Tuesday, November 15, 2016

                       Keep Typing

"Writers can affirm and celebrate or they can destroy."                                                                                                   --William Zinsser



Scene: American Housewife (ABC) situation comedy. Husband is settling into den to write about John Stuart Mill. His wife observes his writing ritual which is reported as: "He poses like Wonder Woman for 2 minutes to raise his testosterone. Then he listens to jazz to activate his right brain. Next, he eats almonds for energy. Finally, he has a glass of port to loosen up. If we were rich, it'd be eccentric. We're not, so it's just plain weird." 

We all have them...writing rituals. A special chair or pen, clean office or crowded library, mornings only or at midnight when the house is finally quiet. The rituals can be adorable, or as mentioned, just plain weird. Maybe the key question is if the rituals help the writing or prevent the writing. On an episode of House Hunters International, a man hoping to write his first book toured a potential property and proclaimed that he couldn't write in the space. Couldn't or wouldn't?? Books have been written in coffee shops and offices. They've been written by harried moms of preschoolers and busy attorneys. Doctors and laborers.

November 15 is "I Love to Write Day." If you're participating in NaNoWriMo, you're halfway there. Hopefully this can be a day of perfect verbs and nouns, phrases that don't sound cliched, and characters that ring true, not as silly caricatures.

If your writing has hit a wall, it can help to get advice from the masters. William Zinsser, author of several books including On Writing Well, advised writers to ask what are your values and intentions as a writer? If you're writing a memoir, hold the emotion, Zinsser said. He added that writers shouldn't set out to write a heart-tugging memoir, to make sure details ring true, and that getting published isn't the only reason to write your story. "Don't whine," he said. For more information, check out Zinsser's blog, The American Scholar.

Books to consider: 

The Writing Life: A collection of essays and interviews - National Book Award authors

Writing About Your Life - William Zinsser

Expressive Writing: Words That Heal - Pennebaker/Evans

Writing From the Body - John Lee

Chambers Biographical Dictionary

Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words - Bill Bryson

The Craft & Business of Writing - Writer's Digest Books

Steering the Craft - Ursula LeGuin

The Grammar Devotional - Mignon Fogarty

To Show and To Tell - Phillip Lopate

On Becoming a Novelist - John Gardner

Art of Memoir - Mary Karr

The Mindful Writer - Dinty Moore

Writing Flash Nonfiction/Writing Flash Fiction - Rose Metal Press Guide

Micro Fiction - Jerome Stern


"I'm not sure what prompted me to start writing another book....there was certainly nothing to be gained by feeling sorry for myself. Telling stories was still a means of escape. And so I put a fresh sheet of paper into the machine, ready to flee once again. This time I no longer thought about getting published, but just wrote for my own amusement. The journey, not the destination, became the thing, and I rediscovered the simple satisfaction of seeing my ideas materialize before me, sentence after sentence." from A Good American by Alex George  

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Sunday, November 13, 2016

              Little Bits of Good*

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.


It is not an uncommmon question - "where were you when..." And those "when" topics have shaped the United States - President Nixon's impeachment, 9-11-01, Armstrong on the moon, etc... 

One of my own first clear memories is watching my mother weep after the 1963 assassination of President John Kennedy. For many days to follow, the mood in our house was somber and hushed.

In April 1968, I was sitting cross-legged in my front yard, next to my older sister. It was still early spring and the trees were not fully leaved which gave us a gauzy distant vision of downtown Kansas City. From our suburban yard, we could see flames shooting into the sky. Our city was on fire. I started asking questions all beginning with "why." Why are people so angry? Why are there fires? Why are we under a curfew? Why are our parents so tense? At nine-years-old, I struggled to understand the news, the heavy shock of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. My sister tried to explain - fear, race, economics, but I think she wasn't sure of any answers either.

When the "why" questions demand to be answered or at least addressed, books can help us with ideas and considerations. 


"Extremists have shown what frightens them the most is a girl with a book." -- Malala Yousafzai


                              Nonfiction

Common Sense - Thomas Paine
Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau
Self-Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Diary of Anne Frank
The Autobiography of Margaret Sanger - Margaret Sanger
20 Years at Hull-House - Jane Addams
1968 - Mark Kurlansky
Steal This Book - Abbie Hoffman
The Crucible - Arthur Miller
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom - Catherine Clinton
On Liberty, the Subjection of Women and Utilitarianism - John Stuart Mill
John Adams - David McCullough
Black Boy - Richard Wright
Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
A Testament of Hope - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Bad Feminist - Roxanne Gay
A People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines - Gail Collins
Suffragette: My Own Story - Emmeline Parkhurst
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft
The Long Loneliness - Dorothy Day
Dust Tracks on a Road - Zora Neale Hurston
The Givenness of Things: Essays - Marilynne Robinson
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power - Jon Meachum
33 Revolutions per Minute: A History of Protest Songs - Dorian Lynskey


                                 Fiction 

The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
The Jungle - Upton Sinclair
A Modest Proposal - Jonathan Swift
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
American Pastoral - Philip Roth
The Invention of Wings - Sue Monk Kidd
Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver
Johnny Got His Gun - Dalton Trumbo

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What I'm reading now: Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Jared Diamond.


*"Do your little bits of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
                                                             --Bishop Desmond Tutu


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Monday, November 7, 2016

                       Random Word

Virginia Woolf: "Language is wine upon the lips."

Circuitous: sir-KYOO-uh-tuss/adj/1664. 1) Having a circular or winding course  2) not being forthright or direct in language or action. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary

Synonyms: roundabout, indirect, meandering, serpentine (thesaurus.com)

"...there is no court rule that prohibits the filing of petitions not sanctioned by court rule, if you follow." Bennie knew it sounded circuitous, but she was right on the law."  from Corrupted by Lisa Scottoline.



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Thursday, November 3, 2016

                         November

"Every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile." --Elie Wiesel


As we begin a new month filled with thankfulness, maybe we need a theme song to lead us. A suggestion -  "What the World Needs Now" by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It's been sung by many artists including Jackie deShannon, Judy Garland and Dionne Warwick. Recently the song was recorded by Broadway performers to show their support for the victims of the June shooting at Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando. (Song available on iTunes)

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It's the only thing that's there just too little of. What the world needs now is love, sweet love, no not just for some, but for everyone." 

It's a fairly simple idea that too often becomes complicated in its application. Maybe Elie Wiesel had the best idea - start with a smile.


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Books are great companions. Introduce yourself to new thrillers, mysteries, novels and ideas to ponder. In November, look for books by Erika Johansen, Joe Hill, Patricia Cornwell, Lee Child, Michael Connelly, Janet Evanovich, Anne Rice, James Patterson, Jeffrey Archer, Clive Cussler, Danielle Steel, Jayne Ann Krentz, and David Balducci. There are novels by Alice Hoffman, Wally Lamb, Zadie Smith, Michael Chabon, J.K. Rowling, Paolo Coelho, Fannie Flagg, and Richard Paul Evans.

Looking for a surreal menu experience? Eat dinner along with Salvador Dali. Sing with Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson. Here's your chance to learn more about Trevor Noah and Anna Kendrick...and everyone's favorite Gilmore Girl, Lauren Graham. We can try to figure out the world by reading Thomas L. Friedman, Hilary Plum and Thich Nhat Hanh. And it's OK to be an adult and still want to read the Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney or enjoy the new Dr. Seuss-themed coloring book. 

November is National Memoir Writing Month, National Family Literacy Month, NaNoWriMo, Picture Book Month, Aviation History Month and Manatee Awareness Month.


                               November Days


1-7    - World Communication Week

2       - Plan Your Epitaph Day

3       - Cliche Day

5       - Digital Scrapbooking Day

6       - Daylight Savings Time ENDS

8       - Election Day

11     - Veterans' Day

13-19 - World Kindness Week
           Geography Awareness Week

14-20 - National Book Awards Week

15      - I LOVE to Write Day

19      - Mother Goose Day
            Rocky & Bullwinkle Day

20-26 - National Game & Puzzle Week

21-27 - Better Conversation Week

23      - National Espresso Day

25      - National Day of Listening

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Wednesday, November 2, 2016

                  Everlasting Natalie

"You really have to love words if you're going to be a writer, because, as a writer, you certainly spend a lot of time with words. A suggestion for someone who wants to start writing? Be a reader. It's the only real way to learn how to tell a story. Readers are lucky -- they will never be bored or lonely." -- Natalie Babbitt



Natalie Babbitt, author of Tuck Everlasting, Knee Knock Rise and The Moon Over High Street died Oct. 31, 2016. She was 84 years old. Babbitt is probably best known for Tuck Everlasting, a novel written for children and also enjoyed by adults. 
Published in 1975



from Tuck Everlasting: "Closing the gates on her oldest fears as she had closed the gate of her own fenced yard, she discovered the wings she'd always wished she had."