“National Writing Day is an annual celebration of writing designed to inspire people across the UK to get writing. Our message is simple: everyone has a story to tell and sharing it can be a source of pleasure and power.” …
The BBC used to have an educational site called Get Writing, no longer live but some of the content migrated into BBC Writers’ Room.
Get Writing was a fantastic resource for aspiring writers and would regularly post tips, exercises and how-to’s from renowned authors. One of these concerned the discipline of writing regularly.
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Everyone teaches ‘Creative Writing’ these days, but where are the editing tips for creative writing? We’re all led to believe that creative writing flows effortlessly from our finger tips in an unbroken stream of consciousness. It doesn’t. Good writing is hard work; good, finished writing is down to good, solid editing.
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Accept a little self-help from my rules for social networking.
First, I got hold of a little booklet by Hampshire Linux User Group member Damian Brasher, Damian’s Social Networking Rules.
Second, I saw the call for a Bloggers’ Code of Conduct over at O’Reilly.
Inspired, I decided to write out my (short) set of rules for social media. Apologies if this reads like Baz Luhrman’s self-help record Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) …
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World Book Day 2019 will take place on Thursday 7th March 2019 and aside from the World Book Day books, the theme is ‘Share a Story’, with a range of new initiatives that will help to get even more books directly into the hands of children and young people, especially those who wouldn’t otherwise have access to them. …
BBC Radio 4, Front Row Hay Festival debate: “Do we publish too many books?”
Podcast Fri, 29 May 2015, duration 29 mins
From the Hay Literary Festival, BBC Radio 4’s arts show Front Row asks the question “Do we publish too many books?” In a lively panel discussion, Samira Ahmed heads a panel of publishers, journalists and authors: Philip Jones editor of the trade journal The Bookseller, Crystal Mahey-Morgan Digital Sales and Marketing Director at Zed Books, Alexandra Pringle, the group editor in chief of Bloomsbury and Ali Sparks author of 41 books for children. …
Review: Front Row – Do we publish too many books?Read More »
There’s a brilliant article on A List Apart: The Trouble With EM ’n EN (and Other Shady Characters) by Peter K Sheerin from way back in October, 2001, now sadly marked “This article, while brilliant for its time, is now obsolete.”
However the topic doesn’t go away and we’re still struggling, not only with the style guide but how to render these shady characters for the web when there are all sorts of technical issues.
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No Summer Blockbusters, Please. Cruise, Smith and Pitt have all flopped this year, but when the cries about expensive overpaid stars no longer opening movies die down, the next wave of ‘bankable certs’ should arrive in two years time.
Oblivion, After Earth and the troubled World War Z are the latest high-concept movies to have mangled the scripts in favour of big action set-pieces and dodgy dialogue.
Oblivion steals from every sci-fi flick in decades, After Irk, the Smith family project from M. Night Shame-about-the-last-one makes no sense and WW-Zzzzz departs so far from the lauded source material you wonder why they bothered. …
Write Good by Frank L. Visco is a set of rules originally published in the June 1986 issue of Writers’ digest.
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules: …
Two grandfathers. One tall, straight, cheerful. Always sunny. One, short, slumped, slightly mournful, slightly sad. They had both been through the War.
The tall one pulled his comrades out of the water when the landing craft beached at Normandy, dragged a few of the drowning and wounded up the beach at Normandy through a hail of bullets. This one came back to work at Watneys, but never drank. Retirement was never enough, he got a job at Tescos in the Arndale; talk to anyone, friends with anyone. The hospital screwed up and he died young at sixty-two. …