This blog is not immune to turn-of-year introspective reflection.
And if collating your favourite posts of the year is good enough for BBH Labs, then it’s good enough for me.
But I thought I’d do it with a bit of a twist.
The Labs guys curated the ten posts that they felt encapsulated the most important and most often recurring strategic themes of 2010.
This is a little different. I offer below my top 5 post headlines and my top 5 opening lines of 2010. Both lists are in no particular order.
HEADLINES.
OPENING LINES
None of these are necessarily my “best” posts of 2010. Indeed the two most highly read (by a mile) posts of the year are not represented here.
In my own tin-pot way I try to write, on this blog at least, like a journalist. Headlines should be engaging, yes, but primarily an accurate description of the story beneath. I don’t like cryptically “clever” headlines. Although ironically the headline for this post flirts with that territory more than I’d usually allow. And, rather than adopting a beginning/middle/end structure to blog post storytelling, I try, and sometimes succeed, to summarise the entire post in the first few lines. And I do like to start with a bang.
I’ve just flicked back through the year in posts and, if I say so myself, I think that whilst practice is certainly not making perfect it is making better. I hope I’m allowed to say something like that once a year.
“The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo Is Harder To Kill Than Jason Bourne”
Priceless. Both the headline and the review.
Wow. Lovely comment. Thank you. And good luck with the blog. It’s an interesting angle on book blogging.
Phil
Thanks. I thought I’d give it a shot. In fact, I’d give anything a shot once except incest and folk-dancing.
Have enjoyed what I’ve read of your blog enormously. Tres droll, tres droll!
New visitor…
Like your headlines, but I love your opening lines.
Guess I’ll have to come back for more now.
http://www.blackwatertown.wordpress.com
Hi Paul. Thanks for dropping in and taking the time to leave a nice comment. I’ve had a brief look at your blog and I wish I were half as interesting. Good luck with the book.
Cheers
Phil
Thanks. (I’ll need it.)