Tag: writing

  • Join Me At ChiWriMo!

    Join Me At ChiWriMo!

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    It\’s November, the time of the keyboards singing and the turkey tryptophaning and the avoidance of the holiday madness until after Black Friday, thankyouverymuch. It\’s National Novel Writing Month, Dear Reader, and yours truly is one of the volunteer Municipal Liaisons, or MLs, for the Chicago Region.  My main duty is to help host write-ins, which are big parties where magic happens.  No really, that\’s what they are!  People gather somewhere, like a cafe or restaurant or library or park or… and they write.  And have word wars.  And it\’s a lot of fun.  One of my other duties is to exhort participants to ever greater heights of literary abandon.  (Hey, man: I\’m in mid-NaNo myself and my vocabulary is running full steam ahead!)  So join me at our ChiWriMo blog for some thoughts on Week Two – it\’s not too late!  Keep going!

  • Sunday Box Talk

    Sunday Box Talk

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    Boxes.  I\’ve talked about them before.  We get into them by following set patterns of behavior without question.  So what do we do when we realize we\’re in a box that we don\’t want to be in anymore? More importantly, what do we do when we have no idea what box we do want to be in?

    There are a lot of resources out there that talk about how to network, how to find the job of our dreams, etc. But the more important work, the core work, is to figure out what we want.  Stephen Covey once said that we can fight and scratch and climb our way up the ladder of success, only to get to the top and find that the ladder is on the wrong wall.

    Today, I want to talk about how to find the right wall. Sometimes, all we need is to find the right village with the walls that we enjoy – meaning, we don\’t necessarily need to flip our entire lives inside out when we\’re dissatisfied. We can incorporate elements of our ideal lives into the one we\’re living now. By doing so, small changes can be made that, over time, can help realign our lives – and our ladders – onto the right wall.

    So how do we figure out what we enjoy?

    One way is to grab our trusty journal. Don\’t have a trusty journal, you say? Go to the dollar store and grab a spiral notebook, or get some loose-leaf paper. Something, anything to write on will do. Now, number your page from 1-5. Moving as quickly as you can, write down 5 occupations that sound fun.

    Next, number from 1-5. Write down 5 occupations that intrigue you, but you\’d personally never try. They might include professional skydiving instructor or tarot card reader with a traveling circus.

    Now, write 5 hobbies that sound fun.

    And finally, 5 things you would love to try once, if you didn\’t have to tell anyone you did it. Maybe, go to a strip club, or midnight golf, or hitch hike to New Orleans (which is more fun if you don\’t already live in New Orleans, but you get my point).

    Now you have your list of things to explore. You can read up on them, do internet searches about them, talk to people who are already doing them. There are many ways to incorporate our desired lives into our current ones if we are willing to start small, be creative, and honor our own creative impulses.

    Now, I\’m curious. What\’s one thing from your lists that you\’re willing to share? Mine is be a professional tarot card reader and psychic with my own storefront, Madam Noony. What about you?

     

     

  • O Is For… Outdoors!

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    The outdoors. It calls to us, if we let it.  It wasn\’t until I moved to Chicago and met people who had been raised their entire lives in a metropolis, (Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States), that I realized not everyone feels the call the way I do.

    When I was young and living with a mentally-ill mother, one of the common escapes for me was to go hiking into the mountains behind our ranch.  It backed up to a thirty-acre cow pasture, but beyond that, it was just National Forest – no houses for, literally, miles.  Since my mother disapproved of my writing, I hid my papers and pen under my shirt and took off with my dog to go walking.

    At the time, I only knew I was escaping.  Now, at a couple decades\’ remove, I realize that I was also communing with nature and finding peace in what was a very dangerous and unpeaceful situation.  Many spiritual traditions talk of the silence one gets in touch with when one walks, and I find that silence is accessible as much in the city as it is in those faraway mountains of my childhood.

    What about you, Dear Reader?
    Where are your favorite places to walk?

  • A Is For… A. Catherine Noon! (Of course…)

    A Is For… A. Catherine Noon! (Of course…)

    \"Noony-Thumbnail\"Welcome to day one of the A-Z Blog Challenge.  I\’m your host for this stop on the tour, A. Catherine Noon.  I\’m glad you\’re here!

    I\’m an author, which you may have guessed by my site.  I love to write.  I wrote my first story at the age of nine and I\’ve written essays, novels, poems, short stories – you name it.  I\’d write on walls if I didn\’t get dirty looks from people.  (Okay, maybe not really the walls.)  (Unless I had permission.)  Together with my coauthor, Rachel Wilder, we write as the duo Noon and Wilder and have several books out – and more on the way.

    But I digress.  Writing is, for me, as necessary as breathing.  It\’s become more than a way to communicate.  It has, quite literally, saved my life and given me a life worth living.  But that\’s not my only passion.  I adore music and have played piano my whole life.  I love to sing and can play a pretty passable recorder.  My guitar skills, however, are sadly undeveloped.  Someday I\’ll invent a machine that gives me more than 24 hours in a day – or that lets me pursue my passions full time without the bothersome necessity of earning a living so I can pay my rent.

    I discovered knitting in the year 2000, coinciding with the Millenium.  My mother died that year and knitting gave me a way to express myself that didn\’t involve having to articulate anything.  I could grieve and process in silence.  Since then, knitting has become a beloved art form and I\’ve joined the happy conspiracy of avid textile addicts.

    What about you, Dear Reader?
    What brings you to the A-Z Blog Challenge?

  • Sound – A Poem

    Sound – A Poem

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    The sounds are still,

    Silent now in the wake of madness.

    The crowds came through like locusts,

    Digesting everything in their path as

    Huge earthmovers rearrange landscape.

    The air is frigid and wet, an arthritic\’s nightmare.

    Paper detritus blows in the breeze, a dance without music.

    The anniversary has passed, the revelers gone home,

    Their legacy filling the large garbage trucks

    That will prowl the predawn streets before traffic.

    But here, now, it\’s still night, and cold, and

    The sounds are still.

  • A to Z Challenge – Do You Haz It?

    A to Z Challenge – Do You Haz It?

    My buddy Jennifer Fischetto posted on Romance Divas that she was considering doing the April A to Z Blogging Challenge.  The challenge, in brief, is to write a post for each day except Sunday, and that each post has an alphabetical theme.  So the first is A, the second is B, and so on.

    I figure, what the heck; this sounds fun!  Join me?

    Write on!

  • Tue Cent Twosday: The Three Answers

    In publishing, (I suppose I should clarify that to be in traditional publishing and not self-publishing), there are three answers one can receive when one submits one\’s book for publication:  Yes, No, and Maybe.  Here\’s my thoughts on each of them, based on questions folks have asked me over the years.

    1.  \”Yes.\”

    Ask yourself if you really want to work with this house, though you probably should have already decided that before you submitted to them.  But if you\’ve got simultaneous submissions out, is this your preferred house?

    Read the contract!  For Heaven\’s sake, don\’t just swoon, say something equivalent to, \”They want me! They really want me!\” and sign away your project.  Chances are, this novel, novella, or other book-length manuscript took a large chunk of your life energy to write – some folks labor for a year or more on theirs, especially in the beginning.

    The contract is in legal language, since it\’s a legal contract.  While it\’s not required, it\’s recommended that you have an attorney or your agent review the contract with you.  Failing that, you should talk to others who are familiar with contracts and get their input.  Keep in mind, you\’re signing a binding legal agreement to which you will be subject for a period of time.  You want to make sure that you don\’t regret it down the line, to the best of your current ability.

    2.  \”No.\”

    Don\’t just delete the email!  The \”No\’s\” can be instructive.  If it\’s a form letter, then perhaps not, but if it\’s a letter from a real, live, human being you may be able to find out why they rejected it.  Remember:  they\’re rejecting the BOOK, not YOU.  If you\’re very lucky, their letter will say why they rejected it:  they just published something similar, or it\’s not a good fit for their house, or the plot isn\’t tight enough.  Whatever the reason, digest it and think hard about it.  Do you agree with the criticism?  Is there something you can do to improve the manuscript?

    3.  \”Maybe.\”

    In the publishing world, a \”Maybe\” is known by its letters, \”R&R,\” and doesn\’t mean \”rest and relaxation.\”  It stands for \”Revise and Resubmit.\”  This is not the end of the road, not at all, and can work out in your favor if you are careful.

    In an R&R, what the editor is telling you is, they like the project.  Pay attention to what they say they like.  It might be the voice, or the plot, or something else that caught their eye and made them want to spend their valuable time offering you the chance to fix it.

    They will also tell you what they want you to revise before they see it again.

    Stop and think for a second here.  You don\’t want to just blindly rush off and do the equivalent of \”Yes, sir, No sir.\”  Do you agree with their changes?  Will the changes make the project stronger?

    I know it\’s tough to contemplate changing your project.  You\’ve labored long and hard and it\’s how you like it.  Here\’s the thing, though:  publishers are in the business of selling books.  They know their market, and they know what their market wants.  If you agree with their changes, it will mean a book that will appeal to their market, readers whom you, presumably, want to reach.

    That said, if you don\’t like the suggestions, then you don\’t have to take them.  You can always take your project and submit somewhere else.  Maybe the changes will make it weaker, in your mind, or you just don\’t want to take the project in that direction.  Be very careful here that you\’re letting your Best Self and not your Ego drive here – with humility, you might find yourself with a fantastic editor at the house of your dreams.

    If you do like the suggestions, then by all means make the changes.  Many times, the editor will clarify things for you as you work so that you can hit the bullseye.

    Note – if you decide not to accept the R&R, by all means thank the editor for their time.  This person clearly saw something in you, enough to take time and offer suggestions to improve your project so that they could work with you.  Respect that professionally.  Editors talk to each other.  Snubbing someone because your ego got its feelings hurt is rarely a smart move for your writing career.

  • Aunt Noony\’s Blog Bus

    Want something to read?  Of course you do!

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat Blog for \”Ways of Seeing.\”  Then, over at LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers, I have \”Training the Eye.\” I\’m in an artistic mood today.

    Enjoy!

  • Aunt Noony\’s Blog Bus

    Want something to read?  Of course you do!

    Join me today at the Writer\’s Retreat Blog for \”Ways of Seeing.\”  Then, over at LGBT Fantasy Fans and Writers, I have \”Training the Eye.\” I\’m in an artistic mood today.

    Enjoy!

  • Brainstorming!

    Join me today for my thoughts on brainstorming, in the form of a little fairy tale called \”The Magic Number.\”  Enjoy!

  • 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.