The Ode Less Travelled!

My wife and I are reading through Stephen Fry's new book, The Ode Less Travelled.

Subtitled "Unlocking the Poet Within" it attempts to teach everyday folks how to write their own poems. So, we're having a go.

Here's one I came up with using iambic pentameter. The rules are that it has to be 20 lines long without any rhymes. I cheated on the last two lines, but nobody's perfect :)

I Am Bic Pentameter

I do not have a poet in my breast;
No metaphors or trochees pouring forth.
The world is not poetical to me,
All dirt and shame and empty toilet rolls

That get recycled, burned or thrown from cars
By people unconcerned to keep things clean.
I could not coin a phrase to save my life,
Or pick the choicest word from lists of three;

Well read am I, and clever, to be sure,
But not intent on wasting precious time.
Poetic licences cannot be bought
Or won as raffle prizes at a fair...


You can read the rest of the poem by going to my Helium page here.

If you like writing poetry, you could do a lot worse than get your hands on a copy of Fry's book.

How To Write With Style

Here’s an article I wrote for my Squidoo lens called Style: A Tricky Concept. The basis for the article came from a section in The Ultimate Copywriter.

The concept of writing with a particular style is a difficult one for many writers to grasp.

That might be because they're not sure what it means, or because style is something they think of as being personal and individual. But even so, there are things you can do to help build style into your writing.

Needless to say, you could write a book or two on the topic of style alone. This article is not meant to be the definitive statement on the subject: its aim is to get you started writing in a manner that will make it easier for your own style to shine through. And for that we'll turn to one of the stylistic masters of the twentieth century, Ernest Hemingway.

Hemingway began his writing career at the age of 18 as a junior reporter for The Kansas City Star. He only worked there for 6 months, but that was enough. He used the Star's style guide as the basis for almost everything he wrote after that:

1. Use short sentences.
2. Use short first paragraphs.
3. Use vigorous English.
4. Be positive, not negative.

That's all you need to know to inject style into your writing. And here's why...

1. Short sentences are easier to read. They get the information across quickly. They break up paragraphs into digestible chunks. And they stop you from constructing complex sentences full of commas and semicolons.

2. Short first paragraphs help get your story or article underway quickly. They give readers the crux of what you're saying and make them want to read on. They're the hooks that lure readers into the story line.

3. Vigorous English pulls, moves, races, propels readers into your text. It's packed with energy. Words aren't wasted or used unnecessarily. Anything that saps energy should be removed, including flowery adverbs and adjectives.

For example, look at this sentence:

"The young boy had picked up a shiny blue stone and tossed it unceremoniously at the cur."

That's a rather long-winded and clumsy way of saying: "The boy threw a rock at the dog."

If it's a boy, it must be young. If he threw the rock, he must have picked it up. If it's a dog, call it a dog. And forget the ceremony: it's just an action.

4. Finally, there's the notion of positive v. negative. What Hemingway means is that you should state what something is as opposed to what it isn't. Rather than saying the sky isn't blue, say it's dull, grey or cloudy. That new dress isn't inexpensive; it's affordable.

There are lots of other techniques you can learn to help give your writing style. If you write often, you'll pick up many of these naturally. You can also find information online and in good books by authors and editors.

In the meantime, these four tips from Hemingway should be enough to set you on the right path.

Banish Writer's Block

Ever suffer from writer's block?

I don't.

Over the years I've developed a bunch of strategies to keep writing no matter what. These include techniques for changing direction, ideas for injecting life into text, and just simply taking a quick break.

I put these ideas together in a little book called Knock the Socks off Writer's Block. It's available from Lulu.com by following this link.

I know lots of writers who tell me they never suffer from writer's block, or that they don't need any external motivation to overcome it. That's fine with me. But not everybody's so lucky.

If you're one of those people for whom a blank page can be daunting at times, then I think you'll find some of these techniques useful. If so, please be sure and let me know.

A Load Of Nonsense!

Introducing the How To Be Funny course...

Ever wanted to write jokes, gags, one-liners?

Every time you see a comedian on stage, you can bet there's another person behind every clever word that comes out of his or her mouth.

We sometimes forget that joke tellers need people to sit down and write those jokes for them. And that includes one of my favourites types of joke, the limerick.

Limericks are easy to write once you get the hang of it. Typically they're five lines long with a rhyme scheme a,a,b,b,a. Here's a famous example by Dixon Merritt:

A wonderful bird is the pelican
His bill can hold more than his belican
He can take in his beak
Food enough for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican

Part of the fun with limericks involves playing with language, and even sometimes corrupting the rhyme scheme altogether, such as this corker by W.S. Gilbert:

There was an old man of St. Bees
Who was horribly stung by a wasp
When they said, “does it hurt?”
He replied, “no, it doesn’t –
It’s a good job it wasn’t a hornet”

Or this well-know anonymous sample that pokes fun at the structure of limericks:

There was a young man from Japan
Whose limericks never would scan.
When asked why this was,
He answered "because
I always try to fit as many syllables into the last line as ever possibly I can."

Limericks are lots of fun, for sure. But they're also quite creative. Finding words that rhyme (or don't!) and still managing to write something interesting can tax the best of us.

This is just one of the techniques you'll find in the How To Be Funny course. There's also information on Spoonerisms, tongue twisters, and puns; tips on comedy timing and creating jokes out of thin air; and techniques for incorporating comedy into your social life.

It's a great book, full of useful tips for budding comics, writers or otherwise. I've read it myself, and it tickled my funny bone.

Hopefully it'll do the same for you :)

Famous At Last!

Flutter Bunnies causing a stir!

I've just done an interview for my local paper, The Citizen.

The interview has also been posted online, and you can read it by following the link below:

http://www.citizenweekly.com/index.cfm?sid=211292&sc=139

Colour Some Bunnies!

Read & Colour In!

Have you read my children's book Flutter Bunnies yet?

Well, thanks to illustrator Kit Grady, now you can go all interactive...

Kit's produced some colouring pages to accompany the book, which you can download below. There are two pages in total, extracted from the pictures in the book itself. It's a chance to get even more familiar with some of the characters in the story while exercising a bit of creativity in the process.

To download the pictures, simply right click on the images below and select "Save Picture As..."











If you haven't read the book yet and want to give it a try, you'll find it on Amazon by following this link.

Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

P.S. Kit's added another page for you to colour in on her blog, which you can get to by following this link. :)

Write Jokes & Laugh All The Way To the Bank!

Want To Write The Funny Stuff?

It's no laughing matter. Writers can make LOADS of dosh writing gags and one-liners.

There are even companies like Reader's Digest that pay hundreds of dollars for humorous stories. And somebody has to write it all.

Why Not You?

Got a humorous side? Like to write quips, jokes, comedy sketches? Limericks?

Then the How To Be Funny course could be just the ticket!

If you enjoy making up and telling your own jokes, then you could be in for some serious money. And if that doesn't tickle your funny bone, then maybe this will...

Order your copy of How To Be Funny, and I'll make sure you receive:

A Full Ten Bucks Off!

To pick up a terrific bargain TODAY, simply click on the link below:
Click Here for How To Be Funny Discount

P.S. I can vouch for the contents of the course, too, because I was involved in doing some of the research. :)