The professional writer: the stages of writing an article

March 24, 2021 in Professional writer

Different people approach articles in different ways. I think it would be rather presumptuous of me to lay down the correct order of doing things. Therefore, this is a checklist of things to do.

What I've learnt from experiments in style

March 23, 2021 in Creative Writing, EiS, Oulipo

On the face of it, experimenting with reworking a piece of writing is pointless. I mean, why bother?

Hamlet reimagined as the Dice Man

March 22, 2021 in Creative Writing, Oulipo, The lighter side

As you may know, the Dice Man makes all his decisions on the basis of a throw of the dice. Imagine if Hamlet was the Dice Man…

Review: Storycraft, by Jack Hart

March 22, 2021 in Bookshelf, Reviews

Like Chekhov's gun (if a gun appears in Act 1, it has to be fired at some point), actions like someone clearing their throat are pointless if they add nothing to how we see them as a character.

Dystopian visions (Updated)

March 20, 2021

UPDATED! If you’ve never bothered with science fiction — it tends to be the poor cousin of literature — the stories I‘m looking at are, as I say, classics. All of them have really interesting, and prescient, scenarios. Some of them are even well-written!

PhotoPrompt #56: A park scene

March 20, 2021 in Creative Writing, Photography, PhotoPrompt

I like photographing scenery in black and white, even though it may seem counterintuitive to do so.

Writing the Oulipo: A Taster

March 19, 2021 in Creative Writing, Language, Oulipo

This course will look at examples of constraints created by some of the Oulipo’s main proponents, including the Hundred Thousand Billion Sonnets, the Metro Poem, and others.

Yak the Oulipo: a taxi (Updated)

March 18, 2021 in Creative Writing, Oulipo

<Updated> You will need a novel and penguin and, if possible, a printed difficulty.

Journalists under fire

March 16, 2021 in Journalism, Research

A new report from the Reuters Institute is disturbing. As usual, journalists are being imprisoned or even killed for simply doing their jobs.

5 minute tips: The wordprocessor file menu

March 16, 2021 in 5 Minute Tip

You hear a lot of criticism of Microsoft, but one of the best things it did was standardise the way programs look in terms of menus and, to almost the same extent, icons. That's good to know because it means that there are rules governing where commands and features are located.

5 minute tip: Spellchecker blues

March 14, 2021 in 5 Minute Tip

Paradoxically, a spell-checker is only useful if you can spell! It's a common misunderstanding that if you can't spell, a spell-checker will sort things out for you. It won't.

5 Minute tip: How to create a template in Word

March 13, 2021 in 5 Minute Tip

Templates can save you hours, and the only limit there is to the number you have is the size of your hard disk (or your cloud storage). Although Word actually comes with many templates, you'll almost certainly want to create your own.