Category Archives: Writing

Have you read Charles Dodgson or Eric Blair?

Samuel Langhorn Clemmens would have been a dead giveaway. But here we are back to pseudonyms and here are examples of writers who have used pseudonyms or pen names when they wrote their work.

American humorist Samuel Clemmens is more known as Mark Twain. His literary creations like Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the time traveller in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court have been part of a number of literary experience through out the world – crossing mediums from the written word to moving images.

The former Colonial Police Eric Blair also known as George Orwell wrote a number of essays and stories that have also become a part of our present culture. From his novel 1984 and his fable Animal Farm, Orwell or Blair has been able to transform political commentary into an interesting form of storytelling. So much so that blurns/phrases from his books have entered or crossed over and become a roundabout way of saying things: Big Brother is Watching and All Animals are Equal but some Animals are more equal than others are part of our culture today.

Mathemathician Charles Dodgson wrote fantasy novels under the pen name Lewis Carroll. His most famous work was of course Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. It is believed that his pen name or nome de plum was a word play on his name: (i) Lewis from Ludovicus the Latin name for his middle name Lutwidge and (ii) Carroll from the Latin word Carolus or Charles.

And then there is Ellery Queen a pseudonym of Daniel Nathan and Manford Lepofsky. Both respectively using the alias Frederic Dannay and Manfred Bennington. Ellery Queen was the name of their character. And both four novels about the detective Drury Lane again using the pseudonym Barnaby Ross. Both received a number of recognition and awards under their various pseudonyms.

Originally posted on October 8, 2010 @ 1:55 am

5 Useful Online Writing Tools to Make You More Productive

In my more than two years of  writing for various blogs, I’ve grown accustomed to using various online tools that  helped me become a more efficient and more productive blogger.  Here are five of these useful online tools to help you with your writing/blogging chores.

Windows Live Writer – Never mind if you’re not a Microsoft fan. But Live Writer is definitely a very robust, useful and dependable blogging tool. It could be the best among the lot. Live Writer lets you set multiple blogs and directly publish post to them.

Microsoft Research ESL Assistant – A useful tool for non-English-as-a first-language bloggers.  This tool provides correction suggestions for typical ESL (English as a Second Language) errors including choice of determiners and propositions, as well as word choice suggestions.

Google Translate – If you’re like me who covers netbook news, I usually encounter news items in various languages including French, Dutch, Japanese, Chinese, and others. And if a foreign-language site is your only source of information about a particular new gadget, you have no other recourse but to use Google’s Translation tool. It may not be the most accurate translation but it’s enough to give you the gist of what the news is all about. More than enough to you to compose  a decent news blog post.

Google’s Currency Converter – Again another useful online tool for tech bloggers. If you’re writing about new products and gadgets which you sourced out from foreign-language blogs, you simply type the price plus the currency’s name in Google’s search box,  hit enter and you’ll be given the U.S. Dollar equivalent.

Google Docs – Who doesn’t use Google Docs yet? Ever heard of cloud computing? Google Docs is a very good and useful example of a cloud storage service. I use it for drafting long posts which I need to edit from time to time even when I’m using different computers.

Honorable Mention:

Copyscape – If you’re not sure if you are plagiarizing other people’s content, especially true if you’re writing about original topics and not regurgitating news items, Copyscape is an invaluable tool.

Other Tech News
North Korea denies ‘righteous’ hack attack on Sony
The Japanese comfort women issue still rages on

Originally posted on June 28, 2010 @ 1:18 pm

A Day Job is Not bad

Do you live soley by blogging or writing material for the Internet? Or are you like mo who still has a day job? Or if not maybe you own a business?

Well if you are … well its not too bad. Whatever happens you still have a way to bring home the bacon so to speak. Often a day job is a blessing for writers. And if one is really luck the job will allow the writer to write the post or article in piece.

The creator of Dilbert Scott Adams was an engineer and worked for Bell Telephone. He actually worked there for years even when he began drawing Dilbert. And left only when he was sort of laid off.

I have known a number of full time bloggers who earn their income from blogging. But I have also known a lot of full time bloggers who earn their money from other things. Some are resellers of Internet Service Providers and Hosting services. Some are also reporters or writers for magazines.

Not all of us can be Stephen King. Who incidentally started out as a High School teacher. But we can write and still afford to live.

Originally posted on November 16, 2010 @ 11:23 am

Writing and managing your time

One of my favorite anecdotes about writing was when John Milton was writing Paradise Lost. He was interrupted by a salesman or a holy man , both were selling things one material and one salvation. Anyway, whethere a salesman or preacher was the unwanted knocker it had the same effect. Milton lost track of his writing and scrapped the first version of Paradise Lost. Now I do not whetner this is accurate or not but distractions will always derail one’s writing.

What are these distractions?

The obvious ones are the unwanted guest or visitor, He who comes knocking at the door.

Another could be a natural phenomenon. Lightning striking the tree. The neighbor singing the karaoke or videoke. Dogs howling, Cats screeching and humans … well shouting,

And of course there are more less obvious ones. A special group inhabiting the Internet – chatting, communicating and just playing games. Yes, it is enjoyable and yes it can lessen one’s stress but it can also distract you from writing.

E-Mails, At most and unless you are part of an email answering service or in sales you need not check your email every hour. Maybe three, twice or even once a day would be fine. Of course, depending on the amount of email you receive.

Social Media Networks and Sites

Social Media Networks are fun, helpful and addictive. Using Social Media Networks one can connect with one’s friends – both old and new. They can also be used to share photos, videos and audio files (MP3). Social Media Networks can also nbe used to promote one’s post, writing, project or business. And one can also use it to play a number of online games.

And this is probably why we who have been introduced and are more or less familiar with the Social Media Networks must go back and back to it.

Micro Blogging Sites

Probably the biggest success story in recent times. Microblogging sites like Twitter and Plurk has been able to get a whole lot of people to twit or plurk their thoughts, opinions and actions on line – in less than 120 or so words.

Blogs

Yes, A number of these are of use and not inherently counter productive but an over dependence or an over doing it can be counter-productive – giving one less time to write.

So what now?

A number of these things are useful and inherently not counter productive but when one spends too much time on them one will find one has no more time to write. Well, I guess everything should be in moderation.

Originally posted on July 30, 2010 @ 10:57 am

Where do articles come from?

There is a poem that goes what are little girls made of and what are little boys made of. At least this is what I remember from a long time ago in my life when the word Internet had not yet become a word and Spam was a canned food. Anyway, I stumbled upon some old notes and dug a few scribblings up on where do articles come from ?

Personal Experience

You and I are the sum of all things that have directly or indirectly happened to us. Whether it happened a few seconds ago or whether it happened to our Grandfather when he was our age. These are interesting things and even more interesting when told skillfully.

Professional Experience

Different things happen to different people specially when one is in a different working environment. The tale of a movie star can be different from a heart surgeon but both are interesting and refreshing to reader. How the movie star tackled a role and how the surgeon interacted with a patient can be told. Heck! even a jobless man’s journey is a worthy tale to tell.

Observations taken: second-by-second; hour-ny-hour; day-to-day, week-by-week; month-by-month; and year-by-year.

Close your eyes. And concentrate on the sounds around you. I can hear the electric fan whirling like dervishes. The clock’s syncophated tic-toc. The carpenter hammering outside. And the train as passes the rail tracks. And then the drone of motorcycles passing by. Just to name a few.

What else if you were observing using your eyes?

Things that happen around you make good material.

Yes, there are a number of sources for an article or a post. The first three mentioned were up-close and personal. Something the observer had first-hand access to. The following are things that an observer can learn from or view from other sources – mostly second-hand but equally effective as basis for articles and posts.

Ideas from events in past,present and in the future
News from other blogs, media – both traditional and on-line

Ideas from books and periodicals

Originally posted on July 23, 2010 @ 3:05 am