Monthly Archives

October 2016

Books that made me better at storytelling and communications

Posted on October 24, 2016

The other day someone asked me about my favorite books as a professional. Here is a short list of my favorites of the moment. I would love to know yours! On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King Writing is hard. Write for one person. Adverbs are lame. Edit your butt off. Part memoir, part manifesto. If you need a reminder that even the best of the best struggle, give this book a whirl. He really is the…

When to fake it with your stories

Posted on October 11, 2016

It was l’esprit d’escalier all over again. Last night I gave a guest lecture to a public relations class for professionals where the students asked fantastic questions. Of course, a few questions kept rolling around my old noggin while going up the stairs to bed, especially those about authenticity versus fakin’ it. When you tell your own story, be you. If you’re telling a story about something that happened to you, be yourself. If you’re funny, laugh at yourself or the situation. If you looked bad when…

best practices

Keep your story from being a kitchen sink

Posted on October 4, 2016

What’s the saying…even bad pizza is good? Like publicity? What if I told you about a pizza that had, instead of a boring traditional cornicione (can you believe I learned the word for the rim around a pizza on the very day I was writing this?!), a “crown” of hamburgers. The commercial aired in the Middle East, selling the unbridled awesomeness of capitalism and heart plaque. It bummed me out about America. Keep the point in mind the whole time. I remembered this pizzatrocity while…