Writing Exercises

As some of you may know, I have a book review blog called Inky Realms. (Ironically, I like the look of this blog better. It uses a template I picked in under 5 minutes; I've probably spent hours experimenting with different templates over at Wordpress. Ah well. Weight of expectations, I guess.)

Anyway. Today I realised my writing voice is:

1. pretty damn colloquial, and
2. filled with useless/ conversational adverbs (really, definitely, fairly, rather, etc.)

So I went on a quest (aka a five minute Google search) to find some writing exercises I could use to improve my prose. And I found these. They're vague but might prove useful, although they're obviously aimed more at creative writers than amateur critics. I plan to pick up some other books aimed at writers when I get back to Auckland and have access to a real live library again. 

Civilization: Beyond Earth

One of my gaming friends told me he already had Civilization: Beyond Earth, but that he had signed a NDA and couldn't tell me anything about it aside that it was awesome. The envy! I would review games instead of teaching kindergarten in a heartbeat.

Ah well. Two weeks now. Enjoying this in the meantime:

Why 'Words Were Power'?

Just a quick post before I pop out into Beijing's polluted streets (sigh). The title of this blog is taken from one of my favourite books, namely Tigana by the fabulous Guy Gavriel Kay.

Words were power,words tried to change you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever cross.