The Express Lane Blog Begins
Where do you start when you write a blog?
How do you start any mode of communication?
How do any of us manage that overwhelm of both excitement and pressure to produce that accompanies new writing – be it a creative writing project or a business writing contract?
Millions of words I’ve written to represent my clients, or meet my academic demands and even before all that my training as interpreter of language and culture for my elderly immigrant parents, still do not spare me from the obelisk of all openings. Yes, that first, big, blank page.
For more than half my 30 year career as a professional writer, I started with the sizzle. The juicy stuff – hot content. The creativity and passion for writing is still with me.
What has changed is that I now try to start with structure. More and more, structure features in effective communication and writing and even speaking success for me, my students and my clients.
The concept of structure as an effective element in communication impressed me most while watching my kids learn to get their own messages across succinctly. In high school they each had an opportunity to participate in public speaking and debate training and tournaments. They were astute enough, at such a young age, to pursue developing their natural talents. Learning to think critically, to build their research into strong opinions and talking points, they were able to deliver persuasive speeches or defend their messages against challenge during debates. They won awards for their oratory skill and their debate style and substance. Their disciplined efforts are rewarded to this day with an ability to understand their audience and connect well with people in all forms of communication as they now launch their own professional careers.
I admire their tenacity and their talent and I learned many lessons while watching their meticulous preparation process and then listening to them practice.
As I mature professionally and personally, structure has taken on new significance. It now helps me even out my delivery of energy and information. It helps me be more consistent as an instructor of business writing and communication techniques. It helps preserve my energy for true and clear expression in a world where technology has connected us across so many cultures and geographies and in which we must all communicate with so much more speed.
For this blog, I have a structure. I have ideas. I invite your ideas on communication as it pertains to culture, technology and the skills we need to communicate effectively today.
I’ll start this new adventure in writing then with an old tradition – a dedication to my kids. In watching them learn and grow, I learned and grew. Now in teaching others I draw on the ways they pushed me and continue that pattern of ever expanding awareness and most of all with the help of technology, sharing.
Wasn’t That a Party?!
Thursday, July 9th, 2009(Reprinted in part from other postings by Helena K. in other social media venues)
For the past month and one week, Express Lane has been reveling in the events of summer. Aside from live theatre, seminars, lectures and other literary local diversions to celebrate the word, e word locally, there have been some international dates of note.
June 11, Web 2.0 entered the tomes as English language’s millionth word as we debated the merits of the runners up, Jai ho and nOOb. On June 21 people all over the earth stood still - in their various time zones – to honour the arrival of the longest day of the year.
Month’s end brought the memory of kids streaming out of schools into the summer sun, shouting ” no more pencils, no more book, no more teachers’ dirty looks”.
All these events are linked by ‘the word’. It appears in the anticipation of an event and in its summary at the conclusion. In the case of the millionth word, English sort of graduated, don’t you think, into the first official truly global language. We buy, sell, sing, rap, tell and taunt in English, all over the world.
1/5th of the world has chosen English as its first language and/or its primary language commerce. And, in China alone it is likely that more numbers of people are just learning English there are current native speakers, world wide. So we should not be surprised by all the local flavours that will naturally blend into this mondial mix. Yes! Here comes more Chinglish, Hebrish, Hinglish, Yinglish, Franglais, Spanglish and more movie and marketing magic words too, just because. Because we have always accepted and adapted and now it is, well, politically correct, to accept all enthusiastic new additions, isn’t it?
By definition, web 2.0 is “the next generation of web products and services, coming soon to a browser near you”. In contrast with an opinion in my local English speaking community, I offer this contrast from an Indian colleague at http://world-howiseeit.blogspot.com/
“It’s very good that the language is inclusive and adapts to changing times but there is a thin line between flexibility and weakness.” He goes on to post:
“I don’t think Web 2.0, Jai Ho or nOOb deserves a place in the official dictionary. At this rate English must recognize all the commands and mnemonics used by the software community like MOV, MVI (move immediate), printf, malloc etc. For God’s sake why ‘jai-ho’? It’s a good term in Hindi not English.”
Well, my learned friend in a giant country that has so many languages and has also embraced English; I feel that every blog, byte, tweet and Facebook Entry brings us ever closer to turning our Ancient Greek foundation into a fast forward geek future.
At least, we are all writing more and words are flowing, kind of, in a sorta way, omg, I’ll bbiab with a nu blog, k?
Tags: English Usage, Ganesh Ram, India blog comment, New words, Starting a Blog
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