Choose your words carefully

Not only is choosing your words important, but the order you put them in makes a difference. Newspapers, in their quest to use as few words as possible in headlines, make the biggest blunders:

• Something Went Wrong in Plane Crash, Expert Says


• Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead


• Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over


• Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant


• War Dims Hope for Peace


• Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges!


• Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers


• Miner Refuses to Work after Death


• New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group


• Local High School Dropouts Cut In Half


• Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors

What's Wrong with Fiction?

I haven't read "A Million Little Pieces," by James Frey yet. My wife is almost done with it and soon she will be handing it down to me. But, I have been keeping up with the brouhaha on whether it is fiction or non-fiction.

You see the author claims it is a memoir, a recollection of his life. Unfortunately, many of the situations he describes are not true. And now, because it may not be true, it is no longer such a good book. What the...?

It's a story about a young tough guy with severe alcohol and crack addictions, whose rich parents pay for rehabilitation in a exclusive clinic. Since chemical/alcohol use can cause blackouts, I'm sure he had to take some literary license because he couldn't remember what actually happened!! It comes down to marketing. I think it would be just as good a read if you called it a novel or a memoir. The bigger story may be how Oprah got duped :-)

Word Exercising

Not only is my brain tired but my fingers have calluses also! Now if I could only assemble the words in a way that would make more sense. Oh well.

Writing

NANOWRIMO...Oh yeah, I'm doing it again. Writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Two weeks in and I only have 18,000. I'm not sure how you spit out multiple books in a year. I've noticed that my writing this year sounds like what I did last year. At least my characters have different names :-)

My Resume

My first job was working in an orange juice factory, but I got canned ... couldn't concentrate.
Then I worked in the woods as a lumberjack, but I just couldn't hack it, so they gave me the axe.
After that I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it ... mainly because it was a so-so job.
Next I tried working in a muffler factory but that was too exhausting.
Then I tried to be a chef -- figured it would add a little spice too my life but I just didn't have the thyme.
I attempted to be a deli worker, but any way I sliced it, I couldn't cut the mustard.
My best job was being a musician, but eventually I found I wasn't noteworthy.
I studied a long time to become a doctor, but I didn't have any patience.
Next was a job in a shoe factory; I tried but I just didn't fit in.
I became a professional fisherman, but discovered that I couldn't live on my net income.
I managed to get a good job working for a pool maintenance company, but the work was just too draining.
So then I got a job in a workout center, but they said I wasn't fit for the job.
After many years of trying to find steady work I finally got a job as a historian until I realized there was no future in it.
My last job was working at Starbucks, but I had to quit because it was always the same old grind.

Time Management

I'm preparing a short presentation for the local chamber of commerce on time management. After putting it together and rehearsing a few times, I'm thinking I better practice what I preach.

Another suggestion is to combine several activities into one time spot. While preparing for today's presentation, I have also come up with my next speech for my Toastmasters Club meeting and articles for my newsletter and weblog. You probably already multitask and don't realize that you are: While showering you make a mental list of the things that need to be done; When you watch TV, laugh as you pay your bills. These are just examples of what you can do to combine your time, but there are many others. Above all be creative, and let it work for you.

So, out of one activity I have created a 20-minute presentation, written several entries into my business blog, written an article for my newsletter, prepared a 7-minute speech for completing my Competent Toastmaster award, and was the basis for this entry! Now if I could just pull that off with everything I do.

Breaking Routines

I started a new writing project recently. I was anxious to get it out and not lose any momentum. I started out strong, writing for a couple of hours, vowing to keep it up, cranking out the same number of words and spending the same number of hours writing every day. I wasn't going to let anything stop me...

... Until something did. It happens every time, some other work or some phone call or something gets in my writing way. "No problem," I say to myself, "I'll make it up tomorrow." And I do...until something else interrupts me. Before long, I'm in the hole for an impossible quota of words per hour, I’ve lost momentum and, I feel guilty that I'm not sticking to my writing schedule. Eventually, I lose all momentum. I feel like a failure because if I don't get in at least a good portion of my words/hour every day, I end up not doing it at all. Then I'm on to my procrastination routine.

Oh I eventually will get it done, I always do. But why is it that I always have to go through the same routine? There's gotta be a way of breaking the pattern. Oh well, back to what I started.

The Fabulist Flash

Check out The Fabulist Flash, a weekly e-newsletter for freelance writers. And especially read the March 10th issue, The Fabulist Flash: Number 26 because there's an article in it by yours truly. Now if you're an avid reader of this blog, the article may sound familiar. Since I use my blog as a garden to grow ideas, the roots of many articles are found here. Read it anyway!

NaNoEdMo

National Novel Editing Month - one week down, three to go - and I've given up! You remember that novel I wrote a couple of months ago during NaNoWriMo? I have not looked at it since then and started to read it in preparation for editing. Wow, what a piece of crap. I quickly began redlining words and sentences, moved on to paragraphs, and finally began butchering entire pages. The last 20,000 words didn't even make sense.

I'll keep chipping away, but I think my 50,000 word novel will soon evolve into a 3,000 word essay.

EPIC

The "Evolving Personalized Information Construct" is a scary mini-movie which charts the evolution of media from 1984 up until 2014. Yes, 2014, a short time from now. Produced by The Museum of Media History, this work timelines the demise of the Press as we know it. The first 20 years is all fact-based and the last 10 years is fiction. . . or is it?

EPIC produces a custom content package for each user, using his choices, his consumption habits, his interests, his demographics, his social network - to shape the product.

It begins with the invention of the Internet and ends with the New York Times going off-line. The flick is 8 minutes long and plays on your web browser. Fact or fiction? We'll know real soon!

I'm No Slacker

Okay, okay, I know I've been derelict in my duty to keep this blog up-to-date, but it's not as if I've been at the beach drinking beers, listening to waves crash on the shore and staring at women from behind my sunglasses. (Oh boy, I have to stop now to finish this dream. . . . .)

I'm back. Yes it's been two weeks. Just for your information, individuals considered to be slackers may in fact be very active, though not always in activities that society deems to be most important, such as writing, speaking and thinking. (Where have I heard that before?)

Now for my excuses: I've been very busy in my "day job" and thus keeping my clients happy with keeping my business blog up-to-date. [Thinking]. I have to give a speech in two weeks at my Toastmasters club so I'm researching and preparing my words in enough time so that I can practice. [Speaking]. And . . . I've written and submitted an article for an online writer's magazine which is scheduled to be published in March. [Writing]. Oooo, goose bumps all over!

I'm also working on a redesign of this site and my business site. I'm open to ideas, so I'm spending a lot of time just surfing through blogs and websites gathering ideas on format, color and layout. Oh yeah, I'm also trying to dig up all the information I need to do my taxes. For the last several years I've filed an extension, but I'm shooting for April 15th this year.

I promise to be here more often. Thanks for letting me know.

Tougher Than I Thought

I've got a new appreciation for novelists, their characters and plot twists, and injection of emotion and agony into their work.

Dear Novelist,

It is our supreme pleasure to inform you that our internationally renowned team of word-counting robots have completed their judicious assessment of your manuscript, and have passed on this final, binding decision:

Winner.

Wow. You've really done it this time, writer. Where the vast majority of National Novel Writing Month participants abandoned ship at some point in the journey, you bravely persevered, continuing your literary quest in the face of ridiculously long odds.

So now onto NaNoEdMo, National Novel Editing Month, March 2005.

Computers as Authors?

Today's NY Times has an interesting essay by Daniel Akst: Computers as Authors? Literary Luddites Unite! If you have a subscription this article is available for about 30 days, otherwise, go to the newsstand.

That no computer has yet written the Great American Novel may be because computers are subject to some of the same handicaps that afflict human writers. First, writing is hard! Although computers can work unhindered by free will, bourbon or divorce, such advantages are outweighed by a lack of life experience or emotions. Second, and all too familiar to living writers of fiction, there is no money in it. Unable to teach creative writing or marry rich, computers have to depend on research grants. And why would anyone pay for a computer to do something that humans can still do better for peanuts?

The articles continues to discuss how we may get an idea how the creative process works.

If we don't get much good fiction out of computers, we may at least gain some wholesome new perspective on the process of creating literature. The advent of storytelling computers suggests that thinking people and thinking machines confront many of the same problems in writing fiction, even if their solutions are different.

Maybe my love of computers has some deep-seeded literary basis!

Getting Tired

I'm two weeks into NaNoWriMo and my novel is falling apart - the scenes are getting weaker and the characters are falling flat. But I write on. Yes, most of it is drivel now with a smack of genius every now and then. The good news is that I got 10,000 words in a decent plot, action and dialog, and another 10,000 words in what seems to be in need of editing and revising, but isn't too bad. But now the crap is coming out of my head and through my keyboard.

So why do I continue? Because I need to get into a routine to write every day and the challenge to write a novel in 30 days gives me reason to get excited and try. My daily words count can drop fast without motivation, so even as I see drivel on my screen, the exercise of writing, and thus practicing, helps me grow.

Good writing doesn't come naturally...Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair.

-- William Zinsser

In December I know I'll find reasons to procrastinate. First and foremost will be that falsely deserving "you've been writing all month, go ahead take a break, you deserve it." And it will be easy to not write for a day, then two, then a week. Then my daily word count that was averaging 2000 words per day will easily and quietly fall to zero.

But I'll have an unpublished novel in my files, one that is like many published novels I've read -- a very strong and exciting first page that starts to drift and goes downhill from there. And that's a lot more than I had last year at this time. So, what have you got?

Block!

All the books say that I must write every day to call myself a writer. Well I fell off the wagon this weekend. Nothing came out. If there is a muse flying around somewhere it didn't visit me. Well it could be this awful root canal problem that pounced on me. Man does it hurt. Even if the muse had been prolific, I'm sure I would not concentrate enough to put fingers to keyboard. Here I am, one week into NaNoWriMo and way behind on my word count.

Now with some painkillers and antibiotics I know I will survive...until the day that drill meets tooth. Maybe I can get an assignment for a dental magazine. At least maybe I can write-off the dentist's bill.

Who Needs a Muse?   

A wonderful article at Forbes.com on Nora Roberts, a most prolific writer: Who Needs a Muse?

Nora Roberts won't win the Nobel Prize in Literature--not unless they invent a new category for gross revenue. But for sheer output, few people can touch this 54-year-old novelist. In just over two decades she has written 157 books (7.9 million words added to the store of romance fiction), and 116 of them were bestsellers.

I'm trying to output 2K words a day during NaNoWriMo, but am just barely getting 1K. I guess I'm looking for my muse!

Writing on the job

I guess you don't have to be a journalist or an author to really be attentive to your writing skills. According to a recent survey from the Boston Roundtable, a national association of chief executives, 80% of large companies take writing skills into account when hiring - and 50% look at writing skills when making promotions. Each year, corporations spend an estimated $3.1 billion to remedy their employees writing deficiencies.

...most employees aren't prepared for business writing: memos, proposals, articles and presentations. Many workers rely only on their essay writing experience from high school. It's great if you want to write for the New Yorker, but most workplaces are looking for a different kind of writing.

So my writing is paradoxical since I aspire to write for the New Yorker, but it's proposals, memos and presentations that pay the bills. What a conundrum!

Ready, Set, Write!

Just minutes away from starting a trek of 50,000 words. I could of cheated, but what the hell. I learned from reading at the NaNoWriMo site that I could have been working on outlines, plots and character development. Oh well, it's my first try at this, so I'll just do it all. Remember, I'm looking for quantity not quality.

Word Count Redux

Because of my current infatuation with productivity and word count, I found a plug-in for my blogging software that counts the number of words in each entry. At the bottom of each you can see the number of words in the rant. Neat!

Word Count

So I'm gearing up for NaNoWriMo just typing away looking to increase my daily word count. I need to get about 2,000 words a day if I'm going to complete my 50,000 word novel in November. Then I read that it took J.R.R. Tolkien 14 years to write The Lord of the Rings. The total work is about a half-a-million words so that works out to be about 97 words a day. I can do that.

You know, it's not that my total count is low - I've got 2 blogs going, several websites, a couple of newsletters, and plenty of reports - it's that all my words are spread over several projects. If I did 100 words on each project each day, I'd be at 2,000 words easy. But now on top of the "bread and butter" words, I need to add a couple thousand to one plot for a novel. Remember, I'm going for quantity, not quality. It will definitely be an experience. (Here's an extra 167 words.)

More Libraries Needed?

Akron has a new library. It's beautiful. The square footage has doubled and there are books and computers galore. Walking around I got to thinking, just how much information does a library hold?

According to a study by Microsoft, Intel, HP and EMC, the amount of new information stored on paper, film, optical and magnetic media reached about 5 exabytes in 2002. What's an exabyte you ask? That's a million terabytes. Still confused? How about a million million megabytes? Okay how about this -- you need about 500 million new average-sized PCs to hold the information! And that's just the new information produced in one year.

...the amount of new information captured has doubled in the last three years. New information produced in 2002 alone was equal in size to half a million new libraries, each containing a digitized version of the entire contents of the Library of Congress.

So one down, 499,999 libraries to go.

Blogging in the News

Blogs and blogging seem to be getting quite a bit of news and headlines the last month -- ever since the Rathergate scandal was launched by a blogger at Powerlineblog. Sure a "real" journalist at CBS has categorized bloggers as "sitting in their living rooms wearing pajamas," but what the hell, he shouldn't generalize. They should know I don't wear pajama's.

Besides the scandal ramblings though, there's been other citings of blogs, as in: blogging for jobs in the NY Times and Wall Street Journal, the growing number of Iraqi blogs, and blogging as a form of journalism. There was even a story on the local evening news.

Weblogging will drive a powerful new form of amateur journalism as millions of Net users — young people especially — take on the role of columnist, reporter, analyst and publisher while fashioning their own personal broadcasting networks.

I blog primarily because I enjoy writing, but my blogs also become my database of interesting links, ideas for future articles, and a great forum for discussing those ideas. I'm glad to see blogs coming into their own and I'm glad to be blogging. And thanks to you for reading.

I Signed Up

Okay, if anything I'll see how far I get. It says National Novel Writing Month will set my mind free. So if quantity is what they want.....

NaNoWriMo

It's time to sign up for the November marathon writing event NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Beginning November 1st, you can start writing a novel and come up with 50,000 words by November 30th. If you write everyday, that's 1,667 words a day. If you limit your writing to 5 days a week that's almost 2,300 words a day. Boy oh boy, it pains me to get 1,000 out in a day.

Of course I'm writing, editing, re-writing, editing and re-writing to get those perfect words. The NaNoWriMo goal is for quantity, not quality.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

Maybe the next Great American Novel will be produced this year. What the hell, give it a whirl!

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Living With A Writer

This book is to be released in November, but hits home with me, so I've pre-ordered via Amazon. I thank Cool Cleveland which had a blurb about it in the latest issue, and pointed me to The Guardian, a British arts magazine.

But as many of the essays testify, life with a writer can be troubling, too. "No matter how warm, how engaged as a human being," says Amanda Craig, "there is this necessary detachment that does not sit easily with a happy love-life or a well-balanced family."

Click Amanda Craig to read the entire essay.

What you need in a writer’s partner is a combination of rock-solid faith, a sense of the absurd and deep sensitivity. You need someone who can accept, at the end of their own day’s work, the fact that they can come home to find one or other of the following: a delicious dinner and a happy writer, or someone sobbing onto the unpeeled potatoes because their new book isn’t working.

I guess I'll get it for my wife!

Bad News For Books

According to a new study from investment banking firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, the number of hours Americans spend reading books continues to fall, from 109 hours in 2003 to a projected 106 hours in 2006. Meanwhile, the number of hours spent using the Internet continues to increase, from 176 hours in 2003 to a projected 213 hours in 2006. VSS Research Publications

English Evolution

So I went searching for words and came a cross a wonderful book, Blooming English. It's not the kind of book I would sit and read from cover to cover, but more like a coffee-table book that I pick up every once in a while and read a sidebar or a chapter or a few pages. Did you know the English language has more than 2,500 words for male and female genitalia? It's a wild trip through the irregularities, complexities and idiosyncrasies of the English language.

Something on Nothing

I have nothing to say. So, I'm going to say nothing. Rather than something, which is, of course, much harder to write about. Though, I suppose that should be qualified because some somethings are really nothing more than a nothing in disguise and are really no harder to write about than nothing. And some somethings are virtually everything and therefore virtually impossible to write about because there's just not there there, rendering them almost nothing and yet something regardless. This would probably be a good time to write an example of a nothing or a something, but let's face it somethings and nothings are notoriously hard to define.

Where do words go?

My word arsenal is empty. It's been a couple of weeks since I've written an article, white paper or just marketing copy. I feel barren, thinking this should not be. It's bringing me down. So where is my writer's ammunition?

It's not that I haven't tried. I've sat down to write many times at my laptop, but I quickly digress into web searches looking for information for some consulting work I'm doing. Ahh, that's it. Life is getting in the way. Some strange need to pay bills and eat has got me doing more than just writing.

Luckily I work best with about 5-6 hours sleep so I can get 19 hours of activities done in a day. When the opportunity arises, I can get some 1,000 words out in a day, in addition to working with a client. Other times I go to bed after one magnificent sentence has been created. Writer's constipation.

Do I need to go looking for words or will they just appear as quickly as they disappeared? Here words, words, words....

Punctuation Redux

This evening I read Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. It's a fast and humorous read on punctuation and English grammar. It doesn't replace the Elements of Style or Chicago Manual of Style, but it does prove to be a delightful read. I am not a fanatic on punctuation, but I do want to do it right. I enjoyed the book.

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air. "Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda walks toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder. "I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up." The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation. "Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

And re-read my last bit on Punctuation!

Site for Cite

Citing previous writings is always a pain, but is the easiest method of avoiding plagiarism. Even when you do not quote directly from another work, if reading that source contributed to the ideas presented in your writing, you must give the authors proper credit.

There are three major formats for citations: APA, MLA and Chicago. And in the last few years and editions, they each have expanding their electronic documentation citation styles. Each have their own formats for email, web, CDs and other electronic documents.

You should always find out your target publication's style. Just ask. But if your switching between styles, I have found this website: Citing Electronic Documentation at the University of Minnesota site that compares the three major styles. It's a great reference, but also an education to surf and see the differences, some very minor and many similarities.

An Honor Indeed!

Wow! This little old site of mine has received an honor from Writer's Digest.

Congratulations! You are one of the top 10 finalists in the Best Writer's Web site contest. Your link will appear in the October issue of Writer's Digest, which is on newsstands September 14. Thank you, and congratulations!

Thank you....More incentive to keep on writing.

Why Read?

You are what you read. If you read nothing, then your mind withers, and your ideals lose their vitality and sway.

A thought-provoking Op/Ed piece in the NY Times today (but I guess all Op/Ed's provoke thought :-). The Closing of the American Book by Andrew Solomon, discusses the correlation between the decline in reading for pleasure and the decline in health, politics and education.

Reading is not an active expression like writing, but it is not a passive experience either. It requires effort, concentration, attention. In exchange, it offers the stimulus to and the fruit of thought and feeling... . . .The metaphoric quality of writing — the fact that so much can be expressed through the rearrangement of 26 shapes on a piece of paper — is as exciting as the idea of a complete genetic code made up of four bases: man's work on a par with nature's. Discerning the patterns of those arrangements is the essence of civilization.

[Free registration may be required to get to the NY Times site.]

Website Plagiarism Search

Speaking with other writers, journalists and authors I often hear their stories about seeing their words on other sites, without bylines, copyright notices or any type of recognition. Even casual web content providers have seen it happen. So Google is working on a website to make it easier for you to track down the offending sites: Copyscape - Website Plagiarism Search - Web Page Copyright - Find Site Copies.

I tried some of my pages and wouldn't you know it? I found my work repeated. Now of course it was cited and recognized because the offender was me. I have an item on my Articles page that originally was published at my business site. I had a rush of anger when I first saw the entry, but when I clicked on it I cooled down. But at least I know it works.

On Writing

I'm not an avid horror fan, so I haven't read many of Stephen King's books. But, I have read and often re-read his memoir of the craft, On Writing. It is very much like two books. The first, a memoir of his life, curriculum vitae as he calls it, and the second, telling us all what he has learned about writing. Together, he has scribed a classic book while looking at and within himself.

It is inspiring to read about his trial and tribulations growing up while writing. But, as a writer, I especially enjoyed him describing his tools of writing, grammar and vocabulary. King offers advice about adverbs, character development, revising your work and a lot more. He includes an example of his edited writing, including all editor markings. He closes be describing his accident in 1999, what he remembers of it anyway, and how writing has helped him survive.

I don't think you have to be an aspiring writer nor a lover of Stephen King's writing to enjoy this book. After I read it the first time I picked up one of his novels.... Not that he's convinced me to read horror books, but I do interpret his words differently after reading On Writing. Go ahead, read it.

"Read a lot. Write a lot."
                --Stephen King

Holiday Frame of Mind

I'm in a holiday frame of mind. You're probably thinking Flag Day or maybe 4th of July. But no -- I'm thinking Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays. Why you ask? Because I've got a couple proposals out for articles, and magazine editors usually work 4 to 6 months out. Some are working on issues for NEXT summer! So while trying to wrestle up some ideas for articles, I did a search for "lesser known" holidays thinking I could expand on the traditional stuff. Boy did I land a jackpot.

I missed National Doughnut Day last week. That's okay since I'm watching my carbs. Besides, it's within a day or two of National Hunger Awareness Day! If you can't believe there are so many weird observances, just wait for for Sunday, June 13 - International Skeptics Day, which is also the last day of Superman Week and the first day of National Flag Week. All this is within Potty Training Awareness Month.

We could have some messy parties on July 17th, which is both Cow Appreciation Day and Shark Awareness Day. Hmmm, if you appreciate your cow, stay away from the water. Others go together, like National Hamburger Day and National Mustard Day, August 7th. And I'm looking forward to both Nude Recreation Week, July 5-11 and September, which is Pleasure Your Mate Month. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing that they'll be over before October - National Family Sexuality Education Month.

And please don't whine about all this....National Whiner's Day is the day after Christmas.

Cover Letter Tips?

I sure hope this is a joke of some sort. The purported writer tells about the rules of submitting your book or article to agents and publishers. Cover Letter Tips sounds like the beginning of endless rejection letters. Just take a look at tip number four:

Tip Four: Never published anything? Lie a little. Yes, lie. A cover letter is a persuasive document designed to do one thing: entice an editor or agent to read your manuscript. Say whatever you have to, within reason, to accomplish this. No publication credits? Write the words "West Coast Fiction Review" on a piece of paper, staple it to one of your stories, and boom, you've just been published in West Coast Fiction Review. Is there such a publication? Not that I know of, but it sure sounds impressive. No awards? Ask your best friend--let's say her name is Martha Green--to give you the 1999 Martha Green Award for Outstanding Achievement in Fiction. What's the Martha Green Award worth? Not much, unless it entices an editor or agent to read your work.

I Blog

What great sorts of conversation I had at the Ryze mixer. Blogging, journalism and writing were big interrelated topics at the table I shared during our "work session of strategic importance." I sat with some bloggers that I read weekly: Anita Campbell, Chris Seper, Bill Callahan and Mary Beth Matthews. I slept on our words and wanted to add more:

I blog. Anybody with a web browser can access my blogs to read what I've written. My weblogs connect me to many diverse people. I first started a business blog, which let me write about project management and business issues for my clients. I enjoyed it so much, I then started this blog about writing, speaking and thinking. It is a way to express my point-of-view for others to consume, digest, and respond to.

But I also blog for myself. Writing my ideas forces me to look at them more intensively than I would by randomly running them through my head. Blogging helps me to expose fuzzy thinking. If I can’t write my ideas down clearly, I know I haven’t thought them through. Good blogging, like good writing, is good thinking.

While blogging I often end up learning more about my chosen topic. First, the act of organizing my thoughts to explain them helps clarify them in my mind. I then gain more understanding through readers’ comments and questions. I learn both from what the reader said, and by researching more information to back up my point of view to rebut their points of view.

I consider myself a decent writer. My best writing comes when I have weeks to work on a document that I can continually revise. But, my spontaneous writing often falls short. Blogging helps me to expand my extemporaneous writing skills, and thus is helping me become a better writer.

I'm hoping some New York publisher notices one of my blogs, likes what he reads, and offers me a seven-figure multi-book deal. Then I'll get well-paid to pontificate my views on the lecture circuit. Now that would be nice.

But for now, I’ll just have to blog about it.

Text Analysis Tool

Textalyser allows you to analyze blocks of text or entire Web pages. Either specify a URL or enter a block of text.

The results give you the number of words total, number of characters with and without spaces, number of unique words, two different estimates of difficulty, a sentence count, the longest and shortest sentences, and other details, such as word frequency count and a syllable count. Go ahead, check out your writing.

S P E L L

The Society for the Preservation of English Language and Literature, or Spell, is an organization of people who love the English language and are determined to resist its abuse and misuse in the news media and elsewhere.

English boasts by far the largest vocabulary of all languages, almost four times the number of words as its nearest competitor, German. As a result, English possesses a plethora of synonyms that allow greater nuances of meaning than are available in other tongues.

You should not be aghast, alarmed, amazed, appalled, astonished, bewildered, blown away, bowled over, confounded, dumbfounded, electrified, flabbergasted, flummoxed, overwhelmed, shocked, startled, stunned, stupefied, surprised, taken aback, or thunderstruck at this capacious cornucopia of synonyms in our marvelous English language.

Membership in SPELL is open to anyone who shares SPELL's love of language ($20).

Book Meme

I don't know who started this meme, but I've seen it all over the place. So what the hell, I'll play along:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

From The Best American Essays:

It was the early sixties, the tail end -- as I think of that era now, almost forty years after our father fell in love with another woman, and our family began coming apart -- of the heyday of Southern intellectualism in the style of the Agrarians, when the newly married Episcopalian children of Presbyterians were reading Finnegans Wake, escaping Ph.D. programs, drinking bourbon, martinis and bargain beer, and staying up all night quarreling and having affairs and finding out about the affairs, then tossing their children into the back seats of VW bugs and driving by night up or down the coast.

No kidding, this sentence has 103 words.

Design for Impact

Here's an interesting article on redesigning the President's Daily Briefing (PDB) to create impact with an "actionable" report: A Better Tighty Whitey..

I speak specifically to the design of the document. It's clearly inefficient in its purpose to communicate the assessment of threats against the United States. While a better designed document might not save the world, I believe it would help the President (Bush or otherwise) to quickly and more effectively assess the information given to him.

You can view the original recently declassified document and a redesigned report. It really does make a difference! You can also download the Word template so you can create your own PDB's.

Now you can have your kids brief you every morning on current situation of their homework. Kiss up to the boss by reporting on the state of politics within the office. Or, if your name is George Tenet, now you can make a much better presentation to your boss each and every morning.

The Pulitzer Prizes -- 2004 Winners

A strange thing happened at the Pulitzer Prizes -- 2004 Winners announcements this week, nobody won for Feature Writing. It could be because none of the entries received a majority of the vote. But we'll never know, the judges don't talk much. Oh well, I guess there's still room for me!

It sounds impressive, but it's more self-aggrandizing, much like the Oscars, but for journalists A bunch of journalist giving each other awards, patting each other on the back and then putting it on their front pages to tell the world about it. I wonder if this is what Joe Pulitzer was really thinking?

Visit the Pulitzer site anyway...it's interesting -- especially all the editorial cartoons that have won through the years.

Just Do It Before It's Too Late

      "Hey Pete. You got any word processors around here? Maybe even a typewriter" I asked full of enthusiasm.
      Saint Peter looked surprised. "C'mon now AJ, I was there watching your writing career blossom, or is wilt the better word. Ha, ha, ha. Why didn't you write when you had the chance?"
      "Because," I sighed.
      "Yeah right," said Peter, "like that answer will get you anywhere around here." He turned to talk to more entrants coming through the pearly gates.

      I knew the executives in heaven would require detailed answers to any question they'd ask. But I wasn't prepared. Even after years and years of excuses for my procrastination, all that emotion, all that knowledge, all those ideas, were still inside my introverted life, and now death. I'm sure these guys in heaven already know the answers, so I'll just have to do a little research. Maybe an interview with God, yeah, that's it; He'll give me the answers I've been looking for.

      No matter how much I rationalized, I knew I didn't understand myself. Why didn't I write all those times I could have? I didn't write then because I didn't really have anything to write about. Not that I have anything to write about now. I just figured since I had nothing to write about then, I could write about why I didn't write yesterday which is because I had nothing to write about. Does that make sense???
No. I knew the real answer. I was just hoping nobody saw me.

      "Okay, okay, it was TCM," I cried to Peter.
      "What the hell is TCM? Wait, wait, wait, scratch that. What in heaven's name is TCM?"

      Hmmm, maybe they weren't watching my every move. But now is not the time to continue the big lie or the big excuse.

      I responded in disbelief. "Oh c'mon now, you gotta have TCM up here don't you? Turner Classic Movies?"

      Yep, that's a big problem. I'd be staring at a blank screen waiting for inspiration and just click over to TCM's website and see what was on the tube. I'd check what classic was coming on and rush over to the television and get settled in for Casablanca. No sooner does it start and I'm thinking to myself, "I can write something like that." The same thing would happen with Citizen Kane or Rear Window or The Big Chill, all wonderfully written stories that I know I will write when I get to "someday I'll."

      Now I began thinking about my own ideas and the way they tease me with their elusive natures. Sometimes I have so many I tell them to take a ticket and stand in line. At other times, I couldn't find one if I were given a roadmap to Ideaville. Will I get ideas in heaven?

      I let out a scream, "Why am I doing this?"

      Because writing has always been one of the most important things in my life. I don't just like writing, I need to write, and not just journal entries. I've been starting and then abandoning writing projects for years, from articles, to short stories to the great American novel, and I rarely finish anything -- I get started and then I lose interest, get distracted by something else, or my inner critic speaks up and tells me it's all stupid so I just give up.

      I need to think with a goal in mind, or better yet, a deadline. I can tell my inner critic to shut up for a week and just write. I may write crap and never do anything with the story once I'm finished with it, but at least I'll be writing something. It will be a learning experience and then, at the end, I can finally tell people, "You know how I've been saying for years that I'm going to write? Well, I finished a story." Bragging rights, you could say, and proving to everyone that yes, I am a writer. And, showing myself that I can do this. I can always go back and revise it, or reuse some of my ideas or passages in later stories. I just think it's time that I stopped talking and planning and thinking about it and actually writing something.

      Saint Peter moved closer as he cleared his throat. "Uh, too late, AJ. You're dead."

How's Your Fog Index

The Fog Index is considered the most reliable formula for testing your writing to see how easy it is to read and understand. It is not an index of how good your writing is but of how easy it is to understand. Good writing is another subject. But all writing must be clear before it can be good.

The steps you use to calculate the Fog Index are not too complex, like counting all your words, sentences and syllables and applying various formulas. Or... try the lazy man's way. Go to this website and upload a Word file or point to a URL. You'll not only get your Fog Index but also your ARI, Kincaid, Flesch and a host of other indexes and formulas. The site has an explanation of each.

The "ideal" Fog Index level is 7 or 8. A level above 12 indicates the writing sample is too hard for most people to read and understand. This is not a measure of intelligence level, or of subject matter level, but only of reading level. For example, here are the grade levels of common reading material:

• 6 - Comic Books
• 7 - TV Guide
• 8 - Ladies Home Journal
• 9 - Reader's Digest, NY Times
• 10 - Newsweek
• 11 - Harper's, WSJ, Time
• 12 - Atlantic Monthly
• 13 - PC World

If you really want to calculate your Fog by hand and calculator, here's an explanation. The moral of this story, use short words in short sentences. Oh yeah, this blog has a readability grade of 10.

Manual of Style Redux

Since I gave a plug for the Chicago Manual of Style (CMS), I better mention some others. The one I actually use the most is the American Psychological Association Publication Manual (APA). The APA style is for the behavioral and social sciences, but since the sciences publish a lot of technical information, many business and techno-oriented publications use the APA style. Since I write mostly business and technical subjects, well, so it goes.

Actually, some publications have their very own style, which, if you are trying to write for them, you need to follow. Here's a list of style manuals for many disciplines. You could spend a small fortune trying to keep up!

And just to wrap up this whole style-thing, here is an excellent commentary from Louis Menand at the New Yorker, The End Matter - the nightmare of citation.

Some people will complain that the new “Chicago Manual” is too long. These people do not understand the nature of style. There is, if not a right way, a best way to do every single thing, down to the proverbial dotting of the “i.”

Manual of Style

I cracked open my new 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style to look up how to handle a quotation in an article I'm writing. As is usually the case, I found what I needed and then continued to read into the next section and then branched off to another reference in the book. An hour later I realized this latest edition has many changes and additions, especially about writing for the Internet and other electronic media.

The Manual itself is also tied in with the Internet in that at the web site, I can search on any term and it will return the sections and subheadings relative to my search. Much easier than the Index in the back of the Manual. I also like reading all the Q&A on the web site. Check out the Q&A on web writing and email preparation. Some interesting questions. Cool!

Even if you're not a writer, journalist, editor or publisher, if you do any writing for work or school, this is a good book to use, especially the sections on citations and copyright permissions.

Rejection Redux

Wow, a place for writers to commiserate and exult the rejection letter -- RejectionCollection.com. Read the letters and how they made the writer feel. Rub it in!

Procrastinating again. . .

Best advice on writing I've ever received: Finish. -Peter Mayle

On your mark, get set, edit!

March is National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo). It comes just 90 days after the end of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), or November as we mere mortals call it.

So you've finished the first draft of your novel. If you're anything like me it left you feeling triumphant, elated... empty... faced with the big question: What next? My response has always been to move quickly onto the next project. Which is great. Unless you actually want to finish something. Maybe publish some day...
Enter National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo). Inspired — perhaps coerced — by National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), NaNoEdMo gives novelists the support and inspiration they need to take their novel to the next level.

I haven't had the luxury of participating in either. You know how those silly things get in the way, work, relationships, sleep. But someday I will aspire to the tasks...when I get my daily word count up....and a lot of free time!

Bitch and moan

So it's time for more bitching and moaning on why I've missed a deadline or why my word reservoir has dried up. Every article I write is like going through a storm to get to a little sunshine -- The research, the organizing, the first draft, revising, the second draft, revising again and then, hopefully, completing a story or article. Man, why do I go through this shit?

"To write what is worth publishing, to find honest people to publish it, and get sensible people to read it, are the three great difficulties in being an author." -Charles Caleb Colton

Okay, so I'm giving myself a pity party. Time to move on, try again, reach for the brass ring, dream big. I just get this way at times.

Literary Excursion

After lunch, I stopped at Barnes & Noble to use the bathroom and pick up a decaf latte. I can never just go there to browse. I always leave with a book or magazines. And today was no exception. For my book loving self, I got A Passion for Books, a book lover's treasury of stories, essays, humor. lore and lists on collecting, reading, borrowing, lending caring for, and appreciating books. To get my writing juices flowing, I picked up On Writing by Stephen King. The Cleveland Plain Dealer called this "The best book on writing. Ever." I'll put these in the queue on the night stand and let you know what I think.

Punctuation!

It is not always clear how important punctuation is to reading, and thus writing. Punctuation tells us when to stop or to take a breath while speaking those words. But interpretation is much easier when listening rather than reading. Read this sentence:

That that is is that that is not is not is not that it it is.

Yes it's not punctuated. Yes it's one of those trick sentences to teach punctuation. I'm sure if the writer had spoken the words to me I could figure it out, but just reading them, I had to laugh as I kept trying to sound it out in many ways. It may not be the only way, but here is a solution:

That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is not that it? It is.

The words were meaningless without punctuation. Periods and commas become part of the meaning, or at least an interpretation of the words. I love it. I'm looking for more strings of words that need punctuated. Please pass along any trick sentences you may have.

Writer's block

Plagued with writer's block the last couple of times I've sat down to write. It manifests itself when I choose to clean my desk rather than write. Or "do research" on the web. Or review my schedule. Or catch reruns of Matlock on TV. Or look out the window and moan about writer's block.

"Writing is easy, you just sit down at the typewriter, open up a vein, and bleed it out drop by drop."
-- Red Smith

Varieties of insanity known to affect authors

"I’m writing for an audience that doesn’t yet exist." One of the insanities noted in:
Varieties of insanity known to affect authors. Check out Teresa Nielsen Hayden's weblog: Making Light for more insightful entries...and don't forget to read the comments.

10 Mistakes in Writing

Ten Mistakes Writers Don't See (But Can Easily Fix When They Do) is great reading for any writer. We all make these mistakes no matter what we are writing, be it for pleasure, business or publication.

"Sometimes the question of where to put a comma, how to use a verb or why not to repeat a word can be important, even strategic."

Pat Holt is a former Book Review Editor and Critic for The San Francisco Chronicle. Her website, Holt Uncensored, provides searchable archives, book reviews, interviews and links.

Rejection Part 2

I was brooding about yesterday's rejection when I read Austalian writer Janette Turner Hospital's method of dealing with rejection and bad reviews:

"Have one stiff drink, say five Hail Mary's, and ten Fuck-You's, and get back to work."

And I did. So there.

Rejection

Not another one! Rejection slips are the reality of the writer's life. If you haven't received any, you really can't call yourself a writer. This time the editor wrote "It's not right for our magazine." I read between the lines and it came up "I didn't like it."

Sure it's discouraging, but persistence pays off. I make sure to remember that many outstanding authors have had works rejected time and time again -- J.D. Salinger, John Grisham, Michael Cunningham, J.P. Donleavy -- not that I'm on par with them, but misery does like company. And with company like that, it can't be all bad.

Dan Gutman, a children's book writer, has posted some commentary on the rejections he received on the way to get Honus & Me published. That's four years worth of rejection!

It's not the rejection that I mind. I value criticism. It's the "non-denial denial" that bothers me. What do you mean it's not right? I followed your guidelines. I've read your magazine. Couldn't you give me a little more criticism than a terse form letter? Oh, and by the way, the name's AJ, not "Dear Contributor."

Hmmm. You know reading my article after several weeks, there is an area or two that could use a revision. I guess I could rewrite a few paragraphs...

Banished Words

Are you tired of "bling-bling" or "shock and awe?" Get this year's list of banished words at Banished Words List :: 2004. Or you can look at the entire list of banished words collected since 1976. Check out "Yuh know" from 1978 or "Yo" from 1990. It's an interesting look at our culture via words over the last 28 years.

Reflections

It's the time of year to reflect on the past year before setting goals for the next. So. . . One of the main reasons I started this blog is the same reason I write--I learn more when I write things down and when there is pressure to communicate what I've learned. The upshot is that operating the blog(s) has not only given me a repository of my thoughts in the writing, speaking, and consulting fields, but it also has increased the volume and quality of the yield. I know more, find more, and understand better than I ever have.

Of course, in terms of building a central repository, I have a huge body of pre-blog information I've gathered over the years; some of it is well organized for retrieval, using Personal Knowbase and Net Snippets. I started seeing the benefits of content management as soon as I started attaching keywords to everything I produced. The blog adds to that. . .while I add to the blog.

Besides writing here, I also write newsletters, training manuals, tutorials, articles, business plans, requests for proposals and multitudes of reports. I also have another blog: Project, Process and Business Improvement, which will go through a redesign, once this one is done.

At a loss for words?

When writing an article or a speech, I'm always looking for the right word, since they don't always flow right off the tip of my tongue. Besides Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com, I've come to rely on two "word" applications.

WordNet "is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept." You can use it on the web or download it to your computer.

My other stalwart app is Word Menu. This is a reference tool that organizes words by subject matter--the way we understand and use them. Even when you're not looking for that right word, this software is fun just to browse. And if you're more visually oriented, use Word Menu's fractal browser to traverse the topics and find the words in which you're interested. You should never again find yourself at loss for words. ( yeah, I wish.)

Think Like a Web Page

Think LIke a Web Page is an article about performing smarter search engine searches. Examples, and the logic behind them are noted. Check it out.

The Gender Genie

Paste 500 words into the box and this application will guess if the writer is male or female. Too cool! The Gender Genie. The algorithm should predict the gender of the author approximately 80% of the time. Try it.

Blogging Survey Results

The majority of bloggers surveyed, 52.3%, use Google's Blogger as their blogging platform of choice, including me. In addition, over 52.7% of all bloggers surveyed use a blog hosting service such as blogspot, blog-city, tblog, or TypePad to host their blogs. Other blog platforms answered by respondents include Radio UserLand, Salon, "MoBlog", Xanga, and LiveJournal.

Blog News for Bloggers :: Blogging Survey Results

This is interesting: 43.8% own more than one blog. 21% of all bloggers surveyed own three blogs or more. Check it out. Some real interesting stats.

Write more....now!

Boy, my writing output is really horrendous. To keep up with the average I need to output 800Mb of new information each year. That's what each person puts out on this earth. Check out How Much Information? This study is an attempt to estimate how much new information is created each year. Some very interesting reading.

Rest in Peace

I liked the way this man thought and the way he put it on paper. Robert Bartley died on Wednesday at 66 years of age...only the good die young.

He made the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Page. It is the one section I never missed in the WSJ, next to the Front Page. My condolences to his wife and daughters and to the entire WSJ family. He'll do wonders on God's editorial page :-)

Where's my writing?

You know why I don't have more....I can't get my ass into the chair and just start typing. There's always an excuse, I don't type fast enough or with the correct fingers. I haven't developed my idea far enough, nobody wants to read MY writing, and finally, I'm scared of failure. No no, I'm scared of success and then not being able to follow up with another success.

My journaling hasn't expanded as much as I would have hoped. I thought by now I'd be writing a thousand words a day. I can't even get a sentence a day. Cheap shot to me.

RE: My eyes - with some concentration I can get both eyes to focus in the same direction. Whoopee! It's been 2 months and I think I'm getting better.

Happy Birthday Mom, 82 years and many more to come.

Blog?

What is this blogging shit? I've visited several sites that are interesting. Some are very "deep," others frivolous and some informative. So here I go on an adventure to see what I can find. . . inside myself. I'll let you know "write" here.