 "Map of Todmorden Mills, Toronto" image by Mike DeHaan Perhaps the most useful thing I could add beyond what the Driftwood Theatre's official site provides, was more detailed directions to Todmorden Mills.
Other Publicity for my Midsummer Night Article
A Midsummer Night Writing Tip
Perhaps you've already guessed that today's writing tip is to include one or two really useful items in your article. My goal for every one of my "Toronto events" blog posts in DeHaan Services is to share some information about an upcoming event; preferably to inform someone about an event they would otherwise not have known about. Regarding the Driftwood Theatre's preview performance of " A Midsummer Night's Dream" , the second benefit was to provide directions to the venue. I've added directions in other articles also; see " Toronto Afrofest 2012 at Woodbine Park" for an example. Although some of the characters get lost in " A Midsummer Night's Dream", there's no excuse for the audience to have trouble finding Todmorden Mills.
 "Serious Adult at Caribana 2010" image by Loozrboy Although I couldn't find an image for the Junior Carnival parade, perhaps the adult participant shown in the picture above demonstrates the wisdom of having a separate parade to judge the costumes of junior participants.
The Toronto Caribbean Carnival, known in earlier years as Caribana, has its major adult activities a few weeks from now.
More Publicity for my 2012 Junior Toronto Carnival Article
Writing Tip Gleaned from Writing my 2012 Toronto Junior Carnival Article
This is a brief but timely writing tip. I had already listed events that I want to cover in DeHaan Services, and even keep notes in my Squidoo lens, " The DeHaan Lens of Annual Toronto Events". I thought I was working toward the next weekend for events such as Junior Carnival in Toronto. Today I began my detailed research, and realized that yesterday (Monday) was the launch event for the juniors. Fortunately, many events are still in the future, so it was worthwhile to write the article. The writing tip is to do enough research that you can build your schedule so you can write, publish and promote your articles when they are most useful to your readers. This is especially true if your goal is to inform your visitors of upcoming events, as was my plan for my DeHaan Services article about Toronto's Junior Carnival parade.
During the time that I've been using Weebly, I've noticed that some of its features deserve to be highlighted as tips or hints. Today's problem is, how to find an old Weebly post for editting. The answer is in " Weebly Tip #2: Edit Articles via the Weebly Archive".  "Weebly Archive List" image by Mike DeHaan I had begun a separate blog of Weebly tips; here is today's. That blog is still extremely small, so I'm open to suggestions.
Publicity for the Weebly Archive Tip
Writing Tip from my Weebly Tip
This writing tip started as an observation I had made many years ago.
My employer sent me on a quick computer programming course led by a consultant. Her qualification for teaching this course was largely due to her success in using the software she taught.
I'm not sure whether she had taken a formal "course" in the material herself, but she certainly had learned on the job. She had also taken notes and organized the information very well.
I'm following her pattern in writing my Weebly tips.
Today's writing tip is to pay attention to what you are learning and what you find you need to learn. If you learn it well enough to use, can you "take it to the next level" so you can organize it into material that you can teach? If so, write about it.
That's what I'm doing with the Weebly tips.
 "South Asian Fashion Store in Toronto" picture by Ian Muttoo This annual cultural festival and street party showcases South Asian food, music and dance. There are live performances, children's activities, and restaurants selling food out on the sidewalk.
My article explains how to find the Festival of South Asia, and links back to the official site.
Promoting my South Asian Festival Article A Writing Tip from the South Asian Festival Article
The organizer's site provides directions for drivers, presumably because the Festival of South Asia does attract people from the suburbs.
Unfortunately, I think they used the standard directions to find "Little India", which truly is the correct district.
However, as a street festival, this Toronto event closes the major street. The organizer's directions finish by telling drivers to turn onto the now-closed street.
In my humble opinion, anyone reading my article will get slightly better information. I did make the point with a bit of humour, because it's not good to disagree with your references unless you're actually right or you're willing to eat humble pie when proven wrong.
My writing tip today is to make your article accurate and useful. If you know better than one of your sources, be gracious about it; but be sure to give your readers the best information possible.
I certainly hope that helped out some of the people reading about this particular 2012 South Asian festival in Toronto.
 "Rocco Rossi Kicked Off Unity Festival at Yonge-Dundas Square in 2010" by Rocco Rossi The article explains why I used this picture of Mr. Rossi, but more importantly, it's a guide to the Unity Festival and the sponsoring charity. The most important fact in my article is that it reveals the date and venue for the free concert!As always, I also publicize my article in my Xanga blog (" A Unity Festival for Toronto in 2012").
New Writing Tip based on my Toronto Unity Festival Article
This new writing tip, geared mainly to online blogs and articles, has two parts.
First, be sure that you write something useful in your article. For the Unity Festival, I highlight the free concert and also provide background about the Unity Charity, all in one concise page.
Second, always provide a link to your major references. Your readers may need to find more details. The Unity Festival site provides the means to buy advance tickets at a discount from "at the door" prices. It would be irresponsible of me not to provide that link. In other cases, the reference links prove that you've done the research.
Just be sure that it was worth your readers' time to review your article before clicking to the reference. I certainly hope that was the case for anyone reading my article about the 2010 Toronto Unity Festival.
My latest DeHaan Services article, " Toronto Afrofest 2012 at Woodbine Park", notes that this festival celebrating African cuisine and culture is moving from downtown Queen's Park to the fairly new Woodbine Park in the eastern Beach community.  "King George IV Approved Afrofest in Queen's Park" by PinkMoose (Anthony Easton) This image is a nostalgic look at a crowd in Queen's Park in some previous year. My article provides a few program highlights, explains the location of the park, and links to the organizer's official site.Naturally, I also promote my article in my Xanga blog (" Toronto Afrofest Moves to Woodbine Park in 2012"). It also links to my " DeHaan Lens of Annual Toronto Events", an ongoing Squidoo project where I try to list and link to all the festivals that I find interesting.
Writing Tip for Afrofest 2012
I'm re-using an earlier writing tip: make your own graphic if it helps the article.
In addition to the image above, which is duly provided under a Creative Commons "for commercial re-use" license, I also marked up a Google map of the area.
This saved a fair bit of descriptive writing, and might make it easier for people to find the venue for Afrofest 2012 in Toronto.
 "Mousaka at Ouzeri in 2010" by onlyandrewn (Andrew Nguyen) Ouzeri is just one of about 180 participating restaurants. Even with a well-organized web site hosted by Toronto City Hall, Summerlicious deserves some extra explanation.
Promoting my Summerlicious Article
Writing Tip from Summerlicious 2012
Today's writing tip is: add value when writing articles that ultimately point elsewhere. That's my main consideration in writing articles about Toronto events, since my blog post invariably includes a link to the event's own site. It's one thing to be a restaurant critic or movie critic or travel reviewer. You go, have the experience, and share it with others. Generally, those others can decide whether it's worth following in your footsteps. I prefer to write about upcoming events so people can choose to attend. My preference is for events that don't do a lot of publicity for themselves; why editorialize on behalf of someone who buys advertising copy?I'd like to have the first site that people check when thinking about festivals in Toronto. In fact, I've positioned my "DeHaan Lens of Annual Toronto Events" as both a calendar and hub for my Toronto Events articles. The big trick, and the lesson that Reddit seems to try to teach me, is to add value beyond just pointing at someone else's comprehensive web site. That's a real trick, and I hope to master it sometime soon. My "Summerlicious 2012" article may or may not have that special ingredient.
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