Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Writer's block or not

Writer's block? What's writer's block? I don't believe in it. I don't have it.

If I have a story to write, I write it. End of story.


If you want to read more about writer's block you might check out a blog called Editing & Proofreading Hints & Tips. Sounds very similar to this one.


Writing and editing a blog: I came across a web site on how to write and edit a blog. I won't go into detail, but it suggests a conversational style of writing and a desire to edit your blog.


Keeping it clean: I can guarantee you that I spend some time editing my blog. I make mistakes, like anyone else, and mistakes are not a good thing on a blog about editing, proofreading and writing. It makes me sick when supposed writers or editors write messy posts to a writing network. It looks unprofessional, and you know those editors and writers are mentally editing everything you say.


Editing quiz: I just found a test for aspiring editors. I once failed an editing test at a newspaper because I didn't know all of the editing symbols.


Why? It was in the advertising section at the paper, and I'd always worked in the news or sports department. We didn't make symbols; we just fixed the mistakes.


I won't go into detail on the test, because the writer wanted it to be copyrighted.


Blogs to watch: The Editblog looks like it would be right down my alley. Turns out that it's about film editing. ... There's a blog called Sports Writing and Editing that's worth checking out. It isn't updated often. ... You might check out my editing blog. I write about whatever interests me.

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG

BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

Monday, June 29, 2009

Cumbersome attribution

Needs editing: Found on the NY Times' web site: Ryan Church was originally in the starting lineup Sunday but was scratched because of nausea, the Mets’ vice president for media relations, Jay Horwitz, said. They might change that to ...because of nausea, said Jay Horwitz, the Mets' vice president for media relations. The Times' way is cumbersome.

Spell checks: I just found the word witholding in a book I'm editing. It should be withholding.


Say what? I assume that incentivised comes from the word incentive. It means offered incentives, motivated, according to an online dictionary. ... I came across the word nees and couldn't find it in the dictionary. Using context, I re-read the paragraph and realized the writer meant need.


Big words: I came across re-conceptualisation. It's the British spelling, and it doesn't need a hyphen. And it's w-a-y too long. Rethinking might work better.


Light work: I love the derivation of words. Take photography. From the Greek words photos ("light") and graphos ("drawing"). It means "drawing with light." ... The end of Western civilization as we know it is upon us; Kodak recently retired Kodachrome film after a 74-year run (1935-2009). The reason? Kodachrome represented "less than a fraction of one percent" of Kodak's total sales of still-picture films. Kodak derives most of its revenue from commercial and consumer digital businesses.


The first thing I thought of was Paul Simon's song "Kodachrome," and I suspect a few Kodak people did the same. As the song said:

"I got a Ni-kon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away."
They did.


Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.

Entries from The Dog Blog
Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie