Reading is magic. Writing is a craft that can be mastered. I hope you’ll come here often for lessons that will help make your writing dreams come true. You’ll find my blog, writing quotes, interviews, a twice-monthly newsletter, coaching services, testimonials and my published work. I hope you’ll subscribe and enjoy. May the writing go well!
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Chip, you probably don’t remember me, but I took one of your online courses back in 2006. I was having a lot of problems in writing at the time, and it was hurting my career goal of working as a professional journalist. I took your lessons to heart and have used them ever since – writing still proves challenging, but I’ve managed to do quite well – I’ve now marked a full 13 years at The Commercial Appeal newspaper in Memphis and I’ve written an 80,000-word narrative nonfiction book entitled “The Book of Isaias: A child of Hispanic immigrants seeks his own America.” It was published in 2016 by St. Martin’s Press and won various accolades.
To complete the book, I did the “five questions” several times over a period of years and routinely printed out drafts and read them aloud. When it was time to hand in the book, I did your process again and read the entire manuscript out loud to help me flag mistakes – I think I went through the reading of the book a full two times, if I’m not mistaken.
I was used those same techniques as contributing writer on a massive USA Today project which came out this week entitled “The Migrants.” And I have taught the same techniques to others.
Thank you for teaching these valuable techniques. Your methods and teaching made a big difference in my life and career.
Sincerely,
Daniel Connolly
Thank you so much for getting in touch Daniel. What exciting news. I’m so glad the five questions and reading aloud approach paid off so well. Congratulations on your book and good luck with “The Migrants.”
All best,
Chip
Looking forward to following your blog.