Eneh Akpan Writes: Online Writing

Showing posts with label Online Writing. Show all posts

Thursday, February 26, 2015

How to Groom Your Voice Through Social Media

Social media has been a more-than-willing accessory to the on-going transformation across the web. And this post is more of a wake-up call to writers of all skill level who are yet to steal a taste of the limitless payoffs of this viable web tool. Believe it or not, social media can amp up your writerly voice and give it a sharp edge.

Let’s look at the high points.

1. KEEP A BLOG.

And if you don't already run a blog, create one right away. A lot of writers who are new to the internet are yet to tap into the reality that blogging is actually a form of social media. Hence, they miss out of one of the most vital aspect of maximizing their presence online. This is an invaluable tool if you must achieve any level of success in writing.

2. CONNECT.

Network, in other words. Reach out to a whole new world of possibilities-new ways of thinking by following, adding friends, adding people to your circle... whatever name your sns calls it. You may downplay the idea, if you've been around the web for a while but connecting with folks on the internet takes a little bit of courage and faith. But hopefully, it takes nothing out of you (besides timidity, of course) but if you really throw yourself into it and make it art, you'll find the rewards are way out of this world.

3. SHARE YOUR BLOG CONTENT.

Keeping a blog is one thing, sharing it with citizens of the cyberverse is another. Sending out your work through social networking is an indispensable step towards toning your writerly muscles. It also builds you up and prepares you for all those rejection slips you'll be receiving when you send out your work to publishers and agents.

4. READ INTENSELY.

Bury yourself deep in reprints (or read off your computer) and do not pause for breath. There's no telling where you might find the ideas which becomes the gift that keeps on giving. Read stuff on your social network-that's why you should follow the right people. Immerse your mind in stuff that appeals to your passion. It pays handsomely.

5. SHARE FROM YOUR NETWORK

They don't exactly call it networking for the fun of it, you know. When you share your connects' work across the web, it's your way of reaching out to them, your way of saying, "I believe in you." It may not be a big deal to you, in the beginning but if you keep at it and more people connect with you for 'sharing,' it builds you up inside. Your good deed comes back to you as a blessing.

You learn how to talk by joining conversations. A similar principle applies to writing online; you learn to write by writing-blogging, connecting, sharing, reading and so on. In other words, your writing voice attains a perfect pitch when you hang around a writerly habitat.

Keep your pens bleeding.

Akpan

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Finding The Best Ideas For Your Blog

The most appropriate ideas for your blog are probably, the ideas which unlock the flow and set your muse reeling to your side almost at the snap of a finger. That goes further to mean you have no business whatever wading in waters totally unfamiliar to your muse. In point of fact, if your plan is to be around the blogosphere for a very long time you need to stay on your grind by finding the niche that clicks—finding a unique voice, in other words.

Your biggest challenge while hunting ideas for your blog will be finding what works for you unless ‘you blog not to blog a subject but to blog’ (to coin a phrase). And as far as writing these breed of journals go, all you really need do is try your hands on a variety of topics (which includes searching deep within your heart) and if you can throw your back into it, there’s a 100% chance your niche will come within kissing distance.

If you intend to run a blog where you share a topic-specific content, be aware that sooner or later, you’re going to have to sit down (or stand or lay down, your choice) and consider the odds. Of course, as they say, ideas are literally everywhere and you can help yourself to as many as your heart desires. But before you do, here’s a set of really simple questions you will need to tackle if you must set off on the right foot;

“What would you like your blog to be known for?”

“Who is your audience—the readers you intend to connect with?”

Remember, we are discussing getting the best ideas for your blog. How can you get ideas that keep on giving? The ideas you come up with have to be in tune with your overall blog theme. It follows that, one of the things you must do is spread your theme so thin that it almost falls through (I mean that in a positive sense). Let’s say, for example, you blog about ‘writing.’ First of all, write down the word, ‘writing.’ Next, build a kind of wordweb around it with topics related to your subject matter. Words like ‘book reviews,’ ‘writing tips,’ ‘book excerpts,’ ‘film reviews,’ ‘writing quotes,’ ‘book updates,’ ‘author interviews,’ ‘personal essays’ (or essays in general), ‘bestseller countdowns,’ ‘author bio,’ ‘writing community information,’ ‘top 10 lists’ (these could include movies, books, television, short stories and so on), ‘book quotes,’ ‘book suggestions,’ ‘writing prompts,’ … the list goes on.

With a list like that, which by the way, you can further break down into smaller bits, you can’t run short on weird and wonderful ideas. The best ideas for your blog which also interpret as the most appropriate are the ones that feed your drive, hand you a twig to hang on to when your inner voice is drowning in a sea of life’s problems. This is the good stuff which may evolve into fresh and brilliant topics. Fetching the best materials in the long haul is setting up yourself for a unique and successful blogging.

Keep your pens bleeding.

Akpan

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

How Poetry Perfects the Human Emotion

“Poetry is feeling, the expression of feeling, and the exploration and discipline of feeling.”

—Robert Wallace

Ray Charles in der Hamburger Musikhalle, Septe...

Ray Charles Courtesy: Wikipedia

I’m trying to see how this quote by Robert Wallace explains Wordsworth’s Criterion for poetry. I’m trying for that and I assume it’s pretty much going to come out highly opinionated. I guess I can live with that, after all.

Poetry is Feeling

Let’s take this feeling and modify it as a verb. Imagine yourself in a dark room where you are deprived of the sense of sight and are made to depend entirely on your alternate senses.

This is important on two levels. First, your other senses because you are blinded, assume heightened consciousness. The senses of touch, smell, taste, of sound are emphasized; you start feeling your way through the shadows. On another hand, there’s the opportunity—let’s imagine you are in familiar setting—to reacquaint yourself with the objects you come in contact with in that darkness. When you come in contact with an object, your fingers register the touch and send a message to your mind which, consequently, builds a resourceful table of vocabularies to describe it or redescribe it. You gain or develop a new understanding of things once known; the upshot stands out like a silhouette. Poetry works that kind of magic. It makes you see stuff—even clichés—in a different light.

Poetry is the Expression of Feeling

Well, this looks easy enough. If you can visualize a processing machine—the kind where you input data or hardware and it coughs out a totally different matter maybe, you have an idea what this is about. Poetry gives voice to your feelings or rather is the voice of your feelings. Let’s say your emotion is the earth without form and verse is the creative force that lends it the beauty of art. Poetry can do that much for feeling when we use it to channel deep-seated passion.

Poetry adds radiance to fogged-up emotion when it untangles and stretches it out into metric quantities. It modifies feeling, in other words.

Poetry is the Exploration of Feeling

The picture of the early explorers appeals fiercely to the imagination. Those old-time pioneer new world discoverers with their seafaring crew on their heels sailing deep into the sea, burrowing far into places—villages, towns, kingdoms and countries—yet unknown to the ancient western world . . . As far as the emotions go, poetry can take the poet and the reader on a journey packed full of equivalent measure of heat and adventure. It can jaunt the soul through little-known passageways within the human heart, regions alien to detection or previously unexplored. Poetry conducts depth rich in meaning into words and in this manner it illustrates the endearing feat only this form of art can quite achieve.

Poetry is the Discipline of Feeling

In other words, it keeps a tight rein over your emotions. Here’s a practical example of how this works from the life of a legend, Ray Charles.

“She’d say, (referring to his mother) ‘Now look, I want you to learn how to get around by yourself without seeing. And the way we are going to do this is, I’m going to place some chairs in certain areas of this room. And I want you to learn how to navigate these chairs. I want you to learn how, when you go into a place, to observe what it’s like.’

“No dog and no cane. You know I’m going to walk into things, but it taught me to remember where things were.”

—Ray Charles,

Jazz Superstar

Poetry helps you master your emotions, but I think coordinate is a more appropriate phrase. Somebody might wonder, do I need to know these much about how poetry relates with the human emotion before I can write poetry? Well, not really. But it’s good to know there is more than one way poetry deals with our true selves and that’s exactly what I’ve tried to illustrate.

Keep your pens bleeding!

Akpan

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Walkin' Thro Walls.mp3 (Poetry Recital)

Click on the Walkin' Thro Walls link to listen.

Walkin' Thro Walls is a sort of poetry that reflects on life. The prospect of ending up with an unfinished life is highly featured in this verse. But the poet persona counters the fear of failure with affirmations in his own will to thrive and not back down to self doubt.

Walkin' Thro Walls is for you if you believe the man who fights back never loses no matter the outcome.

Akpan

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Destiny Comes Thru.mp3

Click the link above to listen to audio file.

Destiny Comes Thru is a poetry recital about the audacity of Destiny to trundle through and achieve its goals at the worst of times.

Akpan

Friday, January 10, 2014

Still Standing.mp3 (Poetry Recital)

Click the link above.
This is a recital of a poem I did way back 2012 for a poetry challenge called NaPoWriMo. I drafted this as a personal birthday present to eh... me. My birthday usually comes around on April 16th. But you can't be sure these days, that might change in the course of time, ugh?
Happy listening, though.

Akpan

Friday, January 3, 2014

Color of Water-Poetry Recital (Audio)

National Poetry Month Display @ Forest Hills

Coyrtesy: mySAPL

Color of Water.mp3

Click the link, it should open in the audio player embedded in your browser.

This is a recital of a piece of poetry I did about two years back. I've been meaning to do recitals of my poems then, create a separate blog and dedicate it entirely to that purpose. I'm still trying for that-a blog made up entirely of poetry recitals without a single write-up whatever.

I hope you enjoy this bit.

Akpan

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013: On One Canvas

Come April, I’d have been writing for the internet for five years. December would mark my fifth year running this blog you’re reading. I’ve had times I wanted to cut and run but I’m still here, though. And after all has been said and done that’s what really counts for anything.

At the beginning of 2013, I typed my three primary goals for that year on a sticky note pad and pasted it on the desktop of my computer where it would be readily available for daily review. Writing 30 poems in 30 days—NaPoWriMo—the first of the trio was simple enough; it was my pet genre. The second one up was a challenge I invented way back 2012—IntShoWriMo—to keep my story writing tools oiled and sharpened. I’d done a lot by way of raising awareness on social media but that didn’t make writing 30 short stories in 30 days a walkover. Although come the month of June, I churned out a word count of over 49,000 words.

I’ve had NaNoWriMo in my sights the past three years. It appears 2013 was my year. Cause by the time November blew out the back door, I had a 52,000 word manuscript smack down on my desk. Ain’t that a treat? 2013 apparently, was cut out to be a year to remember.

For 2014, these three are still my primary objectives for the year plus I gatto get my rough drafts polished up and sent out for publication.

Well folks, that’s 2013 on one canvas. And there’s the canvas at the top of this post. It’s a succinct interpretation of my luxuriant writing the past year in a frame.

Have a happy New Year and an intellectually productive 2014!

Keep your pen bleeding!

Akpan