Why I Have This New Blog Titled “Frank H's Writing Lessons”

Writer or would-be writer, free lessons, how do you like that?!

Frank H's Writing Lessons – In 2005, I started my inveterate blogging with WordPress.com;some 2 years later, I switched to Blogger.com. But my intended readers have remained the same: auto/biographers, columnists, journalists, preachers, speakers, writers and would-be writers young or old. Would-be learners, preferably digital, and dedicated.

I have been writing earnestly and formally since 1974, when I became a copywriter for Tony Zorilla’s Pacifica Publicity Bureau in Makati. We copywriters absorbed from David Ogilvy, the acknowledged Father of Advertising. Copywriting is writing to sell an object or an objective. Under the able headship of Creative Director Nonoy Gallardo, Jojo, Orli and I learned to brainstorm via a practical manner such as browsing through old American color magazines.

I learned from others too. Like, in the image above, which shows part of my PC brainwork physical setup, you will note the punctuated word:

T.H.I.N.K.

Word & meanings from Zig Ziglar, which I have transformed into a creative formula of thinking leading to writing:

True?
Helpful?
Inspiring?
Necessary?
Kind?

As much as I can and as often, I now write what is true in order to be helpful, inspire, point out the necessary, and all in all be kind.

The reason I have this new blog, WritingLessons, is that with the immediately previous one, Philippine Agricultural Journalists Advancing Agriculture Aided By Community Knowledge & Science, PAJacks, towards midnight of Friday, 10 April 2020, I got discouraged as I realized I was limiting my advice to aggie journalists. And yes, journalism should not be only news & views as they appear in 99% of media today here or abroad.

So I have this new blog the name of which actually speaks for itself – and yet it needs a little explanation, because the lessons are not that obvious. They are there, but you have to read the whole essay before you may realize the main message if I did not tell you. And now I’m going to tell you:

The main message of each of my WritingLessons essays appears as the very first sentence, right after the title, enlarged. After that, you will realize that the whole essay begins and ends with that message, more or less.

The other lessons are less obvious; some are these:

Extent of content– You have to do your research. You have the biggest library in the world today: Internet!

English language happily employed – You have to love what you are writing, and why. It must have been in high school when I learned to love the English language, such as in memorizing Lincoln and Shakespeare. My reading was free as our Rizal Junior College, HS Dept, had an excellent library of magazines, classics, auto/biographies, westerns. I couldn’t get my fill.

Sometimes, humor – punning, double entendre, and hyperbole. I loved reading the Reader’s Digest when I was in high school in my hometown of Asingan, Pangasinan.

Yes, if you want to be a good writer, you have to be a good reader first.@517