Catching up with T. J. Blake – latest articles and creative pieces

Sorry that I’ve been a neglectful blogger recently, but I’ve had a busy few weeks. After bagging myself a new job (which I start on Monday – woop!), I’ve been finishing up with my then current (now former) employer, editing my next thriller DECEPTION, and of course, been preparing for Monday.

Anyway, to the point of this speedy post, I thought I would just give you the titles and links to my latest articles and creative pieces; which I’ve added to my blog T. J. Blake #Author the past few months.

So, below are my latest blog posts, articles and general writing material.

About me

Why did I choose to self-publish?

Articles

How has technology affected the relation between speech and writing?

Overuse of the exclamation mark: You’re having a laugh!!!! A little strict?!!

Creative Writing

Flash Fiction

Poem Attempts

Short Story Nightmare

Illusory Waters

 

Please have a read of my latest material. Feel free to comment with your opinion, and please do share 🙂

Why did I choose to self-publish?

It’s been three years (on the 28th of March) since I self-published my first novel Endurance.  I remember working on it whilst at university, and I most of all remember having doubts about self-publishing Endurance – mostly because there was a niggling fear of what people would say or think about me for doing it.

I personally love the freedom of self-publishing, even though it does require some more work – who am I kidding, some? A LOT more work.

I believe new writers should try their luck with self-publishing; mainly to engage with readers, create a following and allow people to review your work and help adapt you as a writer. From my experience, encouraging people to read your stories is the key part to self-publishing; even if you give them the book for free

Covering: What are the benefits of self-publishing? & Self-Publishing on Createspace

Source: Why did I choose to self-publish?

Further amendments to my blog

What have I been doing with all of my Saturday morning? Well I’m feeling a bit ill, so I thought why not stay in and do some work on my blog; before knuckling down to write some more of DECEPTION.  

So, what have I done? Well, I came across a piece of work which I wrote in my first year of university. At the time I think I received a 2:1, but reading back I’m not sure how I got such a good mark!
Anyway, I went through it, made a couple of changes and now it’s available to read on my blog as an article. This brings me onto my first change to the blog, my new page – the’Articles‘ page – where I can now upload articles I write or find lurking within my computer. You’re probably wondering what my article is about? It’s about how technological development has impacted our language. The article covers a basic overview of how technology has adapted, as well as looking into how it has changed people’s writing and speaking capabilities, or has it? – How has technology affected the relation between speech and writing?

I’ve also created a ‘Creative Writing‘ page, which basically merges most of my creative pieces together. These pieces currently include my Flash Fiction, ‘Poem Attempts’ and Short Story Nightmare.
On this Creative Writing page, I have added something pretty nifty. Everyone loves a poll (I know I certainly do) and when we see one on a website, it’s hard not to vote, right? This is why I have created a poll for my Creative Writing page. By going to this page and scrolling to the bottom, you can find the poll and place a vote!
It’s a basic question, it’s not political and it isn’t going to impact anyone’s life, but I would like to know which of my Creative Writing pieces you enjoyed most.

Those are my two major changes to the T. J. Blake #Author blog, feel free to have a nose!

Another makeover for the blog! 

Hi everyone. 

If you’ve visited my blog in the last couple of days, then you’ll have noticed that the blog now has a complete new look as well as some new pages. 

With a notepad style theme and new pages dedicated to my writing, you’ll have the chance to see my ‘Poem Attempts’, Flash Fiction/Micro Fiction and new short story nightmare

Click the new page names above to see some of my writing – feel free to comment on the pages with your opinions, questions and own writing. 

Enjoy the blog and I look forward to hearing from you! 🙂 

T. J. Blake #Author blog stats for 2015

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 25 trips to carry that many people…

Where did they come from?

79 countries in all!
Most visitors came from The United States. United Kingdom & Brazil were not far behind.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thanks to everyone who has viewed and interacted with my blog, it’s always great to meet and speak with you all.

My ‘Poem Attempts’ Farewell

So of course yesterday, my Poem Attempt 4 signalled the ending to my blog’s ‘Poem Attempts’.

If you missed it you’re probably thinking ‘What the hell are you on about?’

Well basically if you do not know, I am a writer of the genre Psychological Horror, Mystery, Thriller and Sci Fi I have written two books Endurance and The Author.

I have never been a fan of poetry nor have I ever written it. But for my university course, I had to write poetry. Of course, I was very worried about it. I remember fearing that this one module would finish me off and make me lose my degree. But I actually enjoyed writing poetry.

I decided to share my poems on this blog for you to read. I decided to do a ‘Poem Attempts Weekend’ event on my blog over four days. I uploaded a poem once a day.

If you missed this then you can catch up with it all by scrolling through my blog or you can just click here to see all my poems on one page.

If you want to see the posts separately with my thought process/commentary,  then please click on each of the poem attempts below to see each blog post.

Poem Attempt 1: Invisible Friend

Poem Attempt 2: My Family

Poem Attempt 3: 4 5683 968

Poem Attempt 4: Emotion + Experience – A Path Of Life

 

Thank you for reading!

Google Translate

I’m sure you have all used Google Translate to translate something whether it’s homework or to send a crude message to someone else in a different language on Facebook, Twitter or E-mail…
Having it as an app on your iPhone is brilliant. Get it if you don’t have it, you can have some great entertainment.

If you don’t know what Google translate is then… you ARE missing out!!  I will try and explain it. What it is, is a feature on Google that allows you to translate from English to another language, it has a voice recognition which means that the voice can say what it translates onto, so you’ll need your sound switched on when you’re playing around it.

So, play around with it and get used to it and then have a go at the game I do. What you do is type something in and translate it from English to English (or whatever language you speak) and the voice will speak it in English with a very ‘posh’ accent. I’ve done this many times and every time me and others have had a good laugh. You can do this by typing out funny or rude words or sentences. So give it a go.

Good thing is that you can do this with any one really. I’ve done it at school, people at work and even my family with different ages and everyone finds it funny.

Have a go on your phone on the browser or an app or on your computer at http://translate.google.co.uk/