To Write with Wild Abandon

To Write with Wild Abandon

Home
Archive
About
Writing with a Mighty Yawp
My next newsletter post was not going to be this one.
 • Graham Strong
Reaching for the Green Light
Or, How to Read with Intent to Become a Better Writer - the lesson's in Roy Peter Clark's excellent book on how to read with intent, "The Art of X-ray…
 • Graham Strong
✍️ Zero Draft Writing
or, The Power of Writing Nothing - Writing a First Draft is too much pressure! Zero Draft gives you the freedom to explore your creativity. Here's how!
✍️ The Advantages of Non-linear Writing
or, How to Turn Some Happy Little Clouds into a Full-blown Story - Why Michael Ondaatje wrote The English Patient non-linearly, and how it might work…
✍️ How Do You Sell Your Ragged Heart?
or, Tricks for Finding the Price You Need to Pay to Write - Some writers, and most definitely me, find it difficult to "bare their soul" on the page.
✍️ A Few Words about Em-dashes – and Why AI Can Suck It
or, How in this Case, I Actually *Am* Raging against the Machine… - AI has changed the way many people use em-dashes. I'm sticking to my style.
 • Graham Strong
✍️ Why Writers Get in Their Own Way (and How to Avoid the Trap)
or, How to Avoid Helmet Fires and Find “The Write Stuff” - Sometimes, we need to get out of our own way when writing's not going well. Here are some…
✍️ How Constrained Writing Can Help You Creatively
or, Why Total Writing Freedom Isn’t - Constrained writing is an approach that helps us go from infinite creative choices to just a few for easier…
✍️ Surviving the Shallows of Your Writer’s Mind
or, Why We Stop Before We Find Cohen’s Truer, Realer Sentence - Sometimes we get discouraged before we find "our truth". The secret to motivation: keep…
✍️ How Your Choice of Words (and When You Use Them) Can Affect the Reader in Different Ways
or, I’ll Do the Rolling, You Do the Detail - Giving readers clues, including through specific, charged words, gives readers context. Here's what I've…
✍️ In Defence of the Adverb
or, Why Merrily We Write Along - Stephen King says adverbs aren't your friends. He's not the only one. Here's why I think adverbs are much maligned.
 • Graham Strong
✍️ How to Listen to the Nigglings
or, How to Recognize that There is Danger in Your Writing, Will Robinson! Ever get the feeling something's not right? Is it real or your inner critic…
© 2026 Graham Strong · Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start your SubstackGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture