Tag: A. Catherine Noon

  • Rhymes with Foreplay

    If you haven\’t visited author PG Forte\’s blog or books yet, you\’re missing out.  She\’s a lot of fun and has a great sense of humor.  I\’m so tickled to tell you that she interviewed me!  I\’m on her blog today, Rhymes with Foreplay.  Please stop on by and check it out – you\’ll be glad you did!

  • Writer Wednesday: Why Blogs Are Good For Writers

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat for my thoughts on Why Blogs Are Good for Writers, and let me know your thoughts.  See you there!

  • Tue Cent Twosday – In Defense of Learning to Type

    If you’ve been reading my recent series on writing by hand and the pen vs. the keyboard, you may get the impression that I’m against typing or using a computer to write. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ve been employed since the age of seventeen in some form of office work, all of which involve typing – with the possible exception of the job I had as a gardener, though I did do some freelancing for my client when he needed some office work done on the fly.

    I love typing. I learned to type in my freshman year of high school on a manual typewriter, then graduated to the Selectric typewriter (a fancy electronic typewriter) and then onto the word processor. In fact, a bit of trivia that no one except my mom cares about anymore: in tenth grade, I was California state champion in keyboarding and won $500 from Bank of America for college. I even got a special certificate bound in leather when I graduated high school.

    I didn’t want to be a secretary, though. I knew I’d need typing because of college, and had quite a chip on my shoulder about all the vocational training my high school offered. In hindsight, it was a very good thing they had it, since the first five or ten years of my working life involved skills I learned not at university, but in those vocational training classes. Since then, I’ve observed that others have also had a chip on their shoulders about not wanting to “waste time learning to type.”

    This is silly, folks. If you’re one of the folks who doesn’t want to take the time, then put on your big girl or boy pants and sit down. You need to learn to type. You can’t afford not to.

    Look. The internet is not going away. Keyboards are not going away. Maybe in twenty years, we’ll start to have more widespread voice-activated systems. But twenty years ago, they predicted that today we’d have paperless offices. How many of you actually have a paperless office? In the meantime, much time is wasted not knowing how to be efficient with the keyboard.

    If you have no clue where to go to get better, check out the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program.  You can also do it the old school way and get a typing book out of the library. Here’s a useful website that talks about typing and learning to do it.

    In short, you can become a better writer if you know your tools better, and any practice with typing will serve you well.

    Next time: “How To Use the Pen More Effectively – Suggestions”.

    Looking for more reading material? Stop by Taurus and Taurus for Tasty Tuesday.  Find out how the romance is in the mayonnaise.

  • Back Up On WitchVox

    The mods over at WitchVox are awesome.  I realized it\’s been an embarrassingly long time since I went onto the site and my account had been put on hold (which is totally reasonable).  I wrote the mods and asked if I could be re-activated, which they not only did within a couple hours of my request but they also re-posted my article that I wrote some years ago!  Thanks, guys.  You rock.

    If you have questions about Wicca and paganism, this is one of the best sites on the internet.  A growing international community of folks from many areas of pagan practice, it\’s full of information and links to community groups and public events.  Well worth checking out.

    And if you\’d like to read my article, the link is Five Tools for Divination.  Again, thank you to the mods for being so helpful.  I appreciate your time and efforts!

    (Image from The Witches\’ Voice website, accessed 09/03/2012 from the following URL:  http://witchvox.com/)

  • A Love Affair

    As I listen to the music of Sting, I am struck yet again by how talented this man is.  His songs tell stories, and inspire me to see more in the lyrics.

  • Only One More Day ~sob~

    Rachel leaves tomorrow.

    Who wants to help me hide her in the closet so she can\’t leave?

  • Listening

    I\’ve been very busy this week, as you know, between the conference, my new job, and Rachel\’s visit. While I wish I could have had the opportunity to take this week off as vacation, I\’m grateful to have a job I enjoy and am good at.  As I learn the ropes, I\’ve been thinking a lot about listening.

    Speed is all well and good, as is efficiency. But the late Stephen Covey said you manage things, you lead people.  I\’ve noticed a growing trend where that idea is forgotten, and we try to speed up past the point where we can hear anything but the wind of our own passage, much less the people around us.

    Manners are there for a reason.  Do we really need to learn that the hard way?  They sprang up in a society that dueled and were a way of avoiding potentially life-threatening disagreements.  We\’ve forgotten that, and seem to think that manners are for the old or boring.  The slow.

    Today, I urge you to take a deep breath along with your morning coffee.  Make an effort to look at people when they talk to you, to let them get out what they have to say before you interrupt and ask questions.  I\’m not advocating listening to that one person who needs to talk without an off button.  What I am advocating is to be present to the people around us and to give ourselves the dignity of focusing fully on the task at hand.

    And remember, it\’s Friday.  TGIF!

  • Join Me at Beyond the Veil Today!

    I\’m blogging today at Beyond the Veil, where I get to wax poetic on historically significant characters vs. our modern \’canon.\’  Join me!

  • Galos Salt Caves

    As some of my readers are aware, I talked about the Galos Salt Caves in my recent guest post at Delilah Devlin\’s blog.

    Why is that relevant?

    Because we went tonight and I\’m relaxed and zoned out.

    Which, of course, explains the lack of werdz.

  • Tue Cent Twosday – In Defense of the Pen

    Diarists know what many of us have forgotten – people have been chronicling their own stories in diaries and journals for more than a thousand years. In order to better know themselves, or to express their own truth in the face of a public reality, or just for the fun of it, people have been writing for longer than some civilizations have been around.

    All that changed in the last 30 years with the advent, first, of the personal computer and then of the internet. We are seeing the first generation in the history of our planet that does not need to use the written word as it’s traditionally meant. In another generation, it will be unthinkable that some folks don’t know how to type – and it will, some predict, create a huge culture gap between those who have access to the internet and those who do not.

    But that’s not my purpose today. No, today I have a humbler calling. I simply wish to defend the simple, humble, pedestrian pen. Once known to by mightier than the sword, it is now relegated to the place next to the buggy whip: a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, but obsolete.

    But is it?

    I argue it is not. When we write, we connect ourselves to our physical or kinesthetic truth. The study of penmanship, or graphology, can tell us quite a bit about a person and, it follows, the practice of writing can therefore tell us a lot about ourselves. We cannot get a feel for the emotion of a typist unless it is through their word choices and syntax. Yet we can know at a glance the emotional state of a writer by whether the letters are calm and even or erratic and out of control. Did the writer tear the paper with their emotion? Are there teardrops on it? Lipstick? Did the writer press hard on the paper and leave ridges on the back, or did they leave barely an impression of themselves behind?

    Writing by hand can inform us of our shifting moods the way the tide can inform us of the moon’s gravitational effect on us. Subtle yet powerful, writing by hand connects us to ourselves and to our subconscious. Try writing with your non-dominant hand and you’ll see what I mean.

    There is beauty in writing, even that of an untrained hand. Lovers have known this for centuries. The personal, intimate handwriting of a loved one can bring comfort in dark times, solace to the lonely. When’s the last time you sent a letter through the mail? For less than half a dollar in the U.S., only a little more if you’re sending outside it, you can bring a smile to the face of someone for whom you care. In my group of friends, we call that “Non-Bill Mail.” If you save these letters, over time they become like a scrapbook, reminding you of moments in time encapsulated in an envelope.

    What would you preserve by hand if you had the time?

    Next time: “In Defense of Learning to Type”

  • Okay. It\’s Monday.

    So, I had this plan to write a bunch over the weekend and start my program back up with Monday.

    Yeah.  Three days at conference.

    Not gonna happen.

    Instead, stay tuned for tomorrow when I give you another in my ongoing series on the Pen vs. the Keyboard.  Who will win?  You be the judge.

  • Okay. It\’s Monday.

    So, I had this plan to write a bunch over the weekend and start my program back up with Monday.

    Yeah.  Three days at conference.

    Not gonna happen.

    Instead, stay tuned for tomorrow when I give you another in my ongoing series on the Pen vs. the Keyboard.  Who will win?  You be the judge.