Try rhymezone.com. It’s absolutely essential if you want to write rhyming poetry with any hope of avoiding the obvious. Be careful, though — desperate use of rhymezone may cause groans. Also, thesaurus.com offers a “word of the day” and fun facts, like the medical word for sunburn, “erythema solare,” and word games employing techniques magicians...Read More

  August 17, 2012 Lawyers make good writers because we’ve learned to be careful with words. To us, words have both a precise and a nuanced meaning, not just a Black’s definition, but also an entire history of consequences and implications, as recorded in volumes of precedent. Words are powerful. Words are the tools of...Read More

Fiction writing shows, not tells July 20, 2012 By Mary Hutchings Reed Mary Hutchings Reed, of counsel to Winston & Strawn LLP, has more than 35 years of experience in intellectual property and entertainment law. Read more about her at maryhutchingsreed.com/~maryhutc and fairwaysthemusical.com. Because you are a writer, and because you are well-practiced and disciplined, I’m...Read More

June 22, 2012 By Mary Hutchings Reed   We started to begin last month, and didn’t get past beginning to commence to begin. Are you ready now? In the past couple of months, you’ve limbered up with morning pages, started your writer’s journal and probably read a little too much about how to write your...Read More

      Journals provide a starting place May 25, 2012 By  Mary Hutchings Reed Pencil or pen used to be the question. Then type or by hand. Now, of course, PC or Mac? There are a million questions that can become urgent when one sits down to write her novel. Fuzz bunnies that have...Read More

  Writing conjures up creativity April 27, 2012 By Mary Hutchings Reed If you write or want to write fiction in your nonbillable time, this new monthly column is for you. Writing is a solitary effort, but it need not be lonely. Writers need readers when they type, “The End,” but along the way, we need...Read More

I’ve spent a fair amount of time this week getting entries ready for some contests with May 1  deadlines: stories, novellas, novels in progress, novels.  The entry fees are usualy $15, but some go as high as $40.  It’s a terrible business. You don’t hear for months, and then often the announcement is “we had 768...Read More

I’m going to start blogging!  The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin asked me to contribute to their Nonbillable Hours page once a month (4th Fridays), which will give me a chance to write  about something I am very interested in, and have come to know a lot about:  making the transition from being a legal writer...Read More