Writing Tip (2): Being Your Own Critic

Being your own Critic

Critically reading your own work is an important, difficult and risky task. Important because self-consciousness is a necessary part of creating a work of art: if we want to improve we need to know our strengths and our weaknesses. Difficult, because critical distance from our own writing can never be truly achieved. And risky because self-consciousness is the enemy of spontaneity.

Try the following exercises:

1. Take a piece of your own writing -- perhaps a full chapter if you have one written -- and strike out every adjective, adverb and modifier with a pencil. Now, taking a rubber, allow yourself only those words whose presence you can justify.
2. Read a piece of your own writing over and over -- both aloud and silently. Listen to the music of your sentences, ignoring the meaning. Notice any repetitiveness or cacophony. Mark sentences which appear clumsy, and then rewrite them, listening with your inner ear.
3. Take a passage from a novel by a writer whose style you admire. Analyze each sentence, looking for the author's use of verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and qualifiers. What is the effect of their technical choices? Now write one of the scenes from exercise 1 in the style of this author. Compare the effect of the original version with the second version.

~ Writing a Novel, by Nigel Watts

Cover Crazy - Bleeding Violet

Cover Crazy is hosted by Tawni @ The Book Worms.

This week I'm crazy about...

Title: Bleeding Violet
Author: Dia Reeves

What I love...

- the violet sheets swirling all over the cover, almost as if they're "bleeding" out of the girl.

- that sort of smoky, mysterious look the sheets take on near the bottom of the cover.

- the way the words Dia Reeves and Crazy never looked so beautiful follow the curve of the sheets.

Teaser Tuesday (4): Fire

Title: Fire
Author: Kristin Cashore


"You're so beautiful when you're angry."
"Oh, Archer," she snapped, "flirt with someone else."

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read.
• Open to a random page.
• Share two "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page.
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! Make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don't want to ruin the book for others!
• Share the title and author too so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

Just for Laughs (2): You Know You Are In South Africa When...

You know you are South African when...

1. You produce a R100 note instead of your driver’s licence when stopped by a traffic office.
2. You can do your monthly shopping on the pavement.
3. You have to hire a security guard whenever you park your car.
4. You can count the national soccer team's scores with no fingers.
5. To get free electricity you have to pay a connection fee of R750.
6. Hijacking cars is a profession.
7. You can pay your tuition fees by holding up a sign at a traffic light.
8. The petrol in your tank may be worth more than your car.
9. More people vote in a local reality TV show than in a local election.
10. People have the most wonderful names: Christmas, Goodwill, Pretty, Wednesday, Blessing, Brilliant, Gift, Precious, Innocence, Samsung and Airtime.
11. “Now now” can mean anything from a minute to a month.
12. You continue to wait after a traffic light has turned to green to make way for taxis travelling in the opposite direction.
13. Travelling at 120 km/h you’re the slowest vehicle on the highway.
14. You’re genuinely and pleasantly surprised whenever you find your car parked where you left it.
15. A bullet train is being introduced but we can’t fix potholes.
16. The last time you visited the coast you paid more in speeding fines and toll fees than you did for the entire holiday.
17. You paint your car's registration on the roof.
18. Half your mail is guaranteed to reach its destination.
19. You have to take your own linen with you if you are admitted to a government hospital.
20. You dial a toll free number and nobody answers.
21. You have to prove that you don’t need a loan to get one.
22. Prisoners go on strike.
23. You don’t stop at a red traffic light in case somebody hijacks your car.
24. You consider it a good month if you only get mugged once.
25. Rwandan refugees start leaving the country because the crime rate is too high.
26. When 2 Afrikaans TV programs are separated by a Xhosa announcement of the following Afrikaans program, and a Pedi ad.
27. The employees DANCE in front of the building to show how unhappy they are.
28. The SABC advertises and shows highlights of the program you just finished viewing.
29. You get cold easily. Anything below 16 degrees Celsius is Arctic weather.
30. You call a bathing suit a “swimming costume”.
31. You stop at robots, not traffic lights.
32. You know what Rooibos tea is, even if you’ve never had any.
33. You can sing your national anthem in four languages, and you have no idea what it means in any of them.
34. You know someone who knows someone who has met Nelson Mandela.
35. You go to “braais” (barbecues) regularly, where you eat boerewors (long meaty sausage-type thing) and swim, sometimes simultaneously.
36. You have a gear lock for your car.
37. You’ve never seen snow in real life.
38. You know that there’s nothing to do in the Free State.
39. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from South Africa because you know its true…

Source

Yes, ok, so it is all true, but it's not as bad as it seems! I do still ♥ my country!

Got something funny to share? Post it on your blog and leave a link in the comments below. Or, if it's short, just share it in the comments :-)

The Christmas Story, Part 1

... God sent the angel Gabriel to the town of Nazareth in Galilee with a message for a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to Joseph from the family of King David. The angel greeted Mary and said, "You are truly blessed! The Lord is with you."

   

Mary was confused by the angel's words and wondered what they meant. Then the angel told Mary, "Don't be afraid! God is pleased with you, and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of God Most High. The Lord God will make him king, as his ancestor David was. He will rule the people of Israel forever, and his kingdom will never end."

   

Mary asked the angel, "How can this happen? I am not married!"

   

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come down to you, and God's power will come over you. So your child will be called the holy Son of God. Your relative Elizabeth is also going to have a son, even though she is old. No one thought she could ever have a baby, but in three months she will have a son. Nothing is impossible for God!"

   

Mary said, "I am the Lord's servant! Let it happen as you have said." And the angel left her.

(Luke 1:26-38 CEV)