Archive for article writing
Should we have to study poetry?
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Should we have to study poetry? Justin Raymond guest posts on the best way to enjoy art…
Yesterday I found myself discussing poetry with a friend, secretly hoping she might volunteer to take a look at some of my recent work and provide a little feedback (always dangerous with friends, though, unless you know them well, because they tend to be more polite than honest). “I don’t read poetry,” she said. “I don’t understand it, it has so many levels, so many hidden meanings.” I was about to agree with her, until she added, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to think.” Hmm, I’m not so sure about that last point, but then again…
How to work smarter, not harder
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Last week, I reached a milestone in my business. I realised for the first time that I didn’t have to be constantly stressed, tired and frazzled. I saw the proverbial light after a sound talking to by my business partner. Let me tell you the story…
As you know, (baby bore that I am) my daughter is now three months old and doing great. I get a load of support from family when it comes to whisking her off for a few days in the week so I can focus on Stilus, and I’m probably the luckiest person in the world to have people around who will help out when I’m at my wits’ end. Floss is the most placid and smiley baby I’ve ever met, which is also darned lucky, and things could have been much tougher for P and I as new parents.
Inspiring stories about stigma: Stockton Mind Me
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The following post may make for raw reading, but I won’t apologise…!
I recently helped out at a workshop run by Chris and Kev of Inspired Youth. We travelled to Stockton and met with some truly inspiring people who shared their stories of mental illness and stigma with us. In my capacity as a writer, I’ve been drafted in to support participants to craft their stories into an entwined narrative.
Murder your darlings! The importance of concision in writing
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Writing well? It's elementary!
I remember getting my first computer, when I was a lad, and it had 1KB of memory and no internal hard disk. A few years later, I upgraded it to a model with 512KB of memory and a 10MB hard disk. My first web site – established aeons ago – was allocated only 5MB of online space. These days you can find home computers with over 4,194,304KB of memory, you can buy hard disks equivalent to 1,048,576MB, and many companies offer “unlimited” online storage space. These days, life is easy.
The humble, small but weighty apostrophe
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The apostrophe is one of the smallest yet most controversial punctuation marks in the English language (vying for first place, I imagine, with the companionably shaped comma). I was tempted to write about its imminent demise, however it seems to be increasingly prolific thanks to what is often called the greengrocer’s apostrophe (and there’s barely consensus on where the little fellow sits in that title!). Fancy some orange’s or tomato’s? Such abuse appears everywhere I look: restaurant menus offering cream tea’s, shops that are open all hour’s, and tour’s of the city for only £5. I wince. And wince, and wince, and wince.
How to title your messages effectively
Posted by: | CommentsWhen you post up a message or write an article, the first thing that people notice is the title. Writing attention-grabbing headlines offer your readers an overview of what they can expect from your article and message. The following tips have been provided by Andy Bounds, an outstanding communications consultant. You can find out more about him here.
Don’t waste the opportunity to grab your reader’s attention
Titles are an essential part of communication. They’re the first thing others read. Newspapers employ experts to write headlines. Advertisers and publishers know a poor title destroys sales.
How to cheat at writing
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Do you remember when you were at school, and you were asked to do a project for homework, about which you knew nothing about? Back in those days, for me, the internet was non-existent and I had to be cunning if I wanted to plagiarise without getting caught.
When I was about seven, I won a short story competition. I was very proud, but also very scared. I was scared because I lifted the entire concept, and even some of the words, from Enid Blyton. Back then, she was a goddess to me, and I couldn’t think of anything to write, so I let Aunty Enid do the hard work for me.
