From the daily archives: Wednesday, January 27, 2010
If you wish to become a good writer you must read too. If you write on current topics you had better do your research and also understand your audience, because your readers are also reading other writers in the newspaper, magazines and even watching TV. This is not to say you should be the proverbial parrot mimicking what is in the mass media, so that you are in sync with it all.
Rather you should use this as a baseline for your arguments to branch off on a tangent with new material. This is why I recommend that writers of current events do their homework, investigative reporting and read what others are saying. Thus, when writing I keep such information on the table behind my laptop.
I place newspapers, magazines that I plan to read and any clippings and trade journal articles I have saved that will serve as references for the articles I will be writing about, or articles I am considering on writing about. Often, I will read articles that I either disagree with or felt that the author only discussed one aspect of the issue and did not mention a key fact, or had failed to make note of how such an issue will change things in the industry, sector or world in the future; thus, giving me the opportunity to give additional input to the world.
Perhaps, this is one reason I clip articles and place these clippings near me at my work station and why I’ll often put a file box of clipped articles on one of the other chairs at the table. All this along with several magazines and newspapers for quick and fast reference, or for additional input between tasks, because it is my contention that micro-scheduling of time while working on multiple projects is the best way to work without getting bored.
This allows one to maximize their time and keep their interest piqued and allows one to switch activities during breaking points without missing a beat. I would recommend that anyone writing on current topics come up with a similar scheme that works best for them. This will keep you on-track and first to print or post online. Please consider this.
Author: Lance Winslow
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Information
“Let these words not only touch your eyes,but let them travel through your soul and rest them in your heart.”
“You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.”
So we know love is truly an eternal feeling with these romantic love letters. Now write your own love letter and shower the spring of love on your sweetheart. Read through these great love letter tips and express your innermost feelings to your beloved this Valentine’s Day.
Learning how to write a love letter isn’t difficult. Once you gather your thoughts and follow these simple steps to express the way you feel in a love letter you’ll know how to do it.
Here’s How:
1. Clear your desk and your mind of distractions. If you love someone enough to craft this letter, he or she deserves your full attention.
2. Place a picture of the one you love in front of you.
3. Put on your favorite music.
4. Take out your best letter writing stationery and pen.
5. On another sheet of letter paper, make two lists: a) the unique qualities you love about him/her; b) your hopes for the future together.
6. Personalize the love letter salutation. “Dear ___ ,” or “To my darling _____,” are both fine.
7. In the body of the love letter, begin by telling him/her what you think makes him/her so special. List at least three different qualities of the one you love in the letter, ideally emotional, physical, and spiritual ones.
8. In the following paragraph of your love letter, share your hopes and dreams for the future you can have together.
9. Personalize the closing of the letter. “I will love you always,” “Loving you forever,” “My heart is yours,” are all good possibilities.
10. Don’t forget to sign your love letter!
11. Spray the love letter with a light fragrance.
12. Drop the love letter in the mail, and look forward to the response.
Keep in Mind:
1. Keep Your Letter Simple
When writing your letter keep it simple and of moderate length. If you go on and on for pages your sweetheart will definitely get lost in the midst of words and thoughts. Express your feelings while making your beloved feel loved and special.
2. Scented Love Letters
We generally relate to a particular scent associated with the person. So sprinkle some of your favorite perfume or the perfume your sweetheart loves best on you on your love letter. It will create its own magic altogether.
3. Colorful Stationary
Well it’s a love letter so don’t take out the boring notepad and a blue pen to express your feelings. It will clearly show that you didn’t give it much thought. So pick up a nice color pen and a romantic letter pad and say it on this Valentine.
4. Love Letter Proposal
Two things you should never do in a love letter is to propose or to make up for a fight. Go in person and say it. Your beloved deserves this much. Proposal is a beautiful and romantic gesture, so use your love letter to initiate it. Like send your sweetheart a letter saying where to meet and then in person with flowers and all propose to her.
5. Use Similes
There is no comparison for true feelings and yet we need to express them. So use similes to show your deepest feelings. Like you can say “the stars loose their shine when I look at you”.
6. The Magical Words
Finally saying those three magical words, “I Love You” will be the best way to close your letter.
“Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.”
Author: Sanjiv Maharjan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News
Technical writing is primarily concerned with communicating scientific, technical, and business information so that readers can understand and use it. It is different than writing fiction or magazine articles, where a mood may be set or–in some cases–where space must be filled and is definitely not the same as creative writing where use of action verbs and colorful adjectives and imagistic metaphors are encouraged.
Put simply, technical writing is the presentation of information on any scientific, engineering or technological topic in the form most suited to its user. Therefore the first rule of technical writing is “know your audience. Too often technical writing is vapid, vacuous, and verbose. In the vast majority of circumstances, technical writing is best done by company personnel who are already well-versed in the products and technology.
This short article outlines what technical writing is, as well as describing some of the things you should do when working on documentation. Technical writing is becoming increasingly dependent on having a specialized business, scientific, or engineering knowledge. Just being an English major or an accurate typist is no longer an option.
Technical writing involves the designing, writing, and organizing documents to deliver clear and consistent technical information and is in high demand especially in industries where competition is fierce and differentiation is the name of the game. It involves a complex combination of skills and the writer must always keep in mind that his or her main purpose in writing at all is to make things –user friendly’.
When writing documents, this means interviewing or talking to designers, programmers and users. You need to know what the potential user wants to know, and just as importantly, what they dont want to know.
Every bit of software and hardware needs the support of technical writing in the form of help files and user manuals. Specialist authors of online help systems and software user guides need to understand the users needs, where they want to find the information and how they are going to use it.
Many excellent books exist about technical writing and most assume that you can write. But they do tell you how to develop different parts of technical information, such as headings, lists, tables, and indexes.
Writing technical documentation involves a step-by-step procedure of organizing information. Aside from writing ethically, the main goal of technical writing is to convey information precisely and clearly. Researching a topic is essential before you write an article, report, or other material, and technical writing is no different. Therefore, effective technical writing is clear, accurate, and correct. It is a no-ambiguity zone
Author: David Odell
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times
Your spouse just got a job and he/she needs to leave for another part of the country. Fortunately, your company has an office there. Now all you need to do is to know how to write a job transfer request.
A job transfer request could be written for a relocation or if you want to go out for a different position within the company. It can also be written if your company is on a transition because of a merge, a buyout or any other change in leadership.
Knowing how to write a job transfer request should then have the end goal of you getting that relocation.
The characteristics of an effective request are the following:
- It clearly states the reason for your request.
- It would highlight your value to the company.
- It would illustrate how the company can also benefit from your transfer.
Some experts say that this is much like a resume cover letter for an application to a new job. Indeed, companies always base their decisions on how these would affect the operations, and whether these decisions would add to the profits or if they make things more efficient.
In knowing how to write a job transfer request, you should always frame your job transfer request in a manner that would lead the company to a conclusion that the transfer would benefit them, and not just you.
In writing this type of request, the same rules for writing a business letter apply. You still have to observe grammatical rules, and to keep a formal tone for the letter; you still need to make sure that your letter concise yet interesting.
Since this is a request, it would boost your chances of approval if you keep a positive, respectful, and confident tone. Strike a balance between a respectful tone and confidence, taking care to not sound pushy or arrogant. Keep all these in mind when you mull over how to write a job transfer request.
Truly, your knowledge of how to write a job transfer request would spell the difference between an approval for your job transfer or a rejection. Make sure you follow the principles in this article, and you’ll get the approval in no time!
Author: Michael Lee
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Beading Necklace
This is not a debate. It is a one sided justification why fiction is better than non-fiction in writing stories.
The reason why this is the case is simply because fiction rocks! The greatest stories of fiction are the ones that are exaggerated, colored, and over-dramatized. This is not a rule and should not be taken as law, but entertainment is one of the motivations why we read stories in the first place.
The news is simply news, but with twists and turns or if you want to add intrigue and character to the story, you might want to skip the headlines and go directly to the showbiz and editorial pages. Reading fiction stories entertain and amuse our funny bones to the highest power and we simply could not put a melodramatic story down.
A page turning novel is most often fiction, although there are definitely novels that are based on non fiction that are definitely great, but writing fiction gives the author more space to stretch his imaginations to the limits. He could create worlds, languages, characters that could only be seen in his dreams. An opportunity to materialize those dreams come in when he starts writing them down. The stories could be as unpredictable like a raging river with white water rapids that could take you up or down or just spin you over and under, whichever rattles your brains more.
The best part about writing fiction stories is that the story itself could go on and on until the author sees it fit to reveal his true intentions. Sometimes, the author may opt not to reveal anything and leave the conclusion hanging, only to add to the reader’s growing interest or frustration. But that is what makes the story more powerful, it stimulates you to think, to solve problems, to deduce who killed who and who stole what. The more scenarios presented, the higher the “what comes next” value from the ever entertained reader.
A fiction story can make you cry until your eyes run out of tears, make you laugh until it is too hard to breathe. A fantastic journey through the eyes of a great story teller can keep you in awe of the things around you and make you believe in the worlds he created.
Fiction stories rock because there are no rules. It is like looking into space with your naked eyes, you can only see the nearest star or planet but you cannot see their surfaces. Your mind may wonder and see things differently after reading such a creative work and change your belief in things that you already know.
With that, in writing stories. fiction is better by far than non-fiction.
Author: Allan Wu
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates
Can Quick Grammar Guide & Checker solve our grammar writing problems once and for all? English writing is one of the most important forms of communication today, it is necessary to maintain it correct and professional. Let’s take a look and see how recent technological improvements can help us on improving our writing skills.
Quick introduction
What is Quick Grammar Guide & Checker all about? Well, it is one of these innovative solutions that technology keeps bringing in order to make our life easier – in our case it is about fixing our English writing. By simulating the human mind, this technology analyzes your writing by comparing it to a dynamic large database that contains proper variations of your text. Sophisticated language processing solutions usually offer the following: editing and proofreading, checking on spelling and typos, and most importantly – analyzing our grammar writing.
Important benefits
We can easily find several important advantages while using this technology:
* Significantly enhancing the capabilities of our existing text editors.
* Improving our self confidence with our writing.
* Improving the image we want to project through our writing.
Extra research on this solution would probably bring up additional benefits that aren’t mentioned here, as this important webmarketing technique keeps changing, bringing us fresh solutions that help us on improving our English writing and editing skills.
Quick summary
If we summarize the main benefit provided by this powerful Quick Grammar Guide & Checker – it is helping us on identifying possible writing errors before we deliver or publish our writing assignments. Everyone agrees that it cannot completely eliminate our writing problems; however, it can significantly help us on improving our writing skills. Undoubtedly we can expect this exciting technology to further develop itself, for one simple reason: writing is one of the most important tools that help us achieving many of our goals.
Author: Gil Lavitov
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card
If you write for fun, you may never have to worry about deadlines. You can write for the joy it gives you. But if you want to write for publication, deadlines will be a major part of your writing career.
Anywhere you look in the writing world you will find a deadline. Contests have them, magazines have them and even fellow writers have them. Learning to deal with deadlines will help you use your time better.
Contest Deadlines
All writing contests will have some deadline for submissions to be in. Whether it is a month, or a year, there is a cutoff for entries to be received by the contest host. When you decide to enter a contest, you need to make sure when the contest ends. Allow yourself amply time to get your submission written and edited. Do not decide to enter a contest when you only have a few days before the deadline. You will only set yourself you up for disappointment.
Publication Deadlines
Some publications have reading periods when they will accept submissions. Usually editors will return a manuscript unread if received before or after. They have enough to do without keeping track of a submission sent during the wrong time period. Always check the publications web page or submission guidelines to be sure you are sending your work at the right time. You will also want to see if they have a theme for each issue when you check.
Work for Hire
This section is the largest because you will have more issues with a work you have been asked to write.
Editors who have accepted your query for a non-fiction piece will give you a deadline for the finished product to be on their desk. Before you accept the assignment, be sure you can finish it on time. If you cannot, do not accept the assignment. It is that simple.
If you accept the assignment, then be sure you meet it. Nothing annoys an editor more than a missed deadline, especially one they are not told about of ahead of time. They have deadlines of their own, and every one you miss destroys their faith in your abilities to handle an assignment. The more you keep your deadlines, the better your reputation in the industry will be.
If you are going to miss a deadline, let the editor know as soon as possible. Give him a date when you can get the job done, and make sure you keep your promise. The quicker he knows, the better your chance for keeping the assignment.
Learning to Schedule Your Time
Buy a calendar and use it. Keep all of your assignments, with the important dates associated with them written within those pages. Do not accept an assignment without first checking to see if you have anything that might interfere with you completing that task.
Here is a simple trick you can use when scheduling your assignments and submissions. Once you have your final deadline, the date it has to be on your editor’s desk, you need to figure out when you have to finish the draft and edits, and when you have to put it in the mail. Then push each of those dates back by a few days. Give yourself enough of a buffer so you have extra time in case of unforeseeable problems.
Deadlines are a way of life for writers. Learning to keep them will go a long way to making your life run simpler and smoother.
Author: Dawn Arkin
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Credit card currency-exchange fees
If youve read any of my work before, you probably know that I’ve been in publishing since 1987, have been a freelancer since 1993 and ran an editorial staffing agency in New York City from 1996 through 2004.
Some lessons Ive learned from this crazy journey are as follows:
1. Staying abreast of technology is crucial: Back in 1998, I was pushed to get a website for my company because clients and candidates were asking questions like, Can I apply online? Can I download the contract from your site? Can I post a job to your website?
Well, as we didnt even have a website, I would embarrassingly say no. The loud silence, especially from clients, on the other end of the phone line got to be too much.
Going through the process of getting a website taught me the value of staying on top of technology. I learned that while I dont need to be a hard-nosed techie, to stay competitive, I had to know enough to be able to stay competitive. This meant not only getting a site, but learning how to update it myself.
One of the wonderful things about technology is that new tools are constantly being developed for those of us who are NOT tech-savvy, eg, FrontPage software for building websites, autoresponder software, listserv software for building mailing lists, etc.
2. Writing is a skill: Obviously, you mutter. However, many writers dont treat their craft like it. I single out writers because, in my experience, proofreaders, copy editors, indexers, editors, graphic designers, illustrators, etc. all seem to see intrinsic value and take pride in their work.
Many writers take their craft for granted. Maybe its because society views writing as just words on paper. After all, once you know your ABCs, you can write, right? Well, editorial professionals know better than anyone that this is not so.
One thing I advise all professional writers to do to combat this lackadaisical attitude is to treat their writing like a business skill. Just like being a professional coder, artist or web designer when you put yourself out there, market and treat your skill like the highly valued commodity it is.
Let it be reflected in your perfectly prepared marketing materials eg, your website, brochure, postcard, etc. Also, when you speak with potential clients, be sure to use a professional tone. No one is going to believe that you write professionally if you dont talk like it as well.
3. Freelancing full-time is not hard: Its not easy, to be sure. But, building a successful, full-time freelance career is not terribly difficult, if:
a. You have experience within your discipline. Most successful freelancers Ive encountered have worked full-time within their discipline at some point.
b. You are willing to work fulltime and freelance on the side for a period of time. Many freelancers leave their jobs once they got too burned out doing both, or secure a big project that allows them to make the leap.
c. You plan for it. Some freelancers (the most successful ones I might add) are more calculating about their careers.
What I mean by this is that they plan a year or two out knowing that they are going to leave their jobs. So, they save 6 months or a years expenses, pay off credit card bills, buy equipment while working full-time, etc.; then, they make the leap.
The ones I know who followed this path are, not surprisingly, the most successful meaning, they have gone on to hire employees. A few even opened offices and became official businesses because their client load demanded it.
Can you build a freelance business if you dont have these three things? Absolutely! However, it is even more critical that you devise a plan of how youre going to go about it. Having experience and industry contacts makes it easier, but the web makes it easier than ever today to start a freelance business.
4. Marketing is a skill that must be developed: When most freelancers start out, they may have two or three clients who keep them pretty busy. BUT, the day comes when the projects dry up (it always happens) and you have to scrounge for business.
Its at this point that many panic and start looking for a full-time job again. When I was recruiting, I received more than a few panicked calls, eg, I have to find something — quick!
Invariably, I was unable to help them (see Point #5 below). It usually was a moot point though because within a month or so, some project would come along and they would no longer be interested or available for a full-time job.
It was during this time that I got interested in the whole topic of freelancing as a business. Most freelancers focus on their craft and not the business of freelancing. However, as I preach ad nauseam on InkwellEditorial.com, to be successful as a freelancer, you must, must, must learn how to market if you want a full-time, sustainable career as a freelancer.
5. Employers dont like to hire freelancers for full-time jobs: It was my experience when I was recruiting that if you freelanced full-time for a year or more, employers were very hesitant to hire you as a full-time employee. Why?
Because most think that you are only seeking full-time work because you have hit a rough patch financially. Logically, it just makes sense. I mean, who gives up a successful freelance career to go back to the 9-5 grindstone? Most employers figured that as soon as the next big project came along, their new hire would be out the door.
I have seen it happen on many occasions so much so that when I was recruiting, I would screen out those with a significant freelance history because the chances that they would leave was just too great.
I once lost a $6,000 placement fee because the employee quit 10 days before the 90-day guarantee. [Most recruiting firms give employers a 60 or 90-day guarantee that the employee will stay put for at least this amount of time, or they dont have to pay.]
6. You cant change your rates every year: Charge enough that you dont have to change your rate for three years. I know some make take umbrage with this, but Ive found editorial (eg, writing, copy editing, proofreading, indexing, editing, etc.) to be a very static industry. It is not one where you can raise rates yearly.
Some of the companies I freelanced for back in 1993 still pay the same rates today Im not kidding! So, I advise all freelancers who are just starting out to start out charging enough so that they dont have to change their rates for three years.
Its been my experience that after this period, you can increase rates without worrying about losing even one of your clients. Putting forth the argument of, we havent raised rates in three years somehow seems to make it fair for them.
Working on this time schedule, I dont ever remember losing a client. I think its a combination of clients being comfortable with your work and them thinking, after three years, an increase is only fair.
7. You must develop a niche: Ive known a few freelancers who did several things successfully (eg, designed websites and wrote the copy for them), but this was the exception, not the norm.
Most successful freelancers niche it. What I mean is, they develop a niche and stick to it. In my opinion, it is far easier to become successful like this than being a generalist.
Trust me, those sites where you see freelancers touting that they do everything from writing to web design to illustration are not making that much money, or they are farming the work out to other freelancers.
Most clients like to know that they are getting a knowledgeable professional who has a history and body of work within the discipline they are being hired for. If it is a pharmaceutical company, they want a writer who has done this type of writing before.
So, develop a niche and market the hell out of it!
8. Patience is a virtue: Even after all of my years in the industry, Im amazed by how difficult it can be to be patient while I grow my business. I have lists and lists of ideas that I want to implement and there just never seems to be enough time.
This is easily a career where you can work nonstop all the time. An idea for an article pops in your head and instead of jotting down the idea, you find yourself writing the whole article; you go online to do some research, and before you know it you have spent two hours surfing the net on an unrelated matter; you log on to check email, and in an instant, you find yourself redesigning a section of your website; the list is endless.
This is an issue I still struggle with; although, I have gotten better about stopping. So, instead of browsing for 2 hours, it might be 30 minutes before I literally make myself stop and go back to my original task.
The best advice I can give to stop this kind of behavior is to think of your long-range goals and ask yourself if what youre doing this very minute is getting you closer to them. If not, stop and get back on track.
9. Retirement is not planned for: I can count the number of times on one hand that Ive had conversations with freelancers about retirement. Most small business owners (and thats what freelancing is, small business ownership) have an exit strategy, or a day where they envision doing something else.
For some reason, editorial and creative freelancers dont think this way. Well, while you may be able to write or design websites from anywhere at any age, whos to say youre going to want to when youre 70?
In my quest to get freelancers to think of themselves as businesses, one of the things I wish more would do is plan for retirement. This includes looking into 401K plans, buying investment real estate, building a sellable business, etc.
Again, just because you might be capable of churning out material long past retirement age does not mean that you are going to want to. So, plan for the day when you wont have to.
10. Longevity pays: The longer you freelance, the easier it gets. My business mentor said to me once, when you first start out, you are just greasing the pipes. After two or three years, clients will not be quite so hard to come by.
Its just like search engine positioning — the longer your site is on the web, the more frequently it is spidered by search engine bots, the more results it shows up in, the more popular it is, more people find it and voila! you have a popular site.
If you are constantly marketing and networking, eventually, it will seem effortless and referrals will flow in. Thats because you build traction just by being around. Many freelancers dont hang in there long enough to get this type of seamless recognition.
In conclusion, freelancing is a wonderful career — if, like anything other venture you enter, you take it seriously enough to work it like a business.
Author: Yuwanda Black
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty
So who would like to be a great screenplay writer? More than likely, every single person that has even remotely fathomed the idea of writing a screenplay aspires to greatness. It is simply the common nature of the muse. Of course, wanting to be a screenplay writer and becoming a great screenplay writer are two different things. Screenplay writing can be quite difficult although this difficulty can be diffused through understanding a few simple scriptwriting tips that can aid in boosting a screenwriter’s potential. Not surprisingly, many of these scriptwriting tips derive from the process of reading screenplays.
Read as many good scripts as you can get your hands on. When a script has succeeded on aesthetic and commercial levels, it will provide a treasure trove of information on how to craft a solid narrative. Yes, being a prolific screenplay reader is often overlooked on the journey to becoming a good writer. As such, reading as many solid scripts as you can get your hands on are of paramount importance.
Read a few bad scripts while you are at it. No, reading a bad script is not a waste of time. Often, the flubs, flaws, and errors found in poor scripts can provide an insight into where the script went wrong and how to avoid such mistakes. Few scriptwriting tips mention that there is value in bad scripts. Yet, the truth of the matter is there is a tremendous amount of value in them. You just have to know where to look and this will become apparent as you comprehensive of screenplay devices
Looking over a shooting script while simultaneously watching the film it is based upon on DVD. This is an old trick many screenwriting professionals employ. By reading while watching along with the film allows you to see how the visual elements of the screenplay are translated onto the silver screen. To say this will open doors of perception as to how the movie is crafted from a screenplay would be an understatement. Consider this among the most helpful of scriptwriting tips.
Look at how screenwriting format is presented in the screenplay you are reading. Yes, screenplay format is standardized as any screenplay analysis will tell you. But, how does a particular master screenwriter weave his narrative into the confines of screenwriting format and make it work for him? When you can figure this out, you can apply such principles to your own writing and improve it immensely.
Try to get your hands on as many screenwriting coverage reports as possible. These are not always easy to procure but they are valuable. Such coverage reports give you an insight into how a script reader works and thinks which aids you in developing your own screenplay in a positive manner. Here is an important scriptwriting tip: when you know how readers think, you increase the odds of getting positive coverage from them.
Procure a few quality books on the subject of screenwriting and devour them. Some books are truly stunning and well worth looking into. Pick up a few of the good ones and see for yourself!
Author: Paul V. Warner
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Excise Tax
About
The Writers' Corner is dedicated to providing the tips and resources required for developing a career as a professional writer.Stuff We Like