copyfire.com Blog

I was perusing Michael Ruhlman’s blog today, and began reading his entry on writing (food writing, in particular, but it applies to all writing, as far as I’m concerned). It was a great post, because it was both simple, and true. He says:

“Teaching yourself to write is simply a matter of practice, generating words and words and words until you figure out how they really fit together. I don’t believe the ability to write is a gift. I believe that anyone can write if they are willing to put in the work, and I believe those who have tried to write but have failed have failed only in their ability to sit down long enough and produce enough apprentice words.”

I may have to print these words out and staple them to my forehead, so when I’m having a bad writing day, I can refer back to them easily.

Came across a great link today while clicking around on the Poynter Institute site. It’s called News University (or News U). Once you register as a member, you get access to all sort of free (yes, free) online seminars and live “webinars.” It’s aimed at journalists, but I think anyone who writes can get something out of many of the offered courses. I plan on registering for a few myself. With the constant blathering created by blogs (I include myself in this category), quality journalistic writing seems to be fast disappearing. Even if print newspapers go the way of the dinosaur over the next 10 years, that doesn’t mean we can forget how to write. Time to brush up on the basics.

It’s January 1st, and you know what that means. If you’re into the whole New Year’s resolution thing, it’s time to get on it, get moving, get your butt in gear. Surfing around, I noticed that AuthorHouse, which bills itself as the “leading self-publishing company in the world,” posted a list of resolutions aimed specifically at writers and other lovers of the written word.

Now I tend to dislike the whole resolution thing, as it seems to end more often in broken self-promises than anything. The usual stuff about getting in shape, eating better, saving more, spending more time with family — it’s all noble stuff, but so broad, really, how can people help but not follow through half the time? So I’ve tended to make myself yearly goals (note that I don’t call ‘em resolutions — just that word alone is enough to have me breaking my new vows on January 2nd), with long- and short-term milestones that can break up big things into managable chunks. It’s worked pretty well so far for non-writing stuff over the years. So, I have to give AuthorHouse some credit for putting out this list, even if most of what’s listed is fairly obvious. The trouble for those of us who write professionally is that sometimes we get stuck in such a rut of what we’re supposed to be doing, what kind of writing we usually do, what kinds of books we always read, we forget to really enjoy writing. Maybe it’s time to remember why we made this our career choice, and not take it for granted. So perhaps making a list of writing goals for the year isn’t such a bad idea. Because, much like most married people know you have to work at a relationship every day, writers have to work at writing in almost the same way, less we forget why we’re doing it in the first place. It’s hard work, but in both cases, it’s the best and most rewarding kind.

Last November, I decided I was finally going to do National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as they like to abbreviate it). I’m here to say that what came out of it for me was 50,000 words of completely unpublishable junk (something about a female chef, and two love interests, and blah blah blah), but it was completely and utterly worth it, for the discipline it instilled in me alone. Workng a full-time job as an editor/writer during the day, then coming home to write a minimum of 1666.6666 words every single day for 30 days was challenging and exhausting, and yet I think I’ll probably do it again. The folks at NaNoWriMo are encouraging and supportive throughout the month, and make you undertand that it’s a competition only with yourself. What you produce doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be.

However, for all of you folks out there who are more turned on by competition than a self-contained sense of accomplishment, there’s a new writing contest in town, brought to you by the folks at Toronto’s Broken Pencil magazine. BP is probably the biggest alt culture read in Canada. And now, they’re sponsoring what the Montreal Gazette is calling a “literary survivor” and an “indie writers deathmatch.” Oh dear.

More from the Gazette:

Asked how the deathmatch will work, (Associate Editor Richard) Rosenbaum says “the top eight submissions get posted to our website, where readers can vote for their favourite, and cheer on or hurl insults at the writers and each other, with the writers themselves having to survive round after round of online voting as well as fending off the armies of their opponents’ supporters.”

If after that description anyone is still interested in entering, you can do so if your entry is postmarked by December 31st. Check out Broken Pencil’s website for more information. To the victor go the spoils, including $300 in cash. If you can handle the taunting, anyway.

The December 9th edition of the Great Falls Tribune features an article on Mike Schwabenbauer, a high school teacher in Simms, Montana, who, according to the paper, is waging a war against unnecessary exclamation points in writing, both in his classes, and within the local business community. This is an issue near and dear to my heart, so the article struck home. My former position as a greeting card editor in the humor area brought this issue to the surface on a regular basis. Our copy database was rife with these unnecessary marks!!! And I quickly learned, that unless the end of the world was upon us, one exclam was more than enough, if it was even necessary at all. I thank my former director, Shelley, for disabusing me of the notion that “!!” or “!!!” or “!?!” was ever something that should be printed on a page (or a card), and know that my writing is the better for her swift and thorough lesson in proper punctuation.

Interesting article today by Eli Saslow of the Washington Post. If you’ve ever wondered, as I have, who it is that keeps the words tripping lightly off of the president-elect’s seemingly silver-encased tongue, Helping to write history is a fascinating read. Especially as the writer, Jon Favreau (no, not that Jon Favreau), is serving in this role at the still-wet-behind-the-ears age of 27.