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Backstory
Maureen McQuerry, author of "Wolfproof"
Sat Dec 16 00:00:00 EST 2006
When I was in Oxford, England, visiting my daughter who was studying there, I looked up into the beams of Merton Chapel and there was a face peering down at me. It was a face with leaves sprouting as hair, vines and tendrils springing from his mouth and nose. I had come to face to with an ancient carving of a Greenman. Greenman have been found in churches in the British Isles since the 12th century and they've been in existence in different forms in many countries for much longer than that. My response as a writer was to ask what if? What would it be like if my hair suddenly turned to leaves, my skin became as rough and fluted as sycamore bark, and vines pushed their way up my throat? My musings turned into a poem, The Greenman, which was published in several journals and anthologies.
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Blog Du Jour
Creative Inspiration
Wed Dec 13 00:00:00 EST 2006
Nancy Wells is a VT subscriber and senior copywriter from Chicago, IL. She graciously sent us this list of sites where she goes for creative inspiration -- when she's not using the Visual Thesaurus! As Nancy told us, "the Visual Thesaurus is on my bookmark bar nestled between Google and the Chicago Tribune. I go to company brainstorm sessions with my computer and get on the VT for ideas." Thanks for your support, Nancy!
Google Image Labeler "Gets my brain warmed up for thinking of headline and copy ideas."
Creative Ideas
Malcolm Gladwell's column.
Word Spy
Buzzwhack
Finally, Nancy asks you, our fine subscribers: "Where do you get ideas and inspiration?"
Please let us know...
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Word Count
How to Write Long Sentences That Won't Confuse
Wed Dec 13 00:00:00 EST 2006
Have you ever seen a five-year-old trying to learn to ride a bicycle? The bike wobbles like a duck in choppy water, the child shrieks and then suddenly takes off. But one false move -- a lean in the wrong direction or a bit of over-enthusiastic pedaling -- and whoosh, she's off too fast down the street and veering into the bushes with a thump and tears.
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Dog Eared
Coach Daphne's Writing Books
Wed Dec 13 00:00:00 EST 2006
Writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant, who contributed this week's "Word Count" feature, suggests these terrific books on grammar and writing. Daphne tells us about her picks:
The Transitive Vampire by Karen Gordon. "This book is not only funny, it's also short and substantive -- a bit of a hat-trick when it comes to grammar. The design conceit is that it is illustrated with line drawings of dragons, gargoyles and, yes, vampires. The drawings are quite serious and the captions are silly. And the juxtaposition of the two always makes a grammatical point."
Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale. "I like this book because it covers more than grammar -- and because it's funny and flexible. Hale is not the kind of gal who's going to get her knickers in a knot over rules. In fact, she's all for breaking them (the catch is that you need to know you're breaking them.) I like the way the book is divided into three main parts with a set of chapters devoted to various parts of speech -- nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc. -- a set to sentences, and a set labeled "Music" covering voice, lyricism, melody, and rhythm."
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"Bad Language"
Seven Types of Bad Writing
Mon Dec 11 00:00:00 EST 2006
Everyone can write. But not everyone can write well.
We all learn to write at school but then society makes a distinction between 'writers' and 'the rest of us.' A writer sits in a garret and writes poetry. The rest of us write memos. It's a false division.
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Blog Excerpts
Given Up the Goat
Sat Dec 09 00:00:00 EST 2006
The Eggcorn Database is "devoted to collecting unusual English spellings that have come to be called eggcorns." (See this week's "Behind the Dictionary" feature for a related story.) Compiled by a group of linguists, the site looks at lexical errors that "tell us something about how ordinary speakers and writers make sense of the language they use." To find out how "tow the line," "fullproof," "beyond approach," and yes, "given up the goat" came to be click here.
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Backstory
Caridad Ferrer, author of "Adiós to My Old Life"
Sat Dec 09 00:00:00 EST 2006
"Write what you know."
How many times as writers have we been told just that? I think it might even be in the initiation packet along with instructions on the secret handshake. But there's no denying that it's a technique that works. Especially for a first book. It gives you a level of comfort that allows you as the writer, the freedom to allow your story to come to life. So for my debut novel for MTV Books, I did just that -- wrote what I knew.
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Blog Du Jour
Public Relations Blogs
Wed Dec 06 00:00:00 EST 2006
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Behind the Dictionary
An Eggcorn with Your Mondegreen?
Wed Dec 06 00:00:00 EST 2006
Geoffrey Pullum, the co-creator of the language website Language Log, sums up his site's popularity this way: "A: We like to have fun. B: We enjoy writing. And C: We're linguists." Over 40,000 people a week visit for a smart, witty, wry -- and, yes, fun -- take on how we use this English language of ours. Now Geoffrey and his collaborator Mark Liberman, both linguistics professors, have captured the flavor of their website in a new book called Far from the Madding Gerund and Other Dispatches from Language Log. We called Geoffrey to talk about his work.
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Candlepower
Learning the PR Writing Ropes
Mon Dec 04 00:00:00 EST 2006
When Erin Caldwell was a senior at Auburn University in Alabama she wanted to learn more about public relations, her major, than what she got from the classroom. So she launched a website called Forward-Moving that brings together PR novices with the salty veterans of the trade. The website was a hit, popular with students and young PR professionals who use it to gain practical, real-world advice on all sides of the business -- including writing for public relations. Which, naturally, is what we discussed with Erin, who now works at a major public relations firm in Washington, DC:
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