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New course in Crime Novel and Short Story writing.
Steve may become a Twit. (Watch how you spell that.)
George Carlin had just Seven: 119 words not to use.
RANT-'o-THE-WEEK:
Nothing much to rant about this week. I had a cold last week and didn't feel like doing a newsletter. This entire social media thing is getting out of hand for me. Every day I try to update the WritersCollege.com main page, usually just by changing the "featured course" there (which is not the same as the ones in these newsletters). Every day I update material on the ASJA web site. Once a week I:
and now write about my fantasy novel writing on the LetheChronicals.com web site and associated blog
(That latter by the way, is not finished. I have, as of this morning, fought for two days over that blog, changing hosting twice. I think I have it now. But there's nothing but testing notes up there at the moment. The web site is up and working though.
I also maintain web sites and one other blog for various other people and those require updating as needed.
And I think I need to do a Facebook for the book. I have one already for myself. I'm the one Stephen Morrill (I think there are a dozen) who has absolutely no information on his Facebook page and the page is entirely inaccessible to anyone else. It may even be inaccessible to me; I haven't looked in maybe a year.
Click here to view author Dennis Cass' funny YouTube video about his 'book launch'. He's seen here talking to his agent who is trying, with little success, to pull Dennis out of the 20th century and into the web/blog/facebook/twitter world. I feel a little like Dennis.
And let us not forget to mention Twitter. No, I know nothing about Twitter. But I am doomed to become a TwitterTweeterTwit soon, for the fantasy novels. Pray for me. As I understand, you 'tweet' every time you turn around, all day, even while driving. Since I don't actually have the twit thing running yet, I'll tell you what I'm doing at this moment:
Fake Twit: I'm writing this newsletter. I have my coffee cup turned so I can grab it left-handed. The sun is shining. I'm wearing shorts.
I just knew you needed to know all that. Let's move on, for God's sake....
Focus on how to plan your novel before you start writing it to make it as effective and intriguing as possible. By the end of the seminar you will have a variety of tools to help you in the writing process from character and setting sketches to scene outlines to a complete plot roadmap.
SCHOOL
NEWS: New course! Do you love Miss Marple? Spenser? Kinsey Milhone? Then you need to write a mystery yourself! And we can get you started. John Paxton Sheriff's course on Crime Novels and Short Stories is the place to go. Check it out today!
WHO's
DOING WHAT: WritersCollege.com Chief Factotum and dishwasher Stephen Morrill (c'est moi!)has now completed two fantasy novels, both of which need serious rewriting before he can try to sell them. But he has created a website and blog to start generating buzz. The web site is LetheChronicles.com and has samples from the book.
Nobody else told me anything about what they are doing. Oh, sure, several promised to send me something. They lied.
ESSAY: EVEN GEORGE CARLIN HAD ONLY SEVEN! This weeks essay is either pathetic or useful, depending upon how picky you are about what you write. Randy Michaels is the CEO of the Tribune Company, a monster newspaper/TV/radio chain whose flagships (is that word banned) are the Chicago Tribune and Chicago radio/TV WGN. Like most companies in the media biz these days, Tribune Co. is hanging on by its fingernails as ad revenue, subscriptions, you-name-it, drop through a trap door in the floor.
But financial disaster is not at the top of Michaels' concerns. No, he wants his reporters to stop using "flee" as in "run away" and "allegations" and "Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use."
He's got a point with some of the redundancy that creeps into fast-paced news writing. But most of his 119 (yes, I wrote that number—one hundred and nineteen—banned words are silly. But he's serious; he also advised all his reporters to read one another's writings and notify him of any violations of the 119-no-go rule. Reporters always appreciate being turned into unwilling stool pigeons.
Amused, NPR's Ian Chillag used all 119 words in one run-on sentence. I don't know if he read that out on the air or not but, if he did, he needed oxygen after.
Now, few of us would argue that most of these words are overused and clichéd. There have been many other such lists over the decades. It was really the idea that the CEO of the entire media empire, an empire going down in flames as we speak, took time out for this trivia.
Check out the original list of 119 banned-in-Chicago words by clicking here
And Chillag's comical sentence, using all the words, by clicking here
It's possible that both Michaels and Chillag have 'way too much free time
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