With an accessible style, she takes on everything from how to write to grammar and usage to best practices. Writers are encouraged to make their writing lean and precise. Which is great advice, but how do you do it? He teaches writers to eliminate redundancy, recognize and squash empty modifiers, and remove other dead weight that slows writing down. Enter Harvard professor Steven Pinker with a more contemporary take.
Jeff Goins parlayed a love of writing into a successful career as an author, blogger, and speaker. If you have the drive to succeed as a writer, Goins provides the roadmap. There are plenty of books that share advice for dealing with writer angst, getting unstuck creatively, and living life as a wordsmith. Stein On Writing is not one of those books. This from a successful blogger, screenwriter, and author of numerous novels, including the New York Times bestselling Star Wars: Aftermath.
Sort order. Start your review of Ways to Reward Employees. Nov 26, Jennifer rated it it was ok Shelves: reads. A helpful yet hideously repetitive guide to the art of recognition. Bob Nelson hits all the highpoints of recognition whys and hows The latter chapters are worthless from a practical standpoint to anyone who doesn't have a multimillion dollar budget to dip into, but are worth reading just so you know where you should be sending your next resume.
Nov 06, Dr. Kaaren Douglas rated it liked it Shelves: business. Old book, and many of the recommendations are dated now, but still found some pearls. Dec 26, Glenn Schmelzle rated it liked it Shelves: business-books-read. If you have office employees, you'll find ideas in this book, as many examples are skewed towards office environments. Fewer examples would work for remote staff and virtual teams, but some can be adapted. One of the main benefits of the book is the chapter structure; ideas are grouped into monetary, experience, merchandise categories and more.
This gives the book a better flow than just listing the ideas randomly. Mar 29, Rahul Dangi rated it liked it. Best liked the golden banana reward, which is the spontaneous award for recognition for super performance. Few good techniques to keep the team happy, most others were generic and known to me.
For new managers and team leaders with large team size, a useful tool. Aug 28, Matt rated it it was ok. The first few chapters had some noteworthy suggestion but the majority of the book was repetitive and not practical for many workplaces that I know of. Unless you have an unlimited budget that is Nov 10, Ezette Palmer rated it it was amazing. Feb 13, HR rated it really liked it. It also includes specific, concrete ways of communicating praise across the organization. Mar 10, Lauren Head rated it liked it.
Q: Give one quote from the book that impacted your thought process and describe how. This card would entitle the card holder to get out of a task that they hate doing. Examples that were given were filing, research, editing. I think that we could use a card like this in our departments. The card could be given out by the Department Head to someone who has gone above and beyond on a project.
Q: Which co-worker would you recommend this book to? Team members. Q: Rate this book on a scale of , 10 being the highest rating. A: I would give this book a 7. The book contained lots of useful and relevant ideas for making the workplace fun. Q: What is a specific real world application that you will be able to make from what you learned in this book? A: The book talks about just being a nice person and saying please and thank you.
Q: What is one point you disagreed with, or at least questioned, in this book? There were some rewards that I thought were better ideas then others, but nothing that I completely disagreed with. There was really nothing that I will do differently based on this book. Jun 16, Sunshine Moore rated it liked it. This book is filled with ideas for ways to give people, not just employees, a morale boost.
I bought it for my husband, hoping that he would pick up some pointers for making his staff happier on a day-by-day basis. Nov 21, Drew rated it it was amazing. In addition to being a fine author of urban fantasy and near-future YA dystopian epics, Chuck Wendig offers advice on writing via his blog www.
His posts on "25 Things"--covering topics from 25 things to know about protagonists to 25 ways to keep your death-spiraling novel from hitting a city full of innocent citizens okay, I made that one up -- are pithy, insightful and sometimes NSFW. That said, they are some of the best writing advice out there. I've read a LOT of books on writing over the years, some from name authors and some from writing coaches.
Chuck's stuff is fantastic. So do yourself a favor and buy it. Mar 20, Zora rated it it was ok. If you read his blog, you know what you'll be getting. If adolescent male humor isn't your thing, you should avoid.
The problem is, it's just not very useful information. I compare it to my favorite how-to writing books Swain, Bickham, McKee , and it looks like pretty weak tea in comparison. I'm not disagreeing with the advice, which is largely correct. Yes, do write every day. It's just not precise advice. This boo If you read his blog, you know what you'll be getting. This book is like having a buddy come to your race-walk marathon and yell "go, go! That's nice and all May 16, Elena rated it did not like it Shelves: nonfiction.
View 2 comments. Feb 06, Nick Wisseman rated it liked it Shelves: writing. As the subtitle suggests, The Kick-Ass Writer is written in list format: each chapter originally a blog post contains 25 rapid-fire pieces of advice about a given topic. And not every tool is meant for every job. And not every craftsman finds the value in every tool.
Wendig is also a pretty funny dude. For more reviews like this one, go to www. Jan 15, Sharon rated it really liked it Shelves: business-books , writing. Take what you like and leave the rest. The same advice applies here. Chuck Wendig clearly knows what he's talking about. His advice is sound, couched in humor sometimes of a more R-rated variety , and actionable Anyway, authors at any level of production will find something useful here, but the book is clearly aimed at those who are getting their first manuscript together.
I found the sections on marketing and promotion most helpful at my level of production. I was surprised about how little useful information I got from this book. It has some good tips, maybe 10, but all the countless others are repetitive and redundant. As someone else said in the reviews, this may be caused because he forced himself to find 25 things to talk about in each section, when fewer would have been ok for that particular section. What it quickly got repetitive too was the humor, that tried to be "radical" or something, but it got teenager-y very quickly.
Jan 14, Helen rated it liked it Shelves: There are some useful points in this book and plenty of good advice, but the format of the book means it doesn't work well as a cover-to-cover read. Reading endless lists can get tedious, especially since the entire book is formatted that way.
Each section of the book is split into a list of 25 writing tips, each one pertaining to a certain aspect of writing - worldbuilding, for example, or publishing, or writing for particular genres, such as Horror.
The lists are also interspersed with Chuck's There are some useful points in this book and plenty of good advice, but the format of the book means it doesn't work well as a cover-to-cover read. The lists are also interspersed with Chuck's own brand of humour - which probably wouldn't be for everyone and again, definitely gets tedious when you're reading it for pages and pages at a time.
There are only so many jokes about bestiality and getting high off printer ink that I can handle, and after a certain point it started to get irritating. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning behind it - intersperse your advice with humour to keep the reader interested, and on their toes.
It makes sense, but unfortunately didn't work particularly well with the format, and the jokes started to seem kind of repetitive after a while. The most useful part of this book for me was the section that talked about different methods of publishing. So many writers seem reluctant to talk about the process of getting published, but Chuck went in-depth into all the subjects that strike fear into a writer's heart or this particular writer's heart, in any case.
Query letters! Crowdfunding, self-publishing, social media - this was the kind of information I wanted and I can imagine I'll return to the book quite often to reread this segment, as it was the most interesting to me - and also the most useful. Writing as a craft is difficult to teach, and something that's hard to learn without doing. I respect Chuck's attempt to give writing advice in this way, and he definitely had some valid points, but the format spoiled it a little for me.
I'd recommend reading this in chunks, as and when you need advice on certain aspects of writing, rather than reading it cover to cover the way I did. Jan 20, Rob rated it it was ok. Ok, honesty being the best policy, even though I get the feeling Mr Wendig might beat the crap out of me for it, here goes.
This is a good book, but it's not the book you think you're buying. If you're an aspiring writer and are on the constant hunt for that elusive book to transform you into a god of wordsmithery, or even just help you be a little better at it, this is not it.
There is a lot of valuable insight in this book, although a lot of it will be common sense to you if you're already deep Ok, honesty being the best policy, even though I get the feeling Mr Wendig might beat the crap out of me for it, here goes.
There is a lot of valuable insight in this book, although a lot of it will be common sense to you if you're already deep in the word-mines, but there will certainly be titbits you'd not considered before. The problem with offering teachings in the way this book lays it out is that it's a scattergun approach. There are bullet points, each a paragraph, peppered with almost as many bad puns, making it impossible to retain the information given.
You really need a narrative flow to activate your memory, at least most of us do, it's like trying to learn the alphabet from a jumble of random letters instead of from A to Z. Not impossible perhaps, but bloody hard work. The man knows his stuff, I'll give you that, but still, I think this is more a book of entertainment for those who like to write, than tutelage to make you better at it.
Mar 05, Susie rated it liked it. Chuck Wendig is the guy I turn to on Twitter to make me laugh. He always, always, always has a funny antidote, or a way to keep me motivated to write. Or makes fun of himself by illustrating how hard writing can be on a daily basis.
This book is just a longer version of that Case in point: One of his recent TWEETs: "Writing and making stuff and being creative can feel lonely and the path to success is a janky-ass-cliff-side trail with rough winds and storms and, I dunno, violent puffins, so its good to not have to do it ALL alone, is what I'm saying. Leave a light on for those still coming. Much of his information is something I've already learned or knew, but to steal from another reviewer, it's much like your favorite middle school soccer coach screaming from the sidelines, yelling at you to "knock it off," or "good job buddy!
You just need to keep moving forward. Useful advises, writing with an entertaining voice. Although they are not so new if you already read some 'more famous' book about writing.
As I said on the updates, is not the WHAT but the HOW the advises are given: is like a soccer coach just bumping you out with enthusiasm and decision about write and care about what you are doing. The key part is about The Hybrid Author: the one who can save the worl No, that's not it.
Oh, I know! The one who can do everything and everywhere: self publish, Useful advises, writing with an entertaining voice. The one who can do everything and everywhere: self publish, traditional publish, blog and so on. Never stop trying. I recommend specially to the writers that has some lower moments, to recharge and go back to work with full motivation.
Jul 21, Patrick rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction. Sep 22, Kaye rated it really liked it Shelves: nonfiction-writing-books , books-read-in Not really a book to sit down and read cover to cover.
This collection of lists of "25 Things" is a good kick in the pants when you need a quick bit of inspiration on a specific topic. Sep 11, dust rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction. I don't remember when I read this, but apparently I never rated it on goodreads! Oct 03, Kate Lowell rated it liked it Shelves: writing-books. I'm kind of disappointed in this. Don't get me wrong--I love Chuck. He has a way of cutting right to the meat of things, but it didn't work in this book.
There's a pile of good information in here. Great reminders and lots of encouragement, and a strong slant towards 'do your own thing', which I believe in very much even if I often let myself be swayed by the 'one true way' crew. But the format of the book hampered Chuck's message. It was obvious in some sections that he was working hard, trying I'm kind of disappointed in this.
It was obvious in some sections that he was working hard, trying to find 25 things to talk about. There were parts that felt like they could have been taken care of in 10 tips, but because he was doing groups of 25, he had to find some way to stretch things. The other thing which diluted the book's message was the humour. Yes, it's entertaining, but it very quickly got tiresome--at least the way we were reading it, three groups of 25 at a time.
My recommendation? This is a great book in small, small chunks. It's an excellent pick-me-up when you're feeling down about your writing. It won't tell you a lot of new stuff, but it will remind you of the stuff that might have drifted to the back of your mind. This would make excellent reading for when you're waiting in the doctor's office, in line at the grocery store, or any other place where you need something you can pick up and put down without losing your place in it.
0コメント