Matt Forster's Blog

School does not necessarily prepare you to be a writer, so there is a market for books that promise to teach writers about the craft. In fact, there are way too many books, and I have the unpleasant belief that the more “how to write a novel” books you buy, the less likely you are to ever write one. (That’s why I stopped buying them, though I am not yet any closer to that novel.) What follows is a list of books that are better than most. Most of these will teach you something. A handful might...

I’ve edited many books about theology, biblical studies, and church history. Most of this work is for the academic market, but the publishers I work with also hope that these books find a more general readership. As a result, I read a lot of readable manuscripts on very interesting subjects.

But it’s not all easy to read and digest, and some very brilliant people could use some help. The Sense of Style by Steve Pinker is one place to start. The book looks closely at what makes for good commun...

My brother-in-law was looking for fliers to promote his business this year. I like how they turned out. I’ve also included an ad I worked up for the Clarkston Area Mothers & More group.

I stole this idea from a post on Pinterest, but I pulled the design together myself.

Many people bemoan the cultural slackening that introduced Casual Fridays into the workplace, the devil-may-care dress code of the Internet start-up, and the banishment of the neck tie from all but the highest levels of business. The wisest among us balance the demands of a more relaxed attitude with the realization that what we choose to wear says a lot about us. In other words, we want our clothes to say something like, Hey, I am easy to get along with, but you still need to take me and my...

pernicious – highly injurious or destructive

abtruse – difficult to understand; hidden or concealed

opprobrious – disgraceful (opprobrium is the disgrace attached to actions considered evil or wrong)

putative – generally considered or reputed to be

seminal – something that effects later developments

caprice – a sudden, unpredictable action or notion

assertoric – describes a statement of fact

apodeictic – describes propositions that are demonstrable

I can be a bit of a shopper, at least in theory anyway. Maybe it would be more correct to say I am an avid browser. This most likely stems from my lifelong commitment to procrastination. Do I have some writing to do? Maybe I should double-check that thing online…

Anyway, as many of you writers would know, there’s a lot of productive procrastination to be had when you set out to find the “best” books on writing, or the “best” tools for writing your book, or even the “best” software for managin...

There was a time there when I was trying to unify the look of my website. To that end I created a mess of icons and images that all kind of look the same.