1）旧的不去新的不来
2）恢复心情，医好病痛
3）学业事业两头鸿
4）身体健康又苗条
5）天天开心不要吵
6）排除负能量，迎接新希望
7）2011凡事第一，开启10年内的好运气，好好补充自己的知识吧！
8）别管别人，先管好自己，迷失了可不是闹着玩哦！
9）说话要谨慎，做人要有分寸，不要固执于对或错，正或邪。
10）沟通是人与人之间表达的重要工具。撕下面具的你会如何打破隔膜和人交谈？
11）猜疑是对的吗？
12）澳洲旅行
Friday, December 31, 2010
2010 干了哪些件事？
1）101010的婚纱照
2）买了生平最贵的礼物（ipod touch）给别人
3）gym membership 减肥35%fat to 27% fat
4）被YY comic shop骗了$$，当众问老板怎么cancel membership
5）Thailand Trip in Jan
6）fail advance theory
7）pass driving practical obtain license spent $1660 in total
8）went into stereolab drank $15 tiger yr liquor w cecilia
9）Jayvern celebrated first chinese new yr with my family and relatives.
10）attended Mitch Albom press conference read his latest book.
11）Free reading done by Kelvin
12）Met and gotten close with Bryan and Kelvin
13）Didnt do well for first sem.
14）3As +2Bs for sec sem!
15）Did my teeth cosmetic
16）learn about investing in Singapore
17）cooked mee hoon kway for everyone and fell sick next day
18）cooked 决明子soup for silmming purpose but everytime need to boil 45mins ganna banned from stove by mom...
19）watched a very buddhist show 目莲救母story realise U weekly bring much worse shows than vizpro.. which also totally turn Jayvern off..
20）watch shaolin monk show with Mom. spectacular!
21）booked chalet for a week which i balloted but dint go be cos i was sick?
22）Attended Pinkdot met many gay ppl from my office
23）Attended TGIM by Heineken which send a private mecerdes to fetch me after work to esplanade woot! No need to pay for the food just chills, dun even need to write any article woot!!
24）Lialise with Asia Pacific Brewery Kevin and went to do a feature in their company.
25）First shoot with new photog Roy met with the Taxi fare incident, managed to get back my claims in the end ^^
26）Interview Fred Allen Brewmaster. took a short tour around the brewery. learnt how to taste beer.
27）Did a two page writeup for the first time and gotten good feedbacks. Best feedback this year. Cos guided by Lay Leng
28）met Brenda. Huiwen and Yimei.. primary sch+ sec sch friends. weird experience.
29）friends that became acquaintance is hard to be friends again?
30）Move office
31）Got close to wanyu and dion
32）Talk nonsense to boss and editor
33）Show black face to other ppl
34）Tell lies to stay out of trouble
35）Lies that turn into real stuff.. more trouble and work
36）send peisi off to china see her in 2 years time..
37）Did a 2pp breakdance feature for Korean Sachoom
38）Didnt recieve good comments
39）cant do a short freeze lied that i did in the article..
40）after silmming down i finally able to do freeze for 30 sec!
41）attended the Big walk with Uncle Sunny and Jayvern's relatives
42）Treated whole family to DTF dinner spend around $120 plus?? cant rem
43）Jayvern's Dad wedding.. first time attending a christian wedding.
44）Went desaru on our anniversary. turn off for me turn on for her.
45）1pp of Alive gallery article. Interview with Mona Lisa was a good topic good feedbacks but with help from derek.
46）Did my first Blender project. Sored A+ and a full score of GPA 5!
47）Wrote Cowboy in paradise for Radio script with Dion's help scored well for that too!
48）Met and interviewed the paper airplane guy. learned about physics and science of airplane. 2pp story with lotsa steps. Boomerang plane was the hardest to throw.
49）Chestnut was the gayiest stand up comedy show so far. laugh and forget.
50）AFA conference interiewed Kaname* cool guy super skillful cosplayer
51）Misunderstood the question for Advertising course. scored 3 marks only... F. but i still managed to score B+ overall woot!
52）Bulters interview plus pre event coverage for AFAX.
53）watch puppet show pinnochio.
54）met a few people at club. played through the night.
55）Friends for less than a month everyone fell out. Different frequency. Different mindset. Different world. I dont want to compare anymore. They turned my world upside down for awhile but manage to get my peace back ^^
56）Made a nice friend who intro me into the world of manga and Jap culture
57）Made a nice friend who is a doctor
58）Took a pirate ship that dint stop after 15mins.
59）Saw how TCM and Western Medication is put to use
60）Saw relationship break and patch
61）went to see him when i got sick
62）gotten medication to postpone menses for trips
63）Went to the zoo for her celebration!
64）Took picture of her feeding giraffe.
65）Byebye to Oklahoma
66）Back with Victoria secrets underwear
67）went to taiwan
68）puked like waterfall
69）spent Christmas eve listening to christmas songs in tour bus.
70）Spent Christmas in tour bus.
71）Spent Last day of 2010 typing this at home alone.
72）Some friendship can last for 40 years. some can only last for a few days.
73）Met a gay couple during trip went to Gstar gay bar in Taipei
74）Realise that alot of people hide their true colours from you.
75）Listen to Dion and wanyu talk about ppl in the office and the deeds they do makes my hair stand..
76）Appreciate the time they spend with me when Jayvern is not around.
77）Killed alot of Salmon
78）Heard alot of unbelievable stories
79）Love Gee to Love Glee
80）Love Brittany and Quinn
81）徐小凤 静心等
82）观绿帽王后的震撼
83）Spend whole weekend watching shows at home
84）Drank lotsa sake
85）累了吗？累了就对了，舒服是留给死人的。
86）Realise we make better friends with Gay.. later gg for lunch with Adrian and Aaron
87）Hang out at gay bar
88）saw people unmask themselves.
89）saw people who look down on people i admire
90）gotten look upon by people.
91）gotten look down by people
92）interviewed a completely unrelated japan comic artist who came to sg .. but he dun have any story point at all
93）Nex opening went to shop almost everyweek
94）Lego story
95）STGCC finally a Book B coverstory with Dion ^^
96）wrote two person's interview well.
97）interviewed Phil Ortiz the simpsons guy who reated 200 over character in simpson
98）interviewed an inspiring comic celebrity from phillipines Harvey Tolibao.
99）made a fool with Jayvern
100）wrote 100 things that i've did on the last day of the year.
2）买了生平最贵的礼物（ipod touch）给别人
3）gym membership 减肥35%fat to 27% fat
4）被YY comic shop骗了$$，当众问老板怎么cancel membership
5）Thailand Trip in Jan
6）fail advance theory
7）pass driving practical obtain license spent $1660 in total
8）went into stereolab drank $15 tiger yr liquor w cecilia
9）Jayvern celebrated first chinese new yr with my family and relatives.
10）attended Mitch Albom press conference read his latest book.
11）Free reading done by Kelvin
12）Met and gotten close with Bryan and Kelvin
13）Didnt do well for first sem.
14）3As +2Bs for sec sem!
15）Did my teeth cosmetic
16）learn about investing in Singapore
17）cooked mee hoon kway for everyone and fell sick next day
18）cooked 决明子soup for silmming purpose but everytime need to boil 45mins ganna banned from stove by mom...
19）watched a very buddhist show 目莲救母story realise U weekly bring much worse shows than vizpro.. which also totally turn Jayvern off..
20）watch shaolin monk show with Mom. spectacular!
21）booked chalet for a week which i balloted but dint go be cos i was sick?
22）Attended Pinkdot met many gay ppl from my office
23）Attended TGIM by Heineken which send a private mecerdes to fetch me after work to esplanade woot! No need to pay for the food just chills, dun even need to write any article woot!!
24）Lialise with Asia Pacific Brewery Kevin and went to do a feature in their company.
25）First shoot with new photog Roy met with the Taxi fare incident, managed to get back my claims in the end ^^
26）Interview Fred Allen Brewmaster. took a short tour around the brewery. learnt how to taste beer.
27）Did a two page writeup for the first time and gotten good feedbacks. Best feedback this year. Cos guided by Lay Leng
28）met Brenda. Huiwen and Yimei.. primary sch+ sec sch friends. weird experience.
29）friends that became acquaintance is hard to be friends again?
30）Move office
31）Got close to wanyu and dion
32）Talk nonsense to boss and editor
33）Show black face to other ppl
34）Tell lies to stay out of trouble
35）Lies that turn into real stuff.. more trouble and work
36）send peisi off to china see her in 2 years time..
37）Did a 2pp breakdance feature for Korean Sachoom
38）Didnt recieve good comments
39）cant do a short freeze lied that i did in the article..
40）after silmming down i finally able to do freeze for 30 sec!
41）attended the Big walk with Uncle Sunny and Jayvern's relatives
42）Treated whole family to DTF dinner spend around $120 plus?? cant rem
43）Jayvern's Dad wedding.. first time attending a christian wedding.
44）Went desaru on our anniversary. turn off for me turn on for her.
45）1pp of Alive gallery article. Interview with Mona Lisa was a good topic good feedbacks but with help from derek.
46）Did my first Blender project. Sored A+ and a full score of GPA 5!
47）Wrote Cowboy in paradise for Radio script with Dion's help scored well for that too!
48）Met and interviewed the paper airplane guy. learned about physics and science of airplane. 2pp story with lotsa steps. Boomerang plane was the hardest to throw.
49）Chestnut was the gayiest stand up comedy show so far. laugh and forget.
50）AFA conference interiewed Kaname* cool guy super skillful cosplayer
51）Misunderstood the question for Advertising course. scored 3 marks only... F. but i still managed to score B+ overall woot!
52）Bulters interview plus pre event coverage for AFAX.
53）watch puppet show pinnochio.
54）met a few people at club. played through the night.
55）Friends for less than a month everyone fell out. Different frequency. Different mindset. Different world. I dont want to compare anymore. They turned my world upside down for awhile but manage to get my peace back ^^
56）Made a nice friend who intro me into the world of manga and Jap culture
57）Made a nice friend who is a doctor
58）Took a pirate ship that dint stop after 15mins.
59）Saw how TCM and Western Medication is put to use
60）Saw relationship break and patch
61）went to see him when i got sick
62）gotten medication to postpone menses for trips
63）Went to the zoo for her celebration!
64）Took picture of her feeding giraffe.
65）Byebye to Oklahoma
66）Back with Victoria secrets underwear
67）went to taiwan
68）puked like waterfall
69）spent Christmas eve listening to christmas songs in tour bus.
70）Spent Christmas in tour bus.
71）Spent Last day of 2010 typing this at home alone.
72）Some friendship can last for 40 years. some can only last for a few days.
73）Met a gay couple during trip went to Gstar gay bar in Taipei
74）Realise that alot of people hide their true colours from you.
75）Listen to Dion and wanyu talk about ppl in the office and the deeds they do makes my hair stand..
76）Appreciate the time they spend with me when Jayvern is not around.
77）Killed alot of Salmon
78）Heard alot of unbelievable stories
79）Love Gee to Love Glee
80）Love Brittany and Quinn
81）徐小凤 静心等
82）观绿帽王后的震撼
83）Spend whole weekend watching shows at home
84）Drank lotsa sake
85）累了吗？累了就对了，舒服是留给死人的。
86）Realise we make better friends with Gay.. later gg for lunch with Adrian and Aaron
87）Hang out at gay bar
88）saw people unmask themselves.
89）saw people who look down on people i admire
90）gotten look upon by people.
91）gotten look down by people
92）interviewed a completely unrelated japan comic artist who came to sg .. but he dun have any story point at all
93）Nex opening went to shop almost everyweek
94）Lego story
95）STGCC finally a Book B coverstory with Dion ^^
96）wrote two person's interview well.
97）interviewed Phil Ortiz the simpsons guy who reated 200 over character in simpson
98）interviewed an inspiring comic celebrity from phillipines Harvey Tolibao.
99）made a fool with Jayvern
100）wrote 100 things that i've did on the last day of the year.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Monday, December 13, 2010
找到梦想
可能是因为之前和自己约定在13号痛痛快快地大哭一场。她没回来真的就哭了。
百感交集，搽了青草油的脚伤似乎没有胸口前的闷难受。哭了一下，好像很久没哭的感觉。憋在心里的感觉一下子像拉屎一样，统统发泄出来。哭过就好了，心情马上好多了。
紧张紧张，还有2小时就会接到她的来电/SMS吗？
W姐姐说她不在我好像变个人似的，整个人迷失掉。大吃大喝，又无缘无故说些别人听不懂的话。成熟的D姐姐也觉得我很奇怪。可能是我考试压力大的后遗症。之后，又吃得超少，胃口变小，每天放工回家健身，不然就呆在家看电视，看电影，看视频。没什么出门。
她回来了，我的生活终于恢复自然。看到E哥哥和D姐姐多姿多彩的生活照，觉得他们很幸福。一个是即将有小孩，和自己男友交往超过10年还不结婚的D姐姐。一个是走到哪儿都留下痕迹的帅哥哥。他们都是喜欢彩色热情世界的人，舍得放弃$9000的高薪，做些不固定，不起眼的工作的人，他们对工作执著，更热爱生命，不会为了讨好别人，贪念平逸的生活，而白白牺牲自己的梦想。
我决定要活得像E哥哥和D姐姐一样。
人生不能活在黑白中，努力地为你的人生涂上颜色吧。
百感交集，搽了青草油的脚伤似乎没有胸口前的闷难受。哭了一下，好像很久没哭的感觉。憋在心里的感觉一下子像拉屎一样，统统发泄出来。哭过就好了，心情马上好多了。
紧张紧张，还有2小时就会接到她的来电/SMS吗？
W姐姐说她不在我好像变个人似的，整个人迷失掉。大吃大喝，又无缘无故说些别人听不懂的话。成熟的D姐姐也觉得我很奇怪。可能是我考试压力大的后遗症。之后，又吃得超少，胃口变小，每天放工回家健身，不然就呆在家看电视，看电影，看视频。没什么出门。
她回来了，我的生活终于恢复自然。看到E哥哥和D姐姐多姿多彩的生活照，觉得他们很幸福。一个是即将有小孩，和自己男友交往超过10年还不结婚的D姐姐。一个是走到哪儿都留下痕迹的帅哥哥。他们都是喜欢彩色热情世界的人，舍得放弃$9000的高薪，做些不固定，不起眼的工作的人，他们对工作执著，更热爱生命，不会为了讨好别人，贪念平逸的生活，而白白牺牲自己的梦想。
我决定要活得像E哥哥和D姐姐一样。
人生不能活在黑白中，努力地为你的人生涂上颜色吧。
Sunday, December 12, 2010
回来
3个星期晃一晃就过去了，怎么好像10年不见。
忘了怎么流眼泪。压抑的情绪忽然涌上来。想哭，泪又偏偏流不出。和它坐在泳池边看夕阳，这一刻真的很美。
忘了怎么流眼泪。压抑的情绪忽然涌上来。想哭，泪又偏偏流不出。和它坐在泳池边看夕阳，这一刻真的很美。
你要回来了，即期待又害怕那种像第一次和你见面那种熟悉又陌生的感觉---很怪。
我害怕失去你，留在我身边，不要走了好吗？
Sunday, December 05, 2010
对与错
定义在哪里？
一时间帮人，却不知道自己帮的是好人还是坏人。
刚才从我家附近的新购物中心Nexx回家，看到一位老太太推着Fairprice的Trolley过马路。她推得很辛苦，我就顺便帮拉她拉一把。太太还很开心对我微笑道谢。
之后，我才恍然大悟，她的Trolley哪里来？偷的？我这样岂不是变成了帮凶？tmd.
还很高兴，为自己做了好事开心。像个白痴一样。
帮人要看对象，怪我脑袋不是很好。太容易被占便宜了。惭愧啊！
一时间帮人，却不知道自己帮的是好人还是坏人。
刚才从我家附近的新购物中心Nexx回家，看到一位老太太推着Fairprice的Trolley过马路。她推得很辛苦，我就顺便帮拉她拉一把。太太还很开心对我微笑道谢。
之后，我才恍然大悟，她的Trolley哪里来？偷的？我这样岂不是变成了帮凶？tmd.
还很高兴，为自己做了好事开心。像个白痴一样。
帮人要看对象，怪我脑袋不是很好。太容易被占便宜了。惭愧啊！
Sunday, November 28, 2010
原来寂寞的人也会流眼泪
渐渐习惯这种回忆的痛。
是伤心，是想念，还是寂寞？
麻木了吧。天天哽着泪，也会有习惯的一天。
我去她家帮忙打扫。看到很多我以为我会流泪的东西。脑里只想着“累”字。我没哭，静静地收拾。她要回来了。
我想享受我们之间的这种距离。享受这种思念的感觉。化悲伤为享受。
我们一起加油吧！
是伤心，是想念，还是寂寞？
麻木了吧。天天哽着泪，也会有习惯的一天。
我去她家帮忙打扫。看到很多我以为我会流泪的东西。脑里只想着“累”字。我没哭，静静地收拾。她要回来了。
我想享受我们之间的这种距离。享受这种思念的感觉。化悲伤为享受。
我们一起加油吧！
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
PAIN STREKKINGLY
I cant cry out loud.
I can only cry to sleep.
Shh... silent tears drips on my bleeding heart.
i wont cry
i wont show the pain. but i wont deny it isnt there.
I can only cry to sleep.
Shh... silent tears drips on my bleeding heart.
i wont cry
i wont show the pain. but i wont deny it isnt there.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Sunday, November 07, 2010
nobody knows.
Never trust anyone who just walk into your life. -Pinocchio.
Exam is coming so's holiday. I cant believe this is the first time i'm having difficulties sleeping because of stress.
If you're not around what should i do?
Blog and feel sad meh.....
Nah it's ok i'll be fine just have to get a grip of myself.. anw there's always the phone and the internet.. :)
i know i will be fine.
21 days.
13 hr difference.
yes i can do it.
Exam is coming so's holiday. I cant believe this is the first time i'm having difficulties sleeping because of stress.
If you're not around what should i do?
Blog and feel sad meh.....
Nah it's ok i'll be fine just have to get a grip of myself.. anw there's always the phone and the internet.. :)
i know i will be fine.
21 days.
13 hr difference.
yes i can do it.
Monday, October 11, 2010
101010
想不到更好的标题。
101010
爱的见证
十全十美
身平第一次做这种事。
不要脸地任人拍。任摆pose。
原来艺人每天活在灯光下的感觉那么棒！
101010很刚巧的，选了这一天。很庆幸有两位姐姐帮我拍照。把我们两个人拍得那么好看。
辽阔的草原，澎湃的心情。哗！仿佛就像做梦一样开心。
随便打扮，随便配。这么巧带出60年代风格的衣装。
女生等着上火车，男的等着向她告白。花儿买了，给还是不给？
女生接过太阳花，好喜欢！忘我，也忘了旅行包。男的连忙追上！喂！你的行李！
好恩爱好甜蜜哦！！！！
Monday, September 27, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
自私
一直觉得我是个坦然接受改变的人。
去了中国半年，回来感觉好像自己改变了很多。
希望再出国，再独自旅行去。
别人的舍不得就像在原地踏步，老土，不会变通。
反而这次妹出国，心里却有万分的舍不得。矛盾。
反正1星期后她就回来了。
1星期而已。
不断说服。
我就是那么一个人。
自己出事，没关系，自己扛，自己承担。
亲朋好友出事，就不可以忍受。
意气用事，带队出头。
牛脾气，豆腐心。我很难接受自己是个那么鲁莽，重义气的人。这种人最笨，最容易被人家害死。
人不为己，天诛地灭。自私一点不好吗？你问。
我就是不会。要学自私，好难。
去了中国半年，回来感觉好像自己改变了很多。
希望再出国，再独自旅行去。
别人的舍不得就像在原地踏步，老土，不会变通。
反而这次妹出国，心里却有万分的舍不得。矛盾。
反正1星期后她就回来了。
1星期而已。
不断说服。
我就是那么一个人。
自己出事，没关系，自己扛，自己承担。
亲朋好友出事，就不可以忍受。
意气用事，带队出头。
牛脾气，豆腐心。我很难接受自己是个那么鲁莽，重义气的人。这种人最笨，最容易被人家害死。
人不为己，天诛地灭。自私一点不好吗？你问。
我就是不会。要学自私，好难。
Thursday, July 22, 2010
New Beginning
after 1 week of continuous 4 days non-stop training in gym...
i've decided to make it a part of my life..
I hope i can really shed 10 kg and turn my body fat mass around... tsktsk...
it's a brand new beginning...
office moved to caldecott liaoz... probz harder to solve... nevertheless it's a challenge...
i seek adventure, but i dun dare to take the risk of getting lost..
i look for short cuts but i dun dare to pass through with people there...
typical taurus.
i've decided to make it a part of my life..
I hope i can really shed 10 kg and turn my body fat mass around... tsktsk...
it's a brand new beginning...
office moved to caldecott liaoz... probz harder to solve... nevertheless it's a challenge...
i seek adventure, but i dun dare to take the risk of getting lost..
i look for short cuts but i dun dare to pass through with people there...
typical taurus.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Driver's Nightmare
LOL
yes! i've finally legal to drive! yes i don't believe it either.. passed! i was soo negative on this in the first place.. as I was still mounting curb 2 days ago.. mounted 4 times in the circuit!! now but i must really thank my family + Jayvern (ofcos) and 贵人们for their constant encouragement!
I'm really thankful for my parents especially my dad who drive me to driving school for every lesson and giving me extra tips now and then, and was there to practice driving with me every Sunday! Plus 老天爷+大伯公+Bryan's Grapefruit essential oil+ Monkey Day!!
It was really stressful this week for me.. last night i couldnt sleep.. my brain was so excited that i couldnt sleep.. this morning there was dark circles around my eyes.. i didnt bring passport photo as i really didnt wan to bring my expectation up. When i pass my tester who is very kind and lenient ask me to collect my license outside.. i was totally blur out.. i dunno what to do!! den i quickly went down to take photo lo.. wah.. the picture was terrible.. dark eyes.. sloppy face.. messy hair.. trust me i did my best to open my eyes wide.. (ask me for that pict if you want to have a good laugh)
This might come as a surprise for some of you as i kept a low profile on this, but i know u will feel happy for me even if you did know... Dint want you to worry ma... :D
Treated myself to a KFC two piece meal as my reward just now (becos no one to eat lunch with me haha) heehee.. now gg back to do my assignments.. till then we'll meet again!
yes! i've finally legal to drive! yes i don't believe it either.. passed! i was soo negative on this in the first place.. as I was still mounting curb 2 days ago.. mounted 4 times in the circuit!! now but i must really thank my family + Jayvern (ofcos) and 贵人们for their constant encouragement!
I'm really thankful for my parents especially my dad who drive me to driving school for every lesson and giving me extra tips now and then, and was there to practice driving with me every Sunday! Plus 老天爷+大伯公+Bryan's Grapefruit essential oil+ Monkey Day!!
It was really stressful this week for me.. last night i couldnt sleep.. my brain was so excited that i couldnt sleep.. this morning there was dark circles around my eyes.. i didnt bring passport photo as i really didnt wan to bring my expectation up. When i pass my tester who is very kind and lenient ask me to collect my license outside.. i was totally blur out.. i dunno what to do!! den i quickly went down to take photo lo.. wah.. the picture was terrible.. dark eyes.. sloppy face.. messy hair.. trust me i did my best to open my eyes wide.. (ask me for that pict if you want to have a good laugh)
This might come as a surprise for some of you as i kept a low profile on this, but i know u will feel happy for me even if you did know... Dint want you to worry ma... :D
Treated myself to a KFC two piece meal as my reward just now (becos no one to eat lunch with me haha) heehee.. now gg back to do my assignments.. till then we'll meet again!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Mitch Albom on Writing
Below is an excerpt from a talk that sports columnist Mitch Albom gave to fellow staffers at the Detroit Free Press in 2001.
What I hope to do is talk a little bit about some ideas I have learned over the past 20 years in journalism.One thing I have learned from being in the radio, television and newspaper worlds – and therefore working for all the competition simultaneously - is that we, in the print world, are not what we used to be. We are not the primary source of information for people any more. I think we're all painfully aware of that. By the time the newspaper arrives on the porch, most people -- if they've watched CNN or listened to the radio -- already have a very good idea of what is going on. They already have the who-what-where-when and why they teach us about in journalism school.What this has engendered in the newspaper world is a need to approach writing and our journalism from a different point of view; we have to arrest the readers' attention. We are not just the paper of record anymore. We are not just there to give you the who-what-when-where-and-why. They're doing that on the Internet, they're doing it on television, they're doing it on 24-hour cable news, they're doing it on radio. So what do we have to offer that none of them can?The only thing that we have to offer is our ability to write. We're way better writers than anybody working in these other organizations, and I can tell you that because I work in all of them. There's nobody there that can do what the people at this newspaper are capable of doing in terms of writing style. So when we mimic what they do, we lose, because they're faster than us. When we do what we do best, which is stylize, write, detail, flow, extrapolate, then we win, because they can never do that. They don't have the manpower, they don't have the experience. So I want to talk about a couple of ways that I think you can arrest people's attention.And I do mean arrest. I don't use that verb lightly. Because people will give you about two to three seconds now, on anything. At MSNBC, they rate by the minute. They'll give us ratings, and they'll say between 11 and 12 minutes after the hour, you really had their attention. That's how they rate it. That's the kind of attention span they're fighting with, and that's what we are fighting with, too, whether we want to admit it or not.So I'm going to break down three elements of stylistic writing, and I have to say from the start that this is more for feature writing than it is necessarily for straight news stories. I think straight news stories still have to be governed first and foremost by the who-what-where-when and why. All those things you are taught in basic journalism school I still think primarily hold, although I still think there's plenty of room for style within that. I'm going to break it down to 1) leads, 2) the middle 3) the overall idea and 4) the end, and just give you some of my thoughts as to what works and what doesn't.LEADSLet's talk about leads. The way that we're taught in journalism school to do a lead is to get all the basic information into the first or second paragraph somehow. Well, as you all know, if you're trying to do that, it's hard to do with any style. You've got to say how old somebody is, where they live, what they did, what they're charged with, all the rest of it, it's hard to put a lot of pizzazz on that and make it look like anything.
I'm not sure you have to do that. I think that as long as you hold the reader's attention until you get to that information, it's all right to bury it a little further down. And I know that that again is a violation of an old axiom, burying the lead. In features and in columns, I don't believe that's true. Let me give you a couple of examples.First of all, there's something that I refer to as misdirection. Those of you that follow magic know they make you look over here, and meanwhile they're doing something over there. There's the same kind of thing in writing. I'll read you an example. This is Jimmy Breslin's column, that I always thought was a terrific one, and it's from I think the '70s. It starts off with something that I always think is an effective way to begin, which is a scene, an actual scene that is taking place. People love to be dropped in to something. We're a movie culture. We like to see scenes play out in front of us. So when in doubt, always paint a picture with a scene to start anything, any story, any lead, any feature story, whatever. Better to start it with a scene than a declarative sentence.They were walking along in the empty gray afternoon, three of them, Alan Burnett, Aaron Friedman and Billy Mavery. Burnett, the eldest at 17, walking up Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, and singing out Mohammed Ali rhymes into the chilly air. As they reached the corner of Costco Street, it was Alan Burnett's turn to give his Ali rhyme: "AJB is the latest, and he's the greatest." "Who's AJB?" one of them said. "Alan J. Burnett," he said. They were laughing and they turned the corner onto Costco Street. The three wore coats against the cold.Burnett was in a brown trench coat, Friedman a burgundy leather and Mavery a beige corduroy with a box collar. A white paint stain was on the bottom of the back of Mavery's coat. Mavery walking on the outside, suddenly was shoved forward."Keep on walking straight," somebody behind him said. Billy Mavery turned his head. Behind him was this little guy of maybe 18, wearing red sweater, dark pants and black gun.Aaron Friedman, walking beside Mavery, says he saw two others besides the gunman. The three boys kept walking, although Mavery thought the guy in the red sweater had a play gun."Give me the money.""I don't have any money," Alan Burnett said.The guy with the gun shot Alan Burnett in the back of the head.Burnett pitched into the wall of an apartment house and went down on his back, dead.The gunman stood with Alan Burnett's body at his feet and said now he wanted coats. Billy Mavery handed back the corduroy with the paint stain. Friedman took off his burgundy leather. The gunman told the two boys to start running. "Don't look back!" Billy Mavery and Aaron Friedman ran up Costco Street past charred buildings, with tin nailed over the windows, expecting to be shot in the back. People came onto the street and the guy in the red sweater waved his gun at them. The people dived into doorways. He stuck the gun into his belt and he ran up Bedford Avenue, ran away with the new coats.Some saw one guy, some saw somebody else, others say they saw two. It was another of last week's murders that went almost unnoticed. Alan Burnett was young, people in the city were concentrating all week on the murders of elderly people. Next week we can dwell on murders of the young, and then the killing of the old won't seem as important.That is a third of the column. To me the “nut graph”, if you apply the old way of looking at this - and remember this was written in the '70s – the nut graph is basically, "It was another of last week's murders that went almost unnoticed," the last paragraph that I read. You didn't get to that until a third of the way through the column. He goes later in the column into statistics and how many young people are dying and the rest of it. What was important was that he started with a scene of happy go-lucky kids walking down the street, and then I thought the most effective thing he did was:
"He said, give me the money."
"I don't have any money."The guy with the gun shot Alan Burnett in the back of the head.A sentence. That's it. one sentence. But it's horrifying, because you've got this little misdirection going on. You've got this scene of these kids walking down the street, they're having a good time. All of a sudden, somebody shoves them, and then this simple sentence: "Give me the money." "I don't have any money." Bang! That's what's supposed to stay with you. But it doesn't happen until the sixth or seventh paragraph.Now you could say, by the traditional school of journalism, why did you waste two or three paragraphs talking about what they were singing as they walked down the street? Because you establish the innocence of childhood. When kids are walking down the street and singing Muhammad Ali rhymes, you paint the picture of innocence here and - boom, it's over.Now, I think people will read all the way through that. Old school might say that you have to have the fact that a 17-year-old was shot in the head somewhere in the first or second paragraph. I don't think so. Not today. I think, first paint a picture that will draw people in. That's what I call a little example of misdirection.Here's something I wrote that's the opposite of that. This uses a lead that gets as much information into the opening as I could because I knew I was going to need it later on, but I didn't want to bore people. I didn't want to say, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, who-what-where-when and why. So I did it this way. This is a story about Justin Mello, the kid who was killed in New Baltimore.
One night, one town, one bullet, one kid.The kid was Justin Mello, barely 16 years old, popular soccer player at Anchor Bay High School, with a melting smile, a tall athletic frame, a freshly minted driver's license and a dream of buying his father's GMC truck with the money earned working at a pizza shop.The bullet came from a 9-mm handgun that was fired just inches from Mello's head as he knelt, execution style, in a cooler filled with dough and cheese. The bullet ripped through Mello's skull and exited his forehead. When they found his body, he was still on his knees.The town was New Baltimore, population 7,000, a quiet waterfront community in Macomb County where there hadn't been a murder since before Justin was born.The night was Saturday, October 21st. Before this, sighs a lawyer in the case, the biggest problem in New Baltimore was the fish flies. Not any more.
Now that's five paragraphs. That is not a misdirection lead. That is quite the opposite. That is, I'm going to get a ton of information into these first five paragraphs, but I'm going to try to do it in a way that doesn't put people to sleep. So I did the establishing sentence, which was "One night, one bullet, one town, one kid." It ended up being a theme that I kept coming back to over and over again. But it's a gimmick. I'm going to be the first person to tell you that. It's a gimmick in that it gets people to go along in that I have an opening sentence that says, "One night, one bullet, one town, one kid." Well, don't you after reading that sentence, want to know what kid, what night, what bullet, what town?In four paragraphs, I'm able to tell you that the kid was 16, he was an athlete, that he dreamed of buying his father's truck, that he was killed by a 9-mm handgun, that it was fired a couple inches from his head, in a cooler, execution style, that the town of New Baltimore had 7,000 people in it, that there hadn't been a murder in it since before Justin was born, which means 17 years, and that the night was Oct. 21. That's a lot of information to get into the first few grafs. I did my duty as a journalist. But hopefully, if I did my job as a writer, I didn't just put you to sleep with a bunch of facts. I laid it out with this picture of the bullet, the town.And what I did after that is, I came back to:One bullet. Follow its flight and you witness a devastation that far exceeds its caliber. A swath that cuts a community in two. You see children weeping and parents dumb with grief. You see a soccer team wearing armbands and a makeshift tombstone on a high school lawn. You see accused murderers in chains being cheered outside a courthouse. You see witnesses changing their stories. You see a Christmas tree in a suburban home devoid of presents for the oldest boy. You see a father in a hospital as a yellow body bag is unzipped. He looks at the face that used to be so bright, used to be his son, and is forever shattered by the hole of one bullet.
Again, it's a gimmick. I used three paragraphs there to set up the whole scene of what happened in this town and what you are about to see in this 900-inch story, because 900-inch stories scare people. I know that my job as a writer, and moreso as a journalist, because there is a difference in book writing vs. this, is that I have to ease the pain of what's about to come here for the reader. So by laying out those next paragraphs, what I did was like a movie preview. In one minute they give you all these scenes from all throughout the movie and you have a general pace of what's coming up.I use those paragraphs to kind of say, this is what's coming up. You're going to see children weeping and parents dumb with grief. You're going to see a soccer team wearing armbands. You're going to see people in chains being jeered outside a courthouse. You're going to see a Christmas tree scene and a family that's rife with grief.And then throughout the course of the story, all those things are presented in much more detail. But this is the challenge for a longer piece: how do you get something in the lead that doesn't put people to sleep and doesn't start in one area and go straight through until you've covered it all?
So try to step back and understand that it's very important to arrest the reader's attention, somehow, some way. You can do it with deflection, like Jimmy Breslin did on his story, you can do it straight ahead with information, but if you're going to do that, see if you can come up with some gimmick or some visual. Follow the path of a bullet that goes through this and goes through that. It'll hold the reader's attention that much longer.MIDDLESSome of the most effective ways I have seen newspapers deal with stories is to look beyond what is apparent in front of you. See if you can tell the story through a side angle. What I mean by that is, when President Kennedy was assassinated, there were columnists all across the nation that wrote what a tragic day this was for America. It's the easiest piece of journalism you can think of, right? How hard is that? Every columnist in America is going to sit down at his typewriter and write, what a tragic day this is for America. Good. Serviceable. Not that original, and not that arresting.In 1963, you don't have much alternative. But if it happened in the year 2001, can you imagine what CNN, MSNBC, Fox, all-news radio, the Internet? By the time the newspaper comes out, what is going to be left? They'll have these wonderful images of the president, he's been assassinated, his whole life story, his children, they'll be doing things that we can't do if you're just going to sit down and talk about what a tragic day this is for America.
The best handling of the Kennedy assassination column, and I've read plenty of them, was also done by Jimmy Breslin. He went out to the cemetery and interviewed the guy who was digging the grave for President Kennedy. He was the only guy to think of this. His whole column was just about how this guy was digging this dirt up and how he was trying to make the hole really perfect because this was a really special grave. Through the eyes of this lowly grave digger, whose only connection to Kennedy was the fact that he was digging the hole in the ground in which he was going to be placed, he captured the heartbreak of the country way better -- way better -- than the hundreds of other columnists who wanted to write that big sweeping broad statement. He went and found a person, and through the eyes of that one particular person, told a story for everyone.I don't think until the very end paragraph did he even mention that Kennedy had been assassinated. He told the whole thing just like, he moves the dirt around, he says this has to be a perfect hole, "I'm going to push some dirt around here, I've dug lots of other holes in my life, but I've never done one like this." He talks about who he was as an American. It was a great way to deal with a story like that, and something only newspapers and their writers would be able to come up with.I remember a far less significant example, something I did one time with basketball player Dennis Rodman, who was holding out for more money. Whatever it was they were offering him at the time, it seemed like a ton of money and it wasn't enough for him. I went to an auto plant and interviewed a series of people about what they made and what they did and barely mentioned Dennis Rodman, except at the end. I described what they did, and what their jobs were, what their tasks were, how often they worked, and then asked them, what do you think about the fact that Dennis Rodman can't get by on $10 million a year or whatever it was.I was able to capture a lot of the feeling of what people were feeling toward Dennis Rodman at that moment. I could have sat down and written one of those “what's the matter with today's rich athletes?” columns, which is done all the time. But that's hardly original either. They're hearing that on CNN and ESPN and all the rest of them.
But to go out and actually tell his story through somebody else misdirects you again. That old Houdini thing is a great way to bring home what people really feel about it.ENDINGS
One of the mistakes people make in wrapping stories up is that they think that they have to have a huge declarative ending. A big, Ta-da! I think that sometimes, the more subtle the ending, the better. One of the greatest endings I ever saw for a column was one that Mike Royko wrote back when he was in Chicago and it had to do with a guy who snatched chains from people.
That was what he did. He snatched their chains and then he moved from chain snatching on to worse crimes and other things and he had been accused of rape. In this rape trial, and this woman was clear that this was the guy who had raped her, the lawyer's defense was that this guy had had a chain stitched into his private parts. They put the woman on the stand and said, describe his private parts. If you've been raped by him, you ought to know what it was. She tried to describe it as best she could, but obviously she was too traumatized by the rape. And then what happened was, they put the guy on the stand, and they had him drop his pants, and show that he had this little gold chain there. And the lawyer said, how could anyone miss that? Clearly she has the wrong guy. Even though all the evidence, everything, showed that this was the right guy.But because this woman didn't notice this little chain, they set him free. So, Mike Royko spent the whole column just telling the story and when he has two paragraphs left to go. The first thing he says is, there's very little that anybody can do about it now, about this guy getting off. However, it is chain-snatching season. So I suggest that if anyone should ever get an opportunity to see whatever his name was again in the buff, maybe they want to grab that chain and run with it.
End of column.It's a great ending, right? It's a great ending. But you got everything you needed in terms of his opinion in that last single line. But he spent the whole rest of the thing setting it up. So that's one way you can end a piece.
There was one I wrote about a good kid who got shot accidentally and died. You can make big sweeping statements, or you can just sort of end it with a scene. I had it ended with the mother, who was sitting at the house, and it's around Christmastime, and these are the last couple of paragraphs.
In the tidy house on Fielding Street, a block where everyone knows everyone else and where everyone liked her son, Annette Towns has only a scrapbook of pictures to hug and kiss.
"Not too long ago, I had a dream about Daryl," she says, forcing a smile. "He came to me said, Momma don't worry. I'm okay. I'm always home.”
But that's the thing. He was already home. He was shot in his home. He was already home. He was following her rules. He was doing the right thing. If they could all be like that, we say. But Daryl Towns was like that, and it couldn't save him. And today, at the end of the century, because we can't control our children, our tempers or our guns, there is a Christmas wreath hanging on a tombstone, and another piece of our city's future is buried beneath it.That's a strong ending too. You don't need to come out and say, what's the matter with our society, we need to stop this now. You just paint a picture at the end, just as you do with the beginning, and let it resonate.
I always try to liken good writing - the stuff that I read that I look at and put it down and say “wow” - is like dropping a stone or throwing a stone in a calm lake. The really good part of the writing is all the ripples that come as a result of it. The stone is the paragraph, the ripples are the way that it resonates. Even the way that you laugh when I said, you know, pull his chain, it's resonating after you're done reading it. It's playing in your mind. Well, you can do that with humor, you can do that with images, and I think sometimes that we make mistakes because we're trained to not leave anything unsaid.Sometimes it's what's left unsaid that resonates more with the reader. When I wrote the book "Tuesdays with Morrie," the one overriding thing that I worked with the editor at Doubleday on was raking it and raking it and raking it of emotion. You look at that book, and it's an emotional book, right? Our only directive was to rake it of emotion. Why? Because the emotion's built in. And if I spent time saying, "isn't it sad about the poor old man who's dying," it's too much. You can't handle it.The best writing just lets it sit there. Trust your readers, they're pretty smart. They know how to read, they're already ahead of most of the rest of the country. And they'll get it, they'll get what you're trying to say. It'll resonate with them, particularly at ends of stories. And in leads. If you're really good, and you have really good powers of observation, you will see and you will describe. Always look for something in the room, or something that somebody says or something, that does your work for you. Instead of you saying, “this is terrible, this is sad, this is awful,” look for a picture that tells it better than you and just describe the picture.
That's what we can do as journalists and writers that nobody else can
What I hope to do is talk a little bit about some ideas I have learned over the past 20 years in journalism.One thing I have learned from being in the radio, television and newspaper worlds – and therefore working for all the competition simultaneously - is that we, in the print world, are not what we used to be. We are not the primary source of information for people any more. I think we're all painfully aware of that. By the time the newspaper arrives on the porch, most people -- if they've watched CNN or listened to the radio -- already have a very good idea of what is going on. They already have the who-what-where-when and why they teach us about in journalism school.What this has engendered in the newspaper world is a need to approach writing and our journalism from a different point of view; we have to arrest the readers' attention. We are not just the paper of record anymore. We are not just there to give you the who-what-when-where-and-why. They're doing that on the Internet, they're doing it on television, they're doing it on 24-hour cable news, they're doing it on radio. So what do we have to offer that none of them can?The only thing that we have to offer is our ability to write. We're way better writers than anybody working in these other organizations, and I can tell you that because I work in all of them. There's nobody there that can do what the people at this newspaper are capable of doing in terms of writing style. So when we mimic what they do, we lose, because they're faster than us. When we do what we do best, which is stylize, write, detail, flow, extrapolate, then we win, because they can never do that. They don't have the manpower, they don't have the experience. So I want to talk about a couple of ways that I think you can arrest people's attention.And I do mean arrest. I don't use that verb lightly. Because people will give you about two to three seconds now, on anything. At MSNBC, they rate by the minute. They'll give us ratings, and they'll say between 11 and 12 minutes after the hour, you really had their attention. That's how they rate it. That's the kind of attention span they're fighting with, and that's what we are fighting with, too, whether we want to admit it or not.So I'm going to break down three elements of stylistic writing, and I have to say from the start that this is more for feature writing than it is necessarily for straight news stories. I think straight news stories still have to be governed first and foremost by the who-what-where-when and why. All those things you are taught in basic journalism school I still think primarily hold, although I still think there's plenty of room for style within that. I'm going to break it down to 1) leads, 2) the middle 3) the overall idea and 4) the end, and just give you some of my thoughts as to what works and what doesn't.LEADSLet's talk about leads. The way that we're taught in journalism school to do a lead is to get all the basic information into the first or second paragraph somehow. Well, as you all know, if you're trying to do that, it's hard to do with any style. You've got to say how old somebody is, where they live, what they did, what they're charged with, all the rest of it, it's hard to put a lot of pizzazz on that and make it look like anything.
I'm not sure you have to do that. I think that as long as you hold the reader's attention until you get to that information, it's all right to bury it a little further down. And I know that that again is a violation of an old axiom, burying the lead. In features and in columns, I don't believe that's true. Let me give you a couple of examples.First of all, there's something that I refer to as misdirection. Those of you that follow magic know they make you look over here, and meanwhile they're doing something over there. There's the same kind of thing in writing. I'll read you an example. This is Jimmy Breslin's column, that I always thought was a terrific one, and it's from I think the '70s. It starts off with something that I always think is an effective way to begin, which is a scene, an actual scene that is taking place. People love to be dropped in to something. We're a movie culture. We like to see scenes play out in front of us. So when in doubt, always paint a picture with a scene to start anything, any story, any lead, any feature story, whatever. Better to start it with a scene than a declarative sentence.They were walking along in the empty gray afternoon, three of them, Alan Burnett, Aaron Friedman and Billy Mavery. Burnett, the eldest at 17, walking up Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, and singing out Mohammed Ali rhymes into the chilly air. As they reached the corner of Costco Street, it was Alan Burnett's turn to give his Ali rhyme: "AJB is the latest, and he's the greatest." "Who's AJB?" one of them said. "Alan J. Burnett," he said. They were laughing and they turned the corner onto Costco Street. The three wore coats against the cold.Burnett was in a brown trench coat, Friedman a burgundy leather and Mavery a beige corduroy with a box collar. A white paint stain was on the bottom of the back of Mavery's coat. Mavery walking on the outside, suddenly was shoved forward."Keep on walking straight," somebody behind him said. Billy Mavery turned his head. Behind him was this little guy of maybe 18, wearing red sweater, dark pants and black gun.Aaron Friedman, walking beside Mavery, says he saw two others besides the gunman. The three boys kept walking, although Mavery thought the guy in the red sweater had a play gun."Give me the money.""I don't have any money," Alan Burnett said.The guy with the gun shot Alan Burnett in the back of the head.Burnett pitched into the wall of an apartment house and went down on his back, dead.The gunman stood with Alan Burnett's body at his feet and said now he wanted coats. Billy Mavery handed back the corduroy with the paint stain. Friedman took off his burgundy leather. The gunman told the two boys to start running. "Don't look back!" Billy Mavery and Aaron Friedman ran up Costco Street past charred buildings, with tin nailed over the windows, expecting to be shot in the back. People came onto the street and the guy in the red sweater waved his gun at them. The people dived into doorways. He stuck the gun into his belt and he ran up Bedford Avenue, ran away with the new coats.Some saw one guy, some saw somebody else, others say they saw two. It was another of last week's murders that went almost unnoticed. Alan Burnett was young, people in the city were concentrating all week on the murders of elderly people. Next week we can dwell on murders of the young, and then the killing of the old won't seem as important.That is a third of the column. To me the “nut graph”, if you apply the old way of looking at this - and remember this was written in the '70s – the nut graph is basically, "It was another of last week's murders that went almost unnoticed," the last paragraph that I read. You didn't get to that until a third of the way through the column. He goes later in the column into statistics and how many young people are dying and the rest of it. What was important was that he started with a scene of happy go-lucky kids walking down the street, and then I thought the most effective thing he did was:
"He said, give me the money."
"I don't have any money."The guy with the gun shot Alan Burnett in the back of the head.A sentence. That's it. one sentence. But it's horrifying, because you've got this little misdirection going on. You've got this scene of these kids walking down the street, they're having a good time. All of a sudden, somebody shoves them, and then this simple sentence: "Give me the money." "I don't have any money." Bang! That's what's supposed to stay with you. But it doesn't happen until the sixth or seventh paragraph.Now you could say, by the traditional school of journalism, why did you waste two or three paragraphs talking about what they were singing as they walked down the street? Because you establish the innocence of childhood. When kids are walking down the street and singing Muhammad Ali rhymes, you paint the picture of innocence here and - boom, it's over.Now, I think people will read all the way through that. Old school might say that you have to have the fact that a 17-year-old was shot in the head somewhere in the first or second paragraph. I don't think so. Not today. I think, first paint a picture that will draw people in. That's what I call a little example of misdirection.Here's something I wrote that's the opposite of that. This uses a lead that gets as much information into the opening as I could because I knew I was going to need it later on, but I didn't want to bore people. I didn't want to say, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, who-what-where-when and why. So I did it this way. This is a story about Justin Mello, the kid who was killed in New Baltimore.
One night, one town, one bullet, one kid.The kid was Justin Mello, barely 16 years old, popular soccer player at Anchor Bay High School, with a melting smile, a tall athletic frame, a freshly minted driver's license and a dream of buying his father's GMC truck with the money earned working at a pizza shop.The bullet came from a 9-mm handgun that was fired just inches from Mello's head as he knelt, execution style, in a cooler filled with dough and cheese. The bullet ripped through Mello's skull and exited his forehead. When they found his body, he was still on his knees.The town was New Baltimore, population 7,000, a quiet waterfront community in Macomb County where there hadn't been a murder since before Justin was born.The night was Saturday, October 21st. Before this, sighs a lawyer in the case, the biggest problem in New Baltimore was the fish flies. Not any more.
Now that's five paragraphs. That is not a misdirection lead. That is quite the opposite. That is, I'm going to get a ton of information into these first five paragraphs, but I'm going to try to do it in a way that doesn't put people to sleep. So I did the establishing sentence, which was "One night, one bullet, one town, one kid." It ended up being a theme that I kept coming back to over and over again. But it's a gimmick. I'm going to be the first person to tell you that. It's a gimmick in that it gets people to go along in that I have an opening sentence that says, "One night, one bullet, one town, one kid." Well, don't you after reading that sentence, want to know what kid, what night, what bullet, what town?In four paragraphs, I'm able to tell you that the kid was 16, he was an athlete, that he dreamed of buying his father's truck, that he was killed by a 9-mm handgun, that it was fired a couple inches from his head, in a cooler, execution style, that the town of New Baltimore had 7,000 people in it, that there hadn't been a murder in it since before Justin was born, which means 17 years, and that the night was Oct. 21. That's a lot of information to get into the first few grafs. I did my duty as a journalist. But hopefully, if I did my job as a writer, I didn't just put you to sleep with a bunch of facts. I laid it out with this picture of the bullet, the town.And what I did after that is, I came back to:One bullet. Follow its flight and you witness a devastation that far exceeds its caliber. A swath that cuts a community in two. You see children weeping and parents dumb with grief. You see a soccer team wearing armbands and a makeshift tombstone on a high school lawn. You see accused murderers in chains being cheered outside a courthouse. You see witnesses changing their stories. You see a Christmas tree in a suburban home devoid of presents for the oldest boy. You see a father in a hospital as a yellow body bag is unzipped. He looks at the face that used to be so bright, used to be his son, and is forever shattered by the hole of one bullet.
Again, it's a gimmick. I used three paragraphs there to set up the whole scene of what happened in this town and what you are about to see in this 900-inch story, because 900-inch stories scare people. I know that my job as a writer, and moreso as a journalist, because there is a difference in book writing vs. this, is that I have to ease the pain of what's about to come here for the reader. So by laying out those next paragraphs, what I did was like a movie preview. In one minute they give you all these scenes from all throughout the movie and you have a general pace of what's coming up.I use those paragraphs to kind of say, this is what's coming up. You're going to see children weeping and parents dumb with grief. You're going to see a soccer team wearing armbands. You're going to see people in chains being jeered outside a courthouse. You're going to see a Christmas tree scene and a family that's rife with grief.And then throughout the course of the story, all those things are presented in much more detail. But this is the challenge for a longer piece: how do you get something in the lead that doesn't put people to sleep and doesn't start in one area and go straight through until you've covered it all?
So try to step back and understand that it's very important to arrest the reader's attention, somehow, some way. You can do it with deflection, like Jimmy Breslin did on his story, you can do it straight ahead with information, but if you're going to do that, see if you can come up with some gimmick or some visual. Follow the path of a bullet that goes through this and goes through that. It'll hold the reader's attention that much longer.MIDDLESSome of the most effective ways I have seen newspapers deal with stories is to look beyond what is apparent in front of you. See if you can tell the story through a side angle. What I mean by that is, when President Kennedy was assassinated, there were columnists all across the nation that wrote what a tragic day this was for America. It's the easiest piece of journalism you can think of, right? How hard is that? Every columnist in America is going to sit down at his typewriter and write, what a tragic day this is for America. Good. Serviceable. Not that original, and not that arresting.In 1963, you don't have much alternative. But if it happened in the year 2001, can you imagine what CNN, MSNBC, Fox, all-news radio, the Internet? By the time the newspaper comes out, what is going to be left? They'll have these wonderful images of the president, he's been assassinated, his whole life story, his children, they'll be doing things that we can't do if you're just going to sit down and talk about what a tragic day this is for America.
The best handling of the Kennedy assassination column, and I've read plenty of them, was also done by Jimmy Breslin. He went out to the cemetery and interviewed the guy who was digging the grave for President Kennedy. He was the only guy to think of this. His whole column was just about how this guy was digging this dirt up and how he was trying to make the hole really perfect because this was a really special grave. Through the eyes of this lowly grave digger, whose only connection to Kennedy was the fact that he was digging the hole in the ground in which he was going to be placed, he captured the heartbreak of the country way better -- way better -- than the hundreds of other columnists who wanted to write that big sweeping broad statement. He went and found a person, and through the eyes of that one particular person, told a story for everyone.I don't think until the very end paragraph did he even mention that Kennedy had been assassinated. He told the whole thing just like, he moves the dirt around, he says this has to be a perfect hole, "I'm going to push some dirt around here, I've dug lots of other holes in my life, but I've never done one like this." He talks about who he was as an American. It was a great way to deal with a story like that, and something only newspapers and their writers would be able to come up with.I remember a far less significant example, something I did one time with basketball player Dennis Rodman, who was holding out for more money. Whatever it was they were offering him at the time, it seemed like a ton of money and it wasn't enough for him. I went to an auto plant and interviewed a series of people about what they made and what they did and barely mentioned Dennis Rodman, except at the end. I described what they did, and what their jobs were, what their tasks were, how often they worked, and then asked them, what do you think about the fact that Dennis Rodman can't get by on $10 million a year or whatever it was.I was able to capture a lot of the feeling of what people were feeling toward Dennis Rodman at that moment. I could have sat down and written one of those “what's the matter with today's rich athletes?” columns, which is done all the time. But that's hardly original either. They're hearing that on CNN and ESPN and all the rest of them.
But to go out and actually tell his story through somebody else misdirects you again. That old Houdini thing is a great way to bring home what people really feel about it.ENDINGS
One of the mistakes people make in wrapping stories up is that they think that they have to have a huge declarative ending. A big, Ta-da! I think that sometimes, the more subtle the ending, the better. One of the greatest endings I ever saw for a column was one that Mike Royko wrote back when he was in Chicago and it had to do with a guy who snatched chains from people.
That was what he did. He snatched their chains and then he moved from chain snatching on to worse crimes and other things and he had been accused of rape. In this rape trial, and this woman was clear that this was the guy who had raped her, the lawyer's defense was that this guy had had a chain stitched into his private parts. They put the woman on the stand and said, describe his private parts. If you've been raped by him, you ought to know what it was. She tried to describe it as best she could, but obviously she was too traumatized by the rape. And then what happened was, they put the guy on the stand, and they had him drop his pants, and show that he had this little gold chain there. And the lawyer said, how could anyone miss that? Clearly she has the wrong guy. Even though all the evidence, everything, showed that this was the right guy.But because this woman didn't notice this little chain, they set him free. So, Mike Royko spent the whole column just telling the story and when he has two paragraphs left to go. The first thing he says is, there's very little that anybody can do about it now, about this guy getting off. However, it is chain-snatching season. So I suggest that if anyone should ever get an opportunity to see whatever his name was again in the buff, maybe they want to grab that chain and run with it.
End of column.It's a great ending, right? It's a great ending. But you got everything you needed in terms of his opinion in that last single line. But he spent the whole rest of the thing setting it up. So that's one way you can end a piece.
There was one I wrote about a good kid who got shot accidentally and died. You can make big sweeping statements, or you can just sort of end it with a scene. I had it ended with the mother, who was sitting at the house, and it's around Christmastime, and these are the last couple of paragraphs.
In the tidy house on Fielding Street, a block where everyone knows everyone else and where everyone liked her son, Annette Towns has only a scrapbook of pictures to hug and kiss.
"Not too long ago, I had a dream about Daryl," she says, forcing a smile. "He came to me said, Momma don't worry. I'm okay. I'm always home.”
But that's the thing. He was already home. He was shot in his home. He was already home. He was following her rules. He was doing the right thing. If they could all be like that, we say. But Daryl Towns was like that, and it couldn't save him. And today, at the end of the century, because we can't control our children, our tempers or our guns, there is a Christmas wreath hanging on a tombstone, and another piece of our city's future is buried beneath it.That's a strong ending too. You don't need to come out and say, what's the matter with our society, we need to stop this now. You just paint a picture at the end, just as you do with the beginning, and let it resonate.
I always try to liken good writing - the stuff that I read that I look at and put it down and say “wow” - is like dropping a stone or throwing a stone in a calm lake. The really good part of the writing is all the ripples that come as a result of it. The stone is the paragraph, the ripples are the way that it resonates. Even the way that you laugh when I said, you know, pull his chain, it's resonating after you're done reading it. It's playing in your mind. Well, you can do that with humor, you can do that with images, and I think sometimes that we make mistakes because we're trained to not leave anything unsaid.Sometimes it's what's left unsaid that resonates more with the reader. When I wrote the book "Tuesdays with Morrie," the one overriding thing that I worked with the editor at Doubleday on was raking it and raking it and raking it of emotion. You look at that book, and it's an emotional book, right? Our only directive was to rake it of emotion. Why? Because the emotion's built in. And if I spent time saying, "isn't it sad about the poor old man who's dying," it's too much. You can't handle it.The best writing just lets it sit there. Trust your readers, they're pretty smart. They know how to read, they're already ahead of most of the rest of the country. And they'll get it, they'll get what you're trying to say. It'll resonate with them, particularly at ends of stories. And in leads. If you're really good, and you have really good powers of observation, you will see and you will describe. Always look for something in the room, or something that somebody says or something, that does your work for you. Instead of you saying, “this is terrible, this is sad, this is awful,” look for a picture that tells it better than you and just describe the picture.
That's what we can do as journalists and writers that nobody else can
Friday, February 19, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
减肥&死亡
真的肥了。
天天念、时时念、刻刻念。
可是为什么就是减不了呢？
很辛苦、很难过、被排斥的感觉，自爆自弃、不吃不喝。可能会中忧郁症。脑筋一直在对自己说，不能疯，不能疯。心里却想，疯了更好。
人活着分分秒秒都有烦恼。还不如死了算了。
被一个昨晚的梦折磨整天，好累，不想想，原本很轻松的假期却被很多烦恼霸占，害我不能好好休息。
真想不问世事，一辈子安静的埋在土里。
shh....这里好安静，好舒服。仿佛闻到土的味道…
就连心跳声渐渐小声，至静…
真的死了。
*disclaimer:这封不是遗书。
如果我真的死了：
我的财产将有一半交给父母打理。其余的分一半给吴思颖小姐，一半回馈社会--捐献世界儿童基金会、WWF、兴毅佛堂以及戏剧盒。尸体请火化，扔入大海中。可以用的东西尽量拿去不要烧给我。就这样，大家要保重，不要太为我担心。
天天念、时时念、刻刻念。
可是为什么就是减不了呢？
很辛苦、很难过、被排斥的感觉，自爆自弃、不吃不喝。可能会中忧郁症。脑筋一直在对自己说，不能疯，不能疯。心里却想，疯了更好。
人活着分分秒秒都有烦恼。还不如死了算了。
被一个昨晚的梦折磨整天，好累，不想想，原本很轻松的假期却被很多烦恼霸占，害我不能好好休息。
真想不问世事，一辈子安静的埋在土里。
shh....这里好安静，好舒服。仿佛闻到土的味道…
就连心跳声渐渐小声，至静…
真的死了。
*disclaimer:这封不是遗书。
如果我真的死了：
我的财产将有一半交给父母打理。其余的分一半给吴思颖小姐，一半回馈社会--捐献世界儿童基金会、WWF、兴毅佛堂以及戏剧盒。尸体请火化，扔入大海中。可以用的东西尽量拿去不要烧给我。就这样，大家要保重，不要太为我担心。
Friday, January 22, 2010
Posting picture online
Actually hor it's not i dun wan to put pic up online la.. but u know la ppl like me always draw attention u know..
good attention defined as people who stole ur picture and pose as u online. or maybe download ur picture and repost them on some bloody porno website.. yup i've seen some example before..
bad attention defined as people who fall completely in love with your picture and start stalking you or maybe start recognising you in reality.. imagine yourself walking down the street happily and suddenly this stranger come up to u and start telling u everything u thought should be unknown to strangers.. woah~~ been there done that.
even generic picture can be stolen and re-published online even without your consent!! stupid things u do with ur friends will be seen by some internet psycho and next u thing u know it has been included in the next L.O.L chain email ur whacko friend send u.. who reply *oopss that's you?!" when you ask where they get the picture from.
u will never know who is looking at your pictures and u'll never know what will happen to them.
good attention defined as people who stole ur picture and pose as u online. or maybe download ur picture and repost them on some bloody porno website.. yup i've seen some example before..
bad attention defined as people who fall completely in love with your picture and start stalking you or maybe start recognising you in reality.. imagine yourself walking down the street happily and suddenly this stranger come up to u and start telling u everything u thought should be unknown to strangers.. woah~~ been there done that.
even generic picture can be stolen and re-published online even without your consent!! stupid things u do with ur friends will be seen by some internet psycho and next u thing u know it has been included in the next L.O.L chain email ur whacko friend send u.. who reply *oopss that's you?!" when you ask where they get the picture from.
u will never know who is looking at your pictures and u'll never know what will happen to them.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
the day we both recall and remember
dear say next time when u go out and eat with your friend you will remember what your dear say to you at soup spoon yesterday.....
it's the tray!!
becos the counter is sooo high.. if bring along the drink, the drink will slide when you bring the tray down. that's y we should leave the drink at the counter first, bring the food back and then go back to the counter and take the drink!
*ah dear tou kaN!!
it's the tray!!
becos the counter is sooo high.. if bring along the drink, the drink will slide when you bring the tray down. that's y we should leave the drink at the counter first, bring the food back and then go back to the counter and take the drink!
*ah dear tou kaN!!
Sina fengshui post
2010年──庚寅年属龙人的流年运程
1940、1952、1964、1976、1988、2000
从五行上来讲，虎为木，龙为土，有相克之意，工作事业方面会有明显的压力感和会出现意想不到的麻烦事。本年度肖龙之人应低调做人、做事，以防备小人的暗害，防口舌、丢失、官司并少在官场、闹市中出头露面；身体方面需加强锻炼，以防脾胃与皮肤病的发生；财运方面平平，不建议做大的投资，对求职、办厂、开公司、经商、建房等投资行为要多加深思后再行动，以防财运上的重大损失；开车的肖龙人应注意交通安全，以防祸患；已婚者夫妻感情不错，未婚属龙人在恋爱上则需注意感情的培养；此年外出、交友都应小心谨慎，尤其是已婚龙人更应少和异性朋友接触，以防招致麻烦；肖龙人虽然在虎年中存有诸多的不利，但只要小心谨慎地做好自己的事，不参与外面的是非，定能平和而顺利地渡过；未成年的肖龙之人适合到出生地的西北、西南方求学。
在2009年的生肖运程中，对于生肖龙来讲，虽没有大的成就，但还算平安度过一年，只是是非较多，略有忧心之事。
但到了2010年，对生肖龙来讲，算得上是龙争虎斗之年，特别是1964年、1976年的出生的属龙者，在事业和财富上应有一次大的收获和高的起步点，在您的交往中多了一些贵人，但相对的也多了一些竞争对手，不然，怎么能称作是龙争虎斗呢！虽在财运上有所收获，需要注意的是，76年和88年出生的属龙人桃花运旺盛，多得异性朋友相助，而且这些异性朋友还多为比自己年长之人，所以一定要把握好分寸，以免影响婚姻家庭的稳定，从而对事业的发展造成不利影响。生肖龙的老人多有健康上的不顺，特别是在肠胃、血液方面易受到病魔的侵袭；生肖龙的学子们在新的一年则会有学业上的跨越。
1940、1952、1964、1976、1988、2000
从五行上来讲，虎为木，龙为土，有相克之意，工作事业方面会有明显的压力感和会出现意想不到的麻烦事。本年度肖龙之人应低调做人、做事，以防备小人的暗害，防口舌、丢失、官司并少在官场、闹市中出头露面；身体方面需加强锻炼，以防脾胃与皮肤病的发生；财运方面平平，不建议做大的投资，对求职、办厂、开公司、经商、建房等投资行为要多加深思后再行动，以防财运上的重大损失；开车的肖龙人应注意交通安全，以防祸患；已婚者夫妻感情不错，未婚属龙人在恋爱上则需注意感情的培养；此年外出、交友都应小心谨慎，尤其是已婚龙人更应少和异性朋友接触，以防招致麻烦；肖龙人虽然在虎年中存有诸多的不利，但只要小心谨慎地做好自己的事，不参与外面的是非，定能平和而顺利地渡过；未成年的肖龙之人适合到出生地的西北、西南方求学。
在2009年的生肖运程中，对于生肖龙来讲，虽没有大的成就，但还算平安度过一年，只是是非较多，略有忧心之事。
但到了2010年，对生肖龙来讲，算得上是龙争虎斗之年，特别是1964年、1976年的出生的属龙者，在事业和财富上应有一次大的收获和高的起步点，在您的交往中多了一些贵人，但相对的也多了一些竞争对手，不然，怎么能称作是龙争虎斗呢！虽在财运上有所收获，需要注意的是，76年和88年出生的属龙人桃花运旺盛，多得异性朋友相助，而且这些异性朋友还多为比自己年长之人，所以一定要把握好分寸，以免影响婚姻家庭的稳定，从而对事业的发展造成不利影响。生肖龙的老人多有健康上的不顺，特别是在肠胃、血液方面易受到病魔的侵袭；生肖龙的学子们在新的一年则会有学业上的跨越。
Friday, January 01, 2010
2009-2010
最耀眼的星期24-12-09 to 1/1/10
09我做了什么？
hmm...开始读书咯。。发生了很多事。。
1月：动手术 Lasik、五月天露天演唱会
2月：Stretch and Tone class 认识很好玩的T老师、认识雁玲＋Karen + Wanling, 华艺（华丽上班族生活与生存＋宝岛一村）
3月：i周刊Revamp新改革、和J一家去马六甲（发生马桶事件超丢脸！）
4月：MDO开始减薪计划。准备生日
5月：21岁生日！PinkDot event
6月：又去马六甲、JB Times Durian Trip
7月：新电话、SIM开学, House Renovation,
8月：忙死了！Redang 4th Anniversary Celebration!
9月：开始第一个story PaperMarket!、Primary School Gathering、Basic Theory Pass! gundum
10月：Driving class start, lorette Robert, Final Theory Fail, Night Safari Halloween
11月：考试! Bee Birthday,Teddy Bear show,Victor victoria, bee Moving house, New Bed for me!
12月：Exams Result out... JB shopping,New Hair cut
Sad things
Fine $30 for drinking.....
Hand in wrong paper...
Quarrel on Christmas Eve..
lalalala.. paiseh selective memory..
09我做了什么？
hmm...开始读书咯。。发生了很多事。。
1月：动手术 Lasik、五月天露天演唱会
2月：Stretch and Tone class 认识很好玩的T老师、认识雁玲＋Karen + Wanling, 华艺（华丽上班族生活与生存＋宝岛一村）
3月：i周刊Revamp新改革、和J一家去马六甲（发生马桶事件超丢脸！）
4月：MDO开始减薪计划。准备生日
5月：21岁生日！PinkDot event
6月：又去马六甲、JB Times Durian Trip
7月：新电话、SIM开学, House Renovation,
8月：忙死了！Redang 4th Anniversary Celebration!
9月：开始第一个story PaperMarket!、Primary School Gathering、Basic Theory Pass! gundum
10月：Driving class start, lorette Robert, Final Theory Fail, Night Safari Halloween
11月：考试! Bee Birthday,Teddy Bear show,Victor victoria, bee Moving house, New Bed for me!
12月：Exams Result out... JB shopping,New Hair cut
Sad things
Fine $30 for drinking.....
Hand in wrong paper...
Quarrel on Christmas Eve..
lalalala.. paiseh selective memory..
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