tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20062717575169227342024-03-12T23:42:43.986+00:00Writer in the NorthDavid Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.comBlogger212125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-84387873653953842532017-11-15T11:07:00.000+00:002017-11-15T11:11:18.556+00:00GAME INVENTOR - A NEW DIRECTION WITH A GAME CALLED QUIRKYI suppose it was inevitable eventually to combine my experiences as a writer and in contributing questions to TV and radio quiz shows over the years - the result is that I now seem to have become a game inventor.<br />
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My first published game is QUIRKY, a quiz-style family game licensed to Cheatwell Games in the UK and, in process, to Goliath Games in the USA, Canada and Australia - this latter version may be marketed under the name KWIRKY but I'll keep you posted on that.<br />
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Possibly the best way to describe the game to you is to quote from the copy that I wrote for the bottom of the box:<br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Quirky is the fast-moving, quick-thinking, fun, question and
answer, bluff and banter game for family and friends. Nothing like your
conventional fact-based quiz - in this game <i>you</i>
decide the answers!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">Answer against the clock and, if you don't know, try to
convince others that you do! Younger players compete on equal terms - quick wit
and cheeky confidence are what you need in this game where all the answers are
up for grabs!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">*For family and friends aged 10 years to adult<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">*Game time recommendation 30 minutes, but you can decide
that too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">Contents: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">288 Quirky Cards (1152 questions), Quirky Die, Sand Timer,
Rules.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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I guess the game's USP is the fact that it's the players who decide whether the answers are correct, and can challenge those that they think are not. Many of the answers can change depending on who is playing, where you are, sometimes even where you are in the room. The idea is to try and win as many cards as you can, either by answering a question on them unchallenged, or by stealing cards from others by successful challenges. The winner is quite simply the player who has collected most cards by end of the game.</div>
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The game did not start out at all as it looked in the final product, but as a much more elaborate questions-combined-with-coin-rolling game called HEADS YOU WIN. I developed a prototype with the help of my design friends at IGNIFI and, if I say so myself, we came up with a pretty swish product.</div>
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The problem was I couldn't persuade any of the games companies to take it on because it was just too damned expensive to produce. However, when I demonstrated the game to Cheatwell at Distoy 2016 they loved it, and immediately saw that the unique quality of the game came from the questions. Co-owner Rob Eatwell and his Product Director Paul Laing told me they would be interested in a cheaper-to-make quiz box version. Happily, I had by now anticipated the objection on cost and had, right there in my pocket, a proposal for a modification of the game (then called CHALLENGE) which matched exactly what Cheatwell were looking for.</div>
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That was not just the origin of QUIRKY but of a relationship with Cheatwell that has already seen me collaborate with them on a number of their products, developing ideas and questions for their various trivia games (Cheatwell see themselves as 'the home of trivia'), lateral thinking games and a new game for next year, with the working title NAME EM ALL. I have also developed an 'edgy, adult' (ie rude) variation of QUIRKY which is due for release next year, working title WTF? I'll keep you posted on that one too. Plus, there are a couple of other game ideas currently in development.</div>
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By the way, I haven't given up on HEADS YOU WIN. It will eventually emerge somewhere, somehow. In the meantime, please take a look at QUIRKY (Amazon link below). It's garnering some very good reviews, and I hope you'll agree it will be a great Christmas buy for family and friends.</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cheatwell-Games-Quirky-Quiz-Card/dp/B074ZR471K/ref=sr_1_1?s=kids&ie=UTF8&qid=1510743127&sr=1-1&keywords=quirky+game+cheatwell" target="_blank">QUIRKY on Amazon</a></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-40606090001962870122017-08-14T11:33:00.000+01:002017-08-14T11:33:48.969+01:00Daft and illogical song lyrics Part 1<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">I've started this collection for my own amusement and your entertainment. I'd welcome your contributions via the Comments feature for a future instalment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Click on the tracks to enjoy the songs via Spotify. (I love them all, by the way.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Love is like a grain of sand, slowly slipping through your hand<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Fleetwood Mac, </span><a href="spotify:track:7nExwZJLUNyiVpEOQP0PUY"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">Oh, Diane</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grains </i>of sand, just one grain)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Through the coldest winter in almost fourteen years<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Rod Stewart, </span><a href="spotify:track:2YIJ6PXSWgwo25sE9eIzuU"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">Mandolin Wind</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(not almost fifteen, not almost twenty – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">almost fourteen years</i>?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Where Eleanor had risen to kiss the neck below my head<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Lindisfarne, </span><a href="spotify:track:0hFVpfrY5MBq4nEhrSZPgQ"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">Lady Eleanor</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(as opposed to the neck below my... armpit?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">We parachute in, we parachute out<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Warren Zevon, </span><a href="spotify:track:5menNpNItJbGso4owSk8SB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">Jungle Work</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(We parachute <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">out</i>?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">I jump in my car, and I throw in my guitar<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">John Stewart, </span><a href="spotify:track:2bHbzv3WOon1dhUll2naHB"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">Gold</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(OK, John, so first you jump in your car, then you...?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">In times like these, it’s good to have a friend<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">In times like these, on whom you can depend on.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<a href="spotify:local:Alan+Price:Priceless:In+Times+Like+These:157"><span style="color: blue;">Alan Price – In Times Like These</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(nice example of tautology, Alan) </span><br />
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<em>Show me a motion, tra-la-la-la-la</em><br />
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<span style="color: blue;">Boney M - </span><a href="spotify:track:5fHovBM24xMRzBESj76O66" target="_blank"><span style="color: blue;">Brown Girl In The Ring</span></a><br />
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(strange scatological request from Boney M)<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Slowly walking down the hall, Faster than a cannonball.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Oasis, </span><a href="spotify:track:2C9dkOD7JndaNenSihfHjG"><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Champagne Supernova</span></a><span style="color: #0070c0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(link is to a cover version)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(Oasis demonstrating Einstein’s theory of relativity, perhaps)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Of course, sometimes it’s deliberate, and in the hands of the master...<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">And he just smoked my eyelids, and punched my cigarette<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">Bob Dylan</span><a href="spotify:track:6rl8s27CBr52l5wA7LLAws"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif";">(wonderful)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-71250457769971824782017-02-13T08:29:00.001+00:002017-02-13T08:29:58.487+00:00The closure of George Stephenson's birthplace cottageI have written to the Hexham Courant this week, adding to the voices protesting against the National Trust's recent and wrong- headed decision to close George Stephenson's birthplace at Wylam in Northumberland as a visitor attraction. I reproduce my letter below, and invite comment.<br />
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I always mention in my talks on the subject that a visit to George Stephenson's birthplace provided the inspiration that led me to three years' research on George and his family, culminating in my novel <em id="yiv3901191900yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1486916627016_2561">Mr Stephenson's Regret</em>.</div>
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I remember as if it were yesterday standing in that one small room the family shared, awed with the thought that in these humble surroundings the boy that became the man who changed the world grew up. If it were not for that visit, I doubt that I would have ever embarked on the work.</div>
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By contrast, I remember that later in my researches I travelled to Dial Cottage in West Moor where George and his son Robert lived for many years, almost to the cusp of George's first great triumph, Locomotion Number One, which ushered in the world of public railways on the Stockton and Darlington line. In this cottage, too, Stephenson invented the miners' safety lamp (not Sir Humphry Davy as usually credited). I say, <em>by contrast</em>, because here, to my amazement I was faced with a locked door, an empty building and windows caked with dirt from the passing traffic on the Great Lime Road.</div>
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I remember wiping the dirt from the window to peer inside at bare floorboards and, sadly, an empty sherry bottle lying on its side, presumably left by a recent down-and-out squatter. I was furious that day, and have given vent to my anger loudly and often since.</div>
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Ironically, after years of campaigning, Dial Cottage (which has in more recent times provided accommodation for the local school caretaker) is set to open as a visitor attraction, as it deserves to be. Yet we are faced with the closure of the wonderful birthplace cottage at Wylam.</div>
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It's all too easy to quote dwindling visitor numbers after a long period of, at best, tepid marketing of an attraction. In any case, visitor numbers should not be the final measure, the harbinger of a decision to close. What is important here is the significance of the place. There is no-one in our region (and few in the nation) more significant than George Stephenson. It is not only desirable that we protect his roots and his legacy - it is imperative.</div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-10710363423346271462016-09-07T13:13:00.000+01:002016-09-07T17:30:47.144+01:00A contemporary's account of the railway pioneer George StephensonMy writing of the historical novel<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Stephensons-Regret-David-Williams-ebook/dp/B0071YGFBQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1473265748&sr=1-1&keywords=Mr+Stephenson%27s+Regret" target="_blank"> Mr Stephenson's Regret</a> has led to a number of interesting encounters and conversations, including many talks, particularly around the North East of England. This week, as I prepare for talks on the subject in Hartlepool and Darlington, one of the organizers kindly sent me an extract from a book she happens to have on her shelf. She describes the book as 'very fragile', and little wonder, it dates from 1853.<br />
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The extract she sent me was a brief biography of George Stephenson, contained in a book entitled <em>Our coal and our coal-pits; the people in them, and the scenes around them: By a traveller underground, in two parts. </em>I was immediately intrigued as this book had not surfaced in all my research when I was writing my novel. The date of publication puts the author as a near-contemporary of George, and certainly a contemporary of son Robert, and it must lay claim to being the first biographical account of the railway pioneer as it pre-dates by four years the famous biography written by the self-help author Samuel Smiles.<br />
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I've now researched further and discovered that the author was John R Leifchild, born in 1815, author of several non-fiction works in and of Victorian England. The publisher was Longman & Co and it was part of the Traveller's Library, a series in 25 volumes. At the time, Leifchild's book would have set you back two shillings and sixpence, or a shilling each if you bought the two parts separately. These days it is possible to buy a digitised reprint, if you are prepared to fork out anywhere between £60 and £90, which seems to be the going rate.<br />
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The chapter on Stephenson is full of interest, if a little mistaken on some of the personal details. The author claims, for example, that George's first wife, Frances Henderson, was the servant of the woman who refused him, Elizabeth Hindmarsh. Fanny was actually a servant, not at the Hindmarsh's Black Callerton Farm but at Red House Farm some distance away; and, far from refusing George, Betty Hindmarsh was devastated when her father would not allow her to marry the penniless pitman, and declared she would never marry anyone else. Of course, she did marry George eventually.<br />
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Anticipating Smiles, Leifchild entitles the chapter on George, 'Ascent of Pitmen in the Social Scale', and makes much of his triumph over adversity and lack of education. There is some fascinating incidental detail and an intimate feel to the writing which is fairly unusual for its time.<br />
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As the available reprints are so expensive, and as the book is well out of copyright, I have taken the liberty of re-scanning the chapter on George that was sent to me, and I reproduce it below as a contribution to Stephenson research, and because I think it will be of interest to many.<br />
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-10009581468619174532016-03-14T19:12:00.001+00:002016-03-14T19:12:49.656+00:00In search of the story
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">There are
writers, good and bad, who are inveterate plotters, laying out their story-lines
brick by brick before they cement them together with words. Agatha Christie,
for example, famously plotted every element of her novels before she wrote a
word of the manuscript. William Faulkner, the Pulitzer Prize winner, wrote
story plans on his office wall. I've seen J K Rowling's complicated plot charts
(hand-written grids aligning time, plot and prophecies in numbered scenes like
a director’s shot list) and other writers' examples of mind maps and story
boards. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I have to
confess I've never done any of that in preparation for writing a novel. Although
I might write copious notes during my research for a book, they tend to be
about the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">world </i>of the story; they
are hardly ever about the story itself, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">plot</i>.
The one highly structured thing I do as I'm going along is to write a time line
just to ensure I don't bump the victim off on Friday only to have the body
discovered the previous Wednesday.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I used to worry
about my lack of a story plan, especially on the rare occasion I'd browse books
or websites that offer advice and claim to improve our chances of being
published. They always seem to emphasise how important it is to have a clear
plot summary from start to finish before we get down to the serious business of
writing, not to mention detailed profiles of all our important characters.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Oh, but it's
all so tedious, and a large part of my reason for writing is to entertain
myself. And the truth is I don't want to know from the start how the story ends
or even much about what happens along the way. If I already know, where's the thrill
in writing about it? I'm both the author and the first reader of my book. My
drive to write the next chapter comes from wanting to find out what happens
next. I hope my future readers will feel the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">I stopped
worrying when I noticed other writers whom I respect make do without detailed
story plans. E L Doctorow, the author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ragtime</i>,
said: 'Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as
your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' The best-selling
author Stephen King wrote a whole book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On
Writing </i>that resonates with me on every page. He says, 'I won't try to
convince you that I've never plotted, any more than I'd try to convince you
that I've never told a lie, but I do both as infrequently as possible.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">King talks
about his preference for putting his characters in some sort of predicament,
then watching to see how they work themselves free. His job isn't to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">help</i> them work their way free or to
manipulate them to safety but to watch what happens and write it down. That's
how I set about my work too. In my fictional worlds my principal character will
typically be involved in some form of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">escape
</i>or some form of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">search</i>, often
both. Escape and search can offer a multitude of possibilities. They lead me
and my characters on ventures that are neither pre-planned nor random but unfold
before us with varying degrees of difficulty, a network of tracks that is somehow
already present but hidden by foliage that has, in metaphorical terms, to be
hewn and navigated. Slowly we pick our way through. I've heard this called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">creative pattern recognition</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">To reference
Stephen King again, he likens writing to an archaeological dig. We come across
something - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hmm, that looks interesting </i>-
and start to dig around it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes, there is
something interesting there, let's find out more.</i> Only with very careful graft
using our writing tools can we get the whole thing out from somewhere deep
beneath the surface. It's a delicate, often slow process because we want to
keep our discovery as intact as possible. As in palaeontology some of the
pieces may need to be rearranged, others restored, but eventually our find will
be revealed in its entirety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">The process
reminds me of something I read about the artist Michelangelo. When he was about
to start a new sculpture he would stand in front of the shapeless stone staring
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">into </i>the rock until he felt he could
see an image of the statue inside. All he then had to do was to chip away, chip
away until the statue revealed itself. 'I saw the angel in the marble and
carved until I set him free,' he wrote in his notebook.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">For myself the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">chipping away </i>at my text is directed by
trying to answer a series of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if </i>questions
that emerge. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if? </i>A very useful
question for writers in search of story. The first <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if</i>, of course, kick-starts the action - people who write about
creative writing call this the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">inciting
event</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">The writer’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if </i>moment can be sparked randomly
from real life. I recently heard the crime writer Val McDermid describing just
such a moment that sparked off the idea for her best-seller <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Distant Echo.</i> She was having coffee
with a friend who told how her son, a medical student, was walking back with
his friends from a night out when they came across another bunch of lads giving
a good kicking to a youth on the ground. Being good middle class lads, they
chased the bad guys away and, being medical students, they turned back to give
the bloodied lad on the ground some assistance. Just then the police turned up.
Luckily the victim was conscious and was able to explain to the police that
these young guys had saved him. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">When Val
McDermid heard the story, immediately it became for her a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if </i>moment. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if </i>the
youth on the ground was not conscious when the police turned up to find a bunch
of drunken lads around him with blood on their hands? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">What if </i>he were dead? Right there, Val had her inciting incident
and the idea for her next novel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Once the
inciting event occurs much of one’s novel or story is devoted to the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">search </i>the event impels. Or is it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">escape</i>? Along the way a sub-plot slowly
develops, seemingly separate at first, but eventually there is a kind of
merging so that all become parts of the whole. There must be no manipulation
about this on the part of the writer - it has to be done step by step because
for the reader every step must seem inevitable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">We are in effect
on a journey in company with our characters, just as our readers will
eventually be. We may think we know your characters at the outset, but we
don't. They will let us know more fully who they are as we move along together,
just as real friends do on a long trip. Often they will take us to places we
didn't know we were going, including a brothel in my novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">11:59 </i>which is somewhere I'd like to assure you I've never been. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Some characters
whom we might imagine are just incidental, with just a walk-on part, turn out
to be fundamental to the course of the story. One of the great story-tellers
JRR Tolkien confessed that he was in despair for a while during the writing of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Lord of the Rings</i>. About a third of
the way through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Fellowship of the
Ring </i>some ruffian named Strider confronts the hobbits in an inn. Tolkien
had no idea who he was, where the book was going at this point, or what to
write next. Turns out Strider is actually Aragorn, the uncrowned king of all
the forces of good, who emerges as one of the principal characters in the book
and whose restoration to rule is one of the main engines of the plot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">In my
psychological mystery <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">As Close As You Are
To Me </i>I found myself writing about a Big Issue seller with a stubble and a
cowboy hat who calls himself Cody. He muscles his way into becoming a key
character without as much as a by-your-leave. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">11:59 </i>the anti-hero DJ Marc Niven has a sort of super-fan, Oliver,
a lad with learning difficulties who lives with his mother. I had no thought,
when I introduced him, of making Ollie perhaps the most important character
aside from Marc and one that readers always tell me is their favourite. He just
turned out that way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">The story in a
novel is all-important - it's what keeps the reader engaged - but I believe an
over-emphasis on plot when composing can lead writers to neglect their characters
or make them simply one-dimensional conduits for the plot. If instead we allow
the characters to lead the action, or rather allow both to develop in tandem,
we should end up with more rounded characters and a fuller, more credible
story. After all, that's how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">life</i> is:
we are not divided neatly into the bad guys and the good guys; we all think of
ourselves as principal characters; we are not puppets in someone else's script.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;">Indeed there is,
at least in my creed, no over-arching story in life, only those stories that we
make through our own complexities, emotions, muddles, errors of judgement,
insights and occasional acts of courage and selfless heroism. Whether in real
life or in fiction, you could say that the stories are already there inside of
us. We all have our ways of getting them out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif;"><em>A shorter version of this article by David Williams appeared under the title 'The Angel in the Marble' in the magazine of The Society of Authors 'The Author' Spring 2016.</em></span></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-49335719302795882662015-01-07T15:19:00.000+00:002015-01-07T15:19:47.156+00:00If I Only Had TimeThe current Winter issue of The Author (magazine of the Society of Authors) carries an article of mine under the heading <em>Where Do You Get Your Ideas?</em> The article is a slightly abridged version of one I originally titled <em>If I Only Had Time</em>. I thought you might like to see the full version of the article so I have included it below.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If I only had time</span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Imagine a
patient saying to a doctor at the end of a consultation, '<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> could have been a doctor you know, I've often thought about that,
but somehow I never got round to it. I've never really had the time to do it.'
Unlikely, yet substitute one profession for another - <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">writer </i>for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">doctor</i> - and
you'll find it happens a lot, or it does in my experience.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Time,
apparently, is the only essential requirement for writing a book. Oh, and
ideas, but they're no real obstacle. 'I've got a headful. The life I've had... The
stories I could tell... If I only had the time to put them down I could have a
best-seller. You should come round sometime, I'll give you plenty of ideas for
your next book. You can pay me commission.' </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I've
perfected the strained smile on hearing these words - I'm sure every writer has
- and I've learned the futility of counter-argument, though I'm often tempted
to quote the late journalist and author Gene Fowler: 'Writing is easy. All you
do is stare at a blank piece of paper until drops of blood form on your
forehead.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I guess for
most people most professions - doctor, lawyer, banker - are a mystery, but
writing is something we all do to a certain extent, if only to update our
status on Facebook. And of course we've all done creative writing - the faded
pages of the school exercise books still stacked somewhere in the loft are
testament to a talent shown from an early age - so there's no mystery to it,
and no anatomy to learn, or jurisprudence, or how to make sense of a balance
sheet. Plus, you can read a book in a couple of days so how hard can it be to
write one? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">My urge to
rage is sometimes strong: a sublimation of my inner demand to be given due
credit for all the time (yes), ingenuity, craftsmanship and sheer bloody hard
work (bordering on agony) that I've put into producing a book. I want to take
the hapless reader through every page, every line, to deconstruct and
forensically analyse, disinter the learning beneath, reveal the artist at work
(how he plays with tone, colour, variation; how brilliantly he achieves balance
and synthesis from thesis and antithesis); to hold my jewel to the light and
have my reader marvel at its distilled beauty. Sorry, am I gripping your arm
too tight? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Perhaps the
real reason I do talks is not to sell my books (another oft-crushed hope) but
to offer myself up for such examination, to lay myself open to questions that
might begin: 'I was intrigued by the way you revealed motive without needing to
express it directly in the words and thoughts of the lead characters - could
you say more about how you achieved such a feat?' Unfortunately questions like
that never occur. 'Where do you write?' 'How do you find a publisher?'
Questions like that occur. And during the post-talk tea ritual, as I wait in
shy expectation behind the pile of books that always turns out to be too optimistically
high, people sidle up to tell me of their own frustrated literary ambitions. My
excruciating chart-topper is the WI stalwart who said in all seriousness: 'I
have a fantastic idea for a novel; all I'm missing is the words. Do you do
ghost-writing?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I am
anticipating sympathetic tuts and nods from fellow writers, but as we close in
our group hug maybe we are turning our backs on an essential truth, that the
only real difference between us and the literary wannabes is that we actually
have a book or two with our names on the cover. So what? What do any of us have
a right to expect beyond a cursory nod of acknowledgement for the production of
a new work, the equivalent of a pat on the head for the boy who has done his
homework. Less perhaps, for at least the boy was given the homework by someone
who demanded it. Whoever asked us to sit down at a desk and open a vein to
write copiously in our own blood? Why should we complain about how difficult it
is to write a book when many might prefer we found it impossible. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Has there
ever been a banner headline that announced <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
world needs a new book</i>? Of course not; there are millions on offer already,
far more than the world could ever hope to read. In fact what my experience
shows is that there may be more people out there with the vague ambition to
write a book than those with any desire to read one. Or maybe they just don't
have the time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">No. I can't
let the cynic in me close this argument. I must reach for a reason, a
justification for all those hours spent on squeezing out the words and shaping
something meaningful from them. Maybe I shouldn't dismiss as unimportant the
simple fact that so many others have thought about writing a book for
themselves but <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">have never done it</i>. Their
very number suggests there is a perceived status to being <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">an</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">author </i>even if it's
somewhat below being a professional footballer or appearing on The X Factor,
among other favourites of the wishful thinker. And I should comfort myself with
the notion that if people did not spend half their time wallowing in daydreams
they might actually get around to producing something. So I'll continue smiling
as I listen to another would-be-should-be-could-have-been, I'll even nod my
head in a show of empathy while, in my mind only, I will say to my new friend: Keep dreaming the dream, but for pity's sake don't pick up the pen. We have
quite enough competition as it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-7220884066584767542014-11-19T09:09:00.000+00:002014-11-19T14:41:44.142+00:00Funny things happen at talksWhen I do talks and readings I set out to entertain the audience. They also amuse me on many occasions; here are just a few examples from the last couple of months.<br />
<br />
<strong>Deep listening</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
I received an invitation from a Rotary Club to speak at their lunchtime meeting. We all enjoyed a good traditional lunch of roast beef and yorkshire pudding followed by custard and crumble washed down by some diners with generous glasses of red wine. After a smattering of Rotary business I was welcomed and stood for my talk. I noticed, within thirty seconds of starting, that one senior Rotarian near the front was fast asleep with his mouth open, snoring gently. I pressed on regardless and enjoyed a good response from members, evidenced by a lively Q & A directly after my talk and a round of applause that awoke the sleeping Rotarian. He was immediately called upon by the President to deliver the vote of thanks which he did with alacrity, a grateful smile and fulsome praise for my excellent presentation. One of the best he'd heard, apparently.<br />
<br />
<strong>Book signing</strong><br />
<br />
I never presume that people want their books signed, always wait to be asked. One very enthusiastic lady asked me to write a message in the one she'd bought. 'Of course,' and I turned to the flyleaf with my pen poised, mentally composing something suitable for the occasion. She beat me to it, and started to dictate: 'Please write <em>Happy birthday, my darling Gemma</em>'. I wrote this down faithfully. 'Er, OK, you want me to sign this?' 'Yes, put <em>Love from Grandma xxx</em>' I added the line to her direction. 'Now do you want me to sign?' 'No, that'll be fine, thank you,' and she went off happily with her book.<br />
<br />
<strong>Sure-fire best-seller</strong><br />
<strong></strong><br />
On a regular basis I have members of the audience coming up to me after talks to tell me that they too could have been a writer, but they never had the time to put pen to paper. My all-time excruciating favourite occurred recently after a talk to the WI. A woman in her eighties rushed up to the front to collar me. 'Do you do ghost-writing?' she asked in all seriousness. 'I've got some fantastic ideas for a novel. All I'm missing is the words.'<br />
<br />
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-63309222553817197832014-10-13T11:52:00.000+01:002014-10-13T11:52:44.214+01:00As Close As You Are To Me - The Cover CompletedAs a follow-up to my last on briefing the artist and reviewing the cover image in progress, here is the completed though low-res version of the front cover for 'As Close As You Are To Me'.<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W76MpeDt5wM/VDup8zl6pTI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/iE1P_bAFD88/s1600/final_front_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W76MpeDt5wM/VDup8zl6pTI/AAAAAAAAAkQ/iE1P_bAFD88/s1600/final_front_cover.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
I'm very pleased with how the artist Peter Fussey has handled the brief. Particularly I like the treatment of the girl's hair (Alex, the lead character who observes the girl, notes especially the way the wind slightly lifts her fine, blonde hair to reveal her Maltese Cross earring), the water (always difficult to achieve in illustration - this looks fab in hi-res), and the slight scruffiness of the grass and paving, so typical of a city park. Peter has also answered my concerns about the title text possibly obscuring the image by providing a light, open font that remains clear for the reader without masking the image in any way.<br />
<br />
Not much left for the publisher to do now. We are on track for a publication launch date of 6th November. Hope you'll bear me in mind when visiting your favourite local or on-line bookshop.David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-76242328926804332712014-10-07T17:48:00.001+01:002014-10-07T17:49:01.427+01:00As Close As You Are To Me - The Cover EmergesOne of the most exciting phases in the production of a new book is your first glimpse of the cover art, especially when your publisher uses the services of such a talent as Peter Fussey, who also created my covers for<span style="color: #20124d;"><strong> </strong></span><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/11-59-David-Williams/dp/0956373356/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top" target="_blank"><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; color: #20124d;"><strong>11:59</strong></span></a> </em>and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0071YGFBQ" target="_blank"><strong><em><span style="color: #20124d;">Mr Stephenson's Regret</span></em>.</strong></a><br />
<br />
<strong><span style="background-color: white;"></span></strong><br />
Coming up with a brief for the artist can be tricky because the idea is not merely to create an attractive cover but to produce an image that will say something about the story inside and send some subtle sensory signals about the book as a whole. It's especially tricky for a psychological mystery, which the novel is, because you don't want inadvertently to provide a 'spoiler' with the choice of image, though you do hope to tease the reader's interest.<br />
<br />
For this one I felt we should produce a telling image from the first scene in the novel, which is where the inciting incident lies. The central character Alex is in a city park, in a state of abstraction. He is brought to a sort of stunned consciousness by the appearance of his daughter walking alone through the park. Why the surprise? Ruth has been dead for over a year.<br />
<br />
Here is the brief I gave to the artist:<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><em><strong>I suggest the cover artwork refers to the first
scene in the book, where Alex sees 'Ruth' in the park, though the viewpoint I'm
proposing takes us closer to the girl than he would have been from his position
on the park. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></strong></em></span></div>
<em><strong>
</strong></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><em><strong>An unseasonably warm early October day in the park.
We see in the foreground, as if we were just about able to reach out and touch
her, the head-and-shoulders back view of a young girl of 19-20 walking through
the park. We can tell she is attractive ('Swedish-looking'; think a young
Agnetha from ABBA) but we can see little of her face beyond a cheekbone and her
ear beneath her wispy blonde hair, lifted slightly by the breeze. She is
wearing a silver Maltese Cross earring with rounded edges on the cross-pieces
and a couple of short silver links, just enough for the earring to dangle
slightly. (No need to make the earring too obvious as long as it's there.) She
is wearing a simple green coat and we may just be able to see that she is carrying
a shouldered handbag with a single strap. She has a simple but elegant
affluence about her.<o:p></o:p></strong></em></span></div>
<em><strong>
</strong></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><em><strong>I'm not sure how much of the park we may be able to
see in the background, but if possible it would be good to see the suggestion
of a fountain in the distance (think Trafalgar Square fountain but very much scaled
down to city park size). In the story the girl runs her fingers through the
waters of the fountain as she passes, so the surface level would be at a height
for her to do that comfortably. <o:p></o:p></strong></em></span></div>
<em><strong>
</strong></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><em><strong>If it's difficult for perspective reasons to get
the fountain into the background I'm not too concerned - much more interested
in getting the girl right; she is very much the focus of the picture, and we
need to feel the presence of the unseen observer.</strong></em><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
Peter concentrated first on the girl, and a few days ago sent me this sketch:<br />
<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OA8zU6tZsw8/VDQRZlFWngI/AAAAAAAAAj4/iXWJkS8k56w/s1600/cover_image_first_sketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OA8zU6tZsw8/VDQRZlFWngI/AAAAAAAAAj4/iXWJkS8k56w/s1600/cover_image_first_sketch.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
I was very pleased with it - very close to my mental image of 'Ruth'. The only concern I had for a while is that we see Ruth from the rear left. In my text the girl appears from the left of where Alex is sitting in the park, and just as she enters his peripheral vision makes a turn to her left and walks away from him. Following the logic of the text we should be seeing the girl from behind her right shoulder. Peter offered to 'flip' the image but as I reconsidered I realised it is better to have the image turned 'into' the cover rather than facing out of it. As it happens, I was checking the publisher's proof at this time. My solution? A minor redraft to have the girl entering from the right of Alex in he park. Some of you may consider me very anal retentive to insist the cover image follows the logic of the narrative exactly, and of course I am aware that 99% of readers would never notice this detail, but it would bother me forever.<br />
<br />
Peter has now almost finalised the image and has sent me this near-complete version to check<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M5bi3NRuafE/VDQRdYdt5wI/AAAAAAAAAkA/DE4Yx-3E1rY/s1600/cover_image_near_completion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-M5bi3NRuafE/VDQRdYdt5wI/AAAAAAAAAkA/DE4Yx-3E1rY/s1600/cover_image_near_completion.jpg" height="320" width="234" /></a></div>
<br />
I really like this and hope the readers will too. Peter told me he planned to add some people around the fountain but I have asked him not to - I'm sure that would distract from our subject; as I said in my brief I really want the girl to be the focus of the composition.<br />
<br />
The only concern I have now is where the title and author name will go. My previous Wild Wolf novels have had my name running over the top of the image and the title running across the bottom. That worked for the previous covers but I think we may need some extension of scenery here so that the name does not obscure the head of the girl. I've raised this with the artist and I'm sure he'll come up with a good solution.<br />
<br />
So the proofs have been checked and the cover almost done. 'As Close As You Are To Me' is scheduled for publication by the end of October. We may be a week or so out but it will certainly be in the shops in good time for Christmas. I hope you have it on your list.<br />
<br />
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-82442788254832107752014-09-30T08:43:00.000+01:002014-09-30T08:43:50.508+01:0050 Stories & Snippets Extract 6<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's the latest extract from my new ebook publication for speakers and trainers in the Almost Free series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Eight Proverbs</h2>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Four things
come not back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, the neglected
opportunity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Saudi
Arabian proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Seize opportunity by the beard, for it
is bald behind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Bulgarian
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Between saying and doing many a pair
of shoes is worn out.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Italian
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">If you want
a thing done, go. If not, send. The shortest answer is doing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">English
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thinking well is wise; planning well,
wiser; but doing well is wisest and best of all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Persian
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A journey of a thousand miles starts
in front of your feet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Chinese
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The beginning is the half of every
action.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Greek
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Abundance is
from activity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Turkish
proverb<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the proverbs</span></span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">The old management truism
has it that you must 'walk the walk' not just 'talk the talk'. A clich</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">é, but it's
true.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"> An
individual or an organization may be brimming with ideas, may be ambitious for
success, but will never become truly effective unless properly organised for
action. The world (as demonstrated by the international breadth of the sources
above) is full of 'would haves', 'could haves' that go no further because of a
failure to act, to act first, or to be organized for the opportunities that
emerge from the creative process.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use these eight proverbs from around
the world to underline memorably how important it is to act as well as talk
about what you are going to do.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Famous Failures</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-950R7Krj1Fo/VCpcZIpUNcI/AAAAAAAAAjo/oOqMcHzB1TU/s1600/image015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-950R7Krj1Fo/VCpcZIpUNcI/AAAAAAAAAjo/oOqMcHzB1TU/s1600/image015.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">From artists to sports stars to world
leaders some of the most successful people in history have been labelled at an
early stage as failures or no-hopers; here are just a few of them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Fred Astaire </span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">made a
screen test for MGM in 1933. The memo from the testing director to the studio
read: '</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Can’t act. Can’t
sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.' After he made it in movies the
Hollywood star kept that memo over the fireplace in his plush Beverly Hills
home.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Lucille Ball</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> was told by the head tutor of the
John Murray Anderson Drama School, where she started studying in 1927: 'Try <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any</i> other profession.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Beatles</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> were turned down for a recording
contract by Decca Records in 1962, weeks before their first hit with EMI's
Parlophone. Decca's evaluation: 'We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars
are on their way out... The Beatles have no future in show business.' <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Michael Caine </span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">heard his </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">headmaster confidently predict: 'You
will be a labourer all your life.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Winston Churchill </span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">was
rebellious by nature and had a poor academic record, attracting censure and
punishment at three different independent schools that he attended. He also had
to overcome a speech impediment. Nevertheless he became Britain's most
celebrated Prime Minister whose stirring public speeches galvanised the war
effort. One of his most famous included the words: '</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Never give in, never give in, never,
never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give
in except to convictions of honour and good sense.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Charles Darwin</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> earned the disapproval of his father
when he gave up his medical career. He told his son: 'You care for nothing but
shooting, dogs and rat catching.' In his autobiography, Darwin wrote: 'I was
considered by all my masters, and my father, a very ordinary boy, rather below
the common standard of intellect.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Walt Disney </span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">was fired by a newspaper editor
because he 'lacked imagination and had no good ideas.' Many of his early
business ventures failed and he was bankrupted more than once. His proposal for
a theme park (Disneyland) was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds
that it would only attract riffraff.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Albert Einstein</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">did not talk until the age of four and
could not read until he was seven. His parents considered him 'sub-normal' and
he was described by a teacher as 'mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever
in foolish dreams.' He was expelled from school and refused admittance to the
Zurich Polytechnic School. He made up later for his slow start.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Vincent Van Gogh</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> sold only one painting during his
life - this was to the sister of one of his friends, for which she paid only
400 francs. Despite his commercial failure he completed over 800 paintings,
many of which are now regarded as the most valuable in the world of art, worth
many millions.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Abraham Lincoln</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> was several times unemployed in his
early working life and failed as both a businessman and a lawyer before he
turned to politics. He was defeated in his first attempt for the legislature,
defeated in his first attempt to be nominated for Congress, defeated in his
application to be Commissioner of the General Land Office, defeated in the
senatorial election of 1854, defeated in his efforts for the vice-presidency in
1856, and defeated in the senatorial election of 1858. He did, however, become
the sixteenth President of the USA and is one of the four great statesmen
commemorated by having their faces carved from rock at Mount Rushmore<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Louis Pasteur</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">as an undergraduate student was
regarded as mediocre at best, ranking fifteenth out of twenty-two students in
chemistry.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Elvis Presley</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> was fired after only one performance
at the Grand Old Opry. The venue manager Jim Denny told Elvis: 'You ain’t going
nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Babe Ruth </span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">became baseball's most famous player
for his home run record, but for years he also held the record for strikeouts.
He hit 714 home runs and struck out 1,330 times in his career. Babe was
philosophical about this: 'Every strikeout brings me closer to the next home
run,' he said.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Stan Smith</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> was rejected as a ball boy for a
Davis Cup tennis match because he was 'too awkward and clumsy'. He went on to
win Wimbledon and the US Open as well as eight Davis Cup Finals.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Frank Winfield Woolworth</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"> was not permitted to serve customers
when he worked in a dry goods store because, his boss said: 'he didn’t have
enough sense.'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 1cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the stories</span></span></h2>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 1cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">Advice from others
can be crucial in forging a career, but negative opinion can be destructive.
Fortunately what all of the people above demonstrated in abundance was a
self-belief together with a determination to progress along their chosen path.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use these examples both as a reminder
that 'expert opinion' should not always be taken at face value and, more
importantly, that success rarely comes easy but opportunities are available
where talent and focused dedication unite.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p>More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><o:p></o:p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br clear="all" style="mso-special-character: line-break; page-break-before: always;" />
</span></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-4862778025223974172014-09-24T10:02:00.002+01:002014-09-24T10:03:32.096+01:0050 Stories & Snippets Extract 5<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's the latest extract from my new ebook publication for speakers and trainers in the Almost Free series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Charlie's Dream</h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qA31iVWyHzE/VCKG8cYtDAI/AAAAAAAAAjI/JHhYZ01h3vY/s1600/image011.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qA31iVWyHzE/VCKG8cYtDAI/AAAAAAAAAjI/JHhYZ01h3vY/s1600/image011.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">It would
certainly have been no surprise if the poor English boy Charlie Chaplin, who
grew up to be the great silent movie actor and producer, had instead become in
real life the little tramp he portrayed many times on screen. His childhood was
desperately poor. Charlie's mother was eventually committed to an asylum and
Charlie himself was twice sent to the workhouse before the age of nine. Yet
throughout this time of hardship he was sustained by a dream.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">'You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret.
Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find
enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the
world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in
yourself. Without it, you go down to defeat.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Charlie
Chaplin, actor, filmmaker, writer (1889-1977)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">Charlie Chaplin's is
the archetypal rags-to-riches story and the actor is a role model of triumph
over adversity. His is an example of determination fuelled by a personal vision
and the self-confidence to reach his long-term goal.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this story to show how a clear
vision can be as important to individuals as to organizations. Dreams can be a
motivational force, a springboard to successful action, even when the odds seem
stacked against.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<h2 class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Child Within You</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </h2>
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<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">50 Stories & Snippets </span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">author David Williams and his wife
Paula were collecting their thoughts after a lively training workshop which
involved adults making models and collages as they envisioned the future. A
couple of cleaners came into the room to tidy up. Surveying the scene they
innocently asked, 'Have you been running a nursery class in here today?'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'What
a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child
and the feeble mentality of the average adult.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Sigmund
Freud, Austrian founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'Every
child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Pablo
Picasso, Spanish painter (1881-1973)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">A dynamic organization
will be constantly searching for imaginative approaches, different encounters
and new ways of thinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">A creative
environment keeps us fresh and imaginative. It encourages metaphoric thinking,
stimulates all the senses, values fun and humour, tolerates (even embraces)
risk-taking and avoids the stultifying influence of 'business as usual' habits
and practice. Sometimes it helps to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">think
like a child</i>.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this story and accompanying
quotations to show how we sometimes need to throw off the assumptions of our
adulthood to find fresh ideas. You may like to precede or follow up the story
with a participative exercise in creativity such as the one briefly described
above.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;">More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><o:p></o:p></o:p></span>
<br />
<h2 class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-11291433399000539982014-09-15T09:48:00.000+01:002014-09-15T09:48:42.595+01:0050 Stories & Snippets Extract 4<span style="font-family: Arial;">Here's the latest extract from my new ebook publication for speakers and trainers in the Almost Free series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></em><br />
<em></em><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Breaking Through</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YIbqMVAHisg/VBaepOH0e0I/AAAAAAAAAio/eBTn9maiAtI/s1600/image009.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YIbqMVAHisg/VBaepOH0e0I/AAAAAAAAAio/eBTn9maiAtI/s1600/image009.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The watching crowd marvelled and
clapped as the karate black belt instructor sliced through bricks with his bare
right hand. At the end of the performance several people came up to ask the
master how he achieved the feat. The instructor said: 'If you want to put your
hand through a brick, you cannot do it by aiming at the surface of the brick.
You have to aim at a point well beyond the brick. That way you ensure that you
strike through a surface that your body would naturally flinch from. Reach
beyond your target and you will make that target.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'It
is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the
most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at the goal itself but at
some more ambitious goal beyond it.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Arnold
Toynbee British economist, reformer (1852-1883)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">Though much maligned,
targets provide the impetus for improvement and an object of focus for action.
Problems occur when targets are either too easy to achieve, thus representing
no challenge, or are impossibly difficult, leading to frustration and a feeling
of failure. The story of the karate instructor provides an interesting angle on
the notion of a target that is more like a vision, an imagined picture of the
ideal that inspires an effort to reach just beyond what is actually needed to
ensure the effort is fully made.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this story and quotation to
reinforce the importance of creating challenging targets, beyond what you may
need to achieve in practice but not plainly out of reach.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
Changing Times</h2>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6IQeUtMPHTk/VBamoMSUWOI/AAAAAAAAAi4/vAX3hBWEg8Q/s1600/image010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6IQeUtMPHTk/VBamoMSUWOI/AAAAAAAAAi4/vAX3hBWEg8Q/s1600/image010.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Soon after taking over the role of
Chief Executive at IBM in 1993 Lou Gerstner made a company address and said: 'The
last thing IBM needs is a vision.'</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Two years later, as the computer
manufacturer was trying to survive turbulent times, Lou Gerstner declared: 'What
IBM needs right now is a vision.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">An organization
without a clear vision in times of turbulence and change is like a boat without
a rudder. Lou Gerstner's first statement may have been a pot-shot at the 1990s
fashion for management consultancy and the often hollow management-speak that
emerged from it, but he eventually realized that, stripped of verbiage, a
well-articulated vision can indeed be a driver of progress.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this story to show how good
leaders come to recognize the importance of vision, even if it sometimes takes
them a little while to get there.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-25863171198676941302014-08-26T14:08:00.000+01:002014-08-26T14:08:15.890+01:0050 Stories & Snippets Extract 3<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the latest extract from my new ebook publication for speakers and trainers in the Almost Free series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </span></a></em></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Blind Men and the Elephant</span></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-767IgevIjrI/U_yB6YH539I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/CiWpgiLy2qA/s1600/blindmenandelephant.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-767IgevIjrI/U_yB6YH539I/AAAAAAAAAiQ/CiWpgiLy2qA/s1600/blindmenandelephant.png" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It was six
men of Indostan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To learning
much inclined<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Who went to
see the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">(Though all
of them were blind)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That each by
observation<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Might satisfy
his mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>First</i>
approached the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And happening
to fall<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Against his broad
and sturdy side<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">At once began
to bawl:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'God bless
me! but the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a WALL!'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Second</i>,
feeling of the tusk,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Cried, 'Ho,
what have we here,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">So very round
and smooth and sharp?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To me 'tis
mighty clear<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This wonder
of an Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a SPEAR!'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Third</i>
approached the animal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And happening
to take<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The squirming
trunk within his hands<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Thus boldly
up and spake:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'I see,'
quoth he, 'the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a SNAKE!'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Fourth</i>
reached out an eager hand<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And felt
about the knee.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'What most
this wondrous beast is like<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is mighty
plain,' quoth he:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">''Tis clear
enough the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a TREE!' <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Fifth</i>,
who chanced to touch the ear,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Said: 'E'en
the blindest man<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Can tell what
this resembles most;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Deny the fact
who can,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This marvel
of an Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a FAN!' <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The <i>Sixth</i>
no sooner had begun<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">About the
beast to grope<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Than seizing
on the swinging tail<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">That fell
within his scope,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">'I see,'
quoth he, 'the Elephant<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Is very like
a ROPE!'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And so these
men of Indostan<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Disputed loud
and long,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Each in his
own opinion<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Exceeding
stiff and strong,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Though each
was partly in the right<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">And all were
in the wrong!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">J<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ohn Godfrey Saxe</span>, US poet (1816-1887)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Using the poem</span></span></span></h2>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span> </h2>
<br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">This classic poem and
various prose adaptations of the underlying parable have been used
metaphorically in a wide range of situations - from illustrating the
difficulties presented in medical diagnosis to discussing comparative religion
- but the common theme is a search for truth.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this poem to show how limited
observation, a particular experience, partial knowledge of a situation, or a
conditioned perspective can all affect one's viewpoint and possibly lead to
miscommunication, misunderstanding, misinterpretation or mistrust. Promote
discussion among your group by asking what the blind men of Indostan might have
done to resolve their dispute and reach a common understanding. What may come
out is the importance of seeing the bigger picture, of weighing all the
evidence before coming to a conclusion, and perhaps seeking objective advice
from an expert witness. The discussion may even widen to an exploration of the
nature of truth itself. Thus this simple witty verse lends itself both to
modest ends and, if you should wish, profound philosophical debate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
The Boulder</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iws21bd56gM/U_yDNHefb8I/AAAAAAAAAiY/loIFyGQ7G8g/s1600/image008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iws21bd56gM/U_yDNHefb8I/AAAAAAAAAiY/loIFyGQ7G8g/s1600/image008.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Noam in ancient times was a desperately
poor kingdom. People there blamed the king, comparing him to his grandfather who,
they said, ran everything so much more smoothly than this lax ruler.
Everything, it seemed, was better in the old days. In truth the young king
tried his best, but the day-to-day problems were more than he could handle
alone. He could not command support, and so the kingdom became poorer year by
year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">One morning a huge boulder appeared in
the middle of the road leading to the gates of the capital. Rich merchants and fashionable
courtiers grumbled as they walked around the rock, cursing the king for failing
to keep the roads clear and causing them to trail their cloaks in the ditch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">A peasant came along on his way to
market with a heavy sack of produce on his back. Seeing the boulder he set down
his burden and tried to move the rock to the side of the road. He strained and
struggled for over an hour under the hot midday sun. Townsfolk mocked as they
squeezed by the sweating peasant. Finally he succeeded and his red face broke
into a smile of relief and pride as the great rock rolled into the ditch.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Stepping back into the road to
retrieve his sack the peasant noticed a leather purse lying where the boulder
had been. Inside the purse he found a dozen gold coins and a note from the king
explaining that here was a reward for the person who cleared the rock from the
roadway. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">As the peasant gazed in wonder the royal coach appeared, travelling
towards the city gates. The coach stopped and the king himself opened the door.
He invited the peasant to join him, and they rode through a throng of staring
citizens to the palace where they talked into the night of ways to save the
kingdom.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">'The block of granite, which is an obstacle in the
pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong.'<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Thomas Carlyle, Scottish essayist, historian (1795-1881)</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div align="left" style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span> </h2>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">'It was much better
in the old days' is a common refrain in organizations and communities. The
tendency to hark back to some mythical golden age goes hand in hand with the
urge to blame someone for the present state of things, usually the people seen
as running the show.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span> </div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Use this story to remind everyone
listening that they need to take responsibility for problems and challenges if
they are to make progress, rather than waiting for some higher authority to
come along with a solution. The story works well when used together with the
quotation from Thomas Carlyle as it reinforces the notion that every problem
comes with a gift in its hand, the opportunity for transformation.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-50827390497613613012014-08-26T14:06:00.000+01:002014-08-26T14:06:01.763+01:0050 Stories & Snippets Extract 2<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's the latest extract from my new ebook publication for speakers and trainers in the Almost Free series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2288bb;">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </span></a></em></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Artist Inventor</span></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A0X4C7RDesc/U_WzLA7DG4I/AAAAAAAAAhw/9ynv63r6ogI/s1600/image042.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A0X4C7RDesc/U_WzLA7DG4I/AAAAAAAAAhw/9ynv63r6ogI/s1600/image042.png" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As a creative genius, the Italian
artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci was always attuned to possibility
wherever he happened to be. Just one example shows how new ideas can come from
accident, from being attuned to nature, and from combining unlikely elements to
create something entirely new.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking a walk in the open air,
Leonardo was idly throwing stones in a well, watching the ripples moving out
from the centre of the splash, when he heard a church bell ringing in the
distance. Leonardo was struck by an association between what he was seeing and
what he heard.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He later wrote in his journal: 'The
stone where it strikes the surface of the water causes circles around it which
spread until they are lost; and in the same the air, struck by a voice, also
has a circular motion, so he who is nearest hears the best and he who is most
distant cannot hear it.'<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">For Leonardo, a breakthrough occurred
the moment he realised that sound travels in waves, like the ripples spreading
out from the stone.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #7030a0;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Using the story</span></span><b><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">Dynamic individuals
and organizations will be constantly searching for imaginative approaches,
different encounters and new ways of thinking. They know that a creative
environment keeps their work fresh and imaginative. Changing that environment
often, seeking out new ways of looking at things, being open to possibility,
being ready to make unexpected associations - all help the creative process and
encourage innovation.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Use this story to show how creative
ideas can come from observations and connections you may make with the world
around you.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Big Black Door</span></h2>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-px-i-F9FjPI/U_W0t8yIgzI/AAAAAAAAAiA/Dw5pLfU73zU/s1600/image006.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-px-i-F9FjPI/U_W0t8yIgzI/AAAAAAAAAiA/Dw5pLfU73zU/s1600/image006.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A much-feared general in the
revolutionary war had the unsettling custom of giving condemned criminals a
choice between the firing squad and 'the big black door'. Most people chose the
firing squad and died in a hail of bullets. What lay beyond the big, black
door?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Freedom.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But only a few people were brave
enough to take the risk and choose the big, black door.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Our best opportunities
may stand behind the scary-looking door of the great unknown.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 1cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'When
you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the
darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen:
either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how
to fly.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: rgb(182, 221, 232); margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-background-themecolor: accent5; mso-background-themetint: 102; text-align: center; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Edward
Teller, Hungarian/US nuclear physicist (b.1908)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<h2 style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 150%; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><o:p><span style="color: #7030a0;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: #7030a0;">Using the story</span></span></span></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">When change is
proposed or a new venture is contemplated a typical response is resistance. This
may come from vested interests, a fear of the unknown, or may simply emerge
from a natural reluctance to disturb the status quo. All change means movement,
and movement creates friction.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Use this story to show how people
often miss opportunities because they fear the unknown. The key to overcoming
resistance is often to recognize the horrors people are imagining behind 'the
big black door' of change, listen carefully to those fears, work on allaying them,
and offer an alternative scenario of fresh possibility beyond the threshold.</span></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">.</span> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-16811519407596103542014-08-15T18:00:00.001+01:002014-08-15T18:10:18.677+01:0050 Stories & Snippets: Intro and Extract 1<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In addition to my creative writing (new novel coming soon) I publish, in ebook form only, a series of mini books for trainers, facilitators and speakers that I call my Almost Free series as they are on offer for a ridiculously cheap price. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'd like to introduce the latest publication in this series, available on Kindle and Nook:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><em><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank">50 Stories & Snippets for Conference & Workshop Presentations. </a></em></span><br />
<em></em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<em></em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EJ8HfCAml28/U-40v7IeH0I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/brD5sDYVWAE/s1600/50storiessnippetscover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EJ8HfCAml28/U-40v7IeH0I/AAAAAAAAAhQ/brD5sDYVWAE/s1600/50storiessnippetscover.jpg" height="320" width="226" /></span></a></div>
<em></em><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This mini-book features stories,
snippets, clippings and examples that I have found useful over the years while
presenting conferences and workshops to a wide range of organizations. It's a
companion to my compilation <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-Quotations-Business-Management-Training-ebook/dp/B004VNVGDC/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1408120987&sr=1-1&keywords=1000+Great+Quotations" target="_blank">1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training</a></i>, also available in this
Almost Free series.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">You will find in the book a motley selection,
presented alphabetically by title, but to help focus your thoughts I have
included under each entry a brief commentary and some suggestions for
appropriate use, and at the back of the book you will find a Category Index
with click-through links to relevant stories. These are for guidance only - the
usefulness of this material is limited only by your imagination.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If you are a trainer or facilitator use
these stories and quotes to enliven your sessions and underline the learning
with examples and points to ponder from a wide range of sources. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">To whet your appetite I'm going to publish a series of extracts over the next month or two of blog posts. Here are the first couple.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Aborigine</span></h2>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_lJig9YO70/U-41wxUw4xI/AAAAAAAAAhY/uOFngNWl3Gg/s1600/aborigineheadprofile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-g_lJig9YO70/U-41wxUw4xI/AAAAAAAAAhY/uOFngNWl3Gg/s1600/aborigineheadprofile.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Australia an earnest and dedicated
social worker visited a run-down aboriginal settlement to see if there was any
way she could help.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The old Aborigine leader stood
watching her as she approached his shanty. She was about to introduce herself
when he raised his hand in a gesture that commanded her silence.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He spoke imperiously: 'If you have
come here to do something for me, you are wasting your time. If you have come
here because your transformation is directly involved with mine, let’s get to
work.'</span></span><br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 1cm;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<h2 align="left" style="margin: 12pt 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Using the story</span></span></h2>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<b><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></b></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div align="left" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: left; text-indent: 0.3pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Attempts at
partnership or collaboration (whether inside organizations or across
communities) are often undermined by the failure of members to appreciate that
they do not have a monopoly of the truth. As painful as it may be, the ability
and willingness to listen carefully to the views of the people involved
(including those you may not agree with) are fundamental to success.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A true partnership is one that
accommodates diversity and assimilates all shades of views and opinions in
pursuit of a common truth.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In discussing this story you may also
find it interesting to consider the use of the words 'aborigine', 'aboriginal'
and associated terms such as 'indigenous'. Finding appropriate language,
avoiding offence while remaining aware that a 'tick-box' politically correct
mentality can itself be patronising - these are tricky issues in many areas of
communication, collaboration and culture.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The Artist</span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The great Italian artist Michelangelo
sculpted many beautiful works, such as the breathtaking marble statue of David.
Whenever he was about to start a new sculpture Michelangelo would stand before
the shapeless mass of stone, lost in contemplation. He would stare into, not
at, the stone and eventually, he said, he could see the figure trapped inside.
All he had to do then was chip away, and chip away … until the statue was fully
revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'I
saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.'<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Michelangelo,
Italian artist (1475-1564)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #7030a0;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Using the story</span><span style="line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></h2>
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<b><span style="color: #7030a0; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;">A vision, whether
individual or corporate, begins with a dream. The vision is effectively an
imagined picture of a desired outcome, just as Michelangelo conjured when he
stood in front of the shapeless rock, preparing to work on a new sculpture.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: major-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast;"></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Use this story to underline how
important it is to visualise the outcome from the start. The story also makes
the point that it still requires a great deal of painstaking work (‘chipping
away’) to ensure that the dream is realised. </span></span></div>
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More extracts to come, but if you can't wait or you want them all in one published collection you can download the book to your </span><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Snippets-Conference-Workshop-Presentations-ebook/dp/B00MO9CKYY/ref=pd_rhf_pe_p_img_1" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kindle</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> or </span><a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/50-stories-snippets-for-conference-workshop-presentations-david-williams/1120147459?ean=2940150508866&itm=1&usri=2940150508866" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Nook</span></a><span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></span> </span><br />
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-44357795555095652032014-03-16T09:45:00.000+00:002014-03-16T09:45:41.428+00:00Before I forget<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The latest issue of The Author has an article written by me, <em>Before I forget.</em> Here for blog readers is the unedited version. The events mentioned happened a while ago as I have been waiting for the publication of the magazine before posting, but the sentiment is still valid.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><strong><span style="font-family: inherit;">Before I forget</span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The other day, on the touchline of a junior
football match, a friend praised a book of mine he had read on holiday. We were
chatting, watching the game as it unfolded, and I happened to mention an
evening I'd enjoyed on the quayside in Newcastle. ‘Oh, did you see
Emmanuel there?’ my friend joked. I had absolutely no idea what he
was talking about. To my immense embarrassment, he reminded me that
Emmanuel is the street-wise villain of my Newcastle-based thriller. I felt
fraudulent, as if I was passing myself off as the author of a book written
by someone else. Certainly I felt far more dissociated from the story at
that moment than the friend who had just read it – he had a better claim
on Emmanuel and the rest of the characters of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">11:59</i> because, even though I'd lived and breathed their very
existence for eighteen months, not to mention being the sole parent of every
single one, frankly, I'd forgotten almost everything I ever knew about them.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Currently, I'm doing talks about and readings from my
novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mr Stephenson's Regret</i>. In
particular I've been talking to Women’s Institutes about the
Stephenson Women, the neglected heroines of the railway pioneers’ story. I speak
for an hour or so without reference to a crib-sheet, note-perfect. But
there is a cloud on my horizon. In a few weeks I'm scheduled to talk to The
Stephenson Locomotive Society. In my nightmares I am fielding a
barrage of questions about the specific innovations made by the
Stephensons to ensure The Rocket beat all other locomotive pretenders to
the ultimate prize at the Rainhill Trials. At the time I emerged
from my three years' research on the subject I could have faced John
Humphrys on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mastermind</i>. Not now.
At least the book is there to remind me of what I used to know (and perhaps in
the final analysis that’s why we write) but what still remains on the page, what
once seemed seared on my brain, is not after all indelible. I've moved on
to the next thing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Writers are learning’s prostitutes.
Or my kind of writer is. To all appearances we are thoroughly absorbed
in our subject, and we do take trouble to be at least superficially impressive,
but we are learning and turning tricks to get by. We keep an eye out for
glitter or material we can shine and polish. Another eye on the clock. Our work
is potentially contagious.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">More generously (while staying with the contagion
metaphor) we are carried along by temporary enthusiasms that become
unignorable inflammations; they smart and smart until they stimulate the
writing of a book, if only to ease the itch. I can't write at length about
anything until I feel that need to scratch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></o:p></span> </div>
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<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I've found you can just about blag it on the books
you've already written and almost forgotten. The real problem comes when
the itch for the next book starts before you've finished the one you are
writing. That’s where I am now. It has taken me too long, far too
long, to get to where I need to be on the psychological mystery that
emerged from a temporary obsessional interest in the subject of erotomania. The
need is not yet satisfied, but another, quite different, has
emerged from somewhere in the shadows and it’s pricking
me, pricking me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; line-height: 200%; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Married couples are
said to be subject to a seven-year-itch, the period where a possible
alternative love comes calling. Writers are serially faithless lovers, seduced
by alluring encounters with fascinating possibilities into one intense affair
after another, compelled to engage, to scratch and scratch out. As with
affairs, there is likely to be as much pain as pleasure involved. In my
experience there seems to be a three-year-itch for ‘the next big idea’. This is
what I'm suffering now. I have to resist it – I can’t let myself be
distracted. Like Odysseus on his voyage I'm up for the new experience but I
must avoid being blown off my present course. Tie me to the mast – I can't
respond to this siren now. Not yet. Not yet. </span></span></div>
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-87049062431588012372013-07-03T09:56:00.000+01:002013-07-03T09:56:00.292+01:00I love BBC Radio 4, but...The other day I was listening to a podcast from BBC Radio's <em>Archive on 4</em>, entitled <em>Writers and Radio</em>. The idea of the programme was to interview a number of British writers who were born in that pre-1950s period before television became ever-present in the British sitting room, and radio was at the heart of home entertainment. The programme explored what influence on their writing early listening to the radio might have had. Fascinating in prospect - I certainly recall and cherish its influence on me.<br />
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The more I listened, though, the more I felt that the title was a misnomer: it should have read <em>Upper Middle Class Southern Writers and Radio.</em> So BBC Radio 4. The only guests on the hour-long programme were:<br />
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Andrew Motion educated Radley College, University College Oxford<br />Alan Hollinghurst, Cranford School, Magdalen College Oxford<br />Richard Holmes, Downside School, Churchill College Cambridge<br />Posy Simmonds Queen Anne's School, Sorbonne Paris, Central School of Art & Design<br />Tessa Hadley, school unknown but another Cambridge graduate.<br />
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Each of these a welcome contributor in their own right, but what a narrow spectrum to represent 'Writers and Radio'. I was interested enough to hear one story about cosy listening to the radio at prep school but by the time it got to the third it became a little wearisome. The succession of RP voices began to meld into another so I quickly lost sense of who was whom.<br />
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Where were the Northern voices and writers of this vintage? There's a rich choice from literature and broadcasting - off the top of my head: Alan Bleasdale, Willy Russell, Alan Bennett, Victoria Wood, Barry Hines, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. This is not to mention a range of possible contributors from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.<br />
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And, considering this is an 'archive' programme why was it restricted to present-day interviews? A little research could surely have provided a rich vein of comment from writers no longer with us: Alan Plater, Alan Sillitoe, Stan Barstow, Shelagh Delaney, Keith Waterhouse, Dylan Thomas - just to provide some more top-of-the-head examples.<br />
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Perhaps the clue lies in the choice of presenter/interviewer: Susannah Clapp, co-founder of the London Review of Books.<br />
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<em>Archive on 4</em> is a luxurious sixty minutes - plenty of time to introduce a wide range of experiences from across the geographical and class divide. I'm not asking for quota representation, but in diversity we find riches.David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-3857696738245576642013-06-09T10:50:00.000+01:002013-06-09T10:50:08.677+01:00Seeing trains was like meeting my charactersShildon in County Durham may be the the only place I've been to where there seem to be more car parking spaces in the town than people. I was there to visit Shildon Locomotion, the North East outpost of the National Railway Museum, where I'll be doing some talks and readings on Sunday 11 August. I specifically wanted to go this weekend because the museum is literally rolling out some working replicas of the the engines that competed in the Rainhill trials, along with one or two important originals - locomotives featured in my novel <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Stephensons-Regret-David-Williams/dp/1907954201/ref=sr_1_1_bnp_1_pap?ie=UTF8&qid=1370699644&sr=8-1&keywords=mr+stephenson%27s+regret" target="_blank"><em>Mr Stephenson's Regret</em>.</a><br />
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My book on the Stephensons aside, I am no railway buff. Nevertheless I almost cried when I stepped into the railway yard alongside the museum to find an exact life-size replica of The Rocket being stoked up and ready to go. The engine (made for the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool-Manchester Railway opening) looked exactly as it does on the front cover of my book, and I felt as if I was meeting one of the central characters of my novel in the flesh.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B8MP6QwaWIE/UbRLbwSPWiI/AAAAAAAAAeg/60AIqBtt_LY/s1600/IMG_1113.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-B8MP6QwaWIE/UbRLbwSPWiI/AAAAAAAAAeg/60AIqBtt_LY/s320/IMG_1113.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Replica of The Rocket</td></tr>
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The Rocket moved off down the track, giving me my first full view of Locomotion No.1 parked behind it, and not the replica this time but the original engine, standing in almost the same spot from which it started its historic journey on the opening day of the Stockton and Darlington line. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Locomotion No. 1</td></tr>
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When I am doing talks I almost always read from the pages that cover the Stockton-Darlington opening. I looked upon the fine black engine today, in company with less than a dozen other visitors to the museum, and thought of the 40,000 and more who turned up on 27 September 1825 to witness the iron lady's maiden trip. Appropriately enough, as I stood watching and thinking, one of the modern trains of the Tees Valley Line came tearing by in the background, carrying passengers on the same historic route. A couple of minutes later a replica of The Planet (the first Stephenson engine to cover the Liverpool-Manchester route in less than an hour) brought a carriage-load of visitors into the museum yard the exciting way, by rail under steam power.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Replica of The Planet</td></tr>
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More excitement for me inside the museum main building when I came across Betty Stephenson's recipe book on display, written in her own hand. Betty is possibly my favourite character in the novel and she features prominently in a talk I often do for Women's Institutes on the <a href="http://writerinthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/stephenson-women.html" target="_blank">Stephenson women</a>. Robert loved his stepmother, whom he called his <em>mama</em>. She did so much to introduce him to the finer things in life - music, poetry - which were missing from the more prosaic upbringing Robert had from his father before Betty came into the family.<br />
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Also inside the museum (a respectable little offspring of the York parent) among impressive trains of varied vintage, my wife and I discovered another replica of the Rainhill Trials, Timothy Hackworth's Sans Pareil.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4FZvlGy-8aQ/UbRNIJiy9bI/AAAAAAAAAfE/hOKZpSa8qh8/s1600/IMG_1128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4FZvlGy-8aQ/UbRNIJiy9bI/AAAAAAAAAfE/hOKZpSa8qh8/s320/IMG_1128.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Replica of Sans Pareil</td></tr>
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Fine as it was in its Rainhill colours, this replica seemed to pale in comparison to the stark original which we found on display in a converted workshop next to Timothy Hackworth's cottage on the other side of town. The cottage is open to the public but it is the engine that inspires. It was a failure at Rainhill, partly because it was over the weight limit (it certainly looks much heavier than The Rocket) and partly because of a cracked cylinder (which Hackworth unfairly blamed on the Stephensons as it was made in their Forth Street workshop), but it was later improved and went into operation for a short while on the Liverpool-Manchester line.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cg2xXfYxBqI/UbRNdYfKjvI/AAAAAAAAAfM/7YSsD0_w4C4/s1600/IMG_1132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cg2xXfYxBqI/UbRNdYfKjvI/AAAAAAAAAfM/7YSsD0_w4C4/s320/IMG_1132.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The original Sans Pareil</td></tr>
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I felt a little guilty as I wandered around the Hackworth end of the Shildon experience because I don't treat him particularly well as a character in my novel. Hackworth (who was born, like George Stephenson, in Wylam) became locomotive superintendent of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. In one section of the novel Robert Stephenson blames him for his failure to overcome some of the early teething problems there. A more unpleasant argument occurs at Rainhill when Hackworth accuses the Stephensons of sabotage over the cracked cylinder. The historical fact is that Hackworth had twenty cylinders cast at Forth Street and personally chose the two best to use for his engine at Rainhill, so he only had himself to blame. I should acknowledge though (as I don't in my novel simply because it is not relevant to the narrative) that Timothy Hackworth played a significant part in ensuring that Locomotion No. 1 was in fit shape to pull the wagons on that dramatic opening day. There. I hope I can now perform my talks and readings at Shildon in good conscience.<br />
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Hope to see some of you there on Sunday 11 August. The whole Shildon Locomotion experience is free and well worth a visit.<br />
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-52156127186111528072013-06-03T13:20:00.000+01:002013-06-03T13:26:54.143+01:00Cupertino effect - the dangers of spellcheckers and autocorrectSix months ago I learned that misheard lyrics are known as mondegreens and wrote a <a href="http://writerinthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/my-favourite-mondegreens-misheard-lyrics.html" target="_blank">blog posting</a> on the subject. This week, listening to an archived podcast of the wonderful RadioLab, I learned that there is a term for the tendency of a spellchecker or autocorrect facility to come up with inappropriate words to replace words that are mis-spelled, or at least are not in its dictionary. This is the Cupertino effect.<br />
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The effect was named by writers and translators for the European Union who found that early spellcheckers could not recognize the word <em>cooperation </em>unless it was hyphenated. Instead they would routinely replace the word with <em>Cupertino</em>, the name of a Californian city which happens to be where Apple Inc is headquartered. A problem arose when an author would run an automated spellcheck on a document then fail to proof-read what the spellchecker may have 'corrected'. Even now you can come across archived official documents that contain strange phrases such as:<br />
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<em>The Cupertino with our Italian comrades proved to be very fruitful.</em><br />
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<em>South Asian Association for Regional Cupertino</em><br />
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<em>...stimulating cross-border Cupertino.</em><br />
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Mistakes can also occur as a result of the spellchecker failing to correct a word because they recognize it from a different context. That's the premise of a lovely little spellchecker poem written a good few years ago now by Janet Minor, who describes herself as an 'internet poet'.<br />
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<em>I have a spelling checker</em><br />
<em>It came with my PC;</em><br />
<em>It plainly marks four my revue</em><br />
<em>Mistakes I cannot sea.</em><br />
<em>I've run this poem threw it,</em><br />
<em>I'm sure your pleased too no, </em><br />
<em>Its letter perfect in it's weigh,</em><br />
<em>My checker tolled me sew.</em><br />
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Though spellcheckers tend to be a little more sophisticated these days it is still dangerously easy to get into difficulties if you are not careful about how your spellchecker corrects common words that you may have slightly mis-spelled. Examples I have seen quoted include:<br />
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<em>definitely </em>mis-spelled as <em>definately </em>corrected to <em>defiantly</em><br />
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<em>acquainted </em>mis-spelled as <em>aquainted </em>corrected to <em>aquatinted.</em><br />
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Foreign expressions and names can cause a problem for English language spellcheckers. A lawyer using the Latin phrase <em>sua sponte </em>('of one's own accord') found the phrase corrected to <em>sea sponge</em>. A Reuters report referring to Pakistan's <em>Muttahida Quami Movement </em>was changed by a spellchecker to read <em>Muttonhead Quail Movement</em>.<br />
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One of the best examples of automated name changes I've seen comes from a student yearbook published by a high school in Middletown, Pennsylvania. The student register should have included these real names:<br />
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<em>Max Zupanovic</em><br />
<em>Kathy Carbaugh</em><br />
<em>Alessandra Ippolito</em><br />
<em>William and Elizabeth Givler</em><br />
<em>Cameron Bendgen</em><br />
<em>Courtney and Kayla Hrobak</em><br />
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But those students would have looked in vain for their names. The spellchecker had 'corrected' them to:<br />
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<em>Max Supernova</em><br />
<em>Kathy Airbag</em><br />
<em>Alexandria Impolite</em><br />
<em>William and Elizabeth Giver</em><br />
<em>Cameron Bandage</em><br />
<em>Courtney and Kayla Throwback</em><br />
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Sometimes individuals and organizations create their own correction problems by customising their spellcheck software. To introduce the first example, let me ask you to make the connection between these two images:<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXoCOdzKCho/UaxkbvXZgZI/AAAAAAAAAd0/O_vOS4pzMcs/s1600/queen+elizabeth+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dXoCOdzKCho/UaxkbvXZgZI/AAAAAAAAAd0/O_vOS4pzMcs/s1600/queen+elizabeth+II.jpg" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ZkuJeYi1Mc/UaxkgLe5UXI/AAAAAAAAAd8/jTijQZuWJKA/s1600/queen+bee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4ZkuJeYi1Mc/UaxkgLe5UXI/AAAAAAAAAd8/jTijQZuWJKA/s1600/queen+bee.jpg" /></a></div>
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Reuters of London's stylebook instructs its journalists reporting on the monarch of England always to use her full name 'Queen Elizabeth' rather than 'the Queen'. As a reminder or reinforcement Reuter's spellcheck software is customised to autocorrect to the default convention. A problem occurred with a news release in October 2006 about the genetic code of the honey bee. No-one spotted before publication that the article included the following odd phrases:<br />
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<em>With its highly evolved social structure of tens of thousands of worker bees commanded by Queen Elizabeth, the honey bee genome could also improve the search for genes linked to social behaviour.</em><br />
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<em>Queen Elizabeth has 10 times the lifespan of workers and lays up to 2,000 eggs a day.</em><br />
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Even more amusing, in my view, is the 2008 headline that read:<br />
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<em>Homosexual eases into 100m final at Olympic trials</em><br />
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This was a delicious error perpetrated by the far right fundamentalist Christian group, the American Family Association (AFA). Their website re-posts news of interest, but heavily censored for content. This group's autocorrect facility is set to alter the word 'gay' to 'homosexual', apparently because 'gay' is not a word they wish to see associated with a practice they regard as abhorrent. <br />
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The article in question, however, was about the American sprinter Tyson Gay, who easily won his semi-final at the Olympic trials. According to The AFA version of the article:<br />
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<em>Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has... "It means a lot to me," the 25-year-old Homosexual said: "I'm glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me."</em><br />
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The news director later told a reporter: "We took the filter out for that word" after Tyson Homosexual surfaced on the site. "We don't object to the word <em>gay </em>except when it refers to people who practise a homosexual lifestyle."<br />
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That's all right, then.<br />
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I began by saying that the Cupertino effect as named was a problem for early spellcheckers, but the general danger still exists not only for PC users but perhaps especially for modern texters whose fingers sometimes work faster than their brains. Predictive text and Smartphones with dictionary supported keyboards that can automatically replace 'mistakes' may be a help or a hindrance. I'll leave you with a link to Damn You Autocorrect and its list of <a href="http://www.damnyouautocorrect.com/13603/the-25-funniest-autocorrects-of-dyacs-first-year/" target="_blank">25 Funniest Autocorrects.</a> They are a caution. <br />
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Now I'd better proof-read this carefully before posting - you just can't trust those damn spellcheckers.<br />
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<br />David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-46644093966580176172013-05-13T15:04:00.000+01:002013-05-13T15:04:28.729+01:00New ways to make writing and journalism payLet me say immediately that the examples I've quoted below are not drawn from my own research. I'm merely providing a synopsis of a very good booklet <span style="color: black;"><em>Help Yourself</em></span> by Tim Dawson and Alex Klaushofer which was commissioned by and available from an organisation of which I am a member, The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society <a href="http://www.alcs.co.uk/" target="_blank">(ALCS)</a>. Also, as this is a UK body, the examples are mostly from the UK, though I would very much like to hear about other examples from around the world.<br />
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The authors note how the move to digital content is transforming the worlds of publishing and journalism but rather than simply bemoan the loss of traditional markets they show by these examples how some have seen the revolution as an opportunity to find new ways of making their writing pay, or at least move into a position where there could be a paying proposition in the near future.<br />
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<strong><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.theblizzard.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Blizzard</a></span></strong> A pay-what-you-like football quarterly available in print or electronically. Launched in May 2011 by editor and co-owner Jonathan Wilson, this is a publication for the 'thinking fan', running articles of up to 13,000 words on the state of football (soccer) throughout the world. The USP is that readers can opt to pay a quarterly subscription of as little as a penny, plus post and packing for the print edition, though the recommended price is £12. The digital edition is available at £3 per quarter. Contributors, some of whom are well-known sports journalists, are paid (admittedly below the traditional market rate) and the magazine has already built enough of a committed readership prepared to pay enough to make the venture profitable. Almost all of the marketing is done through social media.<br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://issuu.com/carltonreid/docs/bike_to_work_book_revised_expanded" target="_blank"><strong>Bike To Work</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">An ebook funded by advertising. Carlton Reid, a former editor and publisher of trade cycling magazine <em>BikeBiz</em>, persuaded enough advertisers to invest in his new idea to create a full colour 112-page magazine for those who bike to work or want to, and to offer it for free. By 2012 Reid's book had ben downloaded 350,000 times and generated more than £25,000 in advertising revenue. In the same vein, Reid is now completing <strong><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.roadswerenotbuiltforcars.com/author/carltonreid/" target="_blank">Roads Are Not Built For Cars</a></span></strong>, which will be available in the summer of 2013. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://disabilitynewsservice.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Disability News Service</strong></a></span><span style="color: black;"> John Pring is the founder editor of this small subscription news agency which serves the disability sector. Subscribers pay up to £350 each month for a batch of news stories Pring researches, writes and delivers every Friday. Clients have a non-exclusive right to use their stories on their websites and in their printed publications. Started in April 2009, the business was slow to get off the ground but now has twenty regular subscribers, generating revenues of £18,000-£20,000 a year.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.theambler.co.uk/" target="_blank"><strong>The Ambler</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">A grant-funded community newspaper and daily updated website. The paper is produced by the Amble Development Trust with the aim of revitalising this Northumberland village as its traditional coal mining and fishing industries have declined or disappeared. It also provides a community forum and volunteering opportunities - indeed most of the stories are written by volunteers. Every house and business in Amble and beyond receive a copy of <em>The Ambler</em> free. The print costs of £1,200 per issue are met by advertising while the business is underpinned by funding agencies such as the Sir James Knott Trust and the local council. A similar venture in South Wales, the </span><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.lnpt.org/" target="_blank"><strong>Port Talbot MagNet</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">is currently sustained by a research grant from the Media Standards Trust. Another is <strong><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.filtonvoice.co.uk/" target="_blank">Filton Voice</a></span></strong>, described as a sustainable hyperlocal magazine for a well-defined area of Bristol - the key to succes here is in offering affordable advertising for the opportunity to get right into one particular neighbourhood, supported by good editorial content relevant to the target audience.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://order-order.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Guido Fawkes</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">At the other end of the scale to community newspapers is the Guido Fawkes website, a mix of insider gossip and invective about the political class which has been published by Paul Staines since 2004. His site attracts more than two million visitors a month and generates average monthly advertising revenue in excess of £4,000. He makes roughly the same again selling stories to the print media and from his regular column in the Daily Star. Staines says himself, "I don't know anyone else who is making proper money from blogs - by which I mean six figures or more."</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/feature.html?ie=UTF8&docId=1000694083" target="_blank"><strong>Kindle Singles</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">Amazon's Kindle Singles format is intended to bridge the gap between magazine articles, which are rarely over 5,000 words long, and books, which are generally upward of 60,000 words. 'Compelling ideas expressed at their natural length' is the tagline Amazon uses, and there is clearly a market as over two million Singles have been sold <span style="color: black;">since</span> their launch in January 2011. This could be the model for long-form journalism in the future, though in the UK currently the most successful Singles authors have been writers of fiction, including Kerry Wilson, a debut novelist from Lancashire whose novel <em>Locked In</em> has notched up sales of several hundreds of thousands since its publication as a Kindle Single in 2011. </span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.how-to-play-bass.com/" target="_blank"><strong>How To Play Bass</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">Making use of YouTube, Paul Wolfe's online subscription bass guitar tutorial is making more than £70,000 a year, and growing. Wolfe is systematic about choosing which video clips to record and upload by first checking with people in his target profile what their 'pain points' are (specific needs they are struggling to fulfil), secondly searching on YouTube himself to see if those needs are met by others and, if not, devising videos to address those specific points. He also sells clients additional bass guitar-related courses and materials from his website. "YouTube is a fantastically powerful way to drive an audience to your site," Wolfe says.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.touchpress.com/titles/skulls/" target="_blank"><strong>Skulls</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">Published first as an enhanced ebook and only later followed by a lavish print edition, Simon Winchester's <em>Skulls</em>, published by Touchpress, proves that digital and physical book can be mutually complementary, each cross-fertilising the sales of the other. The enhanced edition features over 300 animal and human skulls which are rotatable at the touch of an iPad. The images are accompanied by essays read by Winchester, an interview with the skull collector Adam Dudley and other features such as the option to view the skulls in 3D. The print edition, published nearly a year later than the ebook in October 2012, builds on the back of the success of the many-times downloaded app.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://www.sailracingmagazine.com/" target="_blank"><strong>Sail Racing Magazine</strong></a> </span><span style="color: black;">Launched in January 2011, <em>Sail Racing</em> may be the first back-bderoom iPad magazine. Within eighteen months Justin Chisholm's app had been downloaded 85,000 times and hundreds of new readers are being added every week. Chisholm, a freelance writer for a decade before he started this new project, began with £10,000 capital and relied mainly on word of mouth to build his readership, although he did undertake some advertising on Facebook and is a keen user of social media to get his marketing message across. Beating many of the established sailing titles into the app store, he was able to attract some big brand advertising - now those titles are trying desperately to catch up.</span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://beststory.ca/" target="_blank"><strong>Beststory</strong></a><strong> </strong></span><span style="color: black;">This Canadian-based news site offers premium journalism with no advertising. Feature-length stories, which range from 1,500 to 12,000-plus words, cover a broad range of social, political and cultural affairs, all exclusive to the site, and offered to readers on a pay-as-you-go basis. The driving idea of founder Warren Perley is to educate readers about the need to pay for good writing. </span><span style="color: black;">Subscription costs are modest - following a free teaser, readers pay a fee of 40 cents to access the full story. There are three packages available: the lowest a bundle of three stories at $1.20 and the highest $10 worth of articles. Contributors earn a royalty of around 25%, with copyright protected by digital locks on the full-length stories.</span><br />
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<em>Do you know of any more good examples of new ways to make writing and journalism pay? If so, leave a comment and point us in the right direction.</em><br />
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-8274733733103181152013-03-18T15:56:00.000+00:002013-03-18T16:37:53.344+00:00Confused comicsHere's a little anagram quiz for you. My son Joe wrote the first five as part of a Comic Relief quiz he set at work, and I added five for him to have a go at. The answer to each anagram is the name of a stand-up comedian. Answers are in the first Comment. Good luck.
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1. LEAD NAVEL<br />
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2. REAL MINTY CHEMIC<br />
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3. A HINDI SPARK SHOP<br />
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4. KING EVER BIDS<br />
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5. TRY COP RULE<br />
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6. ANDY NORMAL<br />
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7. ONE IDLE FLING<br />
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8. A NOON CHARMER<br />
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9. OLDER, BRIGHT<br />
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10 HURL DIE, TEN GRAND<br />
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<br />David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-35989125179965570222012-12-24T10:29:00.000+00:002012-12-24T10:29:55.966+00:00A model of The RocketOne of the nice things about being a writer is that occasionally someone who likes your work will contact you to say so, and often will bring a new perspective or something interesting from their world into yours. Such has been the case with my novel <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mr-Stephensons-Regret-David-Williams/dp/1907954201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1356343425&sr=8-1" target="_blank">Mr Stephenson's Regret</a> which has prompted a fair degree of welcome correspondence since its publication, including some fascinating emails from North East railway enthusiast Colin Moran. <br />
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Like me, Colin is dismayed that North Tyneside Council have not seen fit to preserve long-time Stephenson residence Dial Cottage in West Moor as a visitor attraction in the way the National Trust have done so well with George Stephenson's birthplace in Wylam, Northumberland. Colin is currently conducting a one-man campaign on the issue, and I support him every step of the way. <br />
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What I did not know about Colin until a few days ago is that he also constructs model replicas of some of the locomotives that have been so important in our railway heritage. The other day he sent me pictures of his model of Stephenson's<em> Rocket </em>which I'm so impressed with that I wanted to share them with readers of this blog. Colin has kindly given me permission, and so I reproduce some of the interesting images below. I don't know anything about model railways, so I'll simply copy what Colin had to say about his model:<br />
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<em>Thought you may be interested in viewing my " Rocket " which l think is<br />quite spectacular in detail and finish. Notice the rails are very different<br />from today. They were called " Fish Belly " because of their curved shape<br />between the stone supports. The rails were tied together by bars to keep<br />the gauge. This was before sleepers were conceived shortly after the<br />Liverpool/ Manchester became operative.</em></div>
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<em>A clever man in Birmingham made the rails in moulded brass section, in<br />exactly the way the original cast iron rails were cast. I had the plinth<br />made and put all the the parts including cutting the blocks together. The<br />loco is a full working steam machine identical to the real thing in every<br />detail, although never steamed as l said. Its simply too good to soil, and<br />will remain l think in that condition, even after me some day. </em></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RpI0jrmPZAs/UNgtQLwKy9I/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHf23J2G8-Q/s1600/Rocket3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RpI0jrmPZAs/UNgtQLwKy9I/AAAAAAAAAc4/HHf23J2G8-Q/s320/Rocket3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Thanks again, Colin. These look wonderful.<br />
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-53663645883984666552012-12-17T15:24:00.000+00:002012-12-17T15:24:07.552+00:00Write wit 3<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here is the third in my series of quotes about writing by writers. For the others, see </span><a href="http://writerinthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/write-wit.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write wit</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and </span><a href="http://writerinthenorth.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/write-wit-2.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write wit 2</span></a><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude
and then finds endless ways to squander it.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Don Delillo </span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My passions drive me to the
typewriter every day of my life, and they have driven me there since I was
twelve. So I never have to worry about schedules. Some new thing is always
exploding in me, and it schedules me, I don’t schedule it. It says: Get to the
typewriter right now and finish this.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
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</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ray Bradbury</span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span> </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cAHulhNpJcg/UM81o5_WWdI/AAAAAAAAAb8/5wXS9rINZm8/s1600/mayaangelou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cAHulhNpJcg/UM81o5_WWdI/AAAAAAAAAb8/5wXS9rINZm8/s1600/mayaangelou.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maya Angelou</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></o:p></span></i> </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">I’ve had
the same editor since 1967. Many times he has said to me over the years or
asked me, Why would you use a semicolon instead of a colon? And many times over
the years I have said to him things like: I will never speak to you again.
Forever. Goodbye. That is it. Thank you very much. And I leave. Then I read the
piece and I think of his suggestions. I send him a telegram that says, OK, so
you’re right. So what? Don’t ever mention this to me again. If you do, I will
never speak to you again.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Maya Angelou</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tips for a short story writer:</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<ol start="1" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Use the time of a
total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was
wasted.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Give the reader at
least one character he or she can root for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every character should
want something, even if it is only a glass of water.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every sentence must do
one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Start as close to the
end as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Be a sadist. No matter
how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen
to them-in order that the reader may see what they are made of.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write to please just
one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak,
your story will get pneumonia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></li>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<li class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Give your readers as
much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense.
Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where
and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches
eat the last few pages.</span></span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Kurt Vonnegut</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an unmoored life like mine,
sleep and hunger and work arrange themselves to suit themselves, without
consulting me.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kurt Vonnegut</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i> </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qBVGB4Icyx8/UM82gaozExI/AAAAAAAAAcE/8v41sirnIXs/s1600/ErnestHemingway2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qBVGB4Icyx8/UM82gaozExI/AAAAAAAAAcE/8v41sirnIXs/s1600/ErnestHemingway2.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ernest Hemingway</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">All my
life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p></o:p></span></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ernest Hemingway<o:p></o:p></span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There
isn’t any symbolism. The sea is the sea. The old man is an old man. The boy is
a boy and the fish is a fish. The sharks are all sharks no better and no worse.
All the symbolism that people say is shit. What goes beyond is what you see
beyond when you know.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ernest Hemingway</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The most
essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof shit detector. This
is the writer’s radar and all great writers have had it.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ernest Hemingway</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">If there
is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been
able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.
The formula seems to lie solely in the aching urge of the writer to convey
something he feels important to the reader. If the writer has that urge, he may
sometimes, but by no means always, find the way to do it. You must perceive the
excellence that makes a good story good or the errors that makes a bad story.
For a bad story is only an ineffective story.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Steinbeck</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Abandon
the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and
write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are
always surprised.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">John Steinbeck</span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">You never
have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Saul Bellow</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Write
with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephen King</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fiction
is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephen King</span></span></i><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but
should finish in the reader’s.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Stephen King</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></i> </div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f8HNUJwxc0M/UM83aEUwiGI/AAAAAAAAAcM/u1btD6-pufA/s1600/tomwolfe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f8HNUJwxc0M/UM83aEUwiGI/AAAAAAAAAcM/u1btD6-pufA/s1600/tomwolfe.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tom Wolfe</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span></i> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">The
problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That’s not true with non-fiction.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tom Wolfe</span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Write
without pay until somebody offers pay; if nobody offers within three years,
sawing wood is what you were intended for.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mark Twain</span></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There’s
nothing wrong with well-made, strongly constructed, purposeful long sentences.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But long
sentences often tend to collapse or break down or become opaque or trip over
their awkwardness.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re
pasted together with false syntax.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And rely
on words like ‘with’ and ‘as’ to lengthen the sentence.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">They’re
short on verbs, weak in syntactic vigor,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Full of
floating, unattached phrases, often out of position.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And worse
— the end of the sentence commonly forgets its beginning,</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">As if the
sentence were a long, weary road to the wrong place.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Verlyn Klinkenborg</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Serious
writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than
journalists, though less interested in money.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">George Orwell</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">All
writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives
there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a
long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if
one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor
understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes
a baby squall for attention.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">George Orwell</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Every
page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not
always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and
small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer’s
skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs and keeps our
interest has everything to do with those choices.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Francine
Prose</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A girl pushing a carpet sweeper
under my typewriter table has never annoyed me particularly, nor has it taken
my mind off my work, unless the girl was unusually pretty or unusually clumsy.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EB White</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">A writer who waits for ideal
conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EB White</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There are very few thoughts or
concepts that can’t be put into plain English, provided anyone truly wants to
do it. But for everyone who strives for clarity and simplicity, there are three
who for one reason or another prefer to draw the clouds across the sky.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EB White</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span></i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Often a word can be removed without destroying the
structure of a sentence, but that does not necessarily mean that the word is
needless or that the sentence has gained by its removal. If you were to put a
narrow construction on the word ‘needless,’ you would have to remove tens of
thousands of words from Shakespeare, who seldom said anything in six words that
could be said in twenty. Writing is not an exercise in excision, it’s a journey
into sound. How about ‘tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’*? One tomorrow would
suffice, but it’s the other two that have made the thing immortal.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><em><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">EB White</span></em></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><em><span style="color: black;"></span></em></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"></span> </div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W7_wY26qnxA/UM84MV8RBXI/AAAAAAAAAcU/beYlnDwfCmY/s1600/susansontag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W7_wY26qnxA/UM84MV8RBXI/AAAAAAAAAcU/beYlnDwfCmY/s1600/susansontag.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Susan Sontag</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The only story that seems worth
writing is a cry, a shot, a scream. A story should break the reader’s heart.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Susan Sontag</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; letter-spacing: -0.75pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;">Breathe
in experience, breathe out poetry.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p> </o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Muriel Rukeyser</span></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Writing
is only a substitute for living.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">Florence Nightingale<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></i></div>
<span style="color: black; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-GB;"><o:p><span style="color: black;"> </span></o:p></span></i></div>
David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-21889281644556262632012-12-13T13:29:00.000+00:002012-12-13T13:29:07.887+00:00All shall be published
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">In the latest issue of <em>The Author </em>(official magazine of The Society of Authors) I have an op-ed piece about digital publishing and its possible consequences for the professional writer. In the magazine my contribution has the title 'Indiscriminate tide'. I have reproduced the article below under its original title 'All shall be published'.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Around about
the time of the liberal, permissive (and much-missed) 1960s a well-worn expression
was 'All shall have prizes'. This encapsulated the philosophy that
participation was more important than competition. In certain circles the
notion of winners and losers became anathema as it was too hard on the losers
and discouraged involvement. Too great an emphasis on high standards would act
as a disincentive to the mediocre - that is, most of us. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">There was a
certain logic to these ideas, but the counter-argument was that there was no
reward for genuine ability and hard work, and less motivation for the highly
skilled. Also, when the time inevitably came for selection (for university, for
serious sport, for a job) how could selectors effectively discern who among the
crowd was the real star, the person they needed?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">This is a
preamble to my thinking about the way publishing seems to be going. These days
it has never been harder or easier to be published. On the one hand mainstream
publishers are ever more nervous of trusting new talent, or even moderate
successes of the past, relying instead on high profile established names and
increasingly on celebrities for their publishing and marketing efforts. On the
other hand, through Amazon, Smashwords and the rest, it is possible for anyone
who wishes it were so to be published, at least in digital form, without any
real expenditure and, significantly, without any quality standard or objective
test of merit. Marketing, of course, is left entirely to the authors.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">With what
seems to be the inevitable demise of printed books in the near or long term in
favour of the ebook format, and the correlative decline of the traditional
apparatus (agents, publishers, bookshops) what we will be left with is a few
huge digital bookstores. The good news for the would-be author is that it will
be the easiest task in the world to self-publish and present in these
bookstores - the new axiom is 'All shall be published.' No need now for those
mind-cudgelling synopses and tricky pitches; no more dollars and pounds spent
posting heavy manuscripts to every possible contact in the Writers' &
Authors' Yearbook; no more waiting weeks and months for a reply; no more
rejection slips; no more disappointment.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Who would
deny any writer the pleasure of seeing their work in print? Who could object
that good writers with interesting stories who would otherwise be ignored by a
celebrity-obsessed publishing sector should be given the opportunity to show
the reading public what they can do, what they have done? Surely no-one: but
when the barriers are down aren't we all - writers and readers alike - in
danger of being drowned in the flood? How is any writer - good, bad or
indifferent - going to be able to keep her head above water? to be spotted? to
be picked out? to be read?</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">If the answer
is word of mouth - or viral attention in digital-speak - I fear for the future
of careful quality writing and editing. <i>Infinite Shades of Grey</i>, it
seems, is what we have to look forward to.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It's true
there never was a Golden Age, and in writing as in other forms of the arts
excellence rarely equates with popularity - which is why quality newspapers
generally struggle to achieve a circulation that will keep them financially
sound, and why few first-rate authors ever make it to the Rich List - but until
recently it was just about possible to make a living. Now, apart from the
difficulties of gaining attention in a world where the noise-to-signal ratio
produces so much distortion, there is the growing problem of perceived value.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The price of
ebooks is generally way below their printed cousins (of course the production
costs are much less) and the tendency is very much southwards. Hundreds of
thousands of ebooks are available for free, either permanently or temporarily. Price
promotions and heavy discounts are the norm, whether from the giants of
distribution (Amazon, Sony) or directly from the digital publishers. One of my
own publishers, Wild Wolf, regularly offers free downloads on its titles for the
short term promotional gain the tactic provides - and I have personally
benefited from a modest upsurge in real sales after the promotion ceases. But
the cumulative effect is to devalue the printed word in general. As customers
we are conditioned to become highly resistant to paying much, if at all, for
what we read.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The amateur
author may be quite happy to place a zero price tag on his ebook in the hope of
winning readership, and there is no gainsaying that. Except we all have
children to feed. The professional has somehow to make a living, but the
prospect of doing so is receding rapidly for most. High quality writing does
not come exclusively from the full-time professional - of course not - but just
as professional sportspeople tend to be those at the peak of excellence because
a) they have been through a careful, rigorous selection process and b) they
hone their skills all day and every day, such is the general case for writers.</span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">It would be
to the detriment of mankind if economic exigency led to the literary art
becoming once again the exclusive pursuit of the leisured or moneyed classes,
or relegated to the province of the casual amateur. Ironically, what might be
seen on the one hand as the democratisation of publishing in the digital age,
accessible to all, could have the unintended effect of pushing us back into a
pre-democratic age of inequality with the doors firmly shut on the aspiring
professional.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2006271757516922734.post-64795662720270581922012-11-22T15:25:00.001+00:002012-11-22T15:25:27.003+00:00Library lines<br />
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Encouraged by the Society of Authors and New Writing North I've become interested in the <a href="https://twitter.com/SNLcoalition">Save Newcastle Libraries</a> campaign. Of course libraries are important to me now in my role as a writer - for research, as places in which I do talks, and as repositories of my books; and I have worked several times on behalf of Newcastle Libraries centrally, in branches and in the community - but my love of libraries goes back to early days in the old Ashington Library behind the Post Office. I've been searching in vain for pictures but I believe the building (which must have originally been a large house) still exists near the present library and I guess is owned by Northumberland County Council.<br />
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I remember the small junior library at the back of the building, the much larger adult library forbidden to us children, and the reading room upstairs which was also forbidden until we got to the Grammar School at the age of 11 and were allowed up there on the pretext of doing homework. I recall the first time I stepped up the staircase to the reading room holding on to the varnished brown banister in a confusion of thrill and fear, a feeling that I was encroaching on hallowed ground, that I was being regarded with suspicion bordering on rage by the library guardians downstairs, that I had no right to be making the journey, but that the journey itself was an exciting sort of treasure hunt for books I'd never set eyes on before, shelves I'd never had the opportunity to explore.<br />
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I remember, too, being so proud of my library tickets - it was either two or three small wallet-style tickets that could fit into each other, one for each book we could borrow - and especially when I was finally able to exchange the (pale green?) Junior tickets for the (blue?) Adult ones. Now I think of it, I believe we were allowed two tickets as Juniors and three as Adult readers. The old-style cards - which had the member's name handwritten and a date of expiry - were later replaced by a rather boring rectanglar charcoal-grey block of a card with no personal details, and of course in recent times by barcoded plastic. <br />
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Above all, though, what I remember as a child reader is being lost in whatever world I'd brought back with me between the covers of my library book. Worlds I could never have visited without that library portal to enter whenever I chose (opening hours allowing).<br />
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Although my mother was also an avid reader and like me a regular library visitor, there were no books in our house beyond comic annuals, a couple of dictionaries and a Bible. I'm sure the same could be said of virtually every one of the workers' homes in Ashington and other working class communities - in fact I remember as a student teacher reading a statistic from the then recently-published 1967 Plowden report on Education that the average home had only five books in it, including a dictionary and Bible. Labouring families at the time would not have dreamed of spending part of their hard-earned wages on books to keep. That's why the library was important to me, and millions like me. And why would it be different today, despite the obvious technological developments that have made reading material apparently more easily available? There were bookshops in my day, but we didn't visit them. There's a world of difference between possible and reachable, between available and availed.<br />
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In support of my argument for preserving and protecting libraries I have been collecting some thoughts on the subject from past and present authors and assorted creative types. I offer them below as evidence.<br />
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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. <br />
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<em>Marcus Tullius Cicero (statesman, scholar and orator)</em><br />
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Come, and take choice of all my library,<br />
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And so beguile thy sorrow. <br />
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<em>William Shakespeare (dramatist and poet)</em><br />
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When I step into this library, I cannot understand why I ever step out of it. <br />
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<em>Marie de Sevigne (diarist)</em><br />
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I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. <br />
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<em>Jorge Luis Borges (poet and short-story writer)</em><br />
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I love the architecture of public libraries, the very large windows. Inside it’s polished, it’s quiet; during the day, the sun is usually streaming through one room or another. And all the people are sitting there together, but they’re all going to completely different places through the books they’re reading.<br />
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<em>Maira Kalman (artist and author)</em><br />
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A library is not simply a repository of books, it is the symbol and centre of our culture - a door and a window for those who might not otherwise have such doors and windows.<br />
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<em>Amy Tan (author)</em><br />
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The library … is no mere cabinet of curiosities; it’s a world, complete and completable, and it is filled with secrets. Like a world, it has its changes and its seasons, which belie the permanence that ordered ranks of books imply. Tugged by the gravity of readers’ desires, books flow in and out of the library like the tides. <br />
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<em>Matthew Battles (Harvard rare books librarian)</em><br />
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I go into my library, and all history unrolls before me. <br />
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<em>Alexander Smith (poet)</em><br />
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To a historian libraries are food, shelter, and even muse. <br />
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<em>Barbara Tuchman (historian)</em><br />
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Everything you need for better future and success has already been written. And guess what? All you have to do is go to the library. <br />
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<em>Jim Rohn (management speaker and author)</em><br />
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Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. <br />
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<em>Germaine Greer (author and campaigner)</em><br />
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My alma mater was books, a good library . . . I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.<br />
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<em>Malcolm X (political activist)</em><br />
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When I got my library card, that's when my life began.<br />
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<em> Rita Mae Brown (author)</em><br />
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The privilege we have in this country to borrow books from our public libraries is quite wonderful, really. It empowers all of us to keep on learning and exploring throughout our lives. That’s very special, because life is all about growing, changing and opening ourselves up to new ideas and information. <br />
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<em>Elizabeth Taylor (actor)</em><br />
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We all love to hear a good story. We save our stories in books. We save our books in libraries. Libraries are the storyhouses full of all those stories and secrets. <br />
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<em>Kathy Bates (actor)</em><br />
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Of the boys who worked in the reference library a surprising number must have turned out to be lawyers, and I can count at least eight of my contemporaries who sat at those tables in the 1950s who became judges. A school – and certainly a state or provincial school – would consider that something to boast about, but libraries are facilities; a library has no honours board and takes no credit for what its readers go on to do but, remembering myself at 19, on leave from the army and calling up the copies of Horizon to get me through the general paper in the Oxford scholarship, I feel as much a debt to that library as I do to my school. <br />
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<em>Alan Bennett (actor, author and playwright)</em><br />
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Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. <br />
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<em>Lady Bird Johnson (campaigner and First Lady)</em><br />
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There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the Earth as the Free Public Library - this republic of letters, where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the slightest consideration. <br />
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<em>Andrew Carnegie (industrialist and philanthropist)</em><br />
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When you are growing up, there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully - the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equalizer. <br />
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<em>Keith Richards (musician)</em><br />
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I’d be happy if I could think that the role of the library was sustained and even enhanced in the age of the computer. <br />
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<em>Bill Gates (entrepreneur and philanthropist)</em><br />
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The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history. <br />
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<em>Carl Rowan (journalist and diplomat)</em><br />
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At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better. <br />
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<em>Barack Obama (statesman and politician)</em><br />
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Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future. <br />
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<em>Ray Bradbury (author)</em><br />
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What is more important in a library than anything else - than everything else - is the fact that it exists. <br />
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<em>Archibald MacLeish (poet and playwright)</em><br />
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David Williamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00132293716206756778noreply@blogger.com4