The Writer's Diet

The Writer's Diet
Author: Helen Sword
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 88
Release: 2016-05-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 022635198X

This book offers an easy-to-follow set of writing principles. For example, use active verbs whenever possible, favour concrete language over vague abstractions, avoid long strings of prepositional phrases, employ adjectives and adverbs only when they contribute something new to the meaning of a sentence and reduce your dependence on the "waste words": 'it', 'this', 'that' and 'there'. The author also shows these rules in action through examples from famous authors such as Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson. The book includes a test to help you assess your own writing and get advice on problem areas.

The Writing Diet

The Writing Diet
Author: Julia Cameron
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2007
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 9781585425716

Illuminating a lesser-known benefit that has been experienced by several of the author's readers, a weight-loss program based on a theory about the relationship between blocked creativity and overeating demonstrates how to use journaling to examine and treat unhealthy food habits.

Air & Light & Time & Space

Air & Light & Time & Space
Author: Helen Sword
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2017-04-17
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0674977637

From the author of Stylish Academic Writing comes an essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft. Helen Sword interviewed one hundred academics worldwide about their writing background and practices. Relatively few were trained as writers, she found, and yet all have developed strategies to thrive in their publish-or-perish environment. So how do these successful academics write, and where do they find the “air and light and time and space,” in the words of poet Charles Bukowski, to get their writing done? What are their formative experiences, their daily routines, their habits of mind? How do they summon up the courage to take intellectual risks and the resilience to deal with rejection? Sword identifies four cornerstones that anchor any successful writing practice: Behavioral habits of discipline and persistence; Artisanal habits of craftsmanship and care; Social habits of collegiality and collaboration; and Emotional habits of positivity and pleasure. Building on this “BASE,” she illuminates the emotional complexity of the writing process and exposes the lack of writing support typically available to early-career academics. She also lays to rest the myth that academics must produce safe, conventional prose or risk professional failure. The successful writers profiled here tell stories of intellectual passions indulged, disciplinary conventions subverted, and risk-taking rewarded. Grounded in empirical research and focused on sustainable change, Air & Light & Time & Space offers a customizable blueprint for refreshing personal habits and creating a collegial environment where all writers can flourish.

The Drunk Diet

The Drunk Diet
Author: Lüc Carl
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2012-03-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1429952857

With his trademark Rock 'N Roll hair and snakeskin spandex pants, plus a hot rod and a Harley, Lüc Carl fit the part as a bar manager based in New York City's gritty Lower East Side. And life was good for this Omaha, Nebraska, transplant—a talented drummer who originally moved to the big city to pursue his Rock 'N Roll dreams—until, suddenly, it wasn't. Fast forward through seven years of working long hours, bingeing on late-night Chinese food, and drinking excessively; life had found Lüc forty pounds overweight and completely out of shape. But when he turned to the "experts" for advice—reading countless fitness and weight-loss books in the process—he discovered that they all made the same claim: "You can't drink alcohol if you want to lose weight." Lüc decided to take matters into his own hands to transform his body and his life his way—a sort of "f*ck you" to all those so-called experts. Full of charismatic wit and raucous stories about his life, The Drunk Diet will inspire and challenge you to become fitter, healthier, and happier. Lüc's fitness philosophy isn't about following a list of rigid rules or traditional "do this, not that" charts, but gaining a better understanding of how the body works and discovering what you're personally willing to change about your lifestyle in order to reach your goals. For him, that meant trading in the crap he was eating for unprocessed, natural foods and embracing a newfound love for exercise, but never sacrificing his social life (or his love for cold beer). This is the story of how one chain-smoking, cheeseburger-eating, hard-partying Rock 'N Roller—a self-proclaimed "out-of-shape, bloated asshole"—grew into an avid runner and cyclist and, ultimately, a happier version of himself. He will be the first to tell you: If he could do it, so can you.

The Information Diet

The Information Diet
Author: Clay Johnson
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 163
Release: 2011-12-14
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1449304680

How can readers cope with information overload? This insightful book makes a compelling case that information overload doesn't actually exist--the real problem is information overconsumption. "The Information Diet" provides a framework for consuming information in a healthy way, by showing readers what to look for, what to avoid, and how to be selective.

Writing with Pleasure

Writing with Pleasure
Author: Helen Sword
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2023-02-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0691229414

An essential guide to cultivating joy in your professional and personal writing Writing should be a pleasurable challenge, not a painful chore. Writing with Pleasure empowers academic, professional, and creative writers to reframe their negative emotions about writing and reclaim their positive ones. By learning how to cast light on the shadows, you will soon find yourself bringing passion and pleasure to everything you write. Acclaimed international writing expert Helen Sword invites you to step into your “WriteSPACE”—a space of pleasurable writing that is socially balanced, physically engaged, aesthetically nourishing, creatively challenging, and emotionally uplifting. Sword weaves together cutting-edge findings in the sciences and social sciences with compelling narratives gathered from nearly six hundred faculty members and graduate students from across the disciplines and around the world. She provides research-based principles, hands-on strategies, and creative “pleasure prompts” designed to help you ramp up your productivity and enhance the personal rewards of your writing practice. Whether you’re writing a scholarly article, an administrative email, or a love letter, this book will inspire you to find delight in even the most mundane writing tasks and a richer, deeper pleasure in those you already enjoy. Exuberantly illustrated by prizewinning graphic memoirist Selina Tusitala Marsh, Writing with Pleasure is an indispensable resource for academics, students, professionals, and anyone for whom writing has come to feel like a burden rather than a joy.

Stylish Academic Writing

Stylish Academic Writing
Author: Helen Sword
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2012-04-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0674069137

Elegant data and ideas deserve elegant expression, argues Helen Sword in this lively guide to academic writing. For scholars frustrated with disciplinary conventions, and for specialists who want to write for a larger audience but are unsure where to begin, here are imaginative, practical, witty pointers that show how to make articles and books a pleasure to read—and to write. Dispelling the myth that you cannot get published without writing wordy, impersonal prose, Sword shows how much journal editors and readers welcome work that avoids excessive jargon and abstraction. Sword’s analysis of more than a thousand peer-reviewed articles across a wide range of fields documents a startling gap between how academics typically describe good writing and the turgid prose they regularly produce. Stylish Academic Writing showcases a range of scholars from the sciences, humanities, and social sciences who write with vividness and panache. Individual chapters take up specific elements of style, such as titles and headings, chapter openings, and structure, and close with examples of transferable techniques that any writer can master.

The Bottom Line Diet

The Bottom Line Diet
Author: Jessica Irvine
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2014
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1743317832

In this straightforward but groundbreaking new book, Jessica Irvine documents her own dramatic weight loss and equips you with easy-to-use tools and practical information to help you lose weight. Based on interviews with leading obesity researchers, Jessica shows you how to work out your own bottom line - the number of calories your body uses in a day - for maximum weight-loss results. Then, once you've lost weight, she shows you how to keep it off and, should you happen to put some kilos back on, how to lose it again (like she did). Packed full of personal tips, Jessica explains the simple accounting principles she used to lose weight and then maintain her weight loss. Let Jessica help you beat the odds to transform your body forever.

The Skinny

The Skinny
Author: Patricia A. Marx
Publisher: Dell
Total Pages: 0
Release: 1999
Genre: Weight loss
ISBN: 9780440508557

A humorous, refreshing treatment of a timeless subject, "The Skinny" is not a book about nutrition or sensible eating -- it's a book about what it really takes to get thin. Starting with the "experts" (doctors, nutritionists, biochemists, and diet gurus), and then moving on to those who truly know something about weight loss, the women who have done it, authors Marx and Sistrom have conducted the necessary research to find what really works. Sorting through the methods and motivations of thin women everywhere, here, for the first time, they share the secrets behind success at losing weight, including the Skinny on: