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Instant Poetry (Just Add Words!), by Larry Berger

An Opportunity For Anyone Looking to Make Money Online

I'm teaching a course entitled Women and Memoir this winter and I'm psyched! It has been five years since functioning as a professor of philosophy and for a good while I wondered to myself, "Without a job that pays me to research, write and publish, will I ever write again?" To wit: this is not a wise thing to think about when you're jobless and utterly burnt out.

I have come to see that writing regularly, like our circadian rhythm, is something that we cannot neglect for too long without paying a high price. Daily writing, like daily meditation, can help me "treat" an exhaustion in me that more sleep simply cannot touch. Still, sometimes getting started can be challenging.

by John Sammon

I got called a narcissist.

Am I a narcissist?

I’m not a narcissist.

What is a narcissist?

A person who has grandiose feelings about their own self-importance.

Oh, yeah! That’s me! C’mon! You think I’m going to go through life conceding that I’m just like everybody else? I don’t have any right to feel special? Oh, sure! It’s okay for Paris Hilton to have a fun life and be the center of attention, but not me. I’m just a nobody and should be content to be so.

Right!

 You are retired and bored. Or you are still working at your job and bored.

Perhaps, doing a phase transformation by rediscovering your passion and writing a book will help you get out of this funk.

I like those two words, phase transformation; they come from the field of thermodynamics, something I once (sort of) studied in college.

If you need to know about this physics phenomenon more specifically, understand that during a phase transition, certain properties change as a result of some external condition, such as temperature, pressure, and others. For example, a liquid may become gas upon heating to the boiling point, resulting in an abrupt change in volume. Phase transitions are common occurrences observed in nature and the term is most commonly used to describe transitions between solid, liquid and gaseous states of matter.


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By Maxine Thompson

The Importance of Voice in Writing

I never realized how important my voice was until I lost mine after my recent thyroid surgery.... We're not talking laryngitis, either. Have you ever tried to ask for directions when you sound like a fog horn, and the mailman can't understand you? Or, have you tried to order a fast-food take-out over the drive-through window speaker when your voice won't go up enough decibels for the person on the other end to hear you? Or, better yet, have you ever hosted an Internet radio show where you sound horrible, and you know it, but you have to move on because this is part of your calling? Talk about frustrating.

(Unlocking Writer's Block)

By Susan Martinez

"Hello, Muses. It's me, Susan. Where the hell are you?"

Have you ever felt like that-alone and desperate for that one great story idea? Unfortunately, that's a writer's lot.

To be a writer is a holy calling that can sometimes feel like a curse. Writing may bring you riches and fame or it may leave you battered and broken. Sometimes it can feel like an addiction.

When you sit down at the blank page or screen, you have three simple tasks:

Trust.

Let go.

Leap.

Let these seven principles guide you as you shape, hone and polish your work.

1. Be detached but loving.

Let your work sit quietly for a time before you launch into revision. That time could be a day, a week, a month or six months. And it could be longer or shorter from one piece of work to the next. The key is to give both you and your work the space and distance that allow you to approach it heartfully, objectively and discerningly. Respect your initial draft. Respect all your drafts. Don't be a slave to them. Allow your work to grow, change and mature.

By Irene Roth

An important aspect of the writing life is proofreading. Unless you proofread your work, you will leave your readers with a lot of needless mistakes and misunderstandings.

But why should you proofread, you may ask? Well, unless you proofread your manuscripts carefully, you won't be considered a 'professional' writer who has credibility and skill. Other writers will look at you as if you are a careless writer. And I know that isn't the case.

METAPHOR OR SIMILE DEFINED

Both a metaphor and a simile are statements of comparison between two different items that share one aspect or trait in common. Unlike analogies that use five or six points of comparison, a metaphor or simile uses only one and lets the reader extend the thought on their own.

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"In the first half of your story," he said, "let your characters do what they want. But when you get to the second half, you've got to reign them in."

Tom was pretty insistent, and it was all I could do to not jump up and shriek NO!...not to the first half of his statement, but to the second.

"God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light...."

Your act of creation is like God's in Genesis, an act of allowance, of letting...of surrender. Surrender to the story that calls to be written, surrender to how it calls to be written, surrender to the lives your characters choose to live. For, if you're writing fiction, those lives are your story.

What is a loser? Let’s assume it’s accurate. What are you losing if you’re a “loser?”

Not being a loser to most people must simply mean the attainment of money and the purchase of things. Things purchased are proof you’re not a loser. In other words, you’re so insecure a person, the mere purchase of things will convince you you’re not a loser.

Do's

1. Remember that there are no rules.
There is no right way (including this one). There is no wrong way. There is only your way.

2. Get out of your own way.
Ask any element of your being that is logical, analytical, critical, cynical, doubt-filled or judgmental to step aside for the duration of your projected writing time.

"I don't know if I should put 'writer' on my business card," I murmured.

"Then don't," my wife said in her infinite wisdom. "Put 'author' on it."

"But if I put 'author' on, none of those big companies with overflowing coffers will want to hire me as a writer," I said, wondering if George Bush needed a speechwriter or if General Motors wanted someone to write the owner's manual for next year's Oldsmobile.

By Evan Marshell

Recently, Lev Grossman, the book critic at Time magazine, made some predictions about publishing. Among his predictions about the novel was the following: "Novels will compete to hook you in the first paragraph and then hang on for dear life."

I agree, except on one point: This isn't coming. It's already here.

A novel's first paragraph, or "opening hook," has always been important, but it has never been as important as it is now.