Hi!
"Literary men, and the young still more than the old of this class, have commonly a good deal to rescind in their style in order to adapt it to business.
The leading rule is to be content to be commonplace—a rule which might be observed with advantage in other writings, but is distinctively applicable to these."
Henry Taylor (Dramatist and poet)
Henry asks us to swap pretentious language for simple language. Something we should do anyway, but definitely do at work.
Why—when we sit down to type at work—do we become stiff and inhuman? Why do we become formal? Why do we feel the need to change to become professional?
It’s our ego that tempts us with self-important prose. We forget the reader and forget they’re human.
I’ve been enjoying David Perell on Twitter. He’s one of the few people I have notifications turned on for.
David runs a writing course called Write of Passage, which focusses on how you can use writing to accelerate your career. David thinks publishing online can lead to…
“unexpected opportunities and increased serendipity in your work and life.”
A colleague took the course last year and I got to see some of the tutorials. David has a novel approach to the usefulness of writing. And, we both agree that school didn’t really teach us that power.
I’m developing a theory, that we stick at the things we’re comfortable undoing.
I’m OK deleting sentences I’ve taken hours to write.
My friend is OK unstitching clothes she’s taken hours to make.
My mum is OK uprooting plants she’s taken hours to arrange.
I wonder, what are you comfortable undoing?
Have a great week. Take control of words and make them work for you.
John