Do not create in your head some witty, erudite, unmistakably exciting persona and try to capture him or her on paper. Also,

Conversations stumble; they stray; they repeat; they are bloated with, you know, like, meaningless words; and they are often cut short by intrusions. But what they have going for them is human contact, the sound of a human voice.

Your lead should give readers something to care about before it gives them dry background information. “Something to care about” usually means one of two things. Either you give the readers information that affects them directly, or you give them a human being with whom they can identify.

“Why am I writing this?”

Do not try to write everything about your subject. All subjects are inexhaustible.

do not pour the clay of your thoughts into the hard mold of some personal writing style that you are determined to have.

To write is to create music. The words you write make sounds, and when those sounds are in harmony, the writing will work.

Use a semicolon to separate word series that contain commas. They bought soda, potato chips, ice cream, and candy; several games and toys; and three books.

Readers will like you if you show that you are human. In a how-to piece, for example, you might write, “This third step is a little hard to master. I ruined six good slides before I got it right. So be smarter than I was; practice on blanks.”