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Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 20, 2021 at 2:58pm

Alex J. Coyne: 7 Lessons In Better Writing From The Beatles

(Originally Published / Please LIKE @ https://www.writerswrite.co.za/ )

Looking for some writing advice and inspiration? In this post, we include seven lessons in better writing from The Beatles.

When measured by album sales and song downloads, The Beatles were one of the biggest bands in existence. Yesterday is the world’s most covered song, and other tracks written by the Fab Four are familiar to most people who will read this.

While their official end came in 1970, their influences continues well into today.

Don’t forget that The Beatles were writers, too. While people see them as musicians, what they sold was their writing.

Writers can learn a lot to improve their writing through The Beatles. If you want to know more about writing that captivates those who hear and read it, they knew some writing tricks.

Go to YouTube, and look up some lyrics before reading further. Start with Strawberry Fields Forever, Help, or I Want To Hold Your Hand. Some were rock, some were blues, and others were radio-friendly – a couple were very unusual. 

Here’s what writers can learn from the writing of one of the greatest groups to exist.

Briefly, About The Beatles

The official Beatles members were Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.

Albums including Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road, and A Hard Day’s Night are credited to the band. Popular, individual songs are too many to list here.

The Beatles still have an incredible influence on art, popular culture, and creativity. Their work is popular, everlasting, and original. Their work is inspiring, written about often, and discovered by new fans every day.

Do you want people to see your writing like this someday?

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 20, 2021 at 10:29am

Learn from the Beatles just as much as from traditional writing role models like Stephen King.

They knew how to write. 

7 Lessons In Better Writing From The Beatles

There are many writers who look to primarily fiction or non-fiction authors for inspiration. Include scriptwriters and lyricists in your list, even if you do not write in the same media which they do.

Here’s where to start exploring the Beatles: 

1. How To Use Your Words

The Beatles were responsible for the lyric ‘I am the walrus’.

People are still debating what it could have meant. But it’s still catchy enough to have sold millions of copies – and inspired thousands of other artists. 

As a writer, your greatest tool is using (and often bending) the capacity of language. Words influence a lot of things, including mood, and a writer’s tone. 

Does it mean that you have to use flowery, embellished language every time you write? No, not necessarily. But writers should always use language with just a dash of creativity that sets them apart from other writers in the world.

Know language, and aim to get to know it better as a writer every day.

It worked for the Beatles, and it can work for you.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 20, 2021 at 10:28am

2. Writing Great Titles Is As Important As The Hook

A title is responsible for what makes a reader continue, get hooked, or read something else.

The Beatles knew the power of writing great titles. 

• Let It Be
• Strawberry Fields Forever
• Eleanor Rigby
• While My Guitar Gently Weeps

See?

On paper, the titles are powerful on their own. 

As a writer, that is what you should aim to achieve. 

Writing elements like the hook, the first paragraph, and the last sentence are just as important as writing a great title.

3. Remember To See The Business Side Of Writing

John Lennon reportedly once told another band member that it was time to ‘write a swimming pool.’

While that was pretty blunt, it describes what writers should know about the business side of their writing.

See pitches and sold work as business capital as a writer. After all, your words are worth money. Every word counts, especially when the writer intends to sell any of them. 

4. Work On Telling Great Beginnings, Middles, & Ends

The Beatles had a knack for great stories within their songs.

Read the lyrics of songs like The Ballad Of Rocky Raccoon, or Strawberry Fields Forever. Eleanor Rigby and even Can’t Buy Me Love are good examples of their storytelling capacity.

There are beginnings, middles, and ends. Distinct ones, and each song tells a story to the listener or reader.

As a writer, you should aim to make your writing always achieve this.

Excellent fiction and non-fiction writing means you should always work on better beginnings, middles, and endings.. 

5, Ideas Can Come From Anywhere (At Any Time)

The original idea for Yesterday came from a catchy melody and Paul McCartney singing the words ‘scrambled eggs’ to it. Creativity is a strange thing. It can strike at any time, and a writer has to be ready to seize the moment (or set out a time for pitching and writing every day) to keep ideas flowing.

The song Yesterday is credited as the most covered and recorded song in history. That’s really something, and it started with a very basic core idea.

Keep all your ideas. Don’t discount the weird ones. They might just be the ideas that work well with readers – and remember that the best ideas can, indeed, come from some very weird places. 

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 20, 2021 at 10:26am

6. Learn To Write In Any Kind Of Chaos

Writers like order, but too many writers blame their circumstances for an inability to get writing. There’s never an ideal environment to work, and it is something that might be impossible to find. 

The Beatles performed many gigs where the crowd was so hysterical from Beatlemania that the band couldn’t hear themselves sing. They couldn’t hear their instruments. But still, they performed – and usually, very well. 

Gigs are chaos. Studios are chaos. Musicians’ heads are chaos. Often, so is the environment in which you will have to write. 

Don’t let circumstances stand in the way of completing your writing. 

The Beatles didn’t.

7. Rights Are What You’re Really Selling

Rights to Beatles lyrics are worth more their literal weight in gold. Especially songs credited to the partnership of John Lennon and Paul McCartney have been bought, sold, re-sold, and traded to the tune of billions in total. 

Professional writers aren’t selling consumer products like watches, silver, or shampoo. They’re selling rights to their work. 

If you’re a writer, record it when you sell and publish your work. Learn what type of rights you are giving up, and whether the work can be re-posted (or republished as a reprint again). 

While writers write, writers should also have a handle on the business of selling and administrating their rights. 

For any writer, how they handle their rights is as important as how good their ideas look on paper.

The Last Word 

Almost everyone knows the Beatles. If you don’t, now is an excellent time to have a listen to their library of work.

The movie Across The Universe is also an excellent start for new fans (and even though it doesn’t feature the Beatles themselves, it features plenty of their best work).

As a writer, every influence can help to grow your abilities as a writer.

Who are your strongest writing influences right now, and what have you learned from their work?

Image: This image is from the “Album Covers Wiki” on The Beatles and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike License.

 
By Alex J. Coyne. Alex is a writer, proofreader, and regular card player. His features about cards, bridge, and card playing have appeared in Great Bridge Links, Gifts for Card Players, Bridge Canada Magazine, and Caribbean Compass. Get in touch at alexcoyneofficial.com.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 19, 2021 at 2:10pm

Sarah Williams 7 Pearls Of Writing Wisdom From Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag was an American writer, filmmaker, and political activist. She was born 16 January 1933, and died 28 December 2004. A personal hero of mine, she was deemed ‘one of the most influential critics of her generation.’

Rightfully so. Until her passing in 2004, she forged a daringly outspoken life during both turbulent and thrilling bouts of history. Susan possessed New York by shirking sexual stereotypes and sharing bold, unapologetic meditations on love, art, humanity, and pop culture.

From her prolific essays and talks on literature to her intimate letter correspondences, words were the catalyst of choice for Susan’s self-expression.

After Susan’s death, a series of her personal journals were released. She had spent an entire lifetime contemplating the importance of writing in relation to her life experiences and the experiences of others.

This is a collection of her most poignant pearls of writing wisdom.


7 Pearls Of Writing Wisdom From Susan Sontag


1. ‘You have to be obsessed.’

Much like Rainer Maria Rilke, who questioned writers whether they would die if forbidden to write, Susan instilled a similar urgency. You don’t choose to be a writer. You have to be. There must be something inside that commands a person to write. This commitment and desire to improve the craft is what propels you forward, both as a writer and a moral human being. ‘People write me all the time,’ she said, during a 1992 talk given at the 92nd Street Y, ‘or get in touch with me about “what should I do if I want to be a writer?” I say well, do you really want to be a writer? It’s not like something you’d want to be, it’s rather something you couldn’t help but be. But you have to be obsessed.’


2. ‘If I am not able to write because I’m afraid of being a bad writer, then I must be a bad writer.

At least I’ll be writing.’ In this journal entry from 1979, Susan motivates writers to denounce their insecurities and push through. It doesn’t matter if the quality of writing doesn’t quite match the quantity by which you produce it. If you’re compelled to write, you write. If you continue to write, you get better.

3. ‘Love words, agonize over sentences, and pay attention to the world.’ Fiction.

Narrative. Poetry. Non-fiction. Reviews. Every genre is a commentary on life. If you don’t pay attention to the world, you won’t have much to say about it. Susan Sontag contextualized her personal view of the world within a framework of the Vietnam War and her voluntary participation in the Siege of Sarajevo. She stressed the political role and social duty of the artist and the ways in which language can both create and distort reality. Put in the most simplistic terms during her acceptance speech for Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, ‘A writer, I think, is someone who pays attention to the world.’ She urged writers to ‘be serious,’ without forgetting the importance of humour in both life and literature.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on April 19, 2021 at 2:10pm

4. ‘Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead.’

This pearl of wisdom was pulled from her 2003 commencement speech at Vassar. I find it most useful as a writer, myself, whenever I fall into a creative rut. The best way to combat writer’s block is to plough through it. Writing often feels like a thankless craft. As a blogger, I’ve produced what I consider thought provoking, well-written articles that I’m proud to publish. But when a couple days go by without any traction, I immediately feel discouraged. I question my work. I reread and sometimes I even go back into the publication to edit. Susan reminds me to drop the need for validation from outside sources. Keep creating new content. Some articles go viral, others don’t. Move on.


5. ‘It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there as you can, and not letting the excuses and the dreariness of some of the obligations you’ll soon be incurring narrow your lives.

Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.’ There will always be distractions and reasons not to write. Learn to ignore them. Said during the same commencement speech, Susan continues to stress active participation in your own life. Things don’t just happen. You make them happen. Through this active participation, you become an agent of change and a commentator on the way things ought to be.

6. ‘The only story that seems worth writing is a cry, a shot, a scream.

A story should break the reader’s heart.’ In 1973, Sontag’s diary reflections were quite meditative. While she often reflected inward on her the struggles of becoming a good writer, here she focuses her lens on what good writing looked like to her. Art is subjective, which is why you shouldn’t feel discouraged if one critic dislikes your work. There are countless stories told by the greats claiming they were denied by a chain of publishes prior to their success. What evokes you as a reader? You should know if you expect to have the same impact as a writer. She went on to say, ‘The story must strike a nerve in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.’

7. ‘There is a great deal that either has to be given up or be taken away from you if you are going to succeed in writing a body of work.’

Writing requires sacrifice, whether your time, brain capacity, or emotional energy. If you’re not drained by the work, it’s probably not challenging enough. We all know writing isn’t a passive craft. It takes time, patience, and your full attention. You have to be brave and embrace your inner madness. What are you most afraid to write about? Now, write about only that until it’s no longer taboo. There’s a reason why it scares you. It’s intriguing. And if it intrigues you, there’s a good chance it intrigues someone else. Now you’ve got yourself a reader.


Sarah Williams is full time lifestyle writer managing Wingman Magazine – a self-development platform for millennial men. In her free time she loves to read and study about love interactions and communication. You can also connect her on Twitter: @SarahAtWingman

Source for image (©Lynn Gilbert) 

TIP: If you want help writing a book, buy The Novel Writing Exercises Workbook.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on January 26, 2021 at 11:35pm

Kapit：The Capital of Sarawak's Seventh Division

Kapit, which means 'twin' in local dialect, is the capital of Sarawak's Seventh Division, through which flows the Rejang River and its main tributaries, the Batang Baleh, Batang Katibas, Batang Balui and Sungai Belaga. In a treaty with the Sultan of Brunei, Rajah James Brooke acquired the Rejang Basin for Sarawak in 1853. Kapit is the last big town on the Rejang and styles itself as the gateway to 'the heart of Borneo', after Redmond O'Hanlon's Into the Heart of Borneo, which describes his adventure up the Batang Baleh in the 1980s. Kapit is full of people who claim to be characters in this book.

The main sights are Fort Sylvia and the Kapit Museum but, like O'Hanlon and his journalist companion James Fenton, most visitors simply use the town as a pit stop before continuing their adventures into the interior to explore the upper Rejang and its tributaries, where there are many Iban and Orang Ulu longhouses. Maps of the Kapit Division and other parts of Sarawak are available from the Land Survey Department. Permits for upriver trips are available from the government administration centre, which is outside town near the old airport. Tourists going up the Balleh River or Upper Rejang must sign a form saying they understand they are travelling at their own risk.

Background

There are only a few tens of kilometres of surfaced road in and around Kapit, but the small town has a disproportionate number of cars. It is a trading centre for the tribespeople upriver and has grown enormously in recent years with the expansion of the logging industry upstream. Logs come in two varieties: floaters and sinkers. Floaters are pulled downstream by tugs in huge chevron formations. Sinkers - like belian (ironwood) - are transported in the Chinese-owned dry bulk carriers that line up along the wharves at Kapit. When the river is high these timber ships are able to go upstream, past the Pelagus Rapids. The Rejang at Kapit is normally 500 m wide and, in the dry season, the riverbank slopes steeply down to the water. When it floods, however, the water level rises more than 10 m, as is testified by the high-water marks on Fort Sylvia.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on January 26, 2021 at 11:35pm

Sights

Fort Sylvia (Photo Above) near the wharves was built of belian by Rajah Charles Brooke in 1880, and is now occupied by the Kapit Museum. It was originally called Kapit Fort but was renamed in 1925 after Rajah Vyner Brooke's wife. Most of the forts built during this time were designed to prevent the Orang Ulu going downriver; Fort Sylvia was built to stop the belligerent Iban headhunters from attacking Kenyah and Kayan settlements upstream.

The Kapit Museum was enlarged in the 1990s and moved to Fort Sylvia. It has exhibits (all labelled in English) on Rejang tribes and the local economy. Set up by the Sarawak Museum in Kuching, it includes a section of an Iban longhouse and several Iban artefacts including a wooden hornbill. The Orang Ulu section has a reconstruction of a longhouse and a mural painted by local tribespeople. An Orang Ulu salong (burial hut), totem pole and other woodcarvings are also on display. The museum has representative exhibits from the small Malay community and the Chinese. Hokkien traders settled at Kapit and Belaga and traded salt, sugar and ceramics for pepper, rotan and rubber; they were followed by traders from Fujian. The Chinese exhibit is a shop. In addition, there are also displays on the natural history of the upper Rejang and modern industries such as mining, logging and tourism.

Kapit has a particularly colourful daily market in the centre of town. Tribeswomen bring in fruit, vegetables and animals to sell; it is quite normal to see everything from turtles, frogs, birds and catfish to monkeys, wild boar and even pangolin and pythons. Note: If you do see animals such as monkeys, pangolins, wild cats or birds, please remember that most of them are protected species and in serious danger of extinction, due to the wildlife 'pet' trade and the rising demand for 'traditional' medicines like ground bone and body parts such as monkey gall bladders. Please do not buy them or in any way encourage this business.

Pelagus Rapids

Forty-five minutes upstream from Kapit on the Rejang River, this 2.5-km-long series of cataracts and whirlpools is the result of a sudden drop in the riverbed, caused by a geological fault line. Express boats can make it up the Pelagus to Belaga in the wet season (September-April) and at times of high water the rest of the year, but the rapids are still regarded with some trepidation by the pilots. When the water is low, they can only be negotiated by the smallest longboats. There are seven rapids in total, each with local names such as The Python, The Knife and one, more ominously, called The Grave.

Comment by 用心涼Coooool on January 26, 2021 at 11:34pm

Longhouses

Some longhouses are accessible by road and several others are within an hour's longboat ride from town. In Kapit you are likely to be invited to visit one of these. Visitors are strongly advised not to visit a longhouse without an invitation, ideally from someone who lives in it. As a general rule, the further from town a longhouse is, the more likely it is to conform with the image of what a traditional longhouse should be like. That said, there are some beautiful traditional longhouses nearby, which are mainly Iban. One of the most accessible is Rumah Seligi, about 30 minutes' drive from Kapit. Cars or vans can be hired by the half day. Only a handful of longhouses are more than 500 m from the riverbanks of the Rejang and its tributaries. Most longhouses still practise shifting cultivation; rice is the main crop but under government aid programmes many are now growing cash crops such as cocoa. Longhouses are also referred to as Uma (Sumah) and the name of the headman, ie Long Segaham is known locally as Uma Lasah (Lasah being the chief).

Longhouses between Kapit and Belaga on the upper Rejang river are accessible by the normal passenger boats, but these express boats travel a limited distance on the Baleh River (2½ hours). To go further upriver it is necessary to take a tour or organize your own guides and boatmen. The sort of trip taken by Redmond O'Hanlon and James Fenton (as described in O'Hanlon's book Into the Heart of Borneo) would cost more than RM1800 a head. Large-scale logging operations are currently underway on the Baleh River and although this may increase boat traffic and the opportunities to access this part of Sarawak, brace yourself for a very different experience from that described in Into the Heart of Borneo.

The vast majority of the population, about 68%, in Sarawak's Seventh Division is Iban. They inhabit the Rejang up to and a little beyond Kapit, as well as the lower reaches of the Balleh and its tributaries. The Iban people are traditionally the most hospitable to visitors but, as a result, their longhouses are the most frequently visited by tourists. Malays and Chinese account for 3.4% and 7% of the population respectively. The Orang Ulu live further upriver; the main tribes are the Kayan and the Kenyah (12%) and a long list of sub-groups such as the Kejaman, Beketan, Sekapan, Lahanan, Seping and Tanjong. In addition there are the nomadic and semi-nomadic Penan, Punan and Ukit. Many tribal people are employed in the logging industry and, with their paid jobs, have brought the trappings of modernity to even the most remote longhouses.

Only enter the Rumah Tuan Lepong Balleh longhouse with the local policeman, Selvat Anu, who lives there; ask for him at Kapit police station. During the day Selvat and some members of the longhouse can take visitors on various adventure tours: river trips, visiting longhouses, jungle treks, fishing, pig hunting, camping in the jungle, trips up to logging areas, swimming in rivers and mountain trekking. Selvat is very knowledgeable and has good relations with longhouse communities. Visitors can eat with the family and occasionally have the chance to experience a traditional Iban ceremony.

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