How To Write an Email

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Danny Castonguay’s guide to writing emails emphasizes clarity, brevity, and directness, advising writers to start with the main point and avoid unnecessary context or politeness that obscures the message. Key practices include stating bad news upfront, using specific facts and names, focusing each email on a single job, making next steps clear, and writing so the email can be understood if forwarded without additional context. The guide also stresses practical structure, clean subject lines for quick triage, and recommends avoiding email for long debates or emotional discussions, favoring calls or chat in those cases with a subsequent concise summary email.

https://blog.dannycastonguay.com/how-to-write-an-email/

Accidentally Rediscovered the Cure for Writer’s Block

The author recounts rediscovering the advice “If you can’t write it, write about it” as an effective cure for writer’s block while struggling to write a book review. Instead of forcing the review, they began by venting about the difficulty of writing itself, which unexpectedly led to producing 800 words without friction and completed the task. This experience highlights how writing about the struggle can unlock creative flow and help overcome writing paralysis.

https://hypersubject.net/entries/2026/07/accidentally-rediscovered-the-cure-for-writers-block/

Use Scrivener’s Find by Formatting Feature to Find Highlights, Comments, Colored Text, and More

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Scrivener's Find by Formatting feature enhances editing by allowing users to search for text based on specific formatting types such as highlights, comments, revision colors, styles, and more. Accessible via the Edit menu, keyboard shortcuts, or the toolbar, this tool is especially useful during the revision stage to locate and manage annotations, changes, or color-coded text across a project. By enabling writers to quickly navigate formatted text, this feature supports an organized and efficient revision workflow.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/use-scriveners-find-by-formatting-feature-to-find-highlights-comments-colored-text-and-more

How AI Is Changing Language

AI-generated language, created by large language models (LLMs), increasingly permeates writing and speech but remains difficult to distinguish from human text, complicating authorship verification and fostering suspicion. While AI excels at producing grammatically correct and functional prose, experts argue it lacks the embodied experience and social context essential for truly original, evocative storytelling, as the creative impulses driving literary innovation remain beyond its reach. Writers and linguists reflect on AI’s impact, with some embracing it as a tool and others cautioning against its influence on language originality and the intimate human connection in literature.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/jul/04/future-of-fiction-next-great-novel-ai-language-chat-gpt

The Great Blogging Collapse: What Happened to 100 Successful Blogs? [Study]

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A study tracking 100 formerly successful blogs from 2022 to 2026 reveals a median loss of 85% in organic Google search traffic after major Google updates and the rise of AI-generated overviews. Blogs that survived or grew typically offered unique, firsthand experiential content—such as recipes, DIY projects, or parenting diaries—that AI cannot replicate or summarize, supported by owned audiences and real brand search presence. The traditional blog business model reliant solely on search traffic monetized by ads and affiliates has collapsed, urging creators to focus on irreplaceable, demonstrable value and diversified audience ownership.

https://danielstanica.com/posts/Great-Blogging-Collapse

Write Now with Scrivener, Episode No. 64: Tahmima Anam, Author of Uprising

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Tahmima Anam's novel Uprising, a finalist for the 2026 Orwell Prize, explores themes of climate crisis and exploitation through the story of a floating brothel island threatened by flooding and cyclones. Drawing inspiration from a real island in Bangladesh, Anam emphasizes how an outsider's perspective informs her writing and uses Scrivener to manage multiple character viewpoints and structure her work.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/write-now-with-scrivener-episode-no-64-tahmima-anam-author-of-uprising

Literature Fans Should Welcome AI as a Fellow Wordsmith

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Martin Puchner argues that despite strong resistance from many writers, AI should be embraced as a fellow user of language and a creative partner rather than dismissed outright. He highlights how AI challenges traditional notions of human creativity and suggests that literary theories like reader-response criticism and post-structuralism can help us understand AI’s role in language and creativity. Puchner also advocates for integrating AI tools thoughtfully into education and writing practices to enhance thinking and creative processes without undermining essential cognitive skills.

https://aeon.co/essays/literature-fans-should-welcome-ai-as-a-fellow-wordsmith

Blogging Can Just Be Stating The Obvious

Jim Nielsen reflects on how blogging often involves simply stating the obvious, highlighting John Gruber’s critique of intrusive website popups that hinder content access. He suggests that sharing these seemingly obvious observations can be valuable because such everyday annoyances often go unspoken, making posts that address them some of the most insightful and resonant. Ultimately, Nielsen sees a key aspect of blogging as the willingness to voice what others might overlook or accept silently.

https://blog.jim-nielsen.com/2026/blogging-stating-the-obvious/

How to Talk About “AI” Without Adding to the Anthropomorphization

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Emily M. Bender and Nanna Inie advise avoiding anthropomorphizing language when discussing AI by focusing on describing software systems in terms of their actual functions, assigning agency to people rather than machines, and avoiding metaphors that imply cognition or emotion. They suggest specific alternatives to common anthropomorphic terms (e.g., replacing “artificial intelligence” with “probabilistic automation”) and encourage adopting new language habits that clarify what these technologies do without misleading implications. This approach aims to foster clearer, more accurate conversations about AI systems and their roles.

https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/how-to-talk-about-ai-without-adding-to-the/

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