NeoBluePanther

Writing, Among Other Things

Tag: Writing (Page 7 of 8)

The "Elevator Pitch"

April 7, 2009 / / 3 Comments

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).” – Wikipedia

The first task of the “31 days to build a better blog challenge” is to write an elevator pitch for your blog. The idea of having an elevator pitch for your blog is a good one, because many a times people will come up to you and ask, ” What is your blog about?”

If you don’t have an effective answer to the question, then any interest the person might have had in your blog will vanish into thin air. And we definitely do not want that to happen. Do we?

I started this blog to replace my blogger blog. But, I did not realise that I had grown to love that blog, and even after starting this blog, I could not stop posting on that blog. So, now I had two blogs on my hands, and both had similar content. Something needed to be changed.

So, I decided that this blog was going to have a niche. After going through a list of things that I could blog about, I decided to use this blog to focus on writing, and related issues.

Thus, was born, the tag line of this blog : Writing, among Other Things.

This tag line  is also my elevator pitch.

What is your elevator pitch?

Does Twitter Make You a Better Writer?

April 3, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Twitter

Recently I was going through Brian Clark’s blog, and I came across an article with an interesting title: How Twitter Makes You A Better Writer. After going through the article, I was far from convinced  that Twitter can help you in improving your writing. In fact, not too many days ago, I was thinking that too much tweeting can actually hurt your writing.

Twitter gives you only 140 characters to say what is on your mind. With a 140 character limit, there is not a lot that you can say, even if you are trying to be concise. If you want to convey anything meaningful, you need more space than that. If you don’t have more space, what do you do: You try to find a shorter way to say what you have to say.

There are two ways in which you can do that.

The first way: Edit your tweet, change a few words, and try to be as concise as you can, but ensure all the while that you do not break the rules of proper English usage. If this attempt results in less than 140 characters, you are good to go, if not then you still have an unsolved problem on your hands.

The second way: Use chat lingo like u, gr8, dat, etc. Remove any extra words that may be grammatically correct, but are not needed to get the meaning across. In short, just type your message in any way that get the meaning gets across.  With SMS already being a part of our lives, this method comes naturally to most of us.

If you were tweeting to impress someone (maybe an editor, or a boss), you might want to take the first route. But, more often than not, Twitter is used as a platform for informal interaction, and playing by the rules is not that important. Therefore, most people choose the second way of making sure that their message does not cross 140 word limits.

As an example in the image above, I have taken one of my own tweets from not too long ago. At the time of tweeting that, I had no idea that I would be writing this post.

What do you think: Does Twitter make you a better writer or a worse one. Or, does it have no effect on your writing?

Writing as a System – An Old Post Revisited

May 28, 2008 / / 3 Comments

The post that follows was written by me a few months back. While I sat down to write a new post today, I relaised that I had already written something like that a few months back. So, instead of writing the same thing, albeit in different words, I decided to simply repost the old post. I hope you like it.

Often, we, bloggers, and writers, complain about writer’s block. I don’t know about others but I have often complained about it in the past, and even written posts about it. That was until I realized that there was no point complaining about it. One either has to overcome it or, allow oneself to be beaten by it.

While I was thinking about it, I thought of another thing. The whole process of writing can be be seen as a system.

Writing as a system

Taking this approach, it is easy to see that whatever we write is basically based on three inputs. The first is our LIFE. Over a period of time we go through many experiences and these not only affect the way we think, but also, the way we write and the things we write about. Therefore, living a full life and going through many experiences in life can enhance one’s writing as one will have a first-hand knowledge of the things he or she is writing about.

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Talent, Hard Work and Jeffrey Archer…

May 23, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Good Writing, unlike many other things, never goes out of fashion – neither do good writers. Jeffrey Archer, or Lord Jeffrey Archer, as he is now known, is on a visit to India – his first official one. He had never toured India before because, as he said, he had never received an invitation to do so before. I am glad he did now.

Living in a small town has many upsides, and anything that has an upside is sure to have a downside. The downside of living in a small town is that small towns usually do not form a part of any celebrity tours. It’s no different this time, and Jeffrey Archer will not be coming to my town.

So, the only thing I can do is watch him on TV, and I did that yesterday. From the advice he gave to the young writers in the crowd, he seemed like a very practical man. But, I did not agree with everything he said on the show.

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Writer's Block – A Myth

April 24, 2008 / / 8 Comments

 Can't Write

Anyone who has ever tried to write is sure to have come across these two words – Writer’s Block!

What is Writer’s Block?

The Free Dictionary defines it as “the inability to write”. But, come to think of it, what exactly does “inability to write” mean?  Does it mean something is wrong with your hands, and you can’t hold a pen or type? Or, you have a brain disorder that prevents you from stringing words together?

I don’t think anyone who has used the words Writer’s Block has used them in the sense implied in questions above. So, if your fingers can type (or write, as the case may be), and your brain can think coherently, what does Writer’s Block mean?

There was a time when I , myself, used to complain about Writer’s Block a lot. Then, I came across this article that said if you want to write, quit complaining and just write. And since then, I have stopped complaining about Writer’s Block and I feel, so should everyone else.

Complaining about Writer’s Block is like walking into your office on a Monday morning, and saying, “I can’t work”. Of course, no one ever says that. What they say, instead, is : ” I don’t feel like working today.”

So, when we – who write – complain about Writer’s Block, we should say , “I don’t want to write,” instead of “I can’t write.” Because if you really want to write, there is no reason you can’t. Don’t you agree?

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