Rob's all-purpose Writing Blog

Folks, here's an example of how to leverage what you know by use of a blog. I want to write a how-to guide for beginners to bike racing. Now I have already written one but it needs an update and I'd like to start from scratch anyway, to focus it a bit more. I will use my existing work as a reference plus add in references to other folks' work as I go.

You can follow progress here.

Now I have to exercise discipline and ensure it gets done. Later I will edit it all into an ebook and sell it via Lulu shop. Good plan?

posted by gtveloce # 1:44 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Friday, July 07, 2006

On Blogging

Blogging gives me another reason to write. As I do want to write, and I want to practise writing, it seems to me that any method is better than no method. Blogging is a style, one that I break regularly. There's an etiquette as well, which I choose to ignore. The point to me is that I can write what I want, when and where I want. Now I always could - and did - do that. However now my scraps of paper are not filed away in a folder but published on the web. Apart from added colour and motion I have gained a small readership. Potentially, anyway. Somehow it's both inspiring and limiting to have this level of openness. Inspiring that what I write will be viewed and critiqued, and limiting in the sense that now what I write is not just for me. So I tend to edit a bit more harshly. Or not. It's my choice, and I am aware of it.

Anyway, most of my recent writing has been in my blogs. I blog about writing, photography, business, cars and bike racing. Plus I rant and rave. Or just share opinions. There's some overlap, but mostly they stay on track. Feel free to critique.

posted by gtveloce # 1:54 AM 0 Comments Links to this post

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Discipline

Discipline. If I write every day I get better at writing. If I get read, and better still - critiqued - I get better at addressing my words and thoughts to an audience. Well an audience as in you can hear in your head what I have written as you read it. Unless of course you have linked your browser to a speech synthesizer. Entirely possible and reasonable. The bottom line is that by writing something every day you are exercising your literary skills. Can't be bad. (Hmmm, perhaps that was my second bottom line, a bit like the fabled triple bottom line in business. )

posted by gtveloce # 11:52 PM 0 Comments Links to this post

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Resources at Rob's writing blog

Folks

I've written all of my life. Well, since I learned to write anyway. I may not be entirely correct in what I've written but by gosh I've written some stuff. Plays. Novels. How-to guides. Blogs. Especially blogs (lately at least). Let me catalogue a few things and we'll go from there to wherever we may want to travel.

My own writing.

Let's start with a play I wrote in about 1992 about a few rock legends and the similarities that existed in their lives - especially the 'died at 27 years old' link. It's a bit rough and needs a reformat but it's called Little Boy Blue. I never got around to workshopping it but it's not too unreadable as is...
Here's a very short script meant to be played out in front of a Leadership and Motivation class... it's a spoof courtroom scene using Hitler as one example of a leader...
When my mother died I wrote this Eulogy. Probably quite readable but better if you knew the woman.
I wrote this spoof interview (in collaboration with Ian Robinson) in or around 1979 about some work colleagues. The less said the better but it's meant to be humorous.
And again, same deal.
And how it all fits together in a newsletter format (remember it's from 1979 and relates to a workplace... it's still quite funny in a quaint way!). Remember, it's meant to be a laugh!
A short, serious unfinished piece on belonging. No laughing here.
A link to my MBA study guides and other related writing.
And my how-to guide to bike racing.
And more writing on cars, of all things.
And Out Out Damned Blog, a general rave by me.