Writing Craft - Newsletter

 

 New Student and Graduate  News:     

    
I graduated a few years back and since then have been doing mostly research...can't seem to get beyond that stage. I get involved with going down and up paths during that process.  As an old retired guy in 70's who grew up with paper books and publishing companies.  The increase in electronic books, on-line magazines and millions of on-line writers/blogs/open arena publications is very demotivating for me.  Seems like everyone knows everything about everything and there is no room for uniqueness.

I live in a rural area on an island in Atlantic Canada - Cape Breton, Nova scotia.  Only four residents on my dirt road, two here in winter.  My project for the past 5 years has been to track the history of two people who died in 1957 a mile from where I live; husband killed wife.  I am in process of compiling their ancestral history and the murder causes and results.   The wife, 73 years old, born in 1884  had a very difficult life; husband 65 was very independent and only wanted a housekeeper and companion. She expected more from him than he was willing to give.  In certain respects it was like the "War of the Roses"  for a lower class couple - he a widower woodsman/carpenter and she a professional widow domestic/companion with two prior long term marriages.
I want to stay honest to the facts of their lives as far as I can find them and let the reader develop his/her own theory about the personalities, without my 'could it be' commentary.

I have permissions to use and integrate newspaper stories from past newspaper stories and other sources.  Wish me luck as I integrate all the material and create a history about their lives and deaths.

Paul Diekelmann
Baddeck
Nova Scotia

Hi, Paul, wow, you do live at the ends of the earth, at least in terms of the North American continent!  J  Your historical mystery sounds really interesting.  I bet you find a publisher who’s interested. Readers love real  life stories!  

Share it with us at   LongRidgeWebEditor@LongRidgeWritersGroup.com

 

 

OPEN FORUM REPORT:

 We’re talking about ebooks and epublishing this week.  We’re going to continue the conversation because ebooks are here to stay, they’re a rapidly increasing share of the book market, and they’re a low-cost way for the self-publishing writer to get started. 

 Forums take place on the Post a Note Board  Look for the ‘Forum’ topic. 

Because of some nasty spam attacks, all new Post a Note registrations must be approved by me, so expect a brief delay after you create your user name before you can actually use the board.  Temporarily, because of a nasty spam attack, no new Post a Note registrations can be accepted. Email me with your desired user name and password and I’ll register you for the Post a Note myself.   

Check the Calendar Page and this newsletter for current topics.

FROM THE INSTRUCTOR'S DESK

Writing tips from Donna Ippolito, Long Ridge instructor.

Donna Ippolito has been writing, editing, and teaching others to write for more than 20 years. From 1985 to 2001, she was editor-in-chief at FASA Corporation, a Chicago publisher that packaged best-selling science fiction and fantasy novel lines for Penguin Books and Time-Warner. These included the popular BattleTech, Shadowrun, Earthdawn, and Vor series. So check out her websites at www.expert-editor.com and http://dreamscoop.blogspot.com/.

Prior to that, Ms. Ippolito was an editor at the Swallow Press, a prestigious publisher of both literary and commercial titles. Writers published by Swallow include celebrated novelist Anaïs Nin; Jungian analyst Linda Leonard; futurist Robert Theobald; Zen poet Lucien Stryk; and distinguished anthropologist W. Y. Evans-Wentz. She also worked as a senior editor for Consumer Digest Magazine and was a founding editor of Black Maria, a quarterly journal of women’s writing.

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Sarah Brown asks: I seem to be more serious about writing if I have a topic and a deadline that keeps me accountable. As a freelancer, are there any fresh tips or tricks to keep me on task instead of on procrastinate-and-distract mode?

 

Donna writes: Falling back into “procrastinate-and-distract mode” is the kiss of death for someone who’s serious about writing, Sarah, so I’m glad to hear you want to get past it. Writing is lonely work—just you staring at a blank page waiting to be filled up with something that has never existed before. It’s also hard work to crank out enough words to produce a first draft, not to mention the many levels of editing and polishing to follow. Despite all that, professional writers have to produce to stay in the game, so they train themselves to stay on top of the all-too-human tendency to run in the opposite direction.

Every writer develops his or her own tricks, but one that works for me is to write by hand whenever I feel stuck or resistant or lazy about getting some writing done. This always leads to a breakthrough, though I can’t explain why. At the very least, I usually produce enough handwritten paragraphs that the ideas start to flow so fast I can’t wait to get to a computer. I usually have to revise the handwritten stuff, but so what? All that matters is getting back on track.

Another favorite device is to write away from home. Often, I choose humble restaurants like a burger joint or pancake house, where I start scribbling on any scrap of paper handy while waiting for one of my favorite unhealthy treats. The place doesn’t matter—I’ve written just as often while riding on the bus, sitting in the library, or even a park bench while traveling in Mexico—but writing in a new location seems to invite the muse. Though I prefer writing by hand during these stints, I see coffee houses full of people writing furiously on laptops, so it seems to work either way.

My other trick is to set a timer for short, 15-minute bursts while I bang away at the computer, letting anything at all come forth. Sometimes this might take the form of angry complaints about why writing is so hard and/or impossible, but once I get past that, the juices usually begin to flow. Other times I might actually focus on a particular project, allowing emotions, sloppy writing, and other irrelevant stuff to spill out at the same time. I can always revise, so it doesn’t matter how bad or strange this very rough draft might be.

You can set the timer for as little or as long as you like, but I’ve found that I don’t have to go to war with myself to agree to 15 minutes. Still, when things are really bad, I might reduce that to 5 minutes, because what possible excuse can I find to hide from that? Like the other strategies I mentioned, for me timed writing works like a charm.

An old Yiddish proverb states that one excuse is as good as another if you don't want to do something. I suspect the reverse holds true, with one trick as good as any other if you really do want to get something done.

 

If you like reading Donna's tips every week, check out her recently published Writing Fiction: Ask the Editor, which covers the whole gamut--from getting ideas to getting published. Available in paperback or e-book download. The link wasn't working properly, but it's been corrected. Please try again.

 

 Do you have a question that you’d like Donna to answer?  Here's your chance to ask her something. Email your question about all things writing to me and I'll pass it on so that she can answer it in the next Newsletter issue. You can mail your question to me at:    MaryRosenblum@forums.longridgewritersgroup.com 

 

WINTER WONDERLAND PROMPT

 I asked for a winter scene with  NO dialogue, ALL visuals, and NO to be verbs!   This is a workout and a lot of you stepped up to the challenge. Good for you!   So let’s see what we have here! 

__________________________ 

CascadingRoses

February 2011 brought its usual annual dusting of snow to South-Central Texas. To our delight, we awoke to white covering the roofs and yards in our  semi-rural community. Excited, we snapped photos, thanked God for indoor  heating, and planned a soup and hot bread lunch.  But the birds? How  could we be sure the sparrows and cardinals we feed each morning would find  their seed in the snow?  We decided to scatter the seed, per usual, and  also spread some on our covered porch to make it easier for the birds to find.  Back indoors, suddenly we were shocked to see a sea of about 300 blackbirds descend into our backyard!  We had never seen such a wave  of black in the sky before, and had not seen even one blackbird in our  yard-ever. As we watched in transfixed amazement, the snow became a  blanket of moving black feathers. Then, about ten minutes later, and as suddenly  as they had come, the blackbirds were gone.  Slightly dazed, we wondered  what we should do about feeding our sparrows and cardinals.  If we put out  more seed, would the swarm of blackbirds return? Concerned, but wanting to feed  our " regulars," we put out more seed. We waited. We watched. Our sparrows  slowly began to come and dine.  And the blackbirds? Did they return to  inhale the new batch of seed?  No. To this day, we have never seen  another blackbird in our yard.

Very vivid!  I spied a couple of ‘were’ but so few that they’re hardly noticeable.  Even though this is first person, it’s very much ‘showing’, and not ‘telling’.  Nice visuals!

__________

 Carole Mertz

A wooded area covered a slope behind my church. I walked there sometimes for the peace and quiet it offered within my city's limits. Sometimes I searched for the animals. Here deer made a daily trek to a stream below. The red-tailed hawk flew above. And furry critters scurried and dove beneath rotting logs.

One day, startled, the doe stood by a bramble bush, chewing methodically, as if pondering "friend or foe?" as she viewed my red jacket and me. I stole furtive glances from behind a tree and felt fear, alone there, just her and me.

Our long moments of mutual inspection transformed distrust into wary tolerance. Stay if you wish," did I hear her say?

"I'll show you some berries," I almost spoke. I felt she was teaching me, imparting a kind of give-and-take. Silence reigned between us, and new-fallen snow muffled the discord of distant traffic. I saw steam rise from her nostrils. Did she catch my breath?

The screech of a jay interrupted our sharing. Swooping, the bird flashed its blue beauty against the snow and released us, doe and me, back into our
respective worlds.

 

Okay, some dialogue, but it’s not really conversation, but rather, part of the narrator’s musing.   Another nice strong visual scene.  Very pretty.  Compare the style with our first narrative.  Neither is ‘better’ but they are different, more spare as we look at blackbirds, a bit more poetic as we contemplate deer.   Both work.

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Sara Etgen-Baker 
 

           A sharp, bitter, wind howled around Smith Hall blowing sharp ice pellets against my dorm room window.  I peeked through the curtains and noticed that graceful flakes of lace and crystal butterflies had blanketed and subdued the tree-lined courtyard below.  I quickly dressed and headed downstairs toward the main door hoping to take advantage of this perfect winter day by making a solitary drive through the countryside. 
As I stepped outside, I watched my warm breath mingle with the crisp, cold air as it stung my cheeks.  The gentle snow crunched under my boots as I walked toward my car.  The mercury had dipped well below freezing that Valentine's morning leaving a layer of pearly-white frost on all the car windows in the parking lot.  Daylight had not yet turned the slumberous, dark blue clouds to their morning gray, and-for a moment-I lingered outside my car not wanting to disturb winter's peaceful silence. 
After only a few minutes though, I'd left the well-lit highway and found myself meandering down poorly-lit roads through the East Texas countryside.  My headlights reached out in the dark ahead of me making the snowflakes look like stars sliding by faster than the speed of light.  I inhaled the sweet, heavy smell of smoke emanating from log fires.  Soon, winter's tranquility and purity surrounded me-naked trees, crystal glints on snow, and icy ponds cloaked by frost-covered pines.  I found East Texas simply breathtaking in the wintertime. 

Very pretty!  Lovely sense of cold, winter, wood-smoke, and peace.   Another piece with a lot of narrative richness.  And notice how the absence of to-be verbs really allows the visual to shine? 

____________  

Shirley Weeks

               Quiet greets me as I stumble from my warm comfortable bed, ricochet off the walls into the kitchen, flip the switch on the coffee maker, start the water for the oatmeal and put my bowl, cup and silver on the small pine table by the bay window.  It snowed buckets last night.

Tender branches of  Dad's young pear tree, black against the snowy bank, dip close to the ground under inches of heavy wet snow.   Twelve or thirteen majestic pines, along both sides of the winding country roadway, drape their loaded branches over deep snow-mobile tracks.

 A herd of deer graze beneath snow laden apple trees, steaming noses pushing away the silent snow, looking for breakfast.  The squirrels must be hibernating with their bushy tails over their backs trying to keep warm and dry.  The snow covered deck, typically pockmarked with their little trails as they aim for leftover birdseed, looks unblemished.  Even the birds haven't appeared for breakfast.

The fence posts along the back edge of the pasture radiate beauty.  It looks like someone came along and dropped a whopping dollop of whipped cream on top of each one.   The barbed wire fence even has snow piled high on each strand.  Frigid temperatures have frozen the initial snow creating a shelf to catch more.  I see the little black barbs of wire poking through the crystallized snow.

 My hot oatmeal, toast with honey, and steaming coffee rests in my stomach.    Shadows appear behind the trees.  Snow crystals sparkle everywhere.  The sun just peeked through the snow haze.   The wind sleeps.  Everything looks so tranquil.  A ringing telephone interrupts my musing.  Maybe I won't have to go to work.

Lovely, Shirley!  Here, the prose is straightforward and the visual sparkle of that snowy morning takes precedence over the words. Nice job!

_________

Dennise Sleeper

Early morning and late evening, ear piercing squawks confirm winter has arrived in Southern Florida. Phone and electric wires are lined with arguing birds establishing their rights to perch. Snowbirds and migrant workers congest the major roadways. The farming community kicks in with fields of vegetables and fruit trees, clothed in greens. Smells of fresh turned  earth, wet dirt and pesticides fill the nose depending on the stage of crop production. Patches of brown, shriveled, thirsty grass or forested  areas of coniferous and green leafed trees, divide the tracts. U-pick fields yield strawberries, tomatoes and beans. Backyard gardens provide an abundance of the same as well as lettuce, peas and the ever prolific squashes-mainly yellow and zucchini. The sun calls it a day before the evening meal. Cooler temperatures in the 60's to 70's (sometimes 80's) and nights 20 - 30 degrees lower, force locals to bundle in sweaters and jackets while the snowbirds sport shorts and t-shirts. Would you like to see for yourself? Come on down and we may bask in the noontime sun, drink lemonade and watch the impatiens bloom.

 

And here we have a warm sunny winter.  Nice contrast!   Nice sense of snowbirds and feathered birds crowding the landscape, Dennise!

__________ 

 

Very nice job, folks!   Notice how visual strong these paragraphs are?  There’s a REASON I made you leave the to be verbs out!  J  We’ll have to do more of these exercises, you all shine!  Stay tuned for next week’s installment!

THE WEBEDITOR’S PICK – New Themed Anthology Market    

Gloria Oren emailed me about an anthology site where they post themes and you can write for them.   

 

Kiwi Publishing invites you to contribute a true story, article, or anecdote that will bring hope and happiness to all those who realize the possibility in each moment, and the unseen miracles that arise from overcoming what seem like detours & setbacks. By sharing our special moments; surprising, loving and inspiring, these stories will touch people around the world and help them become open to the possibilities in every moment.

 

Sounds a bit like a new Chicken Soup For The Soul.  We could always use another good anthology market. 
 
Go to http://www.kiwipublishing.com/content/Thin-Threads-Submission-Guidelines.html  for submission guidelines.  Gloria tells us her piece is in the anthology  at:   http://store.thinthreads.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=9002-04 .

 

Thanks, Gloria!

 

THE TROLL BRIDGE BUZZ  

Jean Lauzier was born and raised in Arkansas. She now lives in Longview Texas with her husband and three kids. When not writing, you can find Jean talking to her bonsai plants, trying to train the cat or procrastinating on the computer. To learn more about Jean and her writing, stop by her website at www.jeanlauzier.com 

Jean's Blog

 

 Six Pack of Murder  a collection of Jean’s stories, now available for the Kindle!

 

Social Networking

 

 

Sometimes social networking can be overwhelming, especially online.  From blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google plus, and groups of all shapes and sizes, it’s really hard to know where to start.  Then you have to know the how-to and the rules that go along with each site.  And often there are unwritten rules too.

 

This is where Kristen Lamb (http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com) comes in handy.  She is a social networking guru and really brings things down to where even a beginner can understand.  Her blog is packed with great information.  Much of which, I wish I’d known long ago. 

 

For example, when I picked a name for my blog, I picked Under The Troll’s Bridge.  And that’s a great name.  It’s also the web address.  But, here’s the problem.  If someone is looking for my book, they are going to Google my name.  Thankfully I’ve gotten enough “tags” on the blog so it comes up under my name but what if I didn’t know about tags. If I’d named it Jean Lauzier’s Blog and had my name as the web address, there would be no doubt about it showing up when someone does a search for me. You’ll notice in the link above, she made the same mistake.

 

So, learn from other’s mistakes by reading her blog on a regular basis.  I really enjoyed her Twitter series, now in the archives.

 

 

Good advice, Jean, thanks! It’s a brave (and sometimes confusing) new world out there, that’s for sure!

 

THE WANT ADS:

  

REVIEWS AND TIPS: 

R.J. Communications (Self-Publishing.com) reviewed by Marjorie Eldred

I'd just like to share a little of my experience with self-publishing. I used R.J. Communications (Self-Publishing.com). But before I chose any company I did some research. Primarily I used a book written by Mark Levine, a lawyer and writer. The book is The Fine Print of Self-Publishing, Third Edition. In the book, Mark has analyzed the contracts and services of 45 self-publishing companies, and ranked the companies as Outstanding, Pretty Good, Just okay, and to avoid. The reasons I used R.J. Communications were numerous. I would buy my own ISBN number and own all the rights to my book. Ron, the owner of the company was described as "the good guy of self-publishing" because of his author-friendly practices. The prices were on the low end among the recommended publishers. I hope this is helpful.

Did I send my new web address? It is www.vaughnkilpatrickstory.com. Visitors to my site can download my PDF for my new Ebook, Blooms, Blessings, and Blunders: Garden Stories I Just Had to Tell.  Enter your email address and your name, click submit, and the PDF will open. Save it to your computer. I'd love to know that some of my fellow-students at LongRidge are visiting my site.
Also, while you're there, consider reading Seizing the Treasure: Nuggets of Vaughn-Kilpatrick Story. It's a good read full of real-life stories.
Marjorie Eldred

 Thank you, Marjorie.  Nice to know that you were satisfied with R.J.  Communications!  Thanks for sharing with us. 

 

Hey folks, this is a review blog and they will become more and more critical to book sales in the near future.  May I suggest that if you have self-published a book or published with a small, commercial press, you should think about sending Pam your book in the hopes that she’ll review it.   That’s one way to increase your visibility. And keep an eye on the blog to find new good reads!     MaryRosenblum@forums.longridgewritersgroup.com   

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