RANT-'o-THE-WEEK:
Actually this week's rant is in favor of the writing life and the expected and unexpected benefits it brings to us. The American Society of Journalists & Authors recently published Sixty Candles, a tribute to their 60 years of existence. Go buy a copy, maybe that will keep my dues down. Now, these are among the hardest-nosed nonfiction journalists in the United States (and some abroad too) but every nonfiction writer has a novel in a desk drawer that he or she works on when possible. Much of the advice or shared joy and, yes, pain is interchangeable between fiction and nonfiction. Here are some excerpts from the book:
Julie Catalano did a story on handcrafted rugs in the Texas hill country. She moved on to other things and thought no more about it until she received a letter.
A woman wrote that she made those kinds of rugs but that business was so bad and the work so long and hard that she had decided to give up the business. Suddenly, now, orders were pouring in and her business would make it after all. The letter reinforced what I've always known but sometimes forget: the power of the printed word to affect lives in ways that can't be anticipated.
It was a small thing, no newsworthy event, no eloquent or grandiose prose, no great cause or crusade, just a few simple words that altered someone's life. When I get tired, or discouraged, or wonder why I do what I do, I think about that woman, and those rugs that had their moment in the sun, and I feel better.
G. Gaynor McTigue on "Why I write":
There ought to be a compelling reason why someone would choose to spend a life cooped up in isolation before a computer screen while others ate outside 'playing'.
McTigue explains that he is a poor conversationalist, always thinking of the bon mot, the snappy retort, two seconds too late to get it into the conversation. i don't know why he thinks this is his problem alone. But he turns to writing for more control over his words:
...armed with the ability to launch long- and short-range verbal missiles at virtually any target I choose with near anonymous impunity, both the process and the anticipated results become enormously fun for me.
Linda Eve Diamond writes,
When I tell people I'm a writer they often treat me as though I said, "I'm unemployed." or ask me 'Are you a real writer?' ...Yes, I suppose I'm a real writer. Yes, I live in poverty, but I'm sure it's temporary. Yes I have written published books—seven of them. No, I'm no unemployed; I'm self-employed. ...Yet I do think it would be easier sometimes to spin a little fiction and say I'm a dental assistant.
My own entry was titled 'Why Freelance Writers Are Like White Blood Cells and runs thus:
Police and journalists have a traditional love-hate relationship. I think that's because the jobs are so much alike, We both do research. We work wherever the job takes is, and talk to whomever has information, be that the governor or the drug addict in the ghetto gutter. Other people go to their 9-5 daily jobs and sit in the same chair and do the same things and get out of the office for lunch. We spend the day roaming our 'turf' and writing about it.
Like the white blood cells that can squeeze through the spaces between other body cells as they make their rounds, we squeeze through the cracks in our society, seeking out the interesting to write about. It's this daily difference, this endless variety, this peek into other lives and inside the daily news, that keeps is so fascinated by this job, that we writers say we never retire; we just make that final deadline.
Some final thoughts on this: Like Linda Diamond, above, I hve evolved various answers to the second question anyone asks when they meet you at a cocktail party. After "What's your name" they want to know "what do you do" which is a formula for "We are strangers just met, so we don't know our relative social status. So are you higher up than I am or can I lord it over you?"
Telling them I was a writer flubbered up the system. Writers seem to exist outside the standard socio-economic heirarchies. Brings that cocktail-party conversation to a dead stop for a moment, let me tell you. But today I am of an age where I can get away with "I'm retired" and we move smoothly on.
It's not true at all. I cannot imagine retiring. Not sure what 'retiring' even means to a writer. The annual conference last April in New York of the American Society of Journalists & Authors presented one of its many awards to a 96-year-old woman who was still cranking it out and still an active member. In fact, she was there selling books. I'm guessing that she will be found one day, lying dead on top of her keyboard, a smile on her face.
But one change I have noted. I had tried that "retired" thing many years ago and it usually didn't accomplish what I wanted, whch was to change the conversation so that I could excuse myself and edge closer to the food, because then they would want to know what I had done before I retired. They felt challenged by me. What had I done so lucrative that I could quit while they still reported daily to their corporate cubicals? But an old geezer? They don't ask what I used to do. Apparently whatever old people once did is of no interest to the up-and-coming.
Suits me. I only came to the party to pig out on the shrimp cocktail anyway. We writers need all the free protein we can get.
FEATURED
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Writing one good eulogy can get you through a time of bereavement looking to the rest of your family like a knight in shining armor. Writing eulogies as a business can be a profitable sideline. This seminar is intended for both the person needing to speak at Uncle Fred's funeral day after tomorrow and for the person writing eulogies on a regular basis for other families. |
Jump Start Your Novel
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Focus on how to plan your novel before you start writing it to make it as effective and intriguing as possible. By the end of the seminar you will have a variety of tools to help you in the writing process from character and setting sketches to scene outlines to a complete plot roadmap. |
Book
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When
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SCHOOL
NEWS: Working on some new courses but let's repeat last week's news here.
Eulogies is a new one week seminar by veteran WritersCollege.com teacher Sandra Louden. Looking for a new writing path that’s been completely overlooked and basically by-passed (read "no competition"). Well, look no further. Eulogies are present at all funerals today and as the bereaved look to find just the right words for their own personal tribute, those words and that personal tribute can be written by you. In this one-session seminar, Sandra Miller-Louden gives you the tools you need to get started writing eulogies—and gives you practical, specific suggestions to turn your writing into a full-fledged business. Put aside your aversion to the creepy factor and explore this totally untapped writing field that’s just waiting for someone to discover it.
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