Eschew Obfuscation, Espouse Elucidation

A phrase popularized by English teachers and professors since Hemingway helmed the paradigm shift from flowery to brusque, it directs the target to shun ambiguity and embrace clarity, thereby communicating the message more effectively.

Hemingway started out in 1917 at the Kansas City Star, and was apparently issued four writing rules for his reporting:

1. Use short sentences

Hemingway was renown for dispensing with gratuitous verbiage and cutting straight to the short, simple genius of word choice.

2. Use short first paragraphs

See #1.

If you ever do some professional copywriting, you’ll notice most “marketing gurus

Additionally, it is widely held that venting is a sound way to alleviate the tension we acquire through the course of our daily lives. It would be hard to name a source that does not ascribe value to talking out problems and issues. One could postulate that involving a larger group of peers commenting from a wider variety of backgrounds results in an colourful array of advice and opinions, wherein the blogger can pick, choose, and follow the ones that most resonate.

Several studies have examined the phenomenon of journal writing and have shown that significant improvements become apparent in the author’s physical well-being, as well as psychological health and functioning. Reflection on the happenings in one’s life through the writing of a blog or journal can lead to insight and act as a catalyst for coping mechanisms. Peer commentary, such as is found in blogging, apparently adds to the flavor.

More specifically, James Baker and Susan Moore in Cyber Psychology & Behaviour compared the mental health states of six hundred subjects who frequented the same social networking internet site, by dividing them into two groups: bloggers and non-bloggers. They found that the subjects that blogged for a period a two months (both groups initially had never blogged before) felt “less anxious, depressed and stressed

But I went and checked wikipedia anyway; there are 255 authors (famous enough to have a wikipedia page) who ended up committing suicide. I didn’t look up anything about what percentage of writers that is, for comparison to the percentage of suicides in the general population, because a) that would be almost impossible, and b) it would be just silly.

One could say that the well-established tie between the artistic temperament and depression could be at work, here. I am of the notion that if it were not for their writing, they would have committed suicide a lot earlier in their lives. But I digress…

The process of writing forces us to compartmentalize our thoughts and stream our consciousness into a legible, logical succession of ideas (unless we want our readers to think us complete nutters, that is). Often we find out what we actually think about something by attempting to write about it. As we explore the idea, thinking how to frame what we think we think; so we unthink what we thought, and think anew. I think.

Such structuring not only reinforces logical thinking, it demonstrates the fallacy of the illogical. We learn about ourselves by enquiring of our personalities and opinions.

Speaking for myself, I often go off on tangents to finish a thought before heading back to the tenuous narrative I‘m vainly hoping to describe. Sure, it may seem a little disjointed and unprofessional, but I’m not always writing a piece for an academic journal. And often these tangents lead to the formation of a thought or idea that is ultimately far more compelling than the direction I was heading in the first place. Which is why I pursue them. Because as often as not, the tangent leads to some interesting stuff. Sometimes there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; likewise, sometimes there’s just a little Irish fella in a grim mood.

He should try a bit of writing.

I think what’s going on here is the application of focus. We’ve all experienced this when we’re not thinking about the shopping, or what we’re going to have for dinner, or who is going to pick the kids up from school (never mind all the work-related crap we have to sift through on a daily basis) and we manage to pinpoint all our cognitive resources on a given task.

Be it playing a sport, a video game, watching a gripping movie, or reading a real page-turner of a novel, it can be quite eye-opening how much attention we bring to bear. (Notice I did not mention anything about pinpointing all our cognitive resources on a work task, now did I? I wonder what that says about me. Okay, I know what that says about me. No comments necessary.)

Stay close for Part III, on 1st of March.

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Well, one could say it is because of the feedback one gets from one’s readers. Whereas professional hard copy writers tend to have to rely on critics reviewing their work at a much later date, blogging feedback is almost immediate, and from a much broader scope. The readers of a blog tend not to be of one particular socio-economic genus, or educational or professional background, so the discussions one sparks and engages in can span the gamut of society.

There is never going to be a consensus of opinion. The outlying sentiments will inevitably be hopelessly off-the-wall, because that is usually what outlying opinions are. Sure, an extremely small percentage may contain an element of genius, which is an excuse all outliers invariably tend to offer to disguise the rampant goofiness behind their curious views.

If the advent of the internet has demonstrated anything to me, it is that there is a surprisingly large number of really quite strange and staggeringly stupid people in the world. They hitherto had obviously been restricted to communicating via hand-written notes on their food plates passed under the doors to their mothers’ basements, or by tapping on the pipes with their toy squeaky hammer. Pervasive (and pretty much free) global communication has eradicated this perfectly adequate form of information exchange and obliged normal folk (of no blood relation) to experience the kind of conversations only an incompetent mother should have to tolerate as punishment for her lackluster parenting.

And some of them are so rude. The fuzzy comfort of anonymity that protects people posting on the internet is, to me, a mainline to knowing their true character. If anonymity encourages someone to behave objectionably, then we can easily (and extremely accurately) extrapolate to how they are in real life. In a word: undesirable. You know how an attention-starved dog will do something he knows is wrong because he knows it will elicit a response, and a negative response is better than none at all? Like that.

Stay close for Part II, on Friday 26th of February.

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Here’s a few hints and tips to get your blog beacon beeping amid the swarming sea of millions.

Format

The way your blog looks can encourage readers to carry on reading. Common wisdom dictates that short sentences, paragraphs, images, video, sub-headers and bullet lists punctuate your text, breaking up the monotony of reading huge, plain-looking tracts of content. That’s common wisdom for you. Personally, I feel content is king, and if your writing is good enough, the reading takes care of itself. But it never hurts to give yourself every advantage by making your blog easier on the eye.

Design

Having an unusual, eye-catching layout for your blog can be a catalyst for a visitor to start reading. Developing ideas such as signature logos or a custom header can go a long way to grabbing a browsing potential subscriber’s attention. There are resources for this all over the internet, many of them free.

Topic

Pick a unique topic for your blog. This might be easier said than done, given the smorgasbord of blogs out there. However, if you focus on trend topics like music, TV, fashion, technology and movies; subjects that are constantly evolving, you’ll never be short of something to write about and unique ideas are continually being generated.

Develop Your Voice

The style of your delivery is a large part of attracting a readership. You need to decide early on how you want to write so you can be consistent for your subscribers. Are you going to funny? Can you be funny, and I don’t mean just making your mother laugh. Are you going to write as you, or as a character or exaggeration of yourself? Are you going to rant about things that annoy you? Mostly, it will take time to develop your “voice

photo courtesy of Moochin Photoman, Flickr

This post is a list of books that would be helpful for everyone interested in personal development, marketing tactics, finance, blogging and web development. As you guessed already the above topics are the main themes of this blog.

My recommendations are created based on my own suggestions, my friends ideas and blogs I check daily(like problogger.net, copyblogger.com, stevepavlina.com).

Feel free to contact me and share with us the books that shaped your life so far. Some of them can change your life and give you a new perspective of the future. As I like to say they are the “golden books”.

Personal Development

• Serious Creativity: Using the Power of Lateral Thinking to Create New Ideas
• A Technique for Producing Ideas (Advertising Age Classics Library)
• Notes from a Friend: A Quick and Simple Guide to Taking Control of Your Life
• Relationship Breakthrough: How to Create Outstanding Relationships in Every Area of Your Life
• Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity

Marketing Tactics

• Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
• Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich: Create Winning Ads, Web Pages, Sales Letters and More
• Kotler on Marketing
• Marketing Insights from A to Z: 80 Concepts Every Manager Needs to Know
• Marketing Concepts and Strategies

Finance

• The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness
• More than Enough: The Ten Keys to Changing Your Financial Destiny
• Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money–That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
• Rich Dad’s Guide to Investing: What the Rich Invest in, That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!
• Biblical Strategies to Financial Freedom: Bringing God’s Word to Your Finances

Blogging

• The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right
• Blogging for Business: Everything You Need to Know and Why You Should Care
• Money For Content and Your Clicks For Free: Turning Web Sites, Blogs, and Podcasts Into Cash
• Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers
• Blogging Quick & Easy: A Planned Approach to Blogging Success

Web Development

• Developer’s Guide to Web Application Security
• Web Security Testing Cookbook: Systematic Techniques to Find Problems Fast
• Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer’s Guide to SEO
• High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers
• PHP 5 CMS Framework Development: Expert insight and practical guidance to creating an efficient, flexible, and robust framework for a PHP 5-based content management system