Five unrules for writing

bobulate:

We All Need Words point out that “That’s not what I was taught at school” are words we hear a lot. They post five unrules:

5. Write short or ‘fragmented’ sentences.
4. Split infinitives.
3. Use contractions (eg that’s instead of that is).
2. Don’t sign off letters with ‘Yours Sincerely if you know the person you’re writing to or ‘Yours Faithfully’ if you don’t.
1. And you can start a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but’.

And a bonus rule from Kurt Vonnegut:

Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.

Ignore Microsoft Word’s green squiggly line. Dare I say, ignore Word altogether. There. Just in time for school.

I can add no more. Perfect.

Blowing Off Some Grammar Steam

The comma fetish – There was a writer who felt the need to use, like, commas for well, everything that could, be considered a, pause in speech. The thing is, by getting rid of the commas the prose was tighter and read better to my inner ears. If it was only a matter of style, I may have let them be. As it was, they were a major distraction so I kicked them to the curb.

My favourite Tumblemoose post yet.

I get very upset about comma fetish, as George puts it. I think writers often use them when they’re unsure about whether two clauses need to be in the same sentence or not.

My advice is this. If in doubt, go with the full stop (or period to my transatlantic pals).

I can write this sentence. Followed by this one. And you’ll know that they’re connected. It’s no big deal. Both just signify a pause. But the full stop makes things clearer. It keeps it simple. Promise.

Sony Launches Qriocity, Cloud-based Music Service to Rival Apple, iTunes

Announced today at Berlin’s IFA technology show, Sony unveiled its new digital media service on Qriocity (pronounced “curiosity” — who knew?), an on-demand video and music service.

Sony Launches Qriocity, Cloud-based Music Service to Rival Apple, iTunes | Fast Company

That has to be the worst name and strapline for a product or service ever. They break so many marketing and copywriting rules that I don’t know where to start.

But I must. I’ll pick three problems:

• Phonetically, a ‘Q’ sounds like quick or quote or quiet. There is no letter that relies on a following vowel more than the letter ‘Q’. And they’ve got rid of it. It’s like me pronouncing the title of this blog, Bee-roomeshtick. Nonsense.
• ‘Music that follows you’. What does that mean? Not to me, I’m a techno-literate writer who knows about syncing and stuff. What does it mean to the average Joe? Absolutely nothing. It’s practically jargon.
• The full stops. If you’re going to make your strapline look like a list of features, make sure you list all your features. And make them sound impressive. Music and movies. Is that it? In this day and age?

Honestly, Apple’s marketing department must look at stuff like this and not know whether to laugh or wince.     

5 reasons having a ‘day job’ helps your writing | The Creative Penn

There is a myth of creativity that if you could only have 6 months off work and write fulltime, then you would write that award-winning novel. It’s not true! When you have all the time in the world, you do far less than if you are under a deadline. The day job squashes your writing time into the hours you can spare – lunch hours, commuting time, hours when you would have watched TV, after the kids have gone to bed. Don’t wait until you have all the time in the world as that time may never come. Take advantage of where you are now and get writing!

I’ve absolutely found this to be true.

Give me two days to write and I’ll be unproductive. Give me two hours and I’ll somehow find a way to produce the goods.

To me, it just adds to my argument that the notion of a writer’s muse is simply old-fashioned twaddle. It’s a convenient myth that writers use to mask their insecurities and, in some cases, lack of skill.

Basically…

If you tell me that your sweet little kitteh has been hit by a car and you’re not in the right frame of mind to write, I’ll say fine, fair enough.

If you tell me that your muse is silent and you need that magic spark to ignite your very being, I’ll tell you to shut the heck up and get on with it.

Either way, check out this excellent post on Joanna’s excellent blog.

Write for Your Life goes mobile

Last month I relaunched my other blog, Write for Your Life, with some slight restructuring and a wonderful new design by the marvellous Matt Pearce.

However, it didn’t quite work on mobile phones. The design was fine, but the podcasts and videos simply wouldn’t function.

So this weekend I set about creating a custom mobile version of the site using Mobify, which I can now highly recommend.

While the colours match the full version of the site, the rest is pretty minimal. Just an about page and a list of articles. No more, no less.

Because I figure that’s all you need when you’re on the move. A little something to read. Enjoy.