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The Write Way 24 February 2006 Huh? Greetings, Most Sunday mornings, I have morning coffee at a café along the waterfront with the Love of My Life and my mum. It's become one of those little rituals that we all look forward to and is a lovely way to start a leisurely Sunday (one of the best days of the week, don't you think?) We usually buy our fresh fruit and vegies from an enterprising young couple who bring their truck and set up a stall along the main street each Sunday. They have wonderful produce at a fraction of what the supermarkets charge for far inferior quality, so we always feel our day is off to a flying start even before we sit down to coffee.
"Lots of tempestuous sweets and deserts!" it proclaimed wildly. The mind boggles. I had visions of passionate ladies throwing tantrums amidst swirling dust storms ... not quite what the proprietors would have been hoping for, I'm sure. This got me thinking about past clangers I've come across, such as: The disreputable jeweller who was pedalling stolen bangles and bracelets The irate man who complained about his effluent neighbours and their noisy Ferrari The old lady who kept her knickers in a chester drawers The café owner who was happy to serve people from all woks of life The teacher who complained about the dribble her pupils handed in I think you get the picture! There's a lesson here for all of us, I think ... Read more of these Odd Spots. Perhaps it's apt to finish with the story about the university tutor whose student handed in a description of a woman who'd tripped going down some stairs and "was lying prostitute at the bottom." The tutor wrote, "My dear boy, you must learn to distinguish between a fallen woman and one who has merely slipped." This week's quiz: Match up these writing words with their meanings ... monologist, prolepsis, exposition, zeugma, parody, syntax, anapest, metonymy, periphrasis, synesthesia 1. construction in which a single word, especially a verb or an adjective, is applied to two or more nouns when its sense is appropriate to only one of them or to both in different ways, as in He took my advice and my wallet 2. writing that mocks a particular literary work or its style; comic effect is intended 3. metrical foot composed of two short syllables followed by one long one, as in the word seventeen 4. a systematic interpretation or explanation of a specific topic 5. the description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another 6. like a storyteller, this person writes and then performs an anecdote or series of anecdotes 7. a style that involves indirect ways of expressing things; circumlocution 8. the grammatical arrangement of words in sentences 9. anticipating and answering objections in advance 10. figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of the sword for military power
And here's some breaking news that Dave Wagner passed along ... At New York's Kennedy airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set-square, a slide rule and a calculator. At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-Gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. Al-Gebra is a fearsome cult," the Attorney General said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are three sides to every triangle'." Last week's quiz: refuse, because, most, thinks, except, called, few, now, for, influenced Give one word for the following: 1. a limited number - FEW 2. a sizable percentage of - MOST 3. is of the opinion - THINKS 4. had an effect upon - INFLUENCED 5. for the purpose of - FOR 6. referred to as - CALLED 7. to decline to agree - REFUSE 8. at this point in time - NOW 9. due to the fact that - BECAUSE 10. with the possible exception of - EXCEPT Did you know that every newsletter is archived? So if you've missed anything since 1998 or want to revisit some favourites, you can do so any time! Don't forget to bookmark the page when you get there ... or even make it your Home Page. (For Internet Explorer, just click on Tools ... Internet Options ... General ... fill in www.write101.com/archives/index.htm and click OK. For Netscape, select Edit ... Preferences. Then select Navigator from the left menu, click Home Page and enter the URL above next to Location and click OK.) An Ape that wants to play Hamlet after being type-cast as King Kong, a talking anvil and that rottweiller ... Dr Morgenes is still caught in the nightmare that is the casting couch. Help him find a plot! Just click on the Comments button at the end of the entry to add your contribution. If you have friends who fancy themselves as writers, invite them to contribute (just forward this newsletter in its entirety to them). I often trawl this for comments to post on my site ... so if you say something about the newsletter or site, be warned, you may end up being read by one of the 2,000+ unique visitors who visit Write101 every day! Make your Mark on the World. Then stop by our Map of the World and read the messages. (Just click List) and add your mark. A Little Something Extra Since we've spent a bit of time this past week looking at the possibility of writing and getting your articles in front of a wide audience, here's an article by Dina Giolitto about the 7 steps you MUST take to get noticed by a mass audience of hot prospects ... Article marketers, a question: Do you REALLY REALLY want people to "find you" on the web... or are you content to spend hours fixing up your website just to have Mom tell you how nice it looks? If the answer was yes, you want to be found, then you need to master Article Marketing Efficiency. You need to PUSH your content out there so it gets seen by the right people. After you write an article, what do you do with it? Share it with your forum buddies? Tack it up in your blog and forget about it? Well, this is what you should be doing with your article. Immediate Article Marketing Action: 1. Post the article in your favorite online network (niche appropriate makes the most sense). 2. Send your article in to EzineArticles.com for top billing on the search engines. 3. Post the article on the smaller article sites hosted by your trusted associates; for instance, Angela Smith's ArticlesOn.com or Thom Reece's MarketingArticleLibrary.com Delayed Article Marketing Action: 4. Add the article to your blog. Tag it categorically. Send out the ping notifications with Pingomatic, Technorati, Pingoat and whomever else you like to ping. 5. Include the article as part of a free ebook that you send to your private audience (only if the shoe fits of course). 6. If you have no ebook in the works, feature the article in your ezine (assuming it speaks to your primary audience). 7. If time or budget allows, take the article and submit it to ALL the major article directories. You may or may not wish to do this depending on whether this article is just a random one that you rattled off, or if it's part of a larger campaign effort (for example, Web Content Awareness Day was my last campaign and it featured many targeted articles). I hope that after reading this article you're equipped with an understanding of how to leverage your content for maximum outreaching potential. This is the way that you must do it if you want to emerge at the forefront of your industry! I have confidence in you. Now go market that article. Copyright 2006 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved. You want killer content and you want it now. Dina at Wordfeeder.com is driving mass traffic to the first annual Web Content Awareness Day and she'll drive it to your website next. Count on Dina to deliver laser-focused copy that will emotionally snare your readers. Convert visitors to subscribers... and subscribers to paying customers. Visit http://Wordfeeder.com for lip-smacking web copy served up quick. Then visit http://www.write101.com/letters/ezinearts.htm to make sure you have all the inside info you need to get your articles Out There! Word of the week: Pinguid (n) fat and oily This sleazy word comes from the Latin pinguis (fat; rich; dull; oily; greasy) Oxymoron of the week: wealthy writer What could be more appropriate for this week's Latin phrase than Juvenal's comment: Cacoethes scribendi [kah-koh-AYT-hays skree-BEN-dee] (An insatiable urge to write) Kind regards, Jennifer P.S. Want to donate to the upkeep of this newsletter? Here's how: 1. Pay by PayPal: OR 2. Click here to subscribe for a full year OR 3. Use your credit card on my secure order form. (You can also access the PayPal subscription link from this page if the link above didn't work for you. With PayPal, you can use your credit card, PayPal account or pay online using your own cheque account.) OR 4. Send a cheque (made payable to Jennifer Stewart) Copyright 2006 Jennifer Stewart Individual articles copyrighted by
their authors.
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