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Category Archives: Writing

Reducing the Stress of Writing: Allow for Three Kinds of Time

Writing projects have a beginning, middle, and end. And each phase calls for a different schedule.

Posted byDoug ToftMay 15, 2022Posted inWriting

Helping Readers Succeed at Behavior Change: What Writers Need to Know

Besides knowing what to do, readers want to know why they’re doing it and how to start. When our writing touches people on all these levels — instruction, insight, and next action — our odds for success improve.

Posted byDoug ToftMay 3, 2022May 16, 2022Posted inWriting

Writing for Insight and Behavior Change — Nathaniel Branden on the Joys of Sentence Completion

Sentence completion encourages you to bypass your internal censors and express pre-conscious thoughts and feelings. In addition, you can turn vague intentions into concrete plans.

Posted byDoug ToftMay 1, 2022Posted inWriting

The Rhetoric of Reperception: 8 Paths to Creative Thinking

“…patterns of writing enact patterns of thinking, that by finding and practicing ways of writing we can literally think different things.”

Posted byDoug ToftFebruary 11, 2022Posted inWriting

Remembering Robert Pirsig’s ’Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’

If you truly understood Quality, Pirsig wrote, you would live each moment of your life differently. You would handle the material details of your life with exquisite care. You would even repair your motorcycle in a way that benefits all living beings.

Posted byDoug ToftJanuary 7, 2022January 9, 2022Posted inBuddhism, Writing

Writing as Spiritual Practice: Cultivating Deep Humility

Every time I finish a piece of writing, I see again the terrifying truth: Reality transcends anything that I could possibly say about it.

Posted byDoug ToftNovember 7, 2021November 7, 2021Posted inMeditation, Writing

Writing as Spiritual Practice: Organizing for Creativity

Creativity happens when we make new connections between existing ideas. We can organize for these “aha” moments by collecting ideas, revising them, and testing them.

Posted byDoug ToftNovember 1, 2021Posted inWriting

Writing as Spiritual Practice: Headlong Into the Abyss

Writing and meditation practice both call for the courage to face nothingness, endure changing moods, show up every day, and transcend ourselves.

Posted byDoug ToftOctober 25, 2021Posted inWriting

Three Books That Changed My Life

Surprisingly, it’s often possible to reduce a 50,000- or 100,000-word book to a single page or paragraph of pure power. That’s enough to capture the essence that matters to you. 

Posted byDoug ToftOctober 2, 2021October 16, 2021Posted inBehavior Change, Meditation, Writing

The Art of Crap Detection

We are born into foolishness, and precious few are the voices that call this fact to our attention—let alone point a way out.

Posted byDoug ToftSeptember 16, 2021October 6, 2021Posted inCrap-Detecting, Writing
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