From Dream to Delivery: How I Write
My writing process for an article or blog begins with knowing something about the audience and something about my subject and reflecting on it so I can discover what moves me emotionally or excites me intellectually or arouses curiosity.
I spend time in dream mode, allowing thoughts to emerge like fish nibbling on bait. Once I have a good feel for the shape of the thing and the audience I'll be appealing to, I go to work on the opening. This is the fun part for me, a perfectionist in love with words and their positions in sentences. Here, I'm setting the tone, establishing relevance, enticing the reader with a question, a startling statement, a dramatic scene. The rest unfolds pretty easily as I fill in information gaps with additional research, get quotes from sources, consult the dictionary and thesaurus for more exact, striking, strange, cool, or beautiful words, and move paragraphs around for best emphasis. After finishing the draft and letting it rest, I jump into the revision and editing process, checking spelling and punctuation, rewriting sentences for variety, conciseness, effect, making sure transitions are where they need to be and that diction is appropriate for my audience. The title may come naturally or not, but it must be the right title--catchy, compelling, but never trite or gimmicky. Maybe I'll use a bit of word play, a partial quote or interesting fact from the article. Today Libby responded to my writing with these words: "Holy crap! BOOM! This is exceptional." No wonder I can't stop. ________________________ (Photo courtesy of Wayne Rhodes) Features in Kingsport Times-News http://www.timesnews.net/Community/2018/05/28/Community-support-crucial-to-Honor-Flight-s-mission http://www.timesnews.net/lifestyle-parenting/2018/05/01/Kingsport-s-Montgomery-family-to-lead-2018-March-for-Babies-Walk
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Branding Is Essential to Company Success
Every business needs a brand that captures and captivates. The first has to do with projecting a company’s identity, the second with attracting customers. Pierre’s Digital Print Center in Sandusky offers a range of creative and successful solutions to businesses needing to define who they are or to dust off who they were for a fresher image.
“It’s so important to have a logo that reflects the very essence that your company wants to portray to your customer base. It has to be memorable,” says Pierre Van Raepenbusch, owner of the print center for 42 years. “The logo has to tell a story.” Nike’s swoosh and McDonald’s golden arches are good examples.
Pierre says the process begins with asking the client questions to determine the company’s product and personality. “Does the logo need to be strong? Does it have to be serious? Does it have to be fun?” He says color is an important factor in design. “We find that colors like yellow and teal and orange are very pleasing, relaxing, and fun colors.” He said those colors were perfect for the logo his company designed for a frozen yogurt shop. His staff includes two highly experienced graphic artists.
Another example of a successful logo was one designed for a house painter who had just started his own company. For his business card “we put a paintbrush with a stroke of paint going from one end of the card to the other, and inside that stroke of paint was the company’s name. The client told us that it really set him apart. He said that when he gives out his card, people say, ‘That’s really a nice business card.’ People remember it and they keep it.”
Besides creating simple logos, which cost a standard price of $50, Pierre says he can do more intricate designs as well. Letterhead, brochures, envelopes and other printed items are part of a company’s identity, but “the most important one is the business card,” Pierre notes. “It’s the first thing a person sees of your company—the first impression. All other communication comes afterwards.” He says the designer will offer two or three different ideas for customers to consider before making a choice.
His shop, located at 1005 Cleveland Road, is noted for its friendly, reliable service and family-like atmosphere. “We have a loyal group of customers, from a one-person shop to a Fortune 500 company,” Pierre explains. “We are in contact with hundreds of people every week.”
He says many of his customers have tried online printing services but that these companies fall short “because they never know what they’re going to get back. Our goal is, develop a design for your success. If you’re successful, we’re successful.”
The Gift of Special Persons
blog by Suzanne U. Rhodes at MercyMedical.org
blog by Suzanne U. Rhodes at MercyMedical.org
This week I got to call on my favorite business partner, Special Persons, on Tulip Drive. This is a mailing service located a couple of miles from our office that handles our bulk mail—newsletters, Christmas cards, important notices. I walk in and greet Heidi, Jennifer, Larry, Wanda, Richard and the others, and they greet me. Sometimes I get hugs too. Mary Kay, the office manager, keeps the staff—her “kids”—on task as they skillfully stuff envelopes, apply labels, stamp permit numbers on flyers.
The founder and president of this cheerful group of mentally disabled employees is Art Roy. He and his wife, Floy, established the nonprofit company in 1991 so their daughter, Jennifer, who has Down Syndrome, and others like her, would be able to find a meaningful niche in the world.
What started out with Jennifer and four friends handling a couple of mailing jobs as volunteers at the Roys’ kitchen table is now a staff of 33 paid employees. They come to work in a 3,650-square-foot and fully-paid-for building to provide service to some 200 clients of Special Persons Mailing Service, Inc. Their parents volunteer a couple of days a week to assist with more complex tasks such as sorting zip codes.
You can’t help but feel the family spirit. There are times I’ve walked in when the front work space was largely deserted, but I could hear music and laughter coming from somewhere else and was told a birthday party was in progress. Celebrating birthdays is a monthly event.
The fun extends beyond the office walls. In the summer, Art and Floy hold pool parties for the gang at their home in Virginia Beach. There are bowling parties and Christmas parties and visits with Santa. Art showed me a photo album with picture after picture of the kids taking turns to sit on Santa’s lap.
People magazine featured Special Persons in the May 15, 1995 issue, illuminating the Roys’ tender concern for their daughter and others with her condition: The Roys have been fighting for their daughter since she was born. At the time, recalls Art…“everybody said, ‘Don’t take her home. She’s not going to have a normal life.’” But the Roys, convinced that putting people with Down syndrome in institutions tends to shorten their lives, did take Jennifer home…”She has always been a joy and the focus of our lives—it’s been a happy time,” says Art. “Down syndrome children are real loving; they teach you a lot about patience, love and understanding.”
That’s the reason I always look forward to my trips to Tulip Drive. A kind of childhood innocence is always in bloom at Special Persons, and I know I’ve been given a gift—a song for my day.
The founder and president of this cheerful group of mentally disabled employees is Art Roy. He and his wife, Floy, established the nonprofit company in 1991 so their daughter, Jennifer, who has Down Syndrome, and others like her, would be able to find a meaningful niche in the world.
What started out with Jennifer and four friends handling a couple of mailing jobs as volunteers at the Roys’ kitchen table is now a staff of 33 paid employees. They come to work in a 3,650-square-foot and fully-paid-for building to provide service to some 200 clients of Special Persons Mailing Service, Inc. Their parents volunteer a couple of days a week to assist with more complex tasks such as sorting zip codes.
You can’t help but feel the family spirit. There are times I’ve walked in when the front work space was largely deserted, but I could hear music and laughter coming from somewhere else and was told a birthday party was in progress. Celebrating birthdays is a monthly event.
The fun extends beyond the office walls. In the summer, Art and Floy hold pool parties for the gang at their home in Virginia Beach. There are bowling parties and Christmas parties and visits with Santa. Art showed me a photo album with picture after picture of the kids taking turns to sit on Santa’s lap.
People magazine featured Special Persons in the May 15, 1995 issue, illuminating the Roys’ tender concern for their daughter and others with her condition: The Roys have been fighting for their daughter since she was born. At the time, recalls Art…“everybody said, ‘Don’t take her home. She’s not going to have a normal life.’” But the Roys, convinced that putting people with Down syndrome in institutions tends to shorten their lives, did take Jennifer home…”She has always been a joy and the focus of our lives—it’s been a happy time,” says Art. “Down syndrome children are real loving; they teach you a lot about patience, love and understanding.”
That’s the reason I always look forward to my trips to Tulip Drive. A kind of childhood innocence is always in bloom at Special Persons, and I know I’ve been given a gift—a song for my day.