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Mark Twain On Writing With Impact: A Post I Didn’t Write
I was going to write a clever Copyblogger-inspired post with Mark Twain quotes and writing tips to go.
I was going to write a Cosmo-style round up of impact-full "Dos" and "Don’ts", turned round for extra effect. ("Don’t bother to break up your paragraphs. Your writing’s so good that people will choose to read it anyway.")
I was going to do a round up of quotes, tips, and learning points from this month’s posts and comments.
But I’ve run out of both time and writing juice. And because I do read my own words I remembered that sometimes you just need to let your ideas go.
Mark Twain’s still going to get the last word though. After all, it’s partly down to him I decided not to squander another quire of paper 
To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself…Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.
This post concludes January’s theme of writing with impact. Highlights from this month include posts:
On writing
Make an impact with your writing in 2008
A web designer’s guide to writing well
Give your writing a workout: writing tips from the Confident Writing community
On blog writing
How to write a blog with 5 straight As
On writing for a business blog
The 3 biggest challenges in writing a business blog:
(1) 50 words to pitch your blog
(2) What’s your blog got to offer? The About Page
(3) How to promote your services without breaking rapport
On writing - for those of you who prefer audio writing tips
5 things you can do with the words you didn’t use
A haggis maker’s guide to writing well
5 ways to beat the fear of hitting send
5 ways to fight the writing flab
Starting tomorrow we’re going to be taking a LEAP with our writing… so don’t forget to subscribe to the feed if you want to come along for the ride!
Joanna Young, The Confident Writing Coach
Because our words count
To get future articles you might want to subscribe to the free RSS feed. You'll find more writing tips in the Confident Writing archive. Thanks for visiting!
Hi Joanne - That is so true. Sometimes less is more - although I did like the idea of your original post also.
It’s really annoying to read a long article that has been stretched out with flowery new age crap - when the writer could have said what they had to say in one paragraph.
Sorry - sorry - sorry. I’ve done it again. I’m determined to call you Joanne instead of Joanna. I honestly do get the two names mixed up all the time - sorry.
Hi Catherine
No worries about my name - I hadn’t mentioned it because I’m enjoying reading your comments so much
Especially this one -
“flowery new age crap”
Too right!
Joanna
Thanks for running the series!
Thanks Laura
I enjoyed writing it - this one seemed to fly, although I’m not entirely sure why. Some just seem to be easier to write than others
Joanna
Wow, thats quite a series of great posts. Thanks for showing them; quite a few I’d missed, it seems.
Hi Mark - I seem to remember being quite exhausted at the time when I looked back at all the posts I’d written that month! Hope you find something in amongst them that you enjoy
Joanna