Better Ways to Spend Your Days?

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          I read a lot so I cannot remember where I read about someone questioning whether there were better ways to spend your days than writing. I do remember thinking I should answer that question.

          For many, the answer is yes. Otherwise there would be many more books and blogs. On Kristen Lamb’s blog, WarriorWriters, she recently wrote that only 5% of writers finish their books.

          For me, the answer is no. I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer. I’m sad/cranky/bored when I don’t write.

          Writing makes me think, makes me observant, makes me connect life’s dots.

As I go through my days, I take note of moments I want to write about later. As I pay more attention to my surroundings, my subconscious picks up on things I may miss at the time.  

When I have blank pages to fill, I rack my brain for these moments. My thoughts and observations help me make sense of life, especially my life.

That’s living at a deeper level than when I worked 9-5 at jobs I hated. I wasted time after work doing mindless things and being angry because I was unhappy—not better ways to spend my days.

          Is it difficult to fit writing into your days? Yes, there are often more fun things to do or more important things or more necessary things—laundry and dishes come to mind. Most ways to spend your days make your life a blur. You remember milestones, special events, tragic moments, but not a Thursday in September eight years ago. But if you write, you have a journal, a notebook entry on that day.

When I look back at my early notebooks and articles, part of me cringes. I hadn’t found my voice. I wasn’t organized. I used awkward phrases. I made mistakes—lots and lots of mistakes. But I can also see over many years of filling notebooks that I did find my voice. I organized my thoughts. My writing became less awkward and I made fewer mistakes.

Writing makes you a writer. If I’d been writing more through the years, I’d be an even better writer.

I had plans. I was excited about writing several different genres, but I gave in to unhappiness, anger, and exhaustion and gave up. My notebooks contained more whining than writing for a while.

For the last ten years, between writing articles and now blogging, I’m writing more. The more I write, the more I want to write. The more I write, the faster I write which creates time for even more writing. Want proof? I used to spend four or five hours on each of my posts when I was a new and nervous blogger. Now I write three posts in that same amount of time.

Recently, I’ve branched out into two other genres which I will write about in future posts because writing is a better way for me to spend my days.

Reads for Writers: Running from Safety by Richard Bach Provides a Masterclass

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

 

As a reader, I always love finding books that appeal to me. As a writer, I am twice as pleased when the authors also provide masterclasses within their books.

            Masterclasses take place when performance artists and musicians work one-on-one with students. Writers don’t generally have this option, but I have found some books to be masterclasses for characters, backstories, plots, settings, voice and/or creativity.

 

          Richard Bach has written about two dozen books, most of which I’ve enjoyed, but my favorite is Running from Safety: An Adventure of the Spirit.

From the back cover: If the child-we-were asked us today for the best we’ve learned from living, what would we tell, and what would we discover in return?

          How would you answer?

If you take this up as a writing prompt, it’s an enlightening experience. You might want to set aside an entire notebook or two to complete it.

In Running from Safety, Richard Bach has written a first-person mystical tale where the child he was is a 10-year-old character named Dickie. Together they reminisce, argue, discuss, agree and disagree about the past, present, and future. Richard is astonished to discover what he has forgotten or rewritten in his mind about his childhood.

As he considers Dickie’s observations and questions, both mundane and profound, he defends and explains himself. Even if the questions are painful, the child demands honesty. Bach's soul-searching answers contain mind-expanding wisdom.

The insights shared include:

“…Childhood was not something I was much trained to treasure. The point was to get through it. Learn as much as you can along the way, but hunch in, hold your breath, coast down that long powerless hill of dependence till you’re rolling fast enough to pop the clutch and start your engine on your own.” (page 49)

…Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline…I’m master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell’s own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer. (page 106)

“Like attracts like. It’ll surprise you as long as you live. Choose a love and work to make it true, and somehow something will happen, something you couldn’t plan, will come along to move like to like, to set you loose, to set you on the way…” (page 204)

          No! I thought. Don’t tell me that my security comes from somebody else! Tell me I’m responsible. Tell me security is a by-product of the gift I give of my skill and my learning and my love into the world. Tell me security comes from an idea given time and care. I claim this for my truth, no matter how many stable solid paychecks might come from the Accounting Department…Dear God, I thought, don’t give me a job, give me ideas, and let me take it from there! (page 214)

“…We build our personal world calm or wild according to what we want to live. We can weave utter peace in the midst of chaos. We can destroy in the midst of paradise. Depends on how we shape our spirit.” (page 222)

“Marriage is like nothing else you’ll ever live…brought together by miraculous magnetizing, found by incredible coincidence, soulmates discovered in the mystery of romance, you still have to work out problems together. Fascinating problems, it’s true, spicy tests lasting year after year, but lose romance and you lose the power to go on through hard times… (page 261)

 “Everything in the world of my consciousness, which is the only world that exists for me on earth, gets there through my consent…” (page 274)

          “…What matters, though, is how I use what I know every minute of every day; how I use it to remember… (Page 311-312)

          Running from Safety is one of the books I reread every few years because I get more out of it each time I consider Bach’s thoughts:

          How come we don’t know the answers until we find the question[s]… (page 140)

“…You don’t want a million answers as much you want a few forever questions. The questions are diamonds you hold in the light. Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel. The same questions, asked again, bring you just the answers you need just the minute you need them.” (page 141)

Who couldn’t use those questions?

 

Blogging Etiquette

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

 

          I love blogging. I have no plans to stop anytime soon although some weeks are easier to post than others. Deadlines for paid work, family matters, illnesses, emergencies, etc. can all cause disruptions, but I persevere.

I also love reading blogs. However, a couple of the blogs I follow have faltered and seemingly ended. No warning, just no new posts. And several others have gone from weekly to sporadic.

I keep checking to see if there are new posts—daily the first week without a post then weekly for a couple of months then randomly. It would be nice to have closure.

What is the etiquette for ending a blog? Put up a “Gone Fishin’” sign if the writer is taking a break? How about "Bisy Backson" if you are an A. A. Milne fan? Or pen a farewell?

The blogs I read just stopped. The same old posts come up every time I check. They’re like ghost sites—sad and kind of creepy.

What happened? Did the bloggers get bored? Overwhelmed? Uninspired? Sick? Injured? Or worst of all, short of death, stop writing altogether?

How many of these ghost sites are out there?

All bloggers will stop writing eventually so it would be helpful to have a standard goodbye. As writers, THE END seems appropriate.

          But for now on this blog, I’m going with CONTINUED NEXT WEEK.



 

          

Waiting for My Life by Linda Pastan

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

          April is Poetry Month. While poetry in general may not be of interest when you are reading for fun, reading it is a wonderful way to improve your writing.

          Poets have unique ways with words. Reading their poems make me want to expand my writing vocabulary. I know many more words than I use. Writing poetry gives me a place to put them. No one has to know you write poems, long or short, in your notebooks. They are merely writing exercises. In fact, you can just write fragmented phrases as they come into your mind.

Poets convey thoughts and emotions in mind-bending ways. I always look at the world differently after reading poetry. I write differently, more deeply, too.

          I highly recommend writers read poetry by Billy Collins and Mary Oliver. (See posts dated 4/22/13 and 4/28/14 respectively.) And this year I recommend Waiting for My Life by Linda Pastan.

          Read "Secrets" on page 12. The first line: The secrets I keep from myself…tell me you couldn’t fill pages and pages with that writing prompt. It’s the core of a novel or play.

          Her poem, "Elegy", on page 24 shares where misplaced words never written down lurk and tarry.

          Trees are gnarled magicians in her poem, "November", on page 54.

          While words and images are the heart and soul of poetry, the presentation on the page adds to the impact. See the poem “blizzard” on page 59 where short lines pile up upon each other just like snow.

          Read poetry. Write poetically.

Writing poetically requires an open mind, observing eyes, and an expanded vocabulary. Deeper impressions appear on the page.

See what you can create using these tools.

 

 

Graphology

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

           We all remember the stubby pencils we were given in school and the really wide-ruled paper with the extra dashed lines so we would learn where lowercase letters mostly started. Posted on the wall was the alphabet written A a B b C c D d…Z z so we had a model to follow as we copied the letters on our pages. Soon we could write our own words down. A few grades later, we learned cursive, switched to pens, and then the fun began.

          Printing is useful, but cursive is beautiful. I loved everything about writing in cursive. I loved pens more than pencils. I loved all the colors of ink though I mostly used blue and black. I loved the embellishments that made my handwriting unique. And I loved that I could write almost as fast as I thought.

          Everyone’s handwriting should be uniform. We all learned the same alphabet with the same standard letters. Yet once we graduated to cursive, we went our own ways: easy to read or difficult, large or small letters, slanted or straight up. We wrote in ways comfortable to ourselves.

I never thought any more about it than that until I learned about graphology, the analysis of handwriting.

          Decades ago, I was reading The Tightrope Walker by Dorothy Gilman—a murder mystery that starts with a written clue found hidden inside a hurdy-gurdy. Needing more information than just the words in the note, the lead character decides a graphologist’s opinion would be helpful.

          I had never heard of a graphologist, but I thought it was a fascinating profession. After I finished the book, I looked up graphologists to see if there were any nearby. There were five in the closest big city and one was a woman so I called her.

          I explained to her that I had just finished a book with a graphologist as a character and that I was interested in learning more about graphology. As most people do when they are passionate about a topic, she started to explain what she did. I asked her how she was trained, who hired her, and what she could tell about people she’d never met.

We talked for about twenty minutes. Then she said she would examine my handwriting if I filled out a form and mailed it back to her which I did. Her analysis was spot on and I was hooked. I signed up for a class on graphology immediately and bought books on the subject. I learned how to “read” handwriting. Graphology is an amazing, insightful field of study.

When I worked as an accountant, one of my bosses discovered an embezzler. I didn’t know about graphology then, but I remembered the person wrote with very unusual o’s. They were more like upside down u’s, open at the bottom. I had never seen this before. While I was studying graphology, I discovered this can be a handwriting trait of an embezzler.

The way you write your letters like m’s, k’s, capital I’s, etc. is revealing as is the overall look of your handwriting. Slant, size, and strength (how deep is the impression on the paper) can tell how empathetic, detail-oriented, and emphatic you are among other things. There is a literary trait in handwriting, too—any e’s and cursive lowercase r’s that look similar to a reversed 3.

Graphology is a great tool for learning about character traits in general as well as in people you need to deal with on a regular basis. This knowledge can help you get along better with them.

So dot your i’s and cross your t’s then study how others do the same. The similarities and differences are illuminating.

 

2015 Writer's Market

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

 

          Each year the Writer’s Market contains contact information for publications, literary agents, and contests & awards as well as helpful advice on a variety of topics.

One of the most useful chapters in the 2015 Writer’s Market is “How Much Should I Charge?” by Aaron Belz. He gathered his information/rates from 17 writers’ organizations. (See the list of organizations on pages 115 & 116.)

          On his well-organized, easy to read Rate Table on pages 117-131, Belz lists Hourly, Project, and Other (including per word) rates across the top breaking them into High, Low, and Average.

Down the left side of the chart, he lists categories of writing including:

·        Advertising & Public Relations

·        Book Publishing

·        Business

·        Computer, Internet & Technical

·        Editorial/Design Packages

·        Educational & Literary Services

·        Film, Video, TV, Radio, Stage

·        Magazines & Trade Journals

·        Medical/Science

·        Newspapers

·        Nonprofit

·        Politics/Government

In total, these 12 categories are broken down into 165 specific assignments like press kits, ghostwriting, paid blogging, web editing, copyediting, proofreading, rewriting, grant writing, and speeches. Now it is easier to charge clients a fair rate for your time and expertise especially if it is a new type of writing project for you.

Unfortunately, writing is an underrated talent. Non-writers do not realize how much time it takes to write well plus proofread, rewrite, and edit to make sure the project is letter perfect (or as close as we can make it). Time is money so we need rates that cover all the work we put into our assignments.

There are many other useful chapters like “Pitch Like A PR Pro: Turn the Blinking Cursor Into Cash” by Dana W. Todd on page 40;  “Earn A Full-Time Income From Blogging” by Carol Tice on page 50; “Balancing Your Writing and Your Platform in 8 Simple Steps” by Krissy Brady on page 132, and "Author Platform 2.0" by Jane Friedman on page 169.

If you want to be a professional, well paid writer, the 2015 Writer’s Market is an essential investment.

 

Reads for Writers: Christina Bartolomeo's Novels, Filled with Insightful Asides, Provide Masterclasses

From Kate’s Writing Crate…

 

As a reader, I always love finding books that appeal to me. As a writer, I am twice as pleased when the authors also provide masterclasses within their books.

          Masterclasses take place when performance artists and musicians work one-on-one with students. Writers don’t generally have this option, but I have found some books to be masterclasses for characters, backstories, plots, settings, voice and/or creativity.

 

I love novels filled with insightful asides. If they also appeal to you, try one or all of these novels by Christina Bartolomeo:

 

The Side of the Angels: A novel about the good guys, the bad guys, and how a woman learns to tell the difference is the story of Nicky Malone whose past and future come together during the cold of winter and the warmth of the holidays.

 

…Sometimes it seems to me that, for every happy couple fate brings together just in the nick of time, there are five other pairs who miss each other by inches or miles. Do human beings just not want to be happy, deep down, or is it that we snatch at the easiest, most comfortable happiness, not the hard-won kind? (page 29)

…With a stack of books by your bed, you can survive any heartbreak. In the watches of the night, reading soothed me as hot toddies or Valium never could have. (page 65)

...I wished I had the sort of memory eraser that aliens use when they are returning abducted humans in science fiction films. But that’s life, I guess. There’s never an alien handy when you need one. (page 91)

…Maybe I was just suffering that strange malaise that affects people who have seen love end badly. It was powerful and enchanting, this wish to rewrite history, this wish to make it all come out the way you thought it would when you first found him, when you were all in all to each other. (page 214)

…You see couples like this. You see them at a coffee shop or walking slowly along a paved path at the river’s edge, or helping each other up the steps of a medical office building, talking and talking. I wanted to be half of one of those couples…I wanted code words again and secret language, midnight fights and long car rides filled with mishaps. I wanted that joyous ease. (page 270)

 

 

Snowed In is the poignant novel about love lost and found in the life of Sophie Quinn.

 

…In some bedrock, unspoken way, my parents loved me. As long as they lived, I wouldn’t be in want or entirely alone. That can make the difference between courage and despair, in those moments of decision that every life holds. I felt that such moments were coming for me. (page 209)

…Well friendship was much less complicated than marriage. You could always call a friend and say, “I need this,” and there’d be no questions asked. You couldn’t always tell a husband what you needed, or count on him to listen if you did. (page 220)

…A woman who doubts her husband is not a woman who should be meeting a man she cannot trust. (page 241)

…We laughed a little and I sensed it again, that current between us, that sense of being two people who spied on the world from our own secluded vantage point. (page 315)

 

 

Cupid & Diana: A novel about finding the right man, the right career, and the right outfit is about Diana Campanella, her vintage clothing shop The Second Time Around, and her complicated family.

 

…For real value, give me a guy whose face has character and who had to wear glasses at an early age; that’s the sort of thing that instills sweetness and empathy. (page 20)

…I like hearing lurid accounts of other people’s breakups. It makes me feel less of an underachiever. (page 52)

…All the delicate negotiations and trials of love were ahead of us, if we were among the lucky ones who lasted more than a month. (page 218)

 

          I think we are lucky Christina Bartolomeo wrote these lines (and many more) as they are timelessly true.