Remember to keep reading to the end for your free short storyWRITING: AN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH HAZARD
Are you one of those who is at their best (and most creative) in the morning, and who resolves to do all those mundane household chores in the afternoon? Then, come the afternoon, you feel like a wrung-out rag; useless, leaden, and pretty much only fit for the bin? You are not alone… but science seems to have determined why this happens. Working on mentally taxing ‘stuff’ in the morning appears to raise the level of glutamate in the brain. Glutamate is a molecule that can disrupt brain function.
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Remember to keep reading to the end for your free short story WRITER'S BLOCK
Recently a self-confessed armchair psychiatrist commented on how no one seemed to like his answer to the question, how do I get past my writer’s block? Writing a book is hard work, and he claimed that, if we know something will be difficult and demand personal sacrifices, we develop excuses to avoid doing it. Suddenly, we’re not sure about our story idea or our abilities, and we start to think about all the projects around the house that are being neglected. And voila: writer’s block has set in. Remember to keep reading to the end for your free short story. DIALOGUE
The debate rages about whether to use single or double quotation marks around dialogue in a story. The oft-quoted answer to the question is to follow the house style guide. This might be apt if submitting an article to a magazine or a manuscript to a traditional publisher. But, when neither of those options is clear at the time of writing, a challenge could await further down the line when changes are required. Those of us of a certain vintage will remember being taught to use double quotes. Since then, like so much else, the American way of doing things has elbowed tradition to the side. Now most traditional publishers' style guides require single quotes. Vicki Laveau-Harvie solved the problem in her book The Erratics. She followed Cormac McCarthy’s example of not using any quotation marks at all to indicate dialogue. The Erratics doesn’t lose anything as a result. As a memoir, the reader feels the author is sitting opposite them and sharing her story in a normal chatty style, complete with everyday expressions. The story is all dialogue, so no quotation marks are required to separate dialogue from narrative. While unusual, it was an engaging read, not only due to the story itself, but also the way in which it was written. |
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