Slicing Through the Fog

Sharpen your style and find joy in wordcraft with the Stylish Writing Intensive!

Jan 23, 2025

Dear fellow writer,

No one has even described the infamous London fog — or the corresponding density of Victorian legal bureaucracy — more vividly than Charles Dickens in the opening chapter of Bleak House:

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls deified among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. . . . Never can there come fog too thick, never can there come mud and mire too deep, to assort with the groping and floundering condition which this High Court of Chancery, most pestilent of hoary sinners, holds this day in the sight of heaven and earth.

Legendary author and editor Sir Harold Evans echoes Dickens’ imagery in his 2017 book Do I Make Myself Clear?, repurposing fog as a metaphor for all that is wrong with twenty-first-century writing:

Fog online, on seductive screens, and in print. Fog in the Wall Street executive suites. Fog in the regulating agencies that couldn’t see the signals flashing danger in shadow banking. Fog in the evasions in Flint, Michigan, while its citizens drank poisoned water. Fog in the ivory towers . . . .

In the physical world, I wouldn’t recommend trying to cut through fog with a sword. But in the world of academic and professional writing, a few days with a Sword may be precisely what you need to slice through the obfuscating murk of conventional prose and emerge as a master of clarity, precision, and style.

Yes, that’s right: my flagship Stylish Writing Intensive really can help you transform your writing from cloudy to clear, from stodgy to stylish, in the course of a single long weekend! Over three action-packed days from Fri March 21 through Sunday March 23, I’ll guide you through a customized sequence of daily activities including:

Advanced writing and editing workshops;
Dedicated writing and revision time;
Curated writing breaks;
Two hours per day of personalized coaching with me as part of an intimate, craft-focused coaching group limited to just 4 people per cohort.

Whether you’re an early-career researcher, a seasoned academic, or any other kind of writer, the Stylish Writing Intensive offers you a short, speedy route to meticulous wordcraft and irresistible style.

SPECIAL OFFER: Participants in the March Stylish Writing Intensive can enroll for FREE in my upcoming Wordcraft Catalyst (valued at $550), which runs from March 29 - May 8. Across six weeks of writing workshops, experiments, and prompts, I’ll introduce you to six key features of precise, nuanced prose — vivid verbs, concrete nouns, punchy prepositions, edgy ad-words, clutter-free phrases, and shapely syntax — and work with you to further polish and hone your sentence-level grammar, syntax, and style.

Don’t miss this chance to transform your writing style and shape up your sentences. I’d love to see you there!

Enroll now

Upcoming courses and events

Open Beach House at Island Time (Jan 28 & 29/30)— Don’t miss my FREE annual Open Beach House, hosted live next week from my Island Time Writing Retreat on Waiheke Island in Aotearoa New Zealand. This free one-hour Zoom event will be offered twice: on Tuesday January 28 at 8-9 am GMT (London time) and on Wednesday January 29 at 3-4 pm EST (New York time). Learn more and register here.
Pleasure Catalyst 2025 (Feb 1-Mar 13) — Do you dream of transforming your writing from a painful chore to an enjoyable challenge? Join me for six weeks of playful-but-serious “pleasure prompts” exploring the core components of joyful writing: patterns, tools, processes, identity, challenge, and balance. Zoom into our weekly Live Writing Studio sessions or learn quietly at your own pace, with lifetime access to the course materials. Learn more and enroll here.

Free resources for writers

Tarot for Scholars — Join me and ScholarShape founder
Margy Thomas
for our latest scholarly collaboration on Substack: a year-long series of video conversations encompassing all 78 cards in the classic tarot deck, interpreted through a scholarly lens. Curious? Confused? Skeptical? Intrigued? Watch A Scholar’s View of Tarot for a compact introduction and overview, or simply subscribe (it’s free!) and enjoy the ride. Visit our ever-expanding resource site here.
#AcWriMoments — Speaking of scholarly collaborations: Margy and I have now transformed our 14-month-long #AcWriMoments project into an evergreen resource that you can access any time, featuring 42 fabulous daily and monthly prompts for finding courage, clarity, and purpose in your scholarly work, contributed by writing scholars, coaches, consultants, and editors from around the world. Visit our newly revamped website here.

If you appreciate hearing about resources and events like these — or just want to make my day — please take a moment to drop me a heart, leave a comment, and/or click Restack at the bottom of this message. Your enthusiasm and support mean so much to me.🩷

Kia pai tō koutou rā (have a great day) – and keep on writing!

Helen

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