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If you have just joined us, then you need to read previous editions in the series, you will find these here:
With each publication in this series, I was giving you assignments to do and asked you to return these to me for editing. This way you sent in your effort, which I called a ‘submission’ and I send back a ‘correction’ to you. In doing this, you ended up with a comparison.
I am now going to change the system. In future you will not send in submissions, but I will publish my version of the assignment a week later and that way you can compare what you have done with what I have written.
If you have just joined us, you are free to submit the earlier assignments to us for correction, to help get you started.
One of the many advantages of creating and writing for your own pleasure is the fact that whatever your genre (Whatever category of writing you choose to do, see these examples) the choice of style, article, essay is always yours to make. Some time later, as you become more skilful and you are looking to earn money from your creations, then you will have give the topics of genre and style a lot more thought. We shall discuss this more fully in a later edition.
For the moment you are free to do as you please.
I have discovered an excellent discipline to writing: this is to learn to control not only your layout of introduction, core, and conclusion in your articles, but to also be flexible in subject matter and length of these. (I call this’ICC Process.’)
For this exercise, we will take a word and using the above ICC process and at the same time, using the same word, limit myself to three different word counts:
The word I will select is ‘disease’ and I will write three different word counts: 50, 150, 250.
- The elderly man walked with a certain discomfort. His steps were awkward, and he grunted almost continually from the effort. He faced even greater difficulty attempting to sit and once again to stand. “Poor old man, he is truly suffering.” “Yes,” commented another, “that’s what the disease of arthritis does.”
2. “Fortunately, your son’s disease is not fatal, but it is extremely contagious.” The doctor stated, after examining the young boy. “Your son has Hepatitis A. I am prescribing isolation for seven days and a course of antibiotics, which I caution you, must be completed. This course should be completed, or the infection could rise again. If there are no signs of improvement within three days, bring your child back to me. So long as he is stable, you can come back after seven days. At that point, we will decide if we need to continue the isolation for another seven days; In the interim, I am bound by law to report this case to our local Medical Council. You will likely hear from the District Nurse. “The Doctor continued.
Relief showed on the mother’s face and she faced the Doctor. “Thank you Doctor, I shall do as you say.”
3. It had been some time now, that the youth had complained to his parents and his grandmother, who lived with the family, about the fact that he did not want to go to school, as he was feeling weak. His father, a military man, decided that his son’s complaint was only a matter of faking in order to take time off his schooling. His grandmother felt different about the matter however, and as her discernment was respected in the home, the youth was put to bed with Granny’s attendant medication.
By nightfall, the youth was no better and was feverish. His Granny lay next to him in a hastily erected camp-bed. She swabbed his body with wet towels, soaked in a bath of cold water. By morning, as his temperature was still high, it was decided to call the doctor.
Mother and Granny were in attendance as the Doctor went though his checks. He asked questions like, did the lad have scarlet fever, streptococci at any time? Between Mother and Granny, they had all the answers. Finally, the Doctor stood, “Judging from his fever, inflamed and sore joints I would say he has Rheumatic Fever. It is a disease that can affect the heart, joints, and skin. I will take a blood sample to verify my findings and give him a penicillin shot now. I shall call again tomorrow morning, but if his condition worsens, call me immediately.”
The lad recovered, with no apparent after effects from the disease.
I wrote these snippets spontaneously and followed the ICC process, as described above, and also the respective word counts.
You might ask yourself, why would the above discipline be important to a novice writer?
For starters, discipline is always a solid and tremendously beneficial quality, for all of us.
More specifically though, it is a way of reining-in our creative juices and keeping them from diluting our story plot to a place of long-windedness and boring our readers. You have doubtlessly heard of the expression – “Less is more.”
Your assignment this week is to choose a word and do as I have done above.
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