What is a Personal Monopoly?

A Personal Monopoly is a unique combination of skills, interests, and personality traits. The more unusual it is, the more valuable it’ll be because there are so few substitutes. A distinct Personal Monopoly makes people say: “Wow, I’ve never met anybody like you before.”

On the Internet, where everybody is screaming... See more

Good writing is focused. It orbits around a single point. Once you find your shiny dime, you can instantly reject every idea that doesn’t relate to it. Just as every verse in a song should relate back to the chorus, every idea in an essay should relate back to the shiny dime.

In Write of Passage, we use an acronym called CRIBS. Editors mark if a section is confusing, repetitive, interesting, surprising or boring. The method is universal because it focuses on standard emotions that everybody has instead of the mechanics of writing, which fewer people are familiar with.

Ask your editor to identify each letter in the CRIBS... See more

he Amateur’s Mind is one of the best books written about playing better chess. The author, Jeremy Silman, an International Master, spent a bunch of time speaking to amateur chess players about their challenges. Patterns emerged. Those conversations with readers helped him understand his readers and know what to write about.4