Advice to Aspiring Writers. a Speech at the Awards Ceremony for the Libros International Children?s Writing Competition. 20 July 2007

Like the students who entered this competition, I started writing when I was quite young. I wrote a lot of poetry in my early teens. I wrote a novel when I was 18 and another when I was 20. Thankfully all of that was long ago put in the bin. Actually I lent the second novel to a friend – it was hand written and, of course, the only copy. I lost contact with the friend and I never saw the novel again. Perhaps his aesthetic judgment was better than mine.

One thing I have done since August 1973 is keep a journal. I am told that writers like to call them “commonplace books”. They aren’t diaries.. They’re a cross between a scrapbook and a notebook, like an artist’s sketchbook. You come across something you think is worth recording and you write it down. Sometimes it might be a review of a book or a concert. You might be doing research on some topic and need a place to keep notes. And there might be just stupid things that crop up. Here’s some examples:

A restaurant menu in Greece offers “stuffed corsettes”. And how about this for the importance of proof reading? What a difference one letter can make! A restaurant menu in Chinatown, London, offered – Braised crap with ginger and spring onions and Chicken in spit. More seriously, a proverb in Kikamba that I noted when I lived in Kenya reads: “Nyamu inynugaa kitheka ki ikomie – An animal smells of the forest in which it slept.” The man who taught me the proverb said that it would always apply to me and my memories of Kenya.

And then there’s a section where I describe an old madman who used to hang around in the market place in the town where I lived. One day he cursed me so that I would change into a snake. Ten years later he became chapter five of my book, Mission.

When I lived in Brunei, I was invited to meet Queen Elizabeth when she made a visit there. I have saved all the documents telling me how I should address her, how to bow and how we should not worry because she was good at putting people at ease. Sir Ivan Callan introduced the woman to my right as Jan, saying, “This is Jan. She’s about to set off on the Chay Blythe Round The World Yacht Race”. Mrs Queen immediately said, “You must be mad!”. Sir Ivan smiled and moved on to me. “This is Phil, who organises all the concerts for Brunei Music Society”. “Yuk”, said Mrs Queen and moved on. It’s all recorded in the commonplace book.

The real use of the journal is to support you when you get an idea that needs fleshing out. OK, you have the idea, but then with luck you have hundreds of snippets of information, observations and background that can be woven together to make it more interesting – and it’s all real! It takes time and it’s hard work, but the results are wonderful.

I have read all of the winning and commended entries and I do want to say a very big “Well done” to all of you. I thought the stories were exciting and very well written. Those of you who have a real interest in writing should try to develop it because you are all talented. I do, however, want to offer some advice on how you might develop that talent, and I think that this advice applies to just about all of the entries.

Imagine yourself in a place you don’t know too well, such as someone else’s house, a shop or a restaurant, for instance. You walk past a door that says “PRIVATE” in big letters. Would you go in? I don’t think so.

Now I can understand that most of you have been reading Harry Potter and watching Lord of the Rings and other fantasies. I read Lord of the Rings as a teenager when it was a cult book, like Harry Potter is now. So I can understand when most of you start to write you think in terms of fantasy worlds, elves, goblins, ghosts, gryphons, gorgons, gargoyles and giants. But it’s also worth remembering that you are inventing a private world. A reader comes to your work and finds a door marked PRIVATE. Sometimes, obviously, it works, but a lot of the time readers will not go through that door. It’s private, after all.

I think that the way a really good writer works is to meet you in your own world, your own experience or your own knowledge, and then by suggestion gently takes you somewhere new, introduce you to different ideas and different ways of seeing the world. This doesn’t mean that all writing has to be set in the here and now. No. for instance, from our history lessons we all know something about the First World War, though it is unlikely that any of us in the room experienced it. But as a writer you can set your work in that period because it is common knowledge. Your reader will be with you from the start. A very great English writer, for instance, called Pat Baker has set several of her novels in that period.

So if I have any advice to offer budding young writers it’s this. Try to find your own roots as a writer, as a person and as a creator. Try to relate your ideas to a time and place you know or know something about. And draw the reader into your world by starting on common ground, not in a private world.

And how do you do that? You ROT. R – O – T. Read, Observe, Think.

R is for read. Read, read, read – and when you read something, review it. And say more than just what happens in the book. A student of mine once offered me a review of a book called Ali Goes to Market. His review was, “It’s a book about Ali. He goes to market”. I rejected his review. So read and review and write your thoughts into your journal.

O is for observe. There’s a world out there. We inhabit it. Look at it, describe it. If you come across something of interest, make a note of it and how you felt or how it affected you. In our world, giants don’t change into mice and lizards with red eyes don’t fire laser guns. But millions of other things even more surprising, more interesting and less predictable do happen.

And T is for Think. Take time to think, to reflect on what you experience and, if you think it’s interesting, write it down.

So to conclude, make public worlds and not private ones and ROT in your commonplace book, read, observe and think, and then make your notes. As writers it is our aim to communicate and to do that in a public, not a private place.

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Best Article Marketing Starts with Writing In Talking, Frank Style

Best article marketing can be done even by a newbie, if he/she knows where to start from. I think professional article marketing starting with writing convincing articles for consumers. So if you also want to learn how to write in talking, frank style to get more traffic and more sales read below.

Best Article Marketing: Start it with Writing In Talking, Frank Style.  

Here are 3 practical tips to write in frank and convincing articles: 

1.    Avoid Any Theory. 

Try to write only proven tips or facts. I myself hate when I find articles full of theory while I’m looking for practical solution, I always pass such articles. So if you don’t want your readers to pass away your articles give them valuable advice and try to help them. In this way they will believe in you as an expert in your field and will be ready to buy the product or service you recommend to solve their problem. 

2.    Avoid Writing Long Articles.  

Everyone is in a hurry today. So, people are looking at articles in a hurry, just reading subtitles and tips. So try to write 350-500 w. articles, but not longer, because consumers want fast solution to their problems, so write short articles giving valuable tips in each of them. I myself prefer writing 260-350 w. articles to achiever the most productive and best article marketing. 

3.     Talk To Your Reader To The Point.

I don’t like articles with a bunch of useless words that only waste a reader’s time. Just imagine: how you can gain your consumers’ trust and get more clicks in your resource box if they dislike your article from first sentences and pass it away? 

So talk to a reader to the point and give concrete way to solve his problem.

Conclusion: 

Best Article Marketing should involve writing articles included with the above mentioned 3 moments. 

Also discover for FREE:

How to Create Attractive Titles for Maximum Article Profit?

Article Writing Tips for Internet Article Marketers

When learning how to write good articles for marketing, there is no single, all-encompassing formula. Although it may prove difficult at first, the most important thing to remember is that you are an expert in your field, so nobody is better resource for high-quality content than you. If you can remember this — even if you’re not a natural writer — then the rest of the process will seem a whole lot easier. Beyond that, I can offer a few tips.

First, as I say, you don’t need to be an academically trained writer in order to create high-quality content in your area of expertise. Actually, the opposite is true. You don’t want your potential customers to be deflected by writing that is abstract or above their heads. You want your writing to be down-to-earth, even folksy.

In fact, in the ideal scenario, you want your readers to forget that they are reading an article at all. Instead, you want them to feel as if they are your long-time, valued customers, and that you are speaking to them candidly. Imagine your favorite, most loyal customer walking through your door with a question to ask. Write your article exactly as you would answer them. Remember, the most important thing is to earn the trust and respect of potential customers — but beyond that, you want them to like you! That’s why your writing voice is so important.

In other words, you don’t have to be phony or pretentious. Just be yourself, and try to give customers a legitimate sense of what it’s like to work with you. If working with you is a good experience — as I’m sure it is — you want them to know this from your article.

Second, with all of these tips and advice for marketing with articles, it can be easy to forget that you are trying to generate solid content. With practice, writing articles for marketing can become quite easy, but to start out, some careful planning and consideration is required.

Obviously, you don’t want your article to sound like a jumble of random thoughts that you spat out in a single sitting. When starting out, it’s a good idea to use an outline to organize the structure of your article.

After you come up with an idea for what to write about, make a list of all of the key points you want to touch upon. Then, organize the key points in a way that will best express what you want to say. Specifically, when your reader gets to the end of your article, you want her to feel that she has been on a journey, that you have guided her to a different place from where she started out. Essentially, if your content is solid, and if you are telling your customers something they need to know, then you fill find that this is easier than it sounds.

Also, structurally speaking, it is important for your articles to have a clear beginning, middle, and end. The first paragraph or so sets up what you are going to talk about. The middle portion is filled with substantial content. Then, the final paragraph summarizes the journey that you have taken the reader on. Many writers underestimate the importance of introductions and conclusions, but these elements are essential in making your readers feel that your content is truly substantial.

Of course, for some the most challenging thing about the whole process is the simple act of writing. But once you get started, you’ll find that it gets easier and easier with every article you write. Plus, your articles don’t have to be novels; in fact, a relatively brief 600-700 word length is ideal for web content.

And if you have any difficulty, Internet article marketing services are available to give you tips and to help you revise and polish your content. Also, if you’re looking for help distributing your articles throughout the Internet, these services are your best option. If you’ve worked at it, and your content is high-quality, article marketing services can do wonders in helping you market your small business.

Writing Effective Promotional Articles for Online Marketing

Are you looking out for ways to drive higher traffic to your websites through online promotional techniques?

Then you can use article writing campaign as part of your online marketing efforts to attract high quality traffic to your website!

Article writing can be a good sales promotion tool

Internet marketers have been employing various marketing tactics to advertise their online products and services. Article writing and marketing is also one of the popular means that has been increasingly used in online marketing. Posting articles on popular websites through article directories can be a powerful method of sales promotion which can have a lasting impact on the readers.

The main idea of using promotional articles is to create a greater demand for your products and services and also provide interesting and engaging content to your readers. If you are planning to launch a new product in the market, you can give all the vital information and details regarding your product through rich promotional articles.

In this way, it helps you to educate your customers and also attract new customers to your website which can increase your website traffic and sales volume. The key is to use attention-grabbing articles that are likely to generate curiosity and interest in them regarding your product or service offerings.

How to use promotional articles for getting the best results

There are several articles that are written keeping different objectives in mind and these articles are submitted across popular blog sites and article directories. Hence, it is important to understand how to utilize them to your best capabilities in online marketing.

- Understand your objectives well

First, you need to carefully understand the purpose behind writing promotional articles for online marketing. Some of them are written with the objective of generating maximum links for the website so the articles need to be in sync with the needs to achieve high search engine rankings.

There are promotional article that are used to create brand identity of a new product for which a well-written and informative article can do the trick. In short, you need to capture the attention of your audience and motivate them to take some action.

For this purpose, you may have to understand the needs of your target audience and know their various preferences.

-Using good resource box can help

Resource box can add great value to your promotional articles as they provide links to your website. Ultimately, promotional articles are used to direct as many users as possible to your website so do not neglect this important aspect to your online marketing efforts.

-Submitting to different article directories

The main aim of online marketing is to create greater publicity for your product or service. Hence, you may be required to submit your promotional articles to more number of popular article directories and high traffic websites.

It makes more sense to submit articles to those sites that can get your more relevant audience than posting them to numerous sites where you may end up getting a poor response.

Online marketing using promotional articles can fetch you good results provided you use smart marketing strategies.

Gorilla Marketing Tactics Part Four – Writing

Gorilla Marketing Tactics Part Four – Writing

There are tons of ways for you to generate free traffic for yourself through various forms of writing. If you absolutely hate writing, then video marketing would probably be a better idea for you (see Gorilla Marketing Tactics Part Three), or, you can pay people to write for you.

Whether you hate writing or not, you should at a minimum have a blog. Your blog will serve to establish you as an actual living person, as well as link all your other marketing efforts together. You should be posting your articles and press releases on your blog (more about writing articles and press releases in a future edition of Gorilla Marketing Tactics), as well as posting links to your Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Youtube pages (see my other Gorilla Marketing Tactics articles for more info on these). Again if you really hate this sort of thing, you can pay someone to do it for you (Platinum 7 with CarbonCopyPRO offers tons of great services), but some short blog posts shouldn’t be too much effort. You should have a page on your blog stating who you are and why you’re blogging (generally in an About Me section). If you’re trying to promote your business, you do not want to blatantly try to sell or push your business to people. Try to put personal information about yourself in your About Me section. Ad pictures and/or video and let people see that you’re a real person.

Most of my articles are geared towards people in the internet marketing, or work-at-home business. If that’s the case with you, a great way to gain followers and get people interested in what you do is to post unbiased marketing advice on your blog. You don’t want to blog about “I’m with so and so… they’re the greatest company out there because…”. This will just turn people off. Blog about the lessons you learned in setting up your own at-home business, blog about marketing methods that have worked for you, etc. If you’re just getting started, you may think you don’t have anything to write about, but the company you’re with (if they’re a good company) should provide you with lots of information on how to market. You can simply write an article about one of these methods, how it has or hasn’t worked for you, and how to do it properly. If you give solid unbiased advice, people will trust you and may wonder what it is exactly that you do that you give such great advice. Clicks to your landing page will come (provide a link at the end of each blog post, or simply on the side of your blog), and with enough clicks you’ll get people who will sign up with you. See an example of my blog at mossopblog.com.

Also always remember to do good keyword research, because otherwise it will be tough to get hits on your blog.