Day 1: The pen is mightier than the sword
“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl
Words, at first glance, are cheap. And writing, as a career, is for starving artists.
Yet everyone of us, if we think back in time, have read something that changed us.
Today, I began to truly appreciate writing. The verbs, nouns, sentences, and punctuation marks on a page can create powerful messages when writers take the time to pick and arrange them in the right order.
Great writers’ mastery with words can be compared to Alexander the Great’s command of his army – strategic, precise, artful, and compelling.
Alexander the Great used his army to conquer the great lands of the Earth. Writers, with their pen, can write literature and communicate ideas to change the way people think and alter the world’s ways forever.
Day 2: Read to write
Before you press down the key and type away, it’s a good idea to consult others’ published writings in a similar genre.
Every genre has its own style, restrictions, and rules.
While you are free to insert pieces of your personal life in a blog post, it’s inappropriate to do the same in a breaking news story – because its focus is not you, and any information not pertaining to the story distracts readers from what’s really important – the breaking news.
When we make the effort to read and study other people’s writings, slowly, we become aware of the hidden rules in the different genres. Writing, like clothes, has a specific duty to fill given the occasion and audience you plan to greet.
Just like we wouldn’t go to President Obama’s inaugural ball dressed in T-shirt and jeans, we would adopt a different tone when writing for the arts & culture section as opposed to the business section of a newspaper.
The point is: always identify the genre and audience you are writing to before you put anything down. Then cleverly select the words, sentence length, and paragraph structures, to spice up the page while working within the rules and constraints of that genre.
Day 3 – Good media vs. bad media
Good media, like a good teacher, imparts wisdom and improves the audience’s quality of life.
Bad media, like the bad family uncle who introduces kids to smoking at a young age, breeds bad behaviour and poisons the human mind.
In a digital age where everybody is constantly tweeting and posting on their Facebook, the quality of information we are exposed to has declined significantly.
It’s become a struggle to hear our own thoughts. And we are forced to wade through the noise, created by the myriad of digital outputs, to find a voice that’s truthful and honorable.
Generation Y is portrayed by the popular Elite Daily blog as a group of irresponsible, immediacy-seeking brats who can’t commit in a monogamous relationship.
Its articles are read by millions of 20-somethings who turn to them to find out what other 20-somethings are like.
They have become an icon for Generation Y, and a guide book for how they should behave. I think some of their content is completely bogus and are what’s causing the bad rep. we get from other age groups.
Media is a double-edged sword. So don’t believe everything you read and hear, and always check what you read to confirm it reflects your own observations and experiences.
Our mind is highly impressionable to the things we surround ourselves with. Give your brain something healthy to chew.
Day 4 & 5
I’ve been working on a news article yesterday evening and today.
I was too tired to think and type anything last night, so I’m writing two entries in one right now.
Covering TEDxRyerson this past Saturday has been a nice break.
Upside: met some amazing students that blew me away with their ideas. Check out AEON Attire, a Ryerson fashion startup that’s creative, fresh and inspiring.
Downside: my editor doesn’t like how I write my articles, and prefers I stick to the facts vs. inserting some of my thoughts and feelings of what I saw.
This led me to re-examine my career aspirations. Do I really want to just regurgitate facts in my articles, or share my insights based on what I saw and experienced with others (which is what I enjoy doing) in my future writing career?
Also, what types of positions would allow me to do more of the latter?
Day 6
I had my last City Reporting class today. Three more weeks of assignment madness and I’ll be done with first semester in MJ!
I noticed in this semester, profs spent a lot of time discussing journalism ethics and CP style. I felt like I didn’t learn much about how to actually write news stories, which is the most essential skill a journalist needs, to land a job and to actually write news stories. Duh.
But I guess since this is a master’s program, they are skipping over that basic stuff for unfortunate engineering undergrads like me -> problematic.
Now, my only option is to self-learn the essentials. I found a great website called “The News Manual” that does a fantastic job of breaking down the structure of news writing for students. i.e. checklists for writing headlines, introductions etc. which is perfect for a formulaic-minded person like me.
I shall study and practice the materials on that website, and write some kick-ass breaking news stories from now on!
ReachBeliever 