_lryhaelWqU1qjvxfho1_500.png (PNG Image, 500x493 pixels) DP: Welcome. Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) The Trustees of Distributed Proofreaders Foundation are concerned about a new international agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP will result in significant copyright term extensions in signatory countries, which will have the immediate impact of slowing or halting growth of the public domain in many parts of the world. The agreement was drafted in secret. Public scrutiny and consideration are now needed for copyright term extension, and many other aspects of the agreement. The Trustees of Distributed Proofreaders are against further copyright term extensions in any country, and encourage all people who benefit from public domain materials to make their opinions known to their lawmakers.
The TPP is passed, but is not yet ratified in any country. Follow the Distributed Proofreaders Blog on Twitter: Site Concept Distributed Proofreaders provides a web-based method to ease the conversion of Public Domain books into e-books. How You Can Help. Read These Seven Books, and You’ll be a Better Writer. Donald Miller I used to play golf but I wasn’t very good. I rented a DVD, though, that taught me a better way to swing, and after watching it a few times and spending an hour or so practicing, I knocked ten strokes off my game. I can’t believe how much time I wasted when a simple DVD saved me years of frustration. I’d say something similar is true in my writing career. If you read these books, your writing will improve to the point people who read your work will begin to comment on how well you write. Sometimes the difference between an okay writer and a great writer is simple.
. • The War of Art by Steven Pressfield: This book is aimed at writers, but it’s also applicable to anybody who does creative work. Pressfield leaves out all the mushy romantic talk about the writing life, talk I don’t find helpful. . • On Writing Well by William Zinsser: Zinsser may be the best practical writing coach out there. . • Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott: Save the Cat by Blake Snyder: On Writing, by Stephen King: 6 Ways to Hook Your Readers from the Very First Line. Although I consider myself an avid reader, I must admit I have a short attention span when it comes to getting into books. If you fail to grab my attention in the first few lines, I start spacing out.
Most readers are like me. Most people don’t want to spend the first 50 pages trying to get into a book. Here are a few things I find annoying in the first lines of a story: Dialogue. Nice somewhere on the first or second page, but not in the first line. The last thing you want to do as a writer is annoy or bore people.
(N.B. 1. Put a question in your readers’ minds. “Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” 2. By starting at an important moment in the story, your reader is more likely to want to continue so he or she can discover what will happen next. “It was dark where she was crouched but the little girl did as she’d been told.” 3. Description is good when it encourages people to paint a picture in their minds. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” 4. 5. 6. 10 great science fiction novels that have been banned.
@djscruffy: And that's why you're a heathen and should be burned at the stake. @djscruffy: In defense of public schools, I would suggest that the reason many of these books are challenged so often is that they're frequently included in school curriculums and libraries. I grew up in a state that, according to these links, engaged in book-burning less than a decade before my birth. That makes me shudder. But I'm also the child of a public school teacher and am familiar with my mother's and many of her peers' views on children's reading materials.
Despite the generally conservative views in my community, my elementary school encouraged me to read A Wrinkle in Time and The Giver and Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret. In high school, an English teacher steered me towards Animal Farm and a social sciences teacher encouraged me to try Consider Phlebas. I suppose I've wandered a bit. Most of us really try to teach the kids to think, rather than becoming nice little automatons. Ray Bradbury on Writing Persistently.
How To Write Better Almost Instantly. Advice from Stephen King.