Writing

[djtoast]

Originally Posted by Christie.

II'm actually going to pursue this by attending Met College in late August to do an HND in Practical Journalism.

What does the practical bit denote? I've never heard the term before!

My dad spent a few decades as an Editor for Reuters (mostly on Fleet Street but they sent him to Washington / New York / Sydney / Hong Kong / Moscow... everywhere really!) and he had a fantastic career, seems like a fun way to earn your pennies. (Except being sent to Argentina during the Falklands War, maybe).

[kimzor]

Originally Posted by djtoast

What does the practical bit denote? I've never heard the term before!

My dad spent a few decades as an Editor for Reuters (mostly on Fleet Street but they sent him to Washington / New York / Sydney / Moscow... everywhere really!) and he had a fantastic career, seems like a fun way to earn your pennies. (Except being sent to Argentina during the Falklands War, maybe).

I'd love to do that but, alas, I have no talent.



I'm also just too fucking shy, I was gonna post a link to something I've written but didn't for fear of getting slaughtered.

[Christie.]

Originally Posted by djtoast

What does the practical bit denote? I've never heard the term before!

My dad spent a few decades as an Editor for Reuters (mostly on Fleet Street but they sent him to Washington / New York / Sydney / Hong Kong / Moscow... everywhere really!) and he had a fantastic career, seems like a fun way to earn your pennies. (Except being sent to Argentina during the Falklands War, maybe).

It means that not only will I study journalism itself, but I get to dabble in radio show hosting and also tv presenting which is excellent as that's the career I'm aspiring to have.

Originally Posted by kimzor

I'm also just too fucking shy, I was gonna post a link to something I've written but didn't for fear of getting slaughtered.

post it.

everyone has different styles of writing, albeit some more crap than others, but in the end, if you write for pleasure, you're writing for yourself so who gives a fuck what other people think?

[kimzor]

Originally Posted by Christie.

post it.

everyone has different styles of writing, albeit some more crap than others, but in the end, if you write for pleasure, you're writing for yourself so who gives a fuck what other people think?

Short Story: Link - I just wrote it and posted it. I never once looked over it, mainly coz its pish.

Rant and another rant. (Again, not once looked over.)

I'm away to hide.

[Mwezzi]

Originally Posted by kimzor

Short Story: Link - I just wrote it and posted it. I never once looked over it, mainly coz its pish.

Rant and another rant. (Again, not once looked over.)

I'm away to hide.

Those rants look fine from where I'm standing.

[¡Punk!]

You suck Kimzor. That was an affront to English. Kill yourself. No-one will notice.

I kid, I kid.

[Christie.]

Originally Posted by kimzor

Short Story:

I'm away to hide.

Haha yeah you're shite.

Kidding on, you're not that bad but I certainly wouldn't pay to read your work.

You need to stop writing as if you're pouring out thoughts from your mind cos it's just spilling all over the place. That sort of style is suitable for journals and blogs that only you'll read.

But if you're posting it online on a website like that, you're clearly wanting an audience so write it for them so that they'll understand where you're coming from. Cos the way you write, it's as if you know the background and follow up whereas the readers are just hit with sudden lines that come out of nowhere and don't make much sense e.g. your first link, it's as if you've cut a whole chunk of the story out. And for a short story, that's incredibly far too short, I can't remember how many words the average short story is supposed to have but I mind it used to come out as 2 A4 sides of paper if that's any help.

There definitely is potential though, you do NEED to read over your work though and snip out all the useless wee lines that do nothing beneficial for your piece and create more of an atmosphere.

[Mwezzi]

^^ What she said, though you can get away with a bit more if you do classify your stuff as rants as opposed to full pieces and articles.

[Christie.]

Originally Posted by Mwezzi

^^ What she said, though you can get away with a bit more if you do classify your stuff as rants as opposed to full pieces and articles.

Aye but she was just using it as an excuse in case it wasn't very good, in the same way she was like 'yeah, i never read over it'.

There's a line between getting away with shoddy penmanship with excuses and having a rant with something so worthwhile to say you can throw out the guidelines as long as you get the point across.

[¡Punk!]

If you are writing a rant type number it's very easy to get lost a train of thought and write as it comes to you without thinking about structure. When you've finished it, read over it, make the obvious change and then sit on it for a few hours, or even longer, before going back. Makes a world of difference*

*I should point out I very, very rarely do this but I'm lazy.

[empty_inbetween]

i like to write, have done for the past few years now
all my proper stuff is blog preferred list on myspace
watch this space

[djtoast]

Originally Posted by kimzor

I'd love to do that but, alas, I have no talent.

same but i got dissuaded when he pointed out that Reuters only hire really absurdly over-qualified people: they wanted a first (almost without exception from oxford / cambridge) and two "obscure" foreign languages (everyone can speak french / german / spanish etc so that's no use to them, they want cantonese and serbo-croat )

i'm too lazy to be that ambitious so it seemed my fate lay elsewhere!

[Dario]

Originally Posted by kimzor

Short Story: Link - I just wrote it and posted it. I never once looked over it, mainly coz its pish.

Rant and another rant. (Again, not once looked over.)

I'm away to hide.

Wait a minute. Does it still count as a rant if it's vitriol-free? I thought that was the whole fun of it.

[LesMTS]

I used to write quite a lot and won some kind of creative writing competition at high school (meant I got to go to some workshop with some author with the winners from the other schools in the area, for which I prepared an embarrassingly shit piece of work). I can do reasonably well if I put my mind to it, but I'm generally too lazy with my writing. I've also lost the imagination (or the faith in my imagination) required to do fiction.

[Dario]

All my creative writing stories in school were thinly veiled threats towards the teachers marking them. Way to catch up, Cho Seung-Hui.