Write music…

The best writing is not only meaningful, it is also melodious:

As Gary Provost says, “Don’t just write words. Write music.”

So what can help when it comes to making your words sing? Ace writer Haruki Murakami points the way in Absolutely on Music: “I’ve been listening to music since my teens, but lately I’ve come to feel that I understand music a little better now than I used to – that maybe I can hear the fine differences in musical detail – and that writing fiction has gradually and naturally given me a better ear. Conversely, you can’t write well if you don’t have an ear for music. The two sides complement each other: listening to music improves your style; by improving your style, you improve your ability to listen to music.”

Looking to make your writing more melodious? Listen to more music.

Exciting and essential…

Browsing in my local charity shop at the tail-end of last year, I came across ‘Books are exciting’:

It is one of a series of Ladybird Key Words books designed back in the 1960s to make “every child eager to read”. Fast-forward 60 years or so and the number of children regularly picking up books is sadly at an all time low – according to the National Literacy Trust, only one in three eight-to-18-year-olds enjoy reading in their spare time.

Despite this downbeat stat, books are indeed exciting. And essential – not least because they’re a great way to keep our brains firing on all cylinders in a world where, if we’re not careful, AI will create what Sol Rashidi has called ‘intellectual atrophy’.

So in this National Year of Reading, my new year’s resolution is to read more and more books, and to encourage everyone around me to read more, too.