Who Could Ever Take the Place of the Great Doris Lessing (1919 – 2013)?

Doris Lessing, Nobel Prize winner and great literary icon of the 20^th century died in the early hours of 17 November 2013 at the age of 94. Such a great prolific and successful author is both an inspiration and a mentor to new writers. Now she has gone, the world will be much the poorer, as she was quite unique and there is no one likely to take her place.

Raised on a farm in Rhodesia and turning to books as she grew up, Doris Lessing is a model for all those with a non-literary background who want to make their name in the writing world. Most  famed for her feminist, seminal work The Golden Notebook, Doris Lessing always wrote with great daring, warmth and intellectual vigour. In 1988, she was informed that she had won the Nobel Prize for Literature – to which her famous response was, “Oh, Christ!” She neither expected nor aspired to win such an accolade, which gave her the freedom to write whatever she wanted to write and to say whatever she wanted to say. Margaret Attwood in The Guardian says that “Doris did everything with all her heart, all her soul and all her might…” which just about sums her up as a sincere, prolific and far-reaching writer.

If you are an aspiring writer and have something you really want to say just go on and say it. If your skills in spelling, punctuation and grammar are fine, that’s good too – but if not, don’t worry – send us your document and we will proofread it for you. Together we can make a good team and get your work published and recognised.

Oldies are Goodies

So now Christmas is well and truly upon us: we know this because the eagerly-awaited John Lewis advert has been screened. Hence, it’s Christmas. The visual impact of that particular ad is amazing but when we think about some of the iconic ads that have been aired over the years, perhaps we better remember the words that accompany them. “Beanz Meanz Heinz” was conceived over a pub lunch in 1967. "Snap! Crackle! Pop!" was first thought up in 1932. “Does Exactly What It Says On the Tin” is 19 years old and is still going strong.

Of course, there are others that are also memorable, possibly for being horrendously annoying a very long time. “Waaaasssuuupppp?” is the obvious one that springs to mind. The ad featured a lot of men shouting the phrase down the phone to each other: but it became a worldwide phenomenon with millions of people copying it. Out of interest, do you remember the product?*

My point is that a memorable or catchy tagline is a major selling point for products and services but not many of us can afford a TV ad campaign (or, for that matter, a highly-trained, possibly overpaid ad executive from a top agency). Most of us can, however, afford a website to advertise and publicise what we have to offer. A well-written, carefully-worded webpage is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to get your message across and to move up the rankings on Google. If you aren’t too good with words, then let someone else do it. Why? “Because You’re Worth It” (1971).

*Budweiser.

Agatha Christie voted as top crime writer

The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has celebrated its sixtieth year in 2013 and held a poll to find the greatest crime writer, crime series and crime novel to mark the anniversary.

The CWA supports and promotes the work of crime writers, undeniably a hugely popular genre.

The winner of the Best Ever Crime Author was Agatha Christie, who wrote a staggering 66 detective novels (I wonder if anyone has ever counted up the murders!). Evidently she remains as popular as ever, with the Poirot series on ITV finishing last night with his final case Curtain.

Christie’s novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was voted the Best Ever Novel. It was one of her earliest novels (published in 1926) and features her most famous sleuth, Hercule Poirot. It has, as ever, a magnificent twist at the end.

The winner of the CWA Best Ever Crime Series was Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation. And again I wonder, how many murders . . .?

Crime novels are as popular as ever, but it is good to see that older novels have stood the test of time and are still being read by today’s audience.

Get your crime novel proofread by WriteItClearly.com.

Do Children Prefer Tablets and e-Readers Over Traditional Books?

Last month, as she presented author Joanne Harris with an MBE for services to literature at Buckingham Palace, the Queen expressed her concern regarding children’s preferences for e-Readers and tablets over the traditional physical book.

This is obviously something close to the monarch’s heart – even though in her regal capacity she rarely voices such sentiments, she spoke, on this occasion, as a mother, grandmother and now great grandmother.

Joanne Harris is most famed for her best-selling novel Chocolat in 1999, published in 50 countries. After the ceremony she said: “She asked me what I thought about e-books and computer games and said that she feared that children were playing with those more than they were reading books. So I told her that we start them on e-books and computer games and TV and then try to get them on to books later.”

The author added that the shape of books may change but that “people always need stories and the shape of those stories may alter”. It is her opinion that traditional books will be with us for a long time and it is great that both adults and children have a wide variety of reading choices.

Earlier this year, the National Literacy Trust published research showing that “a majority of children preferred to read on screens rather than books”, and 50 per cent of the nation’s two and three-year-olds use a tablet. More worryingly, children’s literacy skills seem to be taking a downturn, with the popularity of new technology.

So, is the book as we know it dying out in favour of e-Readers and tablets?  One solution may be to expose children to both worlds – e-Readers and traditional story books – and let them make their own choices. 

For proofreading and editing of any type of book, see WriteItClearly.com.

Play Scrabble to improve your vocabulary

The board game Scrabble must be excellent for improving one’s vocabulary. But I guess that’s only true if you consult a dictionary and try new words.

Paul Allan has just become Britain’s national Scrabble champion, so he knows how to get the best from his own vocabulary, reported the Daily Telegraph. “The whole dictionary is there,” he said, “and it is a rich dictionary. There are no good or bad words. You’re looking for strategic advantage.

“You can use swear words and nobody bats an eye. You would do that in the small church hall tournament playing against a 90-year-old nun. You just play it as if it’s an ordinary word.”

Competitive spirit indeed!

His winning round against Allan Simmons, however, contained more mundane than exotic words, with “conlines” scoring the highest with 98. (It’s a poison found in hemlock.) Simple words used to clinch victory were: “ugh”, “be”, “zed”, “vet”, “yeah”, “dorm”.

Other words in Mr Allan’s winning round that might have you scrabbling for the dictionary were: “fy”, “litu”, “bandura”, “swarf”.

Christmas is just around the corner. If you haven’t got Scrabble in your house, why not treat the family and improve your vocabulary with a few games?

In the meantime, come to WriteItClearly.com for the best in writing.

Is the FutureBook Conference a little elitist?

I saw a notice about "The Bookseller's FutureBook 2013 Conference". I was intrigued and went to the website to have a look at what it was all about.

It is described thus: "The Bookseller's FutureBook Conference on 21st November is Europe's biggest publishing conference - a must-attend event, packed with fantastic speakers who will challenge your thinking and help shape your strategy for 2014. A great opportunity to network and connect with over 600 industry leaders, there will be 40+ speakers, 9 sessions, 7 big ideas pitched and stimulating discussion and debate."

Sounds interesting.

I looked for where this is being held: QEII Conference Centre, Westminster. No problem.

I looked for the cost of attendance: £399 for non-subscribers (to The Bookseller). (It's £368 for subscribers.) And these prices EXclude VAT.

Now that seems a lot to me. I'm not denying that setting up the conference, paying for the venue, and presumably paying at least some of the speakers will cost a bit of money. But £478.80 to attend?

As a (very often underpaid!) small business, I don't think so.

Is it rather elitist?

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The curse of being able to read accurately

I see that Lynne Truss is giving up on lecturing people about punctuation. She’s not giving up on punctuation, just on lecturing people about it.

 

It’s a shame. It is ten years since her book on the subject, Eats, Shoots & Leaves, came out and of course she cannot be expected to carry the torch for punctuation single handed.

 

The book cannot maintain its currency for ever, even though its contents will certainly hold good for many years (we could hope for ever!). Shops stock other books; people move on and buy other books.

 

In her weekly article recently in the Sunday Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/journalists/lynne-truss/10382533/Lynne-Truss-its-no-longer-useful-to-be-able-to-read-accurately.html) Ms Truss cites several examples where missing or incorrect punctuation could have led to misunderstandings.

 

The trouble, she says, is that people expect you to be able to understand what they’re trying to say. The keywords is trying. People like Ms Truss who understand punctuation understand what people have written, not what they’re trying to write. It is a curse.