Tuesday, July 2nd, and thank you for returning to another episode of Artistry With Words.
For those of you who live where there is serious heat all summer, you have my respect. We are on Day 3 of a meltdown in Olympia, and the natives are getting a bit grumpy. LOL
Anyway, what are we going to talk about today? How about self-improvement as a writer?
I have to tell you, I see evidence daily that leads me to believe that not too many writers on HP are paying attention to these tips. It’s amazing to me how many articles start out with a bland introduction, or how many articles have grammatical errors, or how many writers show very little improvement over the months.
For example: yesterday I read like the 500th recipe since I joined HubPages. Now I read them because I am supporting friends I know and not because I have any desire to cook or for that matter read about food….but almost every recipe starts out the same, and they all sound the same, and they all use the recipe template, so that they all are basically blah, blah, blah and more blah.
I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but surely one more time will be helpful, right? You have to sell the reader in the first ten seconds, and you have to make your work distinctive. How many recipes are there on the internet? I would venture to guess millions. What is going to make your recipe sought after? More importantly, what is going to make you, the writer, sought after?
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“But the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others; and it is also a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity of dissimilar.” Aristotle
TIP OF THE DAY
For metaphors to have maximum effect, the author should limit their number. Using too many metaphors is a little like being caught in the Looking Glass.
PROMPT OF THE DAY
Sunshine, warm days, summer fun and what else do you see in this picture from my personal archives circa 2011? By the way, I love the word circa and you hardly ever see it used. Just sayin’.
FUNDING SITE OF THE DAY
Funds For Writers can be found here. It costs $15 for a year’s subscription and it comes out twice a month with tons of money-making opportunities for writers. Stop by and see what you think of it.
THAT’S IT FOR TODAY
Short one today so I promise tomorrow will have more nuts and bolts for you to sift through. In the meantime, keep writing, keep improving and keep believing.
Bill
“Helping writers to spread their wings and fly.”
Billybuc
Artistry With Words 