Charlotte Rains Dixon

Blogging Gratitude

Well, it has been Thanksgiving weekend here in the states and the third week of November in the rest of the world. 

While I'd like to report that my life has consisted of nothing but feasting and revelry, such is not the case.  I will admit to my fair share of festive partying, but I also have been hard at it, working on a book assignment.  I've got 20,000 words due next Friday and I am not going to admit how painfully few words I have thus far amassed.  Suffice it to say I've got a few late nights ahead this week, because I also have appointments and lunch dates with out-of-towners who I can't see any other time, and the best thing about being a free-lancer is the flexibility which allows me to go out for lunch or some other fun event and make up the time later.

Speaking of the flexibility of being a free-lancer, I've not forgotten my book on Making Money Writing Online.  I'm just taking the wee-est bit of a hiatus while I crank the first part of this book out.  Then it will be back to blogging as usual.

But I did think it would be very un-spiritual (I've been studying and making baby steps towards practicing Zen, thank you Derek) of me not to spend some time this weekend being grateful.  And one thing I am very, very grateful for is the blogging community.

A year ago I had a vague idea that there were a lot of blogs in the world, and I even read a few regularly.  But I had absolutely no idea of the huge and wonderful blogging community that exists.  It truly is incredible, in how we bloggers support and help each other, how easy it is to make friends, how polite and enthusiastic bloggers are. I am deeply grateful for everyone I've met in the blogosphere and so thrilled to be a part of it.

The other thing that I love about the blogging community is that everyone is writing.  I mean, come on, there are literally billions of blogs out there and every single one of them is written by one or more people.  The media and other wags like to go on and on about the declining standards of literacy, but wake up, folks, there is more writing going on right now that at any other time in history.  And somebody must be reading all these words we are producing.   And I am deeply grateful for that, too.

I'm also thankful for Typepad and Blogcatalog, my mainstays.  Of course there are many other sites and networking places but Blogcatalog seems to be the place from which most of my friends and contacts spring. 

So thank you to all my blogging buddies.  And to the wonderful crazy, wordiness that is the blogosphere.  And now I must got write a few thousand more words.

Update:  The wonderful Linda reminded me that I didn't include any links to my Make Money Writing Online series.  Brain deadness.  Here they are and go check out Linda's blog because she is so nice:

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three, Part One

Chapter Three, Part Two

Chapter Four

Apparently, Everything I Know About Writing I Learned From My Pug

So, I seem to be on a lessons-I've-learned-from-my-pug writing kick.  I wrote about Igor in terms of writing blocks earlier this week.   This morning I was finishing up putting on my make-up when the pug started scrabbling on the door, wanting to be let in.

Igor's scrabbling consists of scraping a paw against the sliding glass door.  Loudly.  When he gets good and frustrated, the whole back of the house shakes.  It sounds remarkably like someone knocking on the door, and I've always been convinced that it is a sign of his superior intelligence that he scrabbles instead of barking. 

Because he is blind visually impaired, we generally leap to take care of his every whim (and believe me, he is good at milking it).  Igor is, I'll be honest, a spoiled, coddled pug, and he generally will not linger outside unless it is say, 70 degrees and sunny.  Today it is cold, though not raining, and I thought the pug could stand to man up a bit and stay outside. 

So I told myself I'd wait until he scrabbled one more time and then I'd let him in.  And then the thought occurred to me--what if he gave up before he did that one last scrabble, never knowing how close he was to attaining his goal? 

And then the thought occurred to me that we writers probably often do that.  We send out stories and get a couple rejections and give up, never realizing that if we scrabbled just a little longer, we would find success.  How can we ever be certain that the next submission won't be the one?  Isn't it worth taking the chance?  I always remember the story that a writer told of sending out her story 35 times.  On the 36th time, the story got accepted--and went on to read a Pushcart prize.

What did it take for her to send that story out?  It took:

• Confidence--that the story was good
• Clarity--that the story was finished
• Discipline--to keep at it
• Acceptance--that the process might take awhile
• Commitment--to see it through

In other words, she had to keep scrabbling. 

By the way, Pug kept at it until I finally gave up and let him in.  Now he's downstairs barking because it is time for lunch (yes, he gets lunch.  He's on a special diet food plan for fat muscular pugs) and he doesn't really give a rip that I am writing about him.  So it it time to close and go feed him.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Thoughts on Writing

So, I'm currently finishing up reading Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert, which has been on the best-seller list for quite some time.  I generally don't read bestsellers.  It is the anti-authoritarian streak in me, or perhaps more to the point, the I-don't-want-to-do-what-everyone-else is doing streak.  My family knows the best way to get me to do something is to ask me not to do it.  And if someone tells me, "You'll love this movie," or "You should read this book," forget it.  Won't do it.

In the case of Eat, Pray, Love someone did tell me to read it, but it happened to be someone whose opinion I trust.  Thank you, Candace, for insisting.  And be aware that you are the only person in the last dozen years whose advice on reading I have taken.

I'm glad I did.  Eat,Pray, Love is a wonderful book, charmingly written, and it came to me just as I've been renewing my spiritual quest.  It is a memoir about the year Gilbert spent traveling, specifically, four months in Italy, four in India and four in Bali.

Today the thought occurred to me that I might check out Gilbert's website.  It is fun to spin around and waste a few minutes on, but I really loved were her thoughts on writing.   She writes as charmingly about writing as she does about travel and spirituality:

"I believe that --if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression--that you should take on this work like a holy calling.  I became a writer the way other people become a monks or nuns.  I made a vow to writing, very young."

I love that.  It makes me feel better about the long days I spend at my computer.  I love this, too:

"As for discipline, it's important, but sort of over-rated. The more important virtue for a writer, I believe, is self-forgiveness.  Because your writing will always disappoint you.  Your laziness will always disappoint you."

It is a good essay, well worth reading.

Whac- A-Mole Comment Feature

So, it appears I'm having an issue with my comments feature.

It reminds me of the game one finds at carnivals and fairs, which are among my favorite things on earth.  (My daughter constantly tells me I have a tragic tacky streak, and I trace it back to my love of all things Carney.  More on that in a moment.) 

The game is called Whac-a -Mole, and it consists of a bunch of fake moles popping up quickly and in random order.  Your job is to take a huge soft mallet and whack as many of them on the head as possible.

Well, my comment feature is emulating Whack a Mole.  Every time I respond to one of my lovely reader's delightful comments and finish up on the spam prevention page, all of a sudden, my blog page begins repeatedly opening.  Try as I might to whack them closed, they keep opening....and opening...and opening.  I whack at the little red x like a fiend, or a person playing Whac-a -Mole, but they open faster than I can get them closed.  It would be quite amusing if it weren't so annoying.  Not quite sure what makes them finally stop.  Once I had to shut the computer to get it to quit.  Tonight I fussed and fiddled and whacked and finally it quit.

Now here's the really sad part: every single one of those opened pages then counts as part of my stats for people who have viewed my page.  Sigh.

So, I'm hoping that others are not having this issue and if so I deeply apologize and hope that you will not let it prevent you from commenting in the future.  I'm going to contact Typepad and see what's up.  In the meantime if I don't respond to a comment right away its because the moles have got me cornered and I'm cowering beneath my desk in fear.

But the good news is that this Whac-a -Mole issue gives me the excuse to gloat about one of my claims to fame.  I don't have many.  In fact, this is probably the only one, so thank you in advance for giving me bragging rights.

Here it is:  I know Carney. 

Carney is the secret language that carnival workers talk to each other in.  So, when they see a sucker walking down the midway, they communicate that to the next carney, sort of the way crows talk about  you when you walk beneath them all sitting on the wire.  Carney is the language they use to make snotty remarks about fair-goers to each other, and so forth.

It is really just the best thing on the planet to know this language.  I used to be able to use it to tell lurid secrets about my past in front of my children, but then they caught on. 

So if anyone else know Carney, give me a shout, and I will pray that leaving a comment does not transport you to Whac-a-Mole land.

Writing Blocks

It has been raining hard here in Portland the last couple of days.  This morning, I watched water drip off the giant fir in my backyard as I waited for my Pug to finish his business.  He is fat very muscular and blind visually impaired and he does not like to be in the rain so I was keeping an eye out for when he wanted to come back in.

And even though I've been working on mindfulness my mind was wandering to the fact that this dog hates being in the rain so much that he will hold it for hours rather than go out.  He's had this talent (I call it a talent because in the middle of the night when I wake up and have to pee I wish I had it) since he was a puppy.

Back then, if he had an accident I finally realized it was my fault.  It generally meant that we had forgotten to insist he go out.  Poor little puppy would hold it until he just couldn't hold it any longer, which probably taught him the fine canine art of bladder control, come to think of it. 

What, pray tell, does all this have to do with writing, specifically, writing blocks?  Well, I've learned over the years that if I'm blocked it is also usually my own damn fault.

New Age spirituality will tell you that you recognize in others what needs to be healed in yourself.  So if you are constantly harping on your friend for being negative, um, that means you need to take a look at your own negativity. If your husband is constantly irritated about money issues, perhaps you are noticing this because of your difficulty with money.  And so forth.

In other words, everything is your fault.  Negativity, the dog peeing in the house, writer's block, its all your fault.   Another, more Oprah-esque way of putting this is that you are responsible for creating your own life, including your writing blocks. 

Yes, you are.  Don't argue with me.   You know its true.

What I have found is that if I'm blocked I'm often resisting something.  It means that I'm backing away from stretching myself in my writing, such as recently, when a new character was begging me to write in her viewpoint and I kept not very politely refusing.  Until I got so blocked and could not go forward and realized that I had to write in that character's viewpoint to move on.  Once I get whatever is blocking me, it evaporates instantly. 

The mind is a terribly mysterious thing. 

Sometimes when I'm blocked it means that I'm in the wrong scene or I'm dragging the current scene on too long or the scene should be moved to a different location.  In other words, something is wrong with where I am in the writing.

I know this sounds obvious, but when I'm in the middle of being blocked, it is anything but.  I just know that all of a sudden vacuuming seems like the most fun activity ever.   That cleaning out the freezer is desperately imperative.  Planning and preparing an elaborate meal is the most important activity on earth. 

The paradox is that allowing myself to step away from the computer and let go of the control of the story is what generally frees the block.  It is not uncommon to have the light bulb idea that makes everything fall into place while vacuuming or pulling weeds or stirring the soup. 

The moral of the story, besides the fact that everything in the world is my fault, is that being a slacker is sometimes just what you need to smash those blocks.

My Pug, who is snoring the afternoon away on his favorite chair, couldn't agree more.

Syndication!

You may have noticed the addition of the blue Newstex banner on my blog.  This is because...wait for it...my blog is now officially syndicated!

Pretty cool, eh?

The wonderful people at Newstex now aggregate my content and add it to all the other blogs they feature, as a one-stop resource for journalists, politicians, and all kinds of media folks who want to keep up with what is going on in the blogosphere.

What this translates to for me is increased traffic and even a few royalties.  I'm really impressed with the site and the blogs they choose and all in all I'm a happy camper.   So let's all give a big cheer for Newstex.

Oprah Chooses Ken Follett

It feels obligatory to write a post when Oprah chooses a new book for her book club.  As if she doesn't get enough publicity already.  But Oprah's choices are often odd and interesting.   And all of us novelists and would-be novelists know its a long shot....but we still fantasize about Oprah choosing our book.  Other, normal, people fantasize about Brad Pitt or George Clooney.  Novelists fantasize about Oprah.  What a world.

At any rate, her highness has chosen and the author is... Ken Follett.  Though the author is best known for his thrillers, this month's Oprah book is Pillars of the Earth, which is apparently about a village in Wales in the 12th century and is reputedly Follett's favorite of his own books.   You can read the USA Today article about it here.

Last week I went to an event called Women and Words or maybe it was Women and Writing.  It was the opening event of Wordstock, a book festival here in Portland, and it featured two authors who had appeared on Oprah.  One of them, Janet Fitch, was a bona-fide Oprah author, since her book, White Oleander, was an Oprah pick.

The other was Carole Radziwill, who wrote What Remains, a memoir of her life with Tony Radziwill, niece of Jackie O and cousin to John F. Kennedy Jr.  The memoir centers on the death of Tony and JFK Jr. and his wife within the space of a few weeks.   

What interested me was the two women's wildly different reactions to her highness, the O person.  Janet Fitch, California dowdy beside New York hip Radziwill and the South Africa adorable Alexandra Fuller (author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight) praised Oprah to the heavens.  I'd have to kill her if she didn't, because Oprah made her career.

But Radziwill was New York cool about it all and said that Oprah only wanted to talk about the Kennedys, when really, her book was about a lot more than that.  And really, it was all just so declasse.  Okay, okay, she didn't say that, but she implied it.  And she later redeemed herself with a story about the most annoying person in the world, Jerry Seinfeld, appearing on David Letterman and how rude he was about the fact that his wife is being accused of plagiarism.  (I know, I am one of only two people on the planet who dislikes Jerry Seinfeld, and since I've never met the other person could he or she please contact me?)

I rarely watch Oprah because I rarely watch TV and I tend to forget that it exists and hence never turn it on, but I do like Oprah and I do read O, her magazine.  And I am of the Cormac McCarthy school when it comes to Oprah books--c'mon, get off your high horse and accept that she's done more for reading than anybody else in the last twenty years. 

McCarthy earned my undying affection (just don't make me read his books) when Oprah chose his novel The Road and he agreed to go on her show--breaking a years-long policy of not talking to the media specifically because he appreciated what she has done for the industry.

So take that, New York hipsters.

And, by the way, I am making a solemn vow at this very moment, here and now: when my novel is published I am not going to diss the publishing industry.  I am not going to be so cool and above it all that I can talk about how awful the industry is and so forth and so on.  C'mon folks, there's about 50,000 of us who would gladly stand in your shoes, without all the whining.

The Importance of Getting the First Part Right

So, I have this little hang up when it comes to writing, whether I am writing a novel, a short story or an article.  I have to get the first part right before I can move on.  Once the first part is right, I can let it rip.  I can write a Shitty First Draft, as Anne Lamott calls it, with abandon.  I can meander, go off on tangents, put it all on the page, knowing it will later be edited.

But I can't do that until I have at least a semi-shapely first part that feels right to me.

If it is a novel I'm working on, I need to get the first chapter in good working order.  If it is a shorter piece, generally the first paragraph or two will do.  The lede, for all you journalists out there.  And for all you non-journalists, yes it really did used to be spelled that way, and I'm not sure why, probably something to do with the lead they used to use to set type.  I know all about that lead because I am the daughter of a printer.  My Dad was a printer back before the days of the computer, back when printing was an honorable profession, not just someone working nights at Kinko's.

It is safe to say that I'm happy with the first paragraph of this blog post, because I am digressing with abandon.

At any rate, I've been working on a new novel, and I'm supposed to be writing with abandon because it is Nanowrimo and that writing with abandon is the whole idea of the event.  Instead, I've been fussing with the first chapter.  And only this morning have I fussed with it to the point that I like it and it feels like a firm enough basis from which to blaze forth. 

That, I believe, is the key.  I need to have a good first chapter or an exciting lede because it establishes the basis for all that is to come.   

And now that I have established that, I have no more excuses to offer and off I go into the wilds of novel-writing, which is the best place ever to get lost.

Make Money Writing Online, Four--Types of Internet Writing

I know, I know, you've been up night wondering when I was going to write the next installment of Make Money Writing Online.  Pining and longing for the next chapter.  Well, yearn no more, because here it is.

So far in this series about making money writing online, we've discussed the dream and the reality of freelance writing, and we've also looked at the benefits of freelancing online.

Today's lesson is a primer on the various types of internet writing opportunities.  A smorgasbord of gigs, so to speak.    I'm going to give you a list with a brief description of each one, and then we'll delve into each of these much deeper in the next segment, which is the how-to you've all been waiting for. 

Here goes:

Blogs.  Pretty self-explanatory.  You can write a blog of your own to establish credibility or authority.  You can monetize your blog through affiliate programs and ads.  And you can use a blog much as you would a website, when it becomes your calling card to attract clients. I touched on this briefly in the chapter on the benefits of freelancing online.  However, you can also get paid to write blog posts for someone else.  Many businesses, large and small, are starting blogs because they are an excellent way to connect with customers.  Yet these businesses don't have a clue how to write in the friendly, accessible style a blog demands.  So they hire writers.  You might also want to write for a blog network, such as 451 Press.  These are groupings of blogs of a variety of topics have the advantage of providing you with a built-in audience.  There are also job opportunities at blogs that cover a specific topic with many different contributors, such as Treehugger. The job boards are full of these opportunities.  We'll look into finding these jobs in an upcoming section.

Copywriting.  Okay, folks, what is our mantra?  Repeat after me: The internet is a hungry beast, and what it is hungry for is words.  Every website and blog on the internet, and there are billions of them, contains words.  Not only that, the best way to get high Google rankings is to figure out what specific words (or keywords) people will be searching for and fill your website with them.  Don't you love an entity powered by words?  I digress.  You can write for websites,utilizing SEO (Search Engine Optimized) techniques or not, or you can write sales letters, or you can write other types of marketing writing.  You can write for companies that will find the jobs for you or you can find them yourselves.  Trust me, there is tons of copywriting work available out there.

Article Sites.  Because the internet is a beast hungry for words, article sites such as Helium and Associated Content have sprung up.  You write articles and post them and when they get purchased, you get a chunk of the income.  A very tiny, wee, small chunk, more like a tidbit, but a chunk all the same.  I shy away from these because I'd rather spend my time in what I feel are more productive ways but some writers have good luck with them.  One warning: do not post assignments you've done for others, whether through a company or a private arrangement, on these sites.  That is considered plagiarism.

Writing Books.  Writing ebooks and ghost-writing fall into this area.  When you sign on with a copywriting company, you'll have a chance to hone your ebook writing skills.  You might be surprised how many opportunities there are for writing ebooks.  Most of them will be ghostwritten, meaning your name will not appear on it.  However, not all of them will be.  I'm currently writing a book about fundraising that will have my name on it.

Editing.  Into this category I lump copyediting, proofreading, and book editing.  You can edit for companies that publish ebooks, or private clients, or find any number of other opportunities.  I currently edit for a successful publisher of sensual romance ebooks and I'm throughly enjoying it.

Squidoo.  On this site, you can create pages, or "lenses" about a subject you know something about.    Its a whole network of interconnected lenses and it is pretty fun to spend time on.   You do get paid a portions of the revenues on Squidoo.  5% goes directly to charity, and then you get 50%.  I was greatly enamored with the site when I first started blogging, but got a little disenchanted when it took me forever to build my lenses.  However, I is a lot smarter about the internet now so I may have to go check it out again. 

Odd Bits.  You can also pick up odd jobs on the internet, and if you put your mind to it, you could easily set up a blog to market your services along these lines.  Odd jobs include writing wikipedia entries, (yes, people really get paid for this), writing dating profiles for people to post on Match and other sites, and no doubt others I'm not aware of.  Please note: you will be writing for private clients to post on these websites, not for the websites themselves.   

As you can see, there is a vast array of opportunity awaiting you in all different kinds of writing jobs.  Next up we'll start looking at the specifics of how to actually do the writing.

Writer's Strike

Well, as you probably know by now, movie and TV writers have gone on strike.

And more power to 'em, I say.  Writers are always the most under recognized and underpaid group, whether we're talking Hollywood or the publishing industry. 

I've only worked in the most tangential way in Hollywood (had a screenplay I wrote with a couple others optioned and one of the other writers did all the dealing with the producer) but from what I hear, it is much like publishing.

Which means, even though neither industry could exist without writers, even though every single aspect of each industry is reliant on the words writers' craft, we are still the low men/women on the totem pole.  Which also means we grovel and shuffle and bow in order to get an agent or a producer to work with us, when in truth their jobs do not exist without us.

It's a strange world.  And Hollywood is even stranger than publishing, which is why I gave up on it.  Besides the fact that I am incapable of writing a screenplay that is not laden with description and the interior thoughts of the characters.  Which makes it then not a screenplay but a novel.

Anyway, the other thing the Hollywood writers want is a cut of internet profits.  As we all know, the internet is practically the world brain right now, and who knows what it will evolve to in the future.  (Is it possible for something that only exists in cyberspace to rule the world?)  So the Hollywood writers are smart to hold out for their profits.

It's interesting to me the way the studios have spun this.  Last week they were saying it wasn't an issue, that all the networks had plenty of episodes in the can.  Yes, the late night shows would have to cease production immediately, but oh well.

Today its a different story, with Desperate Housewives ending production this week (and Eva Longoria made me like her a little bit when she took pizza to the strikers and said she'd be joining the picket line).  And other shows, like that new one with Kelsey Grammar and a few others, too (I watch TV so rarely I forget their names) wrapping up production because of a lack of scripts.

So they truly are feeling the pinch.  There's a good round-up of blog posts about the strike at the Huffington Post, which you can read here. 

Oh, and by the way, because of the writer's strike I can't work on my Make Money Writing Online Ebook.  NO, I'M JUST KIDDING.  I'm working on the next few chapters and will be posting them soon.

Writing Inspiration, Whether You Are Nanowrimo-ing or Not

The Nanowrimo folks are sending out some pretty good "pep talks" to those who are officially registered as participants. 

The one that came today is from Naomi Novik.  I love her ten words a day tip:

The single most important technique for making progress is to write ten words.  Doesn't matter if you're badly stuck, or your day is completely jam-packed, or you're away from your computer--carry a small paper notebook and write a sentence of description while you're standing in line at the coffee shop.  I think of this as baiting the hook.  Even if you have a few days in a row where nothing comes except those ten words, I find that as long as you have to think about the novel enough to write ten words, the chances are that more will come.

I am constantly telling students/people/those who want to write that it is a very good thing to write something, anything on a daily basis.  Write a few notes.  Read over the last lines of your novel or short story or essay and ponder it as you drive the car pool.  Carry paper and pencil with you always and jot down thoughts.  The idea is to keep the flow going, keep up the momentum.  Then when you do have time for a longer writing session, the words will be there, ready to roll.   I agree with Naomi.  If you think about the novel enough to write down a few notes about it, you'll probably decide that vacuuming can wait.  And so can Grey's Anatomy. 

Here's my mantra:  nothing is more important than working on the novel.  Nothing.  I mean that.  I don't care if you're hungry or in love or the baby is crying.  Okay, I'll give you that last one.

My favorite Nano tip so far though comes from Tom Robbins.  Tom Robbins could burp and I'd think he was brilliant.  Years and years ago, Esquire ran an essay of his in which he talked about living in the northwest.  At the end of it, he wrote this:  "People ask me who I write for, I tell them I write for the rain."

Now I may have that quote wrong, but that's how I remember it.  I've actually looked for the exact quote over the years, with no luck.  (So, Tom, if you're reading this, let me know if I got it right, will ya?)  I don't know why, but that line has stuck with me for years.

But I digress.  Tom wrote a fabulous pep talk for Nanowrimo and I went to the website to see if they were posting the pep talks there so you could read it in its entirety, but apparently they are not.  So here are the best parts:

When you sit down to write that novel of yours the first thing you might want to do is toss a handful of powdered napalm over your shoulder--so as to dispense with any and all of your old writing teachers, the ones whose ghosts surely will be hovering there, saying such things as, "Adverbs should never be...", or "A novel is supposed to convey...", et cetera.  Enough!  Ye literary bureaucrats, vamoose!

Brief aside: that is going to be my new mantra:  Ye literary bureaucrats, vamoose!  More of Tom:

Rules such as "Write what you know," and "Show, don't tell," while doubtlessly grounded in good sense, can be ignored with impunity by any novelist nimble enough to get away with it.  There is in fact, only one rule in writing fiction:  whatever works, works.

Ah, but how can I know if it's working?  The truth is, you can't always know (I nearly burned my first novel a dozen times, and it's still in print after 35 years).  You just have to sense it, feel it, trust it.  It's intuitive, and that peculiar brand of intuition is a gift from the gods.  Obviously, most people have received a different package altogether, but until you undo the ribbons you can never be sure.

So, altogether now:

Ye literary bureaucrats, vamoose!  Because....There is nothing more important than writing the novel!

Writing Rules vs. Writing Guidelines

A week or so ago, my buddy Roy sent me a lecture he'd downloaded from the Blackboard site of our MFA program.  It was a pretty good lecture about rewriting, except that the author/lecturer started with a list of Rules.  I capitalize the word because you could tell by the way the lecture was written that Rules were very important and meant to be followed.

One of the Rules was that one must always, always, always (did I mention that it should be always?) revise on hard copy.  No revising on the Computer.  This was a very important Rule.

Well, oops to me because most of my revising and rewriting is done on the computer, even though I love writing by hand and still rely on hand-written notes and drafts for much of my writing.  But what happens to me when I edit on hard copy is that it looks great while I'm making the changes on the manuscript, but when it comes time to transfer it to the computer, somehow it doesn't work.

This may be some tragic lack in my brain, I'm not sure, but there it is. 

So apparently I am not following the Rules.

I am far enough along in my writing career to be able to understand that the Rules do not need to apply to me.  What annoys me about this is that a few years ago I wouldn't have been.  A few years ago I would have thought, oh no! alas!  I am not editing the correct way.  I am not editing according to the rules.  Thus I am wrong and I must do what is right.  And then I would struggle and squirm and try my hardest to conform to this stupid Rule when it just isn't right for me.

And it really irks me that someone thinks that they can present this Rule as if the writing God himself had handed it down.

Got news for you--there is no writing God.  Well there might be, but if there is, he is not in the business of handing down stupid Rules.

Now don't get me wrong.  There can and should be rules in writing.  We need rules in grammar (I know, but we really do) and we need rules of craft.    But we do not need rules on how to write.  Guidelines, ideas, comments along the lines of this is what works for me, you might want to try it, yes.  But no rules on how to write. 

Some people love to outline; others like to let the plot flow.  Some like to write by hand before transferring the words to the computer, others can do nothing but compose directly at the computer.  And so forth. 

So I say, when it comes to writing how-to, learn what works for you and do that and don't pay attention to anyway telling you otherwise.  When you are learning craft, there are rules a-plenty to be followed.

This Appears to be My Week For Attention...

...and I'm basking in it.  Grapes, more grapes please.  And could you bring me some chocolate also?  No, I prefer red wine, thank you.  A foot rub would be nice.  And there's a wee little sore spot on my back...

No, I guess its not that kind of attention.  Damn.

But this kind is just as good.  My buddy Mark over at the Uncanny Broadcasting Brain Blog (he says his sense of humor is on back-order and he's working with what he's got, but with a title like that I don't believe him) gave me a mini-review in his Featured on Fridays post. 

Pretty good stuff, eh? (He's Canadian so I can use that eh? at the end of the sentence.)

Thanks, Mark!

And guess what?  It's not over yet.  I have it on good authority that more attention will be lathered upon moi, the one and only moi.  But you'll have to check back to find out about that.

It's Nanowrimo, Day One, Do You Know Where Your Words Are?

Because I can't seem to find mine.

Despite my plans to the contrary, I did not begin a new novel for Nanowrimo this morning, as I did two years ago on this date.  Why?  Because I've been neck-deep in revising that novel that I started two years ago on this date and as I've been doing the final changes, I simply couldn't wrap my brain around a different story.

Now, there are a lot of excuses to not write that I call BS on.  Like, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough talent, I don't have enough whatever.  And I am a bear about getting on you if you're not taking time to do the thing you love best in the world--write.

So I should practice what I preach. 

And I do.  However, this is the one excuse that I will tolerate--a head so wrapped up in one story that you can barely remember the names of your children, let alone start another.

So I hope you will excuse me too.

I'm really excited about the next novel that I want to start this month, so I'll get to it ASAP.  The challenge is going to be refilling the well over the next couple of days so that I can start a new project.  I need to spend some time reading, walking, knitting--cleansing my palate so to speak.

Oh yeah, and there is the small matter of a few copywriting assignments to deal with, also. 

How are all you Nanowrimoers doing?