Summer word nerd fixes and a new adventure

Now that I've been away from a traditional work environment for a few months, I've found a few things I'm missing … quick IT support, a dependable printer for my computer, impromptu brainstorming meetings, and word nerd colleagues down the hall who will debate grammar usage rules, share typos from major newspapers or debate the new changes in the AP Style Guide.

This summer, I've had to amuse myself with some of my own fixes to get the word nerd connections I've been missing. For the first time in my career, I bought my own new AP Style Guide and even subscribed to the online version. I re-read "Bird by Bird" and a number of my other favorite books on writing included in this earlier blog post and revisited this post on my grammatical pets peeves.

Next week, I will be getting back to a different kind of writing I've missed in recent years as I start on a new career adventure as an adjunct instructor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at USC. I'll be teaching a class called Creative Strategy and Execution. I'm very excited about this!

A fun piece of this class will be getting to work with students on a type of writing that I love - ad copywriting. This type of writing will let us color outside the lines a little and maybe break a few of the writing rules I hold so dear as we work on developing creative ad copy, content and headlines that sell things.

Hopefully, this class will also get my own creativity ignited in a new way to take my personal writing in a new direction. Can't wait to see what this new adventure brings!

With the launch of the Random Connect Points Facebook page this summer, I'm linking back to some of my favorite old posts from the blog.



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