The best piece of writing advice I’ve ever received
Oh, hi friends!
The best piece of writing advice I’ve ever received came from an editor at Runner’s World. I wrote an essay about “running bitch face” (a play on that phrase “resting bitch face”) and desperately wanted the essay to be cute and fun and clever.
Maybe too clever?
Because my editor, Christine Fennessy, said something I’ve thought about often over the past six years. When she sent me back her first edits — which were incredible, kind, and executed with such skill I’m trying to imitate them to this day — she said this:
“Sure, some lines just sound funny. But if they really don’t make any sense, then they’re not all that helpful, and maybe not that funny.”
This blew my mind!
Because sometimes we work really hard to make something sound good or interesting or brilliant and we lose sight of the most important question: What am I trying to say?
Make it make sense. That’s all.
So if you’ve revised yourself into gibberish or are stuck on a single line or can’t figure out what comes next, ask yourself that question: What am I trying to say?
Then say it, in the most direct and clear way you can.
(You can always add jokes later.)
Oh yeah, remember when I wrote a journal? LOLOL. I’m sharing from Do It For Yourself every day on Instagram to remind myself it exists!! Join me!
Having Lunch with Ron Howard
Last week I finished watching the MasterClass on directing with Ron Howard and just have to shout out again what a pleasure it is to watch and learn something new in the middle of the day (I watch during lunch!). The trailers are slick (and reel you in) and people seem to have a problem with certain aspects of it (“MasterClass seems ideally suited to frustrated 30-somethings for whom education has not necessarily resulted in upward mobility or even a job,” writes The Atlantic, LOLOL) but if it provides me with energy, enthusiasm, and knowledge, then…that’s exactly what I need to start getting better at a new skill? Thought you might enjoy classes on writing, advertising, filmmaking, music-making, and much more.
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You can also support my work by checking out my new motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara