Writing Tips PDF
Following Edward Tufte I attempted to design the most useful single piece of paper to cram in the back of my fancy faux-leather Italian notebook. I built a Writer's Reference PDF including useful tips from hack writers like Strunk and White, George Orwell, and Edward Tufte. I also included a list of most common misspelled words.
Squeep.com
Print the sheet on good high quality acid free paper so when archaeologists dig up your Moleskine in a few hundred years it won't turn into a hunk of crackling yellowed pulp. I exported the sheet in PDF and agonized about the font before deciding upon 8pt Georgia. If you can think of more useful tips or a better design, do tell.
I printed my writer's tips on one side of a sheet of paper and a .pdf map of Middle Earth on the other. It is perhaps the single most useful piece of paper ever printed. I can mock my friends' extensive use of the passive voice and their barbarously bad use of adverbs and then diagram the battle of Minias Tirith with a single piece of paper.
Mike Shea's Writer's Reference PDF 
I like. I like a lot.
Posted by: TPB, Esq. | April 20, 2004 at 04:56 PM
Indispensable! I love the writing tips.
Posted by: Janet | April 20, 2004 at 10:07 PM
Thank you! Very useful. It's printed and posted at my desk.
Posted by: Joy | April 21, 2004 at 10:24 AM
Sheesh, that picture just turns me on. There should be a name for the longing for and pleasure in a blank page and a good pen. Papyropennaphilia?
Posted by: Sylvia | April 21, 2004 at 02:26 PM
Nice sheet! Found via Google looking for something unrelated. Some potential improvements...
There's a typo in the second tip of Orwell's rules:
"Never _us_ a long word..."
Perhaps an extra space in "information transfer" in Tufte's section.
Perhaps periods at the end of Strunk & White and Heinlein tips for conformity with the other tips.
Posted by: Emil | January 20, 2005 at 12:15 PM
This is great, thanks very much!
Posted by: Christopher | April 26, 2006 at 08:32 AM