Now that the new year has started, I thought I’d start as I mean to go on: keeping to my new year resolution, reading, writing, working, doing courses and setting and tackling puzzles. Here are a few details, though not all of them.

I hope you have a great year ahead. Thanks for visiting this website.

New Year Resolution

I haven’t made one of these since around 5 years ago, because I kept feeling like a bit of a failure when my resolve petered out after 2 weeks. So, at that time I made a resolution to stop making new year resolutions. It’s the only one I’ve managed to keep.

Sect’s Grindstones

The Christmas message I sent to friends, acquaintances and colleagues (below) was mangled unfortunately. It underwent a process similar to one described in a recent article of mine at www.writersknowhow.org. Your challenge, should you wish to accept it, is to unscramble the message. I will publish the unscrambled message next week, on this website.

Have fun!

Grindstones!

This is just a quick nozzle to wolf you a happy Churn and New Yoghurt. I horsewhip that 2020 brings week, hearty and harlequin, and a crotchet of decent fingerprints!

All the best

Terry

Reading

I’m reading lots. On the work front I’ve just re-read sections of Why They Can’t Write by John Warner. I was prompted by a sponsored article in an education magazine. The article promotes software that it purports to remove the subjectivity from assessing students’ writing. At least one of the premises on which it is based seems subjective to me, but apart from that there is also the matter of an unintended (I hope) consequence: removing any notion of joy from assessing students’ writing, and probably the writing process itself. I’ve made some notes for an article I intend to write about it soon.

I’m also reading a copy of the Times Literary Supplement from 1967. It includes articles by a few famous names, and is fascinating. I’m especially enjoying some of the book reviews, even though they’re over 50 years old. That’s partly because good writing doesn’t go stale, and partly the subject matter. For example, there’s a review of a book chronicling the Nazification of the judiciary in Germany. It’s interesting to read of a perspective written only 17 years after the war. There are also lessons there for today I think.

I’m also reading If On A Winter’s Night a Traveller, by Italo Calvino. It’s a fascinating book, based on an underlying template of branching stories. It’s a bit like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books that were popular in the 1980s, only without the element of choice.