She took pains to keep outside the world’s acceleration.  An Athenian marketplace amazed Diogenes with, “How many things there are in the world of which Diogenes hath no need!”  Lou had long since cut out fashion and all radio but the Red Sox.  In the past few years she had let go her ties to people she did not like, to ironing, to dining out in the town, and to buying things not necessary and that themselves needed care.  She ignored whatever did not interest her.  With these blows she opened her days like a pinata.  A hundred freedoms fell on her.  She hitched free years to her lifespan like a kite’s tail.  Everyone envied her the time she had, not noticing that they had equal time.

Always one to embrace the potential of a new technology, Ric Telthorst, from the Missouri Telecommunications Industry Association, asked LHC to help him get started with an MTIA Twitter account.

LHC helped narrow a list of possible Twitter username, designed a Twitter page that coordinates with the MTIA brand, and helped Telthorst get his phone ready to tweet.

The association’s early April launch onto Twitter has proven to be a valuable means of communications.  Since then several other LHC clients have gotten on board with Twitter, including the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Industry Association, Laurens County [SC] Chamber of Commerce, Laurens County Development Corporation, and the Missouri Optometric Association.

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of the deed could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming, who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows the great enthusiasms and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and at worst, if he fails, at least fails with daring greatly.  His place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.

LHC is pleased to announce the debut of the new MCTA web site.  The new site features

• rotating photo gallery
• online advertising opportunities
• social media capabilities (specifically a Twitter feed),
• RSS feeds,
• online registration for MCTA events — particularly their upcoming Bill Mullen Memorial Golf Tournament,
• members only area where members can  interact privately.

To check out our handiwork, visit MCTA online at: www.missouricable.tv

She joined two of our clients—Ric Telthorst (MTIA), who moderated the panel, and Dawn Thurnau (MBIC)—to discuss “Maximizing Technology in Challenging Times.”

Other presenters included Joel Denney (MSBA), Travis Fitzwater (MPA), Paul Seizert (Avectra), and Adam Weedman (Affiniscape).

These are rules I’ve picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

1. Never open a book with weather. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.

2. Avoid prologues.

They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s “Sweet Thursday,” but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”

3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.

The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” . . .

. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”

5. Keep your exclamation points under control.

You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.

6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”

This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.

7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.

Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories “Close Range.”

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.

9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.

Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing
Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
from the New York Times, Writers on Writing Series.

Asked to discuss social media,  the presentation focused on:

• defined what social media is
• shared ways to use social media to spread awareness
• included strategies for using social media
• gave tips and tricks of the trade
• suggested ways to avoid the pitfalls of social media

We were also honored to meet some tremendous athletes who showed us around and introduced us during our presentation.

Lohman Hills Creative developed the show logo based on their 2010 theme of “Fresh.  Basic.  Best.”  And in keeping with that theme we’ve got a  fresh color scheme that gives attendees and exhibitors all the basic information in the best way possible.

LHC also helped the show set up a corresponding Twitter feed (username: midamericacable), which displays the show’s latest tweets on their home page.

Add some embedded video, a snappy rotating photo, and it’s easy to see that the show is definitely on the road!

After seeing our presentation at the MTIA annual conference, the S•GO Telephone Companies (Seneca Goodman & Ozark) contacted us to redesign their web site.

With a head for keeping this family owned teleco ahead of the competition, the only non-negotiable was a red and yellow color scheme (for a huge KC Chiefs football fan!).

We got to work creating a fresh, user-friendly web site that make it easy for new customers to sign up online.

Current S•GO customers now have easy access to the information they need: digital television channel guide, remote control guide, and

Cool is not dependent on achievement, or vice versa. Cool is how you get there. Cool is just doing the job; not-cool is making sure, while you’re at it, that everyone sees just how tough the job is and thus how cool you are to be doing it. Cool is self-direction, self-possession, self-sufficiency, capability, discretion, and a bit of wit. Not-cool is angst, conspicuous display, disdain, tropisms toward bright lights, crowds, and media—in short, all those adolescent traits that so many people fail to grow out of.

Read the Whole Article @ american.com