Men don’t talk. We don’t “open up”. We find it difficult to show our feelings. We won’t ask for directions – and with satnavs and smartphones, these days we don’t have to. These may be clichés, but clichés are rooted in fact. When I used go to collect our kids from primary school, I noticed… Continue reading Breaking the Male Silence
Category: Writing
RLF Collected
Following on from my previous post, Progress?, here's my latest piece for the Royal Literary Fund's online magazine, Collected: Typeface: in Praise of Typewriters. You can find my previous Collected-related post here. I'm a writer, Royal Literary Fund Fellow, and Advisory Fellow. Find out more, tweet me, or email.
Progress?
As far as I'm concerned these two devices allow me to do exactly the same thing: write. They're both portable, admittedly one more so than the other, yet they couldn't be more different. One cost me around a thousand pounds, the other fifty. One of them is less than a year old and will probably… Continue reading Progress?
Scrivener Tip – progress at a glance
Scrivener's Project Targets tool is great for keeping an eye on word count, especially if you're writing something to a prescribed length. On a Mac, to set your targets and check progress call up the Project Targets window using SHFT+CMD+T. However, you can also get an idea of your progress as you write with a… Continue reading Scrivener Tip – progress at a glance
Scrivener tip: Lickety-Split
To quickly split the screen without leaving the keyboard simply hit: SHIFT+CMD+" This makes it particularly easy to compare two Binder documents, or refer to one pane – say something you have in your Research folder – while writing in another. When working with text documents the zoom can be set independently in each. For… Continue reading Scrivener tip: Lickety-Split
Scissors & Glue – top tips for writers
Over the years I’ve been given some great advice on writing by people I’ve met, and I thought I'd share a few examples in case they might help you along the way too. 1: Easing off received from David Garnett, writer and editor I met Dave at the first SF convention I attended in 1997.… Continue reading Scissors & Glue – top tips for writers
Mailshot Munch
I received a mailshot from Volvo, presumably a throwback to a time when we were looking at cars. When I unsubscribed I saw the following message: I don't want to receive any email communication from Volvo anymore This is so poor. Use of “don’t” feels inappropriate, the sentence is clunky, and the two entries of… Continue reading Mailshot Munch
Digital Content Strategies – Empathy and Storytelling
This is a follow-up to my previous post regarding the importance of quality, and that SEO is not necessarily the sole contributor to attracting visitors to your site, and particularly retaining them. A key strategy is to stimulate a positive reaction through entertaining, engaging front-end material which encourages custom, revisits and personal recommendations. Informing, entertaining… Continue reading Digital Content Strategies – Empathy and Storytelling
