Capture Brilliance. Manage Money. Write Beautifully
Inside: my brain-saving idea system, 2 webinars, & smart reference tools
First, can you celebrate with me? I have work again. Yay! I just got hired for two projects after an 8-week dry spell. My first dry spell in 8 years. With everything I have going on this week I’m sharing a few favorites.
In this week's Shining Beacon, I'm guiding you through the storms of
wrangling ideas before they escape (for editors and writers)
making your sentences shine by using references (for editors and writers)
and featuring two webinars that will help you manage your finances and craft beautiful prose.
As always, I welcome questions, so comment below or email me.
Editing Craft. More Reference Books for Writers & Editors
Looking to sharpen your writing or editing toolkit? Beth HIill highlights a curated list of lesser-known reference books that go beyond the staples. From style guides to word usage handbooks, these gems can help writers and editors with tricky grammar, idioms, fact-checking, and more.
✨ Try this:
1. Pick a tricky sentence or piece of prose you're working on, either editing or writing—preferably something with nuanced phrasing, punctuation, or usage.
2. Choose one of the recommended reference books from the article (such as usage guides or idiom dictionaries).
3. Look up a relevant entry (a rule, example, or usage note).
4. Apply the insight to your sentence and refine it.
Reflect: Did the reference book help you understand the nuance? Has it saved you time or pointed out a mistake you hadn’t noticed?
Lessons from the messy middle—where passion meets persistence. These reflections come from pouring my heart into this business, serving editors and authors with everything I’ve got, and hustling to grow, learn, and light the way for others doing the same.
Capture Ideas Before They Vanish
In hustle culture, we’re always told to show up with fresh ideas—new content, new services, new angles. But ideas are fleeting. They come when you’re elbows-deep in a manuscript, halfway through a shower thought, or chatting on LinkedIn, and if you don’t capture them, it's hard to remember them later (or maybe it's just hard for my 40-year-old scatterbrained mind).
So I got smart and started a trello board with dedicated lists to capture ideas:
Hooks
Thursday written posts
Thursday video posts
My Life Monday ideas
Blog topics
Presentation/podcast/conference opportunities
This gives me a quick spot to dump it, and I can organize it later. And when I’m out and about, my reMarkable tablet is always in my purse.
No more jotting things on paper. I know some of you have nostalgia for that, but I lose them. With this system, nothing gets lost, and everything is there when I’m ready to create. Plus, it's so much easier to organize my thoughts in a digital reMarkable or Trello than on random paper.
Lesson for you:
For creative energy to work, you have to keep your ideas. Build a system that fits your brain and your life. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but it does need to be accessible and consistent.
❓ Where and when do your best ideas usually strike and what could you set up today to make sure you don’t lose the next one?
Remember, as a subscriber, you get a 25% discount on any of my courses and webinars (use coupon code CourseSubscribe) and a 15% discount on any of my products (use coupon code ProductsSubscribe).
If you are a founding member, remember to use your special webinar code to get webinars for free.
These are my gifts to you—please keep them just between us!
Beacon Point Resource: Beacon Point Resource: Seamless Financial Management $35
Most likely you like words, not numbers.
But as a business person, you have to work with numbers.
Let’s make doing so as seamless and painless as possible, so you can spend more time on words and less time on numbers.
In this hour webinar, you will learn everything you need to create a clear financial management process:
Software available to use (with demo videos of them)
Bookkeeping
Entering in data
Setting up categories
Closing out month
Getting a tax report
Taxes
Understanding them
Deductions to consider
Tips for paying them
How to configure what to set pay
Plus, you will get:
❇️A PDF of the slides with examples
❇️A PDF handout listing the price and pros and cons for various software
❇️Links to my video demos of various software
❇️ Excel workbook with formulas to configure your Federal effective tax rate
❇️ Excel workbook with formulas to configure your monthly and quarterly tax payments
Watch now and begin seamlessly managing your finances.
Crafting Beautiful Prose Webinar (£45)
Created by: Sophie Playle
This 50-minute webinar will give you practical tips for creating lyricism in your writing.
Voice, originality and style … are skills that can be developed. You don’t have to be born with it! Creativity is a muscle: the more you use it, the stronger it becomes. With the strategies and exercises discussed in this webinar, you’ll learn how to write with more beauty and originality.
We’ll look at plenty of examples and analyse exactly what makes the writing so darn beautiful. You’ll come away with more tools in your writing toolbox – ones that, once you understand them, will become second nature to your writing practice.
If you’re reading this on Substack and aren’t yet a subscriber, check out my About page to learn all the reasons you should subscribe and subscribe below.