Around the Word: Tuesday Styles

Wait at least 72 hours before returning your clients' calls, and never, ever accept weekend assignments after Wednesday...

Well, maybe not all of The Rules apply, but according to communications consultant Lindsey McCaffrey, writers would be well-served to incorporate some basic dating tips into their professional lives. In Ragan, she advises wordsmiths to "order the steak," (remember that people want substance), "avoid 'too much information,'"(don't overwhelm your client--or your reader--by "data dumping"), and "keep your drinks to a minimum" (don't let your writing get sloppy or incoherent). Have you got any good ones to add to McCaffrey's list?

Writing may not be the most physically dangerous profession, but it can take a serious toll on the psyche: health.com just ranked it among "the top 10 professions in which people are most likely to suffer from depression," reports The Guardian. The news is hardly surprising to those of us that are intimately familiar with the "irregular pay and isolation" the job entails, but poet Gwyneth Lewis looks at the grim stats through a different lens. "Given that writers do spend a lot of time on their own, and that the worldly rewards for poetry are minuscule, and given that most of the time you don't know whether what you are doing is any good, it's amazing that writers don't suffer more," she says.