The Science behind “write drunk, edit sober”

Do you drink when you write?

I used to. And in a lot of ways, I thought it was a great idea. I could connect to experiences and feel them coursing through me, channelling from my fingers and onto the page.

But it doubled the time I needed to write. The drunker I got, the more I’d be mashing the keyboard instead of typing. Hamfisting each line, I’d be constantly hitting delete and going back to correct myself.

Sometimes the red squiggly line would appear under a piece of text and I’d be scratching my head. What did I mean?

One man who mastered the art or writing drunk was Ernest Hemingway. He liked drinking so much they named a cocktail after him; The Hemingway daquiri.

One of his most famous pieces of advice was “write drunk, edit sober”. On the surface this makes sense. You embrace the effects of alcohol and let it guide you to a creative place, then return in the cold light of morning and try to organise this into something useful. But does it really work like that?

From Visually.

 

© Itchy Quill and ItchyQuill.WordPress.com, 2017

5 English Writing Basics to Remember

There’s a lot to be said for writing well.

I’ll admit, if you read anything in Morgan Freeman’s voice, it’ll sound cool. That’s just a fact. But poor writing is poor writing, and not expressing yourself properly can be detrimental to the point you are trying to make. Regardless of how good your intentions, or useful your information, or how great your internal Morgan Freeman voice is; your words will suffer.

It’s easy to forget in this modern world of information overload how important the fundamentals of English really are. You’ve got your basics such as punctuation, grammar, and spelling. Beyond that comes word choice and vocabulary. Beyond even this you enter the realms of wordplay and articulation (the fun of semantics).

The building blocks of English are timeless, even when the language itself can adapt and evolve with each generation.

I like to read something to jog my memory about writing structure rules whenever I’m feeling a bit of writer’s block. We need to know the rules before we can break them (as is sometimes necessary).

So, with that in mind, the lovely people at GrammarCheck.Net have come up with this lovely infographic to help to jog your memory about some of the basics to help make your writing better. For most of us, this will be simple revision. The odd refresher here and there is always welcome in the Itchy Quill house!

Source: www.grammarcheck.net

 

© Itchy Quill and ItchyQuill.WordPress.com, 2017

Words to Avoid in Your Writing

Where I come from, a diverse vocabulary could get you punched. Honestly. As if by using myriad words to describe your everyday comings and goings makes you arrogant. Like you’re rubbing your education in someone’s face.

I know.

Some words are more popular than others. Often this is due to trends, social group, or even laziness.

Sometimes words just aren’t used in the righ way. Someone I work with recently told me a story about how she ‘literally lost her shit’ when she had an argument with her boyfriend. I was perplexed, ‘you pooped your pants?’ I asked her. ‘No!’ she said, ‘I mean he makes me so angry.’ ‘So angry you poop?’ I said, before she walked away and left me sat there, confused.

In school I remember we were always scolded for using phrases like ‘really nice’. “English is full of wonderful words Itchy. Why not just pick one of those instead?” my English teacher used to say. So if I’d written ‘this cake is very nice’, what was I really saying? I could have been more specific by using any of the following:

‘This cake is delicious / extraordinary / a work of art / a revelation’

Each statement above gives a better impression to the person I’m speaking to (the cake creator, for example), and also gives you a better impression of who I am. My word choices reflect my feelings. If I’m lazy with praise, I’m probably not that impressed.

This kind of writing sensitivity is useful for those of us penning stories. One cannot possibly hope to express oneself without the power of the written word. Subtle differences in meaning and usage can change the mood of a sentence dramatically.

So, to give you some help identifying common words and also offering some suggestions, we’ve found this great infographic from the folks over at GrammarCheck.Net

Source: www.grammarcheck.net

However, language is a river, not a lake. It’s flexibility and constant shifting are what make it fascinating, as each generation omits the old, develops the new, or adapts the existing so as to feed the needs of their environment.

For some great examples of how this has happened in the past, there’s a fantastic post on ideas.ted.com called 20 words that once meant something very different.

As for awesome; OK, it’s had it’s day in the sun. When I was a wee lad, everyone said it. For everything. It was seen as an Americanism (like MacDonalds), and yet its influence spread through the ranks of English youth like tamgotchis. It’s time for it to go out in a blaze of glory, and what better use for it than this awesome song from The Lego Movie.

© Itchy Quill and ItchyQuill.WordPress.com, 2016

Grammar Cheat Sheet

Who hasn’t had one of those days where you proofread and spot a ton of mistakes you’d normally never make?

Nobody is perfect. Less than that, none of us can be fully capable of spotting our own mistakes all the time, or even remembering all the rules for this wonderful language we speak; English.

Sometimes the biggest struggle with writing can be the act of physically sitting down and forcing yourself to spew something worthwhile. But there are other times where we manage to get the words down, only to hear that it might be riddled with mistakes. This could be down to exuberance, lack of care, speed, or anything.

Yet the fact remains; good writing needs good grammar.

So, to help you with this, we managed to find a wonderful cheat sheet over at grammarcheck.net that covers 21 of the key rules to remember.

We hope it helps you!

Source: www.grammarcheck.net

Typography 101: Serif v Sans

A lot of thought goes into good writing. There’s a message, first and foremost. Tat’s crucial. Right?

But what next? Is it the display? The old adage not to judge a book by it’s cover, as so sensationally proven by this blog (lousybookcovers), is hardly a maxim. It’s in fact one of those things we’ve embedded in our lexicon and yet not stopped to think about.

So what else is improtant? Grammar? Syntax? Voice? Plot?

Once you’ve navigated that little minefield, there’s the question of readability. As a kid I remember having a whale of a time messing around on Word art. However, that’s not going to get you much in the way of blog followers (unless, as it happens, that’s what you’re blog is about!), so what will?

In this day and age, it’s about being user friendly. Quick loading pages, interesting content that can be read quickly and digested in mere moments, and also the basic formality of which text is most comfortable to read.

So with that in mind, let’s take a look at the two great rivals for our typographic attention; serif verus sans…

Embedded from BestInfographics.co