Blogs

I set off to write a series of crime fiction novels under the title, The Human Spirit Trilogy. The idea was to celebrate how we have progressed as a species and made the world a better place over the last two hundred years using scientific discoveries and technological advancement. The books would be positive, upbeat and would leave the reader entertained and inspired. Good will always prevail over Evil and the baddies will get their comeuppance.

Albert Einstein’s Best Kept Secret

On 27^th January 1902, 26 year old Mileva Maric gave birth to her first child at her parents’ house in Novi Sad, a provincial town on the Danube that today is Serbia’s second largest city.

The baby girl was named Lieserl and was cared for by her mother for a few short months before she returned to live in a village near Bern, Switzerland, close to where the baby’s 23 year old father had secured employment at the Patent Office on 23^rd June 1902.

For most people, finding a cure for cancer or saving the world from poverty, would be a momentous achievement. For Dr Hannah Siekierkowski, CEO of New York’s own Klinkenhammer Foundation for Medical Research, it’s what she gets paid to do: just another day in the office.  Matthew Cox wanted to know how she was coping with so much media attention.   

When we observe the following three rules for writing, many other sins are forgiven.

So what are those rules?

1. Make your reader care in your opening paragraph.
2. Never give your reader a reason to say, ‘so what?’
3. Make sure that everything in your piece is relevant and adds to the story.

So let’s deal with each of these points individually.

• A character can express anger either passively or aggressively dependent upon their nature.
• If a character digresses from their true self, ensure their motivation for doing so is plausible.
• Remember, below are simply suggestions.

I have just returned from a trip to Edutech 2017/Work 2.0 in Johannesburg, South Africa. I will never forget the amazing skies in the late afternoon. They were moody, electric with rolling thunder and lightning and forever changing hue. I had never seen anything like them before.

The trip entailed a 30-hour flight from New Zealand to South Africa and back. It was worth every cramped, economy class hour.

• The definition of ‘BLAH’ according to the Oxford Dictionary: ‘Used to refer to something which is boring or without meaningful content.’

Often when we write we are eager to tell our stories and we give little thought to who might read them. For some reason we imagine there are dozens of people waiting for our words, information. So it is something of a disappointment when we discover there isn't.
In fact the readers we imagined were like a mirage and they disappear in a shimmer.
So, before we start writing we need to pause. Who is our reader? What interests him or her? Who does he  or she hang out with? What makes them angry, sad or joyful?

NZ Tech Advance Educational Technology Summit – June 2017

Stylecheck [Stylefit] encourages self-directed learning = engaged students http://www.thestorymint.com/what-story-mint

NZ Tech Advance Educational Technology Summit – June 2017

Five Minute presentation

Greetings to you all.

When hands fly to throats and leap out from pockets.