I prefer to teach chess, using it as a vehicle to greater proficiency in other areas… a martial arts sport for the mind.

This blog is interesting. It is entertainment. It is popular. I think it can be more. I hope so. Time will tell.

1. Pick a title and research, research, research. Use caution if you cannot verify a source. Hearsay will kill your article.

2. Write the article start-to-finish. You will polish it later.

3. Can you read the 1st draft of the article out loud without stumbling through it? If you stumble, fix the potholes.

4. Record yourself reading it, play it back. When you listen to it, does it flow? Note: most people hate how they sound recorded. Who cares what you sound like, you are more interested if the article flows and holds your attention. If not, edit the boring sections.

5. Pass copies out to some friends. Tell them to please be brutal and not hold back. This helps you to overcome unknown writing weakness. Ask them what they thought of the idea, Interesting or yawns-ville. Use their comments to fix the problems, strengthen the weakness.

6. Be sure you don’t have a redundant writer’s voice, voice being how you write, your poise. Make sure your writing does not drone on, like some speakers. No variance in voice, just a long boring drone. Zzzz. If so, spice it up. I think we all had enough schoolbook text induced nappy-times.

Once it passes the six steps above, submit it.”[/quote]

I appreciate your helpful insights. Even those not talented enough to write up an article “off-the-cuff” should be given the opportunity to improve their skills. If you want to write something great you have to work at it, and as you practice your speed will increase until these steps become a natural part of your work. What is listed here isn’t that difficult. I realize this comment is coming after everyone is probably finished with this topic, but I wanted to put my two bits in anyway. Thank you for the advice.

amazing how quickly the mind can go blank isnt it.

“Giggle” Are you Gene Shalit? ;-)

Interesting that you don’t use your real name either. It is also interesting to jump to the conclusion that shame is associated with the choice of names. For all you know meathammer could be a professional butcher or chef that is known the world over for *snickers* beating his meat tender. Meathammer could be so proud of this profession that it was immediately thought up in accordance to this pride and selfconfidence.

To judge content first according to the by-line and second according to the article content would be utter madness when it causes ones to ignore something that was truely DI.

Let’s. Most of my scars were caused by embarassing mishaps, so you’re not alone on that front. A rather large one on my forehead was caused by diving off my bunk-bed to my sister’s adjacent bed. This was my traditional bratty-little-sister way of waking her in the morning. I forgot that morning that she and her bed had moved to another room in the house and had been replaced by a rather large dresser. Oops. Gee, I wonder why she moved out of my room? ha ha ha

If you are lucky, and you have a hidden talent, this process should only take a couple of days. After all, did you just jump on a bike and start riding, or did it take a few times before you could?

To become a published writer you will find that the road is not rosy and easy to tread. With the advent of the affordable computer and word processing software, anyone can slam a bunch of words together and hope to be published. Not many of those have training or talent.

Take my words as offered, as a way to hone a hidden talent, or something that is just too much work.”[/quote]

In your earnest attempt to dispense a geyser of knowledge on us all, you may have overlooked one thing. I said [quote]depending on the talent[/quote]. Nobody is going to, or at least shouldn’t, take writing for DI as the mission that you have described. If they have to, then they shouldn’t be doing it.

Again, what you described is a full-time job. DI is asking for freebies, using that term in the nicest possible way. If anyone out there is willing to go through the process that you have so beautifully itemized they need to seriously look at their priorities. Attributing that much time and effort to this would force me to believe only one thing, you have achieved all of your life’s goals already and are looking for new ones. If that is the case, good for you! If not, focus your time and effort on something a little more beneficial to yourself. Like mastering the hacky-sack.

Again…this is based on talent. Some people have the knack for writing and could pen a DI article without much problem. Those are the type of people required to fill this position. People that depend on your 6 step process to become a DI writer need to find something more suited for their talents. At the very least, they need to hone those talents for quite some time before applying. Maybe by getting the finished product in under 4 enormous steps they could then consider themselves candidates. It would also mean they would be able to contribute to DI and still lead a normal life, you know…have time to get groceries every now and again, possibly fit a bowel movement in between steps here and there.

Simply put, I wouldn’t want to see anybody sacrifice a good portion of their life to planning, drafting, testing, re-writing, recording and polishing a DI article because they don’t have the raw talent to put out a finished product with more ease. Your advice is solid, but too overwhelming for this purpose. If you’re a writer trying to get something published because it’s your livelihood…fine, put that much effort into it. But, if it’s just so you can write an damn interesting article on a Damn cool website? It shouldn’t take nearly that much effort. These articles are being ‘published’ about as much as these comments are, less in fact. Please don’t say a volunteer doing some research and sending in a interesting and well written article has been ‘published’. Unless, of course, you are willing to admit that every contributor to the Comments section has also been ‘published’. I’ll bring up my resume and add ‘published writer’ on it immediately!

Basically your use of ‘Alas’ and ‘Nor’ doesn’t make me feel your writing skills are such that you can justify the underlying arrogance of your “advice”. I’d ask what your qualifications are but realize you could make anything up. I know this because I am smart, I tutored Stephen Hawking in Quantum Physics while also writing all the code for Windows Vista. And yeah…I know it has errors, I put them in there on purpose. Suckers!

That’s my rant….I apologize for it’s length and lack of direction, it’s too early in the morning and I felt like typing stuff before my brain turned on.