Matthew Lang

I finally finished William Zinsser's On Writing Well last night.

I've been making slow progress through it due to the fact I read it last thing at night and only managed a few pages at a time.

I've been chewing through a number of books on writing ever since I read Stephen King's book, On Writing. Educating myself on writing is just as important as my continual learning of software development, which is why I spend the time I do reading books like this.

I didn't take as many notes as I probably should have done, but I've queued the book up again on my reading list so that I do take notes on it the second time around. The main reason I enjoyed the book is that it doesn't focus on non-fiction writing.

I was glad to see there was even a section on writing about science and technology including this gem of advice:

Describing how a process works is valuable for two reasons. It forces you to make sure you know how it works. Then it forces you to take the reader through the same sequence of ideas and deductions that made the process clear to you.

— On Writing Well by William Zinsser

I recommend this book for anyone interested in improving their writing regardless of the form it takes. This book won't make you a successful published author but it will make look at your writing in a more critical way and that's not a bad thing if you want to improve.

Ulysses is now out for the iPhone. Having used it on my MacBook for a couple of weeks, I might still be swayed by the shininess of a new tool, although it is one of the best writing tools I've used.

I'm still on the fence about using my phone for writing though, but if it writing on your iPhone is your thing, it may be worth checking out.

I call Ulysses a writing environment, though not really a publishing environment (more on that in a bit), because you're surrounded with a rich set of writing tools. Put another way, it's one of the very few apps that feels relatively complete. That doesn't mean it isn't finished or there's nothing left to fix or add. It's more that Ulysses leaves me with the fewest questions, frustrations, and frictions of any writing app I've used.

— Review: Ulysses 2.5 for iPad and, now, iPhone by MacStories

An axe review with no mention of its use for taking down the odd zombie.

Rick Grimes would not approve.

Thanks NB!

Oh yeah, it's going to be good.

It's happening again. I'm falling out of favour with Twitter. Last night I thumbed through about six or seven promoted tweets in my timeline and I hadn't even reached back an hour in my timeline. I don't mind Twitter injecting a couple of promoted tweets in my timeline but six is a bit much.

It's taken me a while to realise it but Twitter is killing itself. We haven't had a great feature added to Twitter in a long time. Instead we get constant fiddling with the timeline and more promoted tweets. I was all ready to defend Twitter a couple of months ago but that defence has been worn down. The timeline is less fun to read these days with the interruptions of promoted tweets and other content such as recommend people and apps.

The worse part though is that it doesn't have the banter from years ago. Very few people I follow are what I would call active users. Back in the day there were plenty of active users in my time. Maybe everyone else is busy or like me they're put off by Twitter.