In this issue:
- Graffito is singular of graffiti
- Creative Writing courses starting soon
- Writing books for children and young adults
- Why are markets bullish or bearish?
- Turn your travels into a memoir
- What we’re reading – An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco
- WEBPICK: “Unnecessary” quotation marks
By the time this reaches your inbox, I will be in Melbourne with some of our presenters for our Melbourne Spring Writers’ Carnival. If you’re here come say hi!In the meantime, I’ve been getting a lot of queries from corporate types who are stressing out about the quality of written communication from their team members. Once upon a time, the tone of writing in the workplace used to be stuffy and formal. These days, it’s less pretentious – but there are still rules to follow if you want to write clearly and concisely.
As a journalist, I’m constantly amazed at the emails, media releases and documents I receive from corporates that barely make sense!
This is because there is hardly any training in the workplace on business writing – and yet it’s something we do almost every day. In our recent survey, we discovered that 57.5% of people believe that if they were given writing training at work, their productivity would increase between 10% to 40%. Up to 40%!
That’s why I’m so pleased about our one-day seminar Professional Business Writing. I created this course myself and it’s a logical step-by-step framework that takes the guesswork out of business writing.
It covers:
- 5 essential steps to plan your document
- How to determine what you MUST write about (and what to leave out)
- The 11 Golden Rules of business writing
- Business writing DON'Ts
- Common writing mistakes (and how to avoid them)
- How to structure reports and proposals
- Fundamentals of persuasive writing
- How to gain the reader's attention
- Style guides – how to use them and how to create one
- How to revise, edit and present your documents
- and MUCH more.
Professional Business Writing with Sue White
When: Tuesday 11 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
Did you know: Graffito is singular and Graffiti is plural?
Next time to see graffiti on a wall, you can be the one who asks everyone what the singular form of the word is. And in case you want to continue your word quiz, here are some other singular/plural words that some people get confused. Here are some others:
| Plural | Singular |
| bacteria |
bacterium |
| dice | die |
| data | datum |
| media |
medium |
| opera | opus |
| paparazzi | paparazzo |
What's new at the Sydney Writers' Centre
- NEW DATE: Weekend Intensive Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 with Marina Go, Saturday 12 November and Sunday 13 November 2011
- Filling fast: Travel Writing course with Sue White, starts Thursday 13 October 2011
- Our very first Writing Picture Books course with Cathie Tasker starts tonight. If you missed out on a place in tonight's class the next class starts Thursday 10 November 2011.
Be inspired – creative writing courses starting soon
If the warmer weather is making you feel inspired perhaps it’s time you took a creative writing course? We’ve added plenty of options to our schedule for our most popular course, Creative Writing Stage 1, so you can choose to do it on the weekend, during the week, or over five days.Creative Writing Stage 1 is ideal whether you’re a complete novice or you’ve been working on some stories and want to be sure you’re on the right track. Learning from some of Australia’s best writing teachers (and all published authors as well), you’ll discover how to write compelling fiction – and perhaps make a start on that novel you’ve always had in you!
Here’s what past participants say:
“I enjoyed learning about the principles of writing, and learning how to edit writing to make it better. The presenter was excellent. She was very passionate about the craft, and communicated very clearly and effectively in an engaging way. Very encouraging. Highly recommended. This course will assist you in finding motivation, and provide practical advice.”
- Peter Damalas
"I always thought I had a very poor imaginiation and I have always been stuck for story ideas. But this course showed me how to get past that and where to look inside myself for inspiration."
- Catherine Hawthorne
WEEKEND INTENSIVE Creative Writing Stage 1 with Laurine Croasdale
When: Saturday 15 & Sunday 16 October 2011 (two consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $395
DAYTIME INTENSIVE Creative Writing Stage 1 with Kate Forsyth
When: Monday 17 to Friday 21 October 2011 (five consecutive mornings)
Time: 10.00am – 12noon
Cost: $395
Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter
When: Mondays starting Monday 17 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
Back to basics – conjunctions
Conjunctions are the words that join other words, phrases or clauses. There are three types of conjunctions – coordinating (or simple), correlative and subordinate.Coordinating conjunctions join words, phrases or clauses of equal rank.
For example:
We like cupcakes and rocky road.
There were no more cupcakes so we ate the rocky road.
Coordinating conjunctions can be remembered with the mnemonic FANBOYS:
for,Correlative conjunctions perform the same function, but are always in pairs: either-or, neither-nor, both-and, not only-but also, and whether-or. For example:
and,
nor,
but,
or,
yet,
so.
Either Rambo or Dougal must have made the mess.
Subordinate conjunctions join dependent clauses to independent clauses and emphasise one idea (or clause) as more important than the other. Some of the more common ones are after, although, as, as if, because, before, if, since, so that, than, unless, until, when, where, and while. For example:
We didn’t go out because it was raining.
OR
Because it was raining, we didn’t go out.
Writing books for Children and Young Adults
If there’s one area in the publishing industry that has boomed in recent years, it’s been in books for children and young adults. Think about it. Twilight. Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And our very own former students: Mitch Lewis with his Little Red Ute series and Jessica Shirvington with The Violet Eden Chapters (Embrace, Enticed and, soon, Emblaze) If you’ve thought of writing books for this market, you should do our Writing Books for Children and Young Adults course. You may know how to write, but are you aware of the nuances and unwritten rules of the children’s and young adult market?
You’ll discover:
- how to get started
- finding the right voice
- creating characters and stories young readers will enjoy
- how to write believable dialogue
- common assumptions about writing for children and about young readers
- how to structure a story that works
- the secrets to plotting for different age groups
- what you need to know about getting into the children’s publishing market
- and MUCH more.
"I loved the course and truly Judith is a brilliant and enthusiastic teacher. She is passionate about children's books and such a huge knowledge of all the different age groups so that she could be speaking of book of verse for four-year-olds and switch to 15-year-old teenage writing with ease as she knew her subject matter. So thank you for your help and advice and thank you to Judith too."
- Robyn Elliott
"I have heaps of information now to help me in my work. The class has given me an excellent sense of direction, it was fantastic."
- Liam O'Leary
Writing Books for Children and Young Adults with Judith Ridge
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 18 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
TIP: What’s wrong with this picture?
We spotted this sign recently in an electronics store.
Apart from the dubious spelling of “terrific” (at least, we assume that’s what it’s meant to say), the apostrophe is facing the wrong way. If they really must spell it this way, it should read: ’RIFFIC.
Wordwise: Why are markets bullish or bearish?
We’ve seen a lot in the news lately about the dire economic situation in Europe and America, and the volatile movements on the stock market. It’s had me wondering about the financial terms "bull" and "bear". Where do they come from? In stockmarket parlance, a "bear" sells shares, often when the market news is not so good and share prices are heading down. A "bull" buys shares, and this usually indicates optimism about the direction of the market. One long held theory is that the terms come from the English banks, Bulteels and Barings, but the terms have actually been around a lot longer than those two banks.
Early examples described share sellers as bear-skin jobbers, borrowed from a French proverb meaning "don’t sell the bear’s skin before you’ve killed him". These bear-skin jobbers sold shares they didn’t own, in the hope the price of those shares would fall and they’d then be able to buy them back cheaply. It’s thought the bull was invented as an alliterative alternative, to describe the "long" sellers.
Turn your travels into a memoir
Publishers and readers love travel memoir. The world may be shrinking but this genre is growing in popularity every day thanks to authors like Bill Bryson, Paul Theroux, and of course Elizabeth Gilbert. Travel Memoir takes a different set of skills to writing travel feature articles. You need to be able to turn your experiences into a compelling story that will grip readers from the first page. Whether you’re yet to take that trip of a lifetime, or you have travel journals from past holidays you’d like to turn into a memoir, the Travel Memoir course with Claire Scobie will show you how!
Here’s what past participants say:
"Claire is a phenomenal presenter with a wealth of writing technique knowledge and practical experience. She lives and breathes writing and it comes through as a passion that embraces and motivates her students."
- Penny Cannan
"Claire provides much insight into the nature and diversity of travel writing, as well as giving us techniques to develop our writing. I really enjoyed the challenges of this course."
- Mary Hickson
Travel Memoir with Claire Scobie
When: Wednesdays starting Wednesday 12 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Click here for more information or to enrol online.
What we’re reading
This week our Communications Coordinator, Rose Powell, is reading An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco. She writes:An Iliad by Alessandro Baricco is a stunning book. Taking the story of the battle for Troy from Homer's classic, Baricco shares the narrative in 12 parts, from 12 distinct personalities. The range and closer focus that the voices add to the story make the classic story much more moving and intimate than the original is for modern readers. Baricco breathes an even more tumultuous and rapid momentum into the war epic, but also presents the human side much more poignantly than any adaptation of the story I've read so far.
Both in his note on the text, and in the writing itself he tackles the idea of the beauty and glory of war, reflecting on the fact that our era is a time of war and that another world is possible. Drawing on hints in the original text in the voices of the female characters, he paints a quiet subplot of a peaceful alternative ignored by young leaders in love with the idea of action.
While there is inevitably a lot about hacking people to death, popping people's eyeballs out and rivers of blood, Baricco breathes new life into the well-known tale. It's an inspiring and thought provoking read.
We want to know what you're reading! You can write a book review for the Writing Bar and we'll feature an excerpt here in the newsletter. If you'd like to submit, check out the review guidelines here.
WEBPICK: “Unnecessary” quotation marks
If you're anything like us, misplaced apostrophes or quote marks is photographed, circulated around the office and lamented. Or laughed at. There is something undeniably funny about normal phrases marred by incorrect quote marks. Unnecessary Quote Marks is all about misused quote marks, and there are plenty of amusing, confusing and bizarre uses of quote marks.
Check it out here.
Other upcoming courses
Course: Writing Picture Books with Cathie Tasker – FULL
When: Every Thursday starting Thursday 6 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Sell Your eBook on Amazon with Steven Lewis
When: Thursday 6 October 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: How to Write a Business Book with Valerie Khoo – MELBOURNE COURSE
When: Friday 7 October 2011 (half-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 1.00pm
Cost: $295
Course: Life Writing with Patti Miller – MELBOURNE COURSE – FULL
When: Saturday 8 October and Sunday 9 October 2011 (two-day course)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $450
Online Course: Creative Writing Stage 1 with Pamela Freeman/Cathie Tasker
When: Week beginning Monday 10 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Online Course: Creative Writing Stage 2 with Pamela Freeman/Cathie Tasker
When: Week beginning Monday 10 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Course: Novel Writing Workshop with Pamela Freeman – FULL
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 11 October 2011 for six weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $495
Seminar: Professional Business Writing with Sue White
When: Tuesday 11 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Seminar: Grammar and Punctuation Essentials with Deb Doyle
When: Wednesday 12 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Cost: $450
Course: Travel Memoir with Claire Scobie
When: Every Wednesday starting Wednesday 12 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Travel Writing: Get Paid for Your Adventures with Sue White
When: Every Thursday starting Thursday 13 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Weekend Intensive Creative Writing Stage 1 with Laurine Croasdale
When: Saturday 15 October and Sunday 16 October 2011 (2 consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Weekend Intensive Creative Writing Stage 2 with Jeni Mawter
When: Saturday 15 October and Sunday 16 October 2011 (2 consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Creative Writing Stage 1 with Jeni Mawter
When: Every Monday starting Monday 17 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Daytime Intensive Creative Writing Stage 1 with Kate Forsyth
When: Monday 17 October to Friday 21 October 2011 (5 consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 12noon
Cost: $395
Online Course: Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 with Sue White – NEW DATE
When: Week beginning Monday 17 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Course: Writing Books for Children and Young Adults with Judith Ridge
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 18 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Successful Freelancing with Gayle Bryant and Valerie Khoo
When: Wednesday 19 October 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: Blogging for Business with Steven Lewis
When: Thursday 20 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Writing for the Web with Grant Doyle
When: Monday 24 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Writing About Interiors, Style and Design with Nigel Bartlett
When: Wednesday 26 October 2011 and Wednesday 2 November 2011 (2 evening classes)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $175
Seminar: PR and Media Releases that Get Results with Catriona Pollard
When: Thursday 27 October 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.00am – 5.00pm
Cost: $495
Online Course: Writing Books for Children and Young Adults with Judith Ridge/Nicola Robinson – NEW DATE
When: Week beginning Monday 31 October 2011 for five weeks
Time: Whenever suits you
Cost: $395
Seminar: Better Business Communications with Deb Doyle
When: Wednesday 2 November 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Your Story Structure with Kathryn Heyman
When: Friday 4 November 2011 and Friday 11 November 2011 (2 half-day classes)
Time: 9.30am – 12.30pm
Cost: $215
Course: Screenwriting Stage 2 with Tim Gooding
When: Every Monday starting Monday 7 November 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Writing Picture Books with Cathie Tasker – NEW DATE
When: Every Thursday starting Thursday 10 November 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Weekend Intensive Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 with Marina Go – NEW DATE
When: Saturday 12 November and Sunday 13 November 2011 (2 consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $395
Course: Creative Writing Stage 2 with Pamela Freeman
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 15 November 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Screenwriting Stage 1 with Tim Gooding
When: Every Tuesday starting Tuesday 15 November 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Magazine and Newspaper Writing Stage 1 with Sue White
When: Every Thursday starting Thursday 17 November 2011 for five weeks
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: Edit with Confidence with Deb Doyle – NEW DATE
When: Friday 18 November 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Seminar: From Blog to Book with Kerri Sackville – NEW SEMINAR
When: Monday 21 November 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: Introduction to Travel Writing with Geoff Bartlett
When: Wednesday 23 November 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: How to Get Your Book Published with Geoff Bartlett – NEW DATE
When: Thursday 24 November 2011 (two-hour evening seminar)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $85
Seminar: Perfect Your Proofreading with Deb Doyle – NEW DATE
When: Friday 25 November 2011 (one-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
Cost: $395
Course: Plotting and Planning with Kate Forsyth
When: Monday 28 November 2011 and Monday 5 December 2011 (2 evening classes)
Time: 6.30 – 8.30pm
Cost: $175
Seminar: How to Write a Business Book with Valerie Khoo – NEW DATE
When: Tuesday 24 January 2012 (half-day seminar)
Time: 9.30am – 1.00pm
Cost: $295
Course: Weekend Life Writing with Patti Miller – NEW DATE
When: Saturday 25 February and Sunday 26 February 2012 (2 consecutive days)
Time: 10.00am – 4.00pm
Cost: $450
WRITING TOURS
Writing in Paris with Patti Miller – FULL
When: Thursday 20 October to Saturday 5 November 2011
Writing in Bali with Patti Miller – NEW DATE
When: Saturday 21 July to Saturday 28 July 2012
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