Twitter allows only 280 characters per “tweet”. That’s around 20 to 25 words on average. How can that be any use for creative writing?
Read MoreUsing Twitter for creative writing (updated)
Using art for inspiration
in News & views, Archives
I’ve come across lots of books, apps and websites with writing prompts. I don’t think any of them have mentioned looking at paintings. I find that to be quite inspirational, in the sense of inspiring me to write reviews (which I don’t always publish).
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Write! Official Issue #1 out soon!
The next issue of the free newsletter Write! will be sent out today, Thursday 16th December 2021. This is officially the first issue — the previously distributed one was a sample product. This is what the issue contains….
Read MoreReview: American Short Stories course
in Reviews
For many years I’ve liked American nonfiction writing in periodicals such as Harpers, The Atlantic and The New Yorker, and it’s been interesting (for me at any rate) to learn that I also enjoy American fiction.
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Film, by Dean Shareski Some rights reserved
Review: A Taste of Film
in Reviews
Yesterday I spent a very interesting three hours on a course called A Taste of Film.
Read MoreFake news and media literacy
in News & views
Much of the narrative about fake news seems to take the view that fake news is peddled by outlets other than mainstream media, that if mainstream media do produce fake news it’s either accidental or because the “journalism” is rubbish, and that basically it’s up to the rest of us to make sure we’re not fooled.
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Filler text, by Terry Freedman
Creating filler text
in Technology
You can, of course, create text for use as filler text, or recycle an existing document. A better approach, because it’s faster, is to use a random text generator. The remainder of this document looks at a few options available to you.
Read MoreA randomly created short story
She walked over to the window and reflected on her deprived surroundings. She had always loved urban Truro with its plain, pong parks. It was a place that encouraged her tendency to feel worried.
Read MoreWhy are positive reviews so boring?
It’s a sad fact of life that the most entertaining reviews are the ones that are highly critical of the thing being reviewed.
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Question marks, by Terry Freedman
Categories or tags? Or both?
in Handy hints
It was hard enough to pluck up the courage to start your own blog, and now all of a sudden you have discovered there are things called categories and tags. What are they?
Read MoreBooks Unseen: All of the Marvels
Apparently, the author of this book took on the gargantuan task of reading through 27,000 Marvel comics (which sounds exactly like the sort of job I’ve been looking for!).
Read MoreBooks Unseen: Gothic: An Illustrated History
in Books Unseen
I should think this book provides some interesting background to reading and viewing anything in the gothic genre.
Read MoreOn this day: My non-writing writing day
in Archives, On this day
The value of having days when you don’t write, but when you do stuff in the service of writing.
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Click to see this on Amazon
Quick look: The 12 Week Year for Writers
in Bookshelf, Quick looks, Reviews
This is a book about strategy and meeting objectives rather than a how-to-write guide.
Read MoreThe best length of a blog post
in News & views
Which of the following broad categories “should” your blog posts fall into?
Read MoreShort-form writing (book review)
When your word count is restricted, you have to make every word count.
Read More7 blogging questions
There are not really many hard and fast “rules” of blogging as such, but here are a few thoughts based on my experience of blogging, teaching teachers about blogging and teaching a course on blogging.
Read MoreI, The Dictator
in Audio, Technology
One of the few good things about fracturing my right elbow on the 21st of August 2021 was that I was finally forced into experimenting with dictating articles instead of writing them.
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Deadline! By Terry Freedman
How I cope with looming deadlines -- 5 strategies
How do I handle deadlines?
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My Archive, by Terry Freedman
Articles on writing in the week beginning 1st November 2021
in Archives
In case you missed them, here are the articles I published on the Writers’ Know-How website last week.
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