english@kkc

Very, very soon you will be back at school and for most of you your first assessment will be a writing one. To help you, I will add posts on creative writing (see categories) for the next few weeks.

There are so many different kinds of writing and so many ways to work that the only rule is this: do what works. Almost everything has been tried and found to succeed for somebody. The methods, even the ideas of successful writers contradict each other in a most heartening way, and the only element I find common to all successful writers is persistence-an overwhelming determination to succeed.
Sophy Burnham

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think
Lord Byron

I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.
Truman Capote

Practice, practice, practice writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong.
Jeffrey A. Carver

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
William Faulkner

Writers aren’t exactly people…. they’re a whole bunch of people trying to be one person.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible.
Anthony Hope Hawkins

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
Ernest Hemingway (1899 - 1961)

Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind.
Rudyard Kipling

I don’t know much about creative writing programs. But they’re not telling the truth if they don’t teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer.
Doris Lessing

I see the notion of talent as quite irrelevant. I see instead perseverance, application, industry, assiduity, will, will, will, desire, desire, desire.
Gordon Lish

You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.
Jack London

Paper Critters is an online application for creating and sharing digital paper toys. Give it a try.

Want to see yourself as a cartoon? Then go to befunky, a fun site that turns your photos into cartoons. Can you work out who I put through the cartoonizer?

I will be at school tomorrow if you have any questions about what English course to take in 2008. It would be great to see any exam papers from last year.

Remember it is re-enrolment for Years 12-13 on Wednesday January 30. All years 10-13 are at school on Monday February 4 and the timetable starts on February 7.

This is a very old video but one that you might enjoy. It features KD Lang and Roy Orbison performing ‘Crying’.

This post will be the first of many requesting exam papers from 2007. I would be very happy to receive any scripts from last years exam. I don’t mind what standard it is or what grade. Please bring them into school in the next few weeks.

I have seen these pictures on a few websites and they are really quite clever. The money has been folded to look like celebrities. If you want to see more go to Freaking News.

Jack Sparrow money.

Keira Knightly money.

How well do you know your world?

If you want to test your geography play the Traveller IQ Challenge available at the TravelPod website.

In the game you’re given a location and you click where you think it is. The number of points that you get depends on how close you are from its accurate location.

Try it out - it is more fun than it sounds!