales–to name only a few benefits.

Your action item: To reap these benefits, set aside time for 18 days to improve your writing, whether it’s for book chapters, reports, or sensitive emails.

In each of those days, you would study one of these easy, effective tips to hone your writing craft. Using them habitually, you’ll find you get better results and your confidence will grow. Any time you might spend in a writing WordShop (including those I offer) is reinforced by the ideas in this e-guide.

Your assurance: These practical, immediately usable tips have been compiled over years of editing nonfiction books and conducting business writing classes. You can feel assured writers have tested them thoroughly!

Your goal: Make a point of integrating a fresh tip into your writing every day. You’ll see how perfecting the communication loop through improved writing benefits your readers, your coworkers, you clients, and ultimately your career.

Your Key to Better Writing

better writer

This e-guide can be purchased for only $14.95. Click here to order. Use code 18DAYS to receive a $4.95 discount! Any questions? Contact me at editor@barbaramcnichol.com

Have you already worked with this e-guide? If so, please leave your comments here. How did it help you? Inquiring minds want to know!

Celebrate World Gratitude Day This September 21st

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gratitude dayIn the ’60s, a movement started to encourage people to share in conscious expressions of Gratitude on one day of the year. World Gratitude Day was born. How can you celebrate World Gratitude Day this September 21st?

I suggest setting aside time to express appreciation for your family, your community, your friends, your business associates, and anyone or anything that makes your life better—even animals and technologies.

Express gratitude to people who source, prepare, and serve your food and deliver your mail. Thank community leaders and employees who imagined, built, and continue to provide the systems that serve you. Thank those customers who put money in your pocket so you can live well. What would you add that’s specific to your life?

I am grateful for opportunities to spread light, love, and kindness every day. And I’m especially grateful to you for allowing me to help you make your dreams stronger through better writing.

Happy Gratitude Day.

P.S. Don’t forget to celebrate National Punctuation Day on September 24th!

More Puns for April Fools Day

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punsWith April Fools Day approaching, tickle your funny bone with these puns to share with friends. These came from Todd Hunt:

1) Acupuncture is a jab well done.

2) If a clock is hungry does it go back four seconds?

3) Without geometry, life is pointless.

4) Corduroy pillows are making headlines.

5) I did a theatrical performance about puns. It was a play on words. (Barbara’s favorite)

These came from a faithful reader of Add Power to Your Pen:

  • No matter how much you push the envelope, it’ll still be stationery.
  • Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
  • Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
  • A backward poet writes inverse.
  • If you jumped off the bridge in Paris, you’d be in Seine.

OK – your turn. Write your best/worst puns in the comments!

Have You Heard of Book Selling University?

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by Barbara McNichol

Did you know you can now get book-related information on demand to help you plan, produce, price, distribute, and promote your books more  efficiently? Yes, through Book Selling University, sponsored by Association of Publishers for Special Sales (APSS).

book selling universityI’m fortunate to be part of a line-up of 60+ fabulous instructors who have one goal in mind: show you how to succeed as an author in these categories.

  1. BUSINESS OF PUBLISHING
  2. PREPARATION
  3. PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
  4. DISTRIBUTION
  5. PROMOTION
  6. SPECIAL SALES

My hour-long webinar/course, Strengthen Everything You Write (Barbara McNichol, BSU-176) is offered as part of PREPARATION.

Working with Book Selling University, you’ll be able to:

  • Take courses as time permits and needs demand
  • Learn from instructors who are experts on their course material
  • Make more money selling your books
  • Price your books for maximum profits
  • Pinpoint social media
  • Improve your sales online
  • Make your publicity more effective and efficient and MORE

These TWO FREE COURSES get you started:

  • How to Purchase a Course (Brian Jud, BSU-199)
  • Introduction to Special Sales (Brian Jud, BSU-100)

I encourage you to check out this golden opportunity to take any element of the book writing/publishing/selling journey and learn more about it.

Full details at BookSellingUniversity.com or contact BrianJud@bookapss.org

Feel free to contact me for a comprehensive flyer listing all courses available.

 

 

The Last Straw – a Serious Request from Mrs. Green

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Barbara’s Note: This post deviates from writing help to put out a cry from my client, the author of Your Mother Called Mother Earth…You’d better call her back!

DON’T BE A SUCKER–The Last Straw

by Gina Murphy Darling aka Mrs. Green, Mrs. Green’s World

Here’s how not to be a sucker. Hopefully after reading this, you will never want to look at, think about, nor consider using a straw again – not ever. You will become straw phobic like me! To put it bluntly, straws really do suck!

The backstory: Americans consume over 500,000,000 million straws EVERY SINGLE DAY. Stop, take a deep breath, and reflect. That’s enough to fill 127 school buses EVERY SINGLE DAY. Could I make that up? Based on the national average of 1.5 straws per person per day, each person in the US will use approximately 38,000 or more straws between the ages of 5 and 65. Without question, straw production is one of THE most energy intensive processes on the planet.

The carbon footprint:

  • Straws are made from petroleum. Oil has to be drilled to make them. Yikes!
  • Straws then have to be manufactured, packaged, shipped and distributed. Big carbon footprint.

The harsh realities/impact:

  • Straws never biodegrade. The earth simply does not know how to absorb them. Remnants of the first straw ever manufactured are somewhere out there – buried in a landfill or in the belly of a bird or sea mammal – but out there.
  • Straws are not recycled but at this point, one might conclude that once a straw is made, most of the damage is already done.
  • Some straws are incinerated generating toxic emissions which pollute the atmosphere and contribute to climate change.
  • Most straws go to landfills, are buried in the ground and leach harmful chemicals into the soil and groundwater. Sick and sad – right?

The worst:

  • Straws are BIG beach and ocean polluters. They are one of the top 10 items found in beach clean ups.
  • It is estimated that over a million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals and fish, too numerous to count, are killed by plastic pollution each year and straws are a big part of the reason why. Do you want YOUR straw to be the one that ends up stuck in the nose of a magical sea turtle? I think not.

The solutions:

  • Stop using them. Just say no to straws.
  • Purchase reusable straws and USE THEM! Mrs. Green’s pick is Glass Dharma because they are glass and you can get some really fun ones or Ukonserve.
  • Join the One Less Straw Campaign, started by our friends at One More Generation (OMG), take the pledge and spread the word.
  • Encourage restaurants you frequent to stop serving them or, at the very least, request your beverage of choice to be served straw free.

Don’t be a sucker – just say no to straws.

Find out more about how to help Mother Earth at MrsGreensWorld.com

How to Succeed with a Self-Publishing Blueprint on Your Team

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by Barbara McNichol

For many authors, the hardest part about writing and publishing a book is knowing how to do it correctly. My colleague, author, and writer’s coach Teresa Funke has launched a tool that anyone who’s self-publishing a book will find full of essential information.

The Self-Publishing Blueprint was created by Teresa and her partners at Writing Blueprints.

Teresa’s all-in-one resource helps you cut through the confusion of self-publishing and save you from making costly mistakes.

This 9-unit online tool walks you through every aspect of producing, publishing, and promoting your book. It features detailed videos, checklists, and worksheets to help you choose the self-publishing path that’s perfect for your project.

Have a Self-publishing Expert at Your Fingertips

Here’s the best part: Once you buy this online tool, you own it, and can use it again and again as you produce new books. It’s like having an expert at your fingertips.

Please go here for an explanatory video and full details.

The Gift of Speed Reading

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by Barbara McNichol

How can you optimize your reading speed to achieve success? What kind of freedom and confidence can speed reading deliver?

When I asked these questions, a solution appeared in the form of a Rev It Up Reading course and an entertaining 60-second video to explain the course.

Video Answers the Question WHY. Take a look here.

This video reinforces Rev It Up Reading’s key course features, including:
• self-paced, online convenience
• techniques for rapid reading improvement
• how it can help you read more in less time
• encouraging folks to engage with our free trial offer

My experience: I’ve been diving into this program and it’s already helped me “skim” through a nonfiction book I needed to read for a deadline. Yes, it takes practice (and I need plenty more of it), but I’m encouraged by how much faster I’ve been reading with the comprehension I need.

Give Speed Reading as a Gift—Special Offer

It’s graduation time for someone you care about!

You can purchase a practical gift for high school and college students/graduates to increase their success at this special time. Rev It Up Reading is offering gift certificates at only $99. PLUS anyone who purchases a gift certificate for someone else receives a $100 discount off the retail price. Here’s the link to all the details: Purchase a 90-Day Access to the online speed reading course.

Rev It Up Reading is an online course created by America’s #1 Speed Reading Expert, Abby Marks Beale, to help people become the best readers they can be. Go here for complete details.

Why Grammar Matters

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by Barbara McNichol

Did you celebrate National Grammar Day on March 4th? I think it needs to be celebrated all year ’round especially when it comes to business writing.

Here’s why using proper grammar is important:

“Grammar is credibility. If you’re not taking care of the small things, people assume you’re not taking care of the big things.” — Amanda Sturgill, associate professor of communications at Elon University

What’s the best way to recognize Grammar Day? Spend extra effort to make sure your sentences, whether spoken or written, are grammatically correct.

grammar bookHow do you know what’s correct? Let me direct you to my colleague Kathleen Watson’s new reference book,  Grammar For People Who Hate Rules: Killer Tips From The Ruthless Editor.

This week only, Kathleen is offering it in ebook form for only 99 cents, downloadable on Amazon. This special offer expires at midnight on March 8, so act now!

You can order the paperback version at any time. It’s available at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Powell’s Books

This is one resource I use often and highly recommend!

 

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