Review — Guide To Good Writing

By Matthew C. Keegan

Every writer has a favorite book or author to help them in their quest to be a better writer. For myself, it is Mitchell Ivers’ Random House Guide to Good Writing which has inspired me to write and to write well.

Simple And Straight Forward

Ivers’ book identifies what is good writing, the voice and tone of writing, structure and plot, grammar, and more. What I like about the book is that Ivers writes in a style that is easy to follow and not overflowing with verbosity: Ivers goes straight to the point when giving examples.

So, when you read “Guide to Good Writing” you come away wanting to write not having to write. In other words, what some instructors make to be a chore, Ivers clearly replaces with the joy of writing.

Develop Your Own Style

Ivers’ writing exercises are particularly useful to help writers develop their own style. The Random House Style manual is included as an appendix to the book. In addition, Ivers includes examples from Poe and Emerson, two of my favorite classical authors. Reread Poe’s “Masque of the Red Death” and you will be inspired, if not a little bit frightened!

I checked with Amazon and the book is still in print; it is a great paperback bargain and investment that can be had for only six dollars.

Copyright 2006-2008 — Matthew Keegan is The Article Writer who writes on a variety of topics including: advocacy, automobiles, aviation, business, Christian themes, family, news, product reviews, travel, writing, and more.

Exit Entrecard, Stage Left

After just over one month of doing the “Entrecard thing” I have decided to pull the plug.

All right, let me rephrase my statement: After using Entrecard for the past five weeks on five different blogs, I removed the Big E’s widget from the sidebar of this blog and on my automotive blog. I’m still running Entrecard on three blogs, but I’m only accepting new ads on one of them.

My reasons for cutting back on Entrecard are many and include the following:

Entrecard takes up a lot of time. Yes, there were a few days where I hit the 300 limit for one site (600 total drops for all sites) and I realized two hours had gone by. Time carefully expended in exchange for a small amount of fleeting traffic — not good!

Quite a few sites were dead or rarely updated. I don’t mind visiting blogs but there has to be something new for me to read. I rather not drop and run, but if there isn’t anything else for me to do, why should I visit an aged or neglected blog in the first place?

Newer blogs benefit, but for older blogs it can be a drag. Don’t get me wrong if you found this blog via Entrecard and are now a regular reader — thank you and please stay! But, the quality of the blogs submitted for advertising here just hasn’t measured up.

Bait and switch. I know that I shouldn’t depend on power dropping sites for my supply of websites to visit, but they can be useful to find blogs to visit and drop cards on. Unfortunately, some sites are suddenly converted to porn or other senseless babble, sullying Entrecard in the process. What a shame.

Of course, there are some benefits to Entrecard including:

Newer sites. I launched Auto Trends last month and got more than 1100 visitors from Entrecard alone. Add in all of my digging, stumbling, and propelling and the site got off to a nice start. It remains the only site where I am still accepting ads to this day.

Networking. Some of the bloggers I have met have been friendly and helpful, the usual trolls notwithstanding. I’m sure many of the more active users are also active elsewhere and our paths will cross again and again.

Please don’t take this as a slam of Entrecard as it isn’t — Entrecard just isn’t working that well for me. After this month I may remove the widget from one or two other sites and I’m not planning to resume regular card dropping on a consistent basis.

My time is valuable to me and dropping cards doesn’t seem to add value to my time.

Further Reading

Entrecard and Other Internet Mysteries

Entrecard Notes, Update 1

Entrecard Notes, Update 2