The Red House by Mark Haddon is a domestic drama that gets right under the skin of family life. The idea of 'family' takes on an intimate, shockingly beautiful and grotesque patina in this book. The story centres around a brother and sister and their respective families, who take a seemingly innocuous trip to stay…
Continue reading ➞ Book Review: The Red House by Mark Haddon
Constable & Robinson (2011). This fictional novel by Jennifer Egan is an insight into American life from the 1960's onwards. A kaleidoscope of relationships, strong personalities and memories all jolt back and forth in time. Themes covered in the book include family dysfunction, communication breakdown, desire and love, death and ageing. All of these grim…
Paint by Numbers Using numbers in headlines like top tens, has become a booming trend. Headlines with numbers in them denote purpose to the article, and everybody loves a countdown! Perhaps it brings to mind the good old days of the MTV top thirty? Numbers are easy on the eye because they denote a defined…
Continue reading ➞ How to Craft ‘All Killer No Filler’ Headlines
Every business is setting up a blog nowadays. You either need to get on the bandwagon, or feel its wheels rolling over the top of you. A 2012 survey of Australian marketers by CMI, concluded that of the 96% of Australian marketers who used content marketing; only 29% thought this was effective. The challenge for these…
Continue reading ➞ Content Marketing Catnip: Getting Ideas to Spread
In this wonderful slideshare presentation below, Brad Frost cuts through the bullshit of content marketing, with some amusing and incisive revelations. Death to Bullshit is a refreshingly honest perspective on the rapid rise of information in our culture in the past few years. Source: http://www.slideshare.net/bradfrostweb/death-to-bullshit-now-with-80-more-bullshit Apparently QR codes are bullshit, as well as banner ads and e-newsletters.…
The routines, the jobs, and the monotony of everyday life can take its toll on your imagination. That little spark inside of your soul that wants to paint, write, dance, make music or be the living embodiment of creativity, can become stifled and suffocated. Source: http://pixabay.com/en/fireworks-brno-reservoir-139924/ Unless you allow yourself to be indulgently selfish. I don't…
Continue reading ➞ Eight Amazing Ways to Ignite the Fire of Creativity
When planning out a website, it's not the fifty colours, flash animations and fancy fonts that will get visitors' attention. No — not unless you're aiming for the sudden onset of adulthood epilepsy. The word on everyone's lips (anybody who knows anything about web design) is usability. A visitor to a website should be treated…
Continue reading ➞ Five Ways to Embrace the Future of Web Design
Sales skills aren't just the domain of the salespeople. They help everyone to get ahead in life. Whether you're selling the benefits of your perspective to a child, a colleague or your partner it's just another valuable feather in the cap. I'm not meaning manipulation, control or any of the other negative connotations of selling.…
Sometimes during a tremendously complicated project, content quality and self-checking mechanisms can get swamped among the millions of other things on your plate. As you probably know, there's more to writing that simply grammar and punctuation. So here's a couple of essential tips. Use them as a homing beacon after a 18 hour stint behind…
Writing for a living is a challenge at first, but as soon as you settle down with it, it becomes incredibly easy and immensely rewarding. Sort of like looking after a cat. Things only get easier as the years go by and you accumulate more and more experience in different fields. That all sounds grand…
Continue reading ➞ How to Kick-start a Freelance Writing Career
