13 Resources for Writers

Creative Marketing Solutions. Marcia Yudkin is a marketing guru. She has a free newsletter that comes out on Wednesday. Highly recommended.

LibrarySpot. Encyclopedias, research resources, etc.

ThinkExist. Quotations finder.

Encyclopedia Mythica. A resource for myths, legends, religions, lore of all kinds.

Character Building Workshop. Great list of character archetypes.

Biblomania. More than 2000 works of literature along with study guides, also research references.

Book of Days. A listing of calendar events and word definitions. Very interesting site; useful for history writers especially.

Guide to Grammar and Writing. It is what it says it is.

Freelancer's Copyright Guide. By the National Writer's Union. Information about copyright.

The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. An interesting place to browse; some of the free reading is helpful.

Craft of Writing. An article about using MS Word's editing features; especially helpful for the "track changes" feature.

Funds for Writers. A listing of grants, contests, etc., for writers. Two free newsletters, one for small paying contests and another for higher paying contests. Highly Recommended.



Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. The good stuff is available if you can become a member, but some of the free reading online is interesting. Of particular interest to freelancers is the "Writer Beware" section, which lists organizations and persons to avoid in the writing business.

A Day in the Life

5:42 a.m.

Wake up and listen to husband banging around in the bathroom as he prepares for work. Remove night splint from left foot. Stretch toes on both feet in hopes of keeping plantar fasciitis pain at bay.

6:00 a.m.

Put feet into Crocs as advised by podiatrist who said "never let your bare feet touch the floor." Shuffle into kitchen to discover husband making his breakfast and utilizing microwave. Forgo cup of hot tea in favor of hot water from the spigot. Sip with straw because of mouth pain from last week's oral surgery.

6:15 a.m.

Check e-mail. Discover in newsletter from Microsoft that an upgrade is required to MS Outlook because of time change. Attempt to make upgrade, but discover I have to know exactly what version of XP I use. Realize that to find that out I need to change my display because the DPI is set large so I can actually read what is on the screen.

Kiss husband goodbye. Make cup of green tea. Finally figure out how to change DPI back to normal sized. Download the MS stuff and cross fingers. Seems to have worked. Put screen back to large DPI thing. Check e-mails, read blogs.

Look at clock and realize it's nearly 8 a.m. Go get dressed.

9:00 a.m.

Settle in with bowl of soggy Rice Crispies, eaten with soy milk and a baby spoon (because of mouth surgery). Read the Roanoke Times like every morning.

9:10 a.m.

Oral surgeon's office calls, says bump in mouth was a fibroma. Is this different than a mucocele? Who knows. Make a mental note to ask the surgeon on Friday.

9:30 a.m.

Leave to interview a daycare provider for story in newspaper. Go down dirt driveway (1/4 mile) and remember that I forgot to take Tylenol. Actually, I forgot to take any of my morning medication. Drive back up driveway in cloud of dust. Take meds, check on curling iron while I'm at it. Return to car.

10:00 a.m.

Arrive on time for interview. Acknowledge that I do indeed have a fat lip and stitches in my mouth. Do interview, grateful one person likes to talk and I don't have to ask too many questions. Take pictures. Little boys are enthralled by fat lip and black space where stitches are visible. They follow me around like puppy dogs and offer me dump trucks if I will smile.

11:10 a.m.

Complete interview. Drive to newspaper office, visit editor. Allow him to download photos so I don't have to upload them. Discuss other articles.

12:00 p.m.

Arrive home, eat lunch consisting of chicken w/ rice soup (using little spoon, sigh). Read newspaper. Note that VDGIF may cancel hunting season because of drought and fear of forest fires. Talk to husband on phone; he has meetings all afternoon. Check e-mail, download photos to my own computer so I can write cut-lines.

1:00 p.m.

Decide I better go to grocery store while I have the energy. Take a different route to vary routine. At entrance to supermarket, realize I forgot to stop by bank and by the recycling center to dump off old newspapers. Also should not have turned into supermarket because I need to go get gas before I get groceries and must go through dreaded Exit 150 to reach Citgo station. Leave supermarket.

1:30 p.m.

Get gas and go to CVS for medication to clean out mouth. Even though I am brushing my teeth three times a day, I fear the stitches and ensuing healing scab might create an offensive odor and I want to prevent that.

1:40 p.m.

Wonder how I ever thought I would get back home by 2 p.m. Decide to stop and rinse off dust from car. Go to bank. Drive to supermarket and realize in parking lot that I forgot to stop by recycling bin again and tell myself to do that on the way home. Bebop into supermarket with canvas totes in hand because I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem, and not bring home those aggravating plastic bags. Note I am the only one in the store carrying canvas totes and feel superior.

2:30 p.m.

Check out and pay $71 for enough groceries to fill two totes. Note in head that this is about six hours worth of work for me. Remember good ol' days when I paid $0.85 for a loaf of bread and a $1 for a quart of milk. Wonder if I am imagining those prices.

2:55 p.m.

Nearly home. At mailbox, realize I forgot to stop at recycling bin again. Decide to do that tomorrow.

3:00 p.m.

Note that car is dirty already from dusty driveway. Unload groceries. Realize I am out of freezer bags and add that to the list for next trip. Put stuff away. Stare at chicken. Review "buy one get one free" and price tag. Check receipt and try to figure out how much I paid per pound for four pounds of chicken. Discover I cannot figure out what I actually paid for the chicken in totality, much less per pound. Get calculator, add, subtract, multiply and divide to no avail. Look at watch. Give up. Freeze half the chicken, prepare other half for baking.

Consider calling friend who cooks to ask if there is a way to keep top of skinless chicken breasts from browning too much in oven. Decide she would laugh at me and do not make call. Determine to set oven timer to turn chicken over and to not overcook like last time.

3:15 p.m.

Note that left foot with heel spur, which hasn't hurt for several days (probably because I've been off it and on pain medication because of my mouth surgery), is aching a lot. Note also that little ball in sock of right foot is grinding into little toe. Remove socks and shoes and put on Crocs. Take another Tylenol. Wonder if I should rethink my policy of eschewing western medicine as much as possible. Wonder if I have rethought it and don't realize it.

3:30 p.m.

Decide I deserve something and fix a bowl of chocolate "dairy free" soy dessert. Only have one spoon of chocolate dessert left so add french vanilla "soy dream" dessert to bowl. Stir to make it all look like chocolate. Eat with baby spoon.

3:40 p.m.

Stare at computer screen. Think of article from very long meeting last night that I need to write. Read e-mail, respond. Read article about Republicans picking on 12 year old boy with health problems and scratch head with WTF attitude. Read article about NBC purchasing Oxygen. Read article about newspapers declining and think, that's what I said.

4:00 p.m.

Check chicken. It isn't too brown on top and I am happy. Decide to write blog entry and then get to work on articles. Know I will write into the night and work late to make up for day's dawdling. I am back in the zone.

Newspapers Decline

Today in The Roanoke Times, a writer in the Letter to the Editors section chastised the paper for recycling "old news."

The person wrote:

The seemingly silent gutting of talent at The Roanoke Times is starting to show the effects of what happens when you throw years and years of experience out the window just to put a few more coins in your pocket.

I agree with this person. Over the years I have watched the daily paper decline further and further into an abyss that seems to be of its own making. The talented writers have left and the few remaining writers with ability are apparently noosed to the point of being unable to write the stories that need to be written.

Anyone with access to the Internet who reads the headlines knows that some stories take days to make it into the Roanoke Times. Maybe they figure no one reads online and print editions? I read both, and increasingly the stuff in the print edition is moot.

Which might be okay if the paper's online edition was doing great things, but it isn't. I don't like the paper's online edition at all. I have always found it difficult to navigate, for one thing. For another, the news isn't any better there.

By better I don't mean "sappy" or "cheerful." I mean, news. Roanoke has crime (every city does) but to read the daily paper you wouldn't know about it. They don't run a list of warrants or arrests or anything so that people have some idea of the many times guns go off.

Because I am married to a public servant, I know that guns go off much more than reported. And they aren't target shooting. Who knows how many DUIs there are on a weekend. Even just a total would be interesting.

The city has about 100,000 people, but from the dullness of the paper you'd think no one does anything worth writing about. Features are minimal. On the front page today there is a huge article about e-cycling. Okay, this is news, sort of, but front page? Maybe front page of the Virginia section.

I don't believe reporters beat the streets anymore. They work the phones. They attend meetings. But they don't get out and meet people. Here is an example: I was at a meeting recently with another reporter from a rival paper and during a break, I worked the room. Everybody in that place knew someone from the local weekly was there.

Nobody knew the other reporter was there, as that person never moved from his chair.

I'm not even a staff reporter, I'm a stringer writing on assignment. But I take it seriously when I'm representing a paper or magazine.

Newspapers whine about their decline, but I believe they've brought it on themselves. They've forgotten what the Fourth Estate is all about, and care only about profit in the shareholder's pocket. Newspaper reporters are supposed to hound the city council, uncover the muck, sift through the lies and untruths until the bare facts remain.

This doesn't happen anymore, and not only in Roanoke. This is going on in most large papers, and I think it will be to their detriment.

In the future, I think the newspapers that survive will be local papers with targeted local markets offering news about your community that you're not going to get elsewhere.

That's the trouble with the print edition of the Times these days; a lot of what you see is information you can find elsewhere.

Bring back the reporters, folks, and the originality. Show some courage, and report real news.

A Question of Style

This is a writer thing, but the Chicago Manual of Style has a Q&A that is updated monthly.

The questions are generally worth a smile and the answers are often priceless.

Check it out. If you like it, sign up for the notice so you'll remember to check for new questions and answers every month.

Jailed

Earlier this week, I took a tour of a new jail that it is under construction in our county.

It is a massive structure. It will hold 214 prisoners.

I have never been in jail. I am no angel,but I haven't done anything jail-worthy.



The cells are very small and designed to hold two people. Each cell has its own toilet, which is not private in any way.

There is no sunshine. The day rooms, which have tables bolted to the floor, have a frosted window.

The prisoners will never go outside. They won't see birds, dogs or clouds. They won't feel rain or wind.

My grandmother told me once when she was in the assisted living facility that she felt like she was in prison.

She was not. She was in a sanctuary compared to this place.

Even though the structure was huge, I felt claustrophobic and sick to my stomach when my time there was done.

I am very sad to see that we have this jail.

As a nation, we jail everyone regardless of what you do. I think we imprison a lot of people that need not be jailed. Drug users, for instances. (Not pushers). So long as they're not using and driving, who cares? If they want to kill themselves on drugs, let them, don't lock them up.

Better yet, get them into counseling and rehabilitation and turn them back into useful, productive citizens.

But nope, we toss people into the darkness and take away their humanity, caging them like animals. Maybe some of them are animals and deserve such treatment, but I honestly don't believe every criminal should be behind bars.

After we've done all that, we wonder why so many go on to commit more crimes.

We're too quick to lock people up in this country. We are the number one nation for incarceration, and it's not a statistic to crow about. You'd think that would be one of those other countries, those that we're always being told are the boggy-man. But nope, it's us.

We're the boggy-man. And I really think it's going to get worse before it gets better.

Thursday Thirteen

Conservation easements

1) Conservation easements are supposed to protect special large tracts of land.

2) About 235 acres of this mountain was preserved in 2006. This is Tinker Mountain, and this wooded land is part of the Carvin's Cove watershed.


3. Carvins Cove, for those who don't know, is where the City of Roanoke gets it water.

4. The water comes from Tinker Creek, which Annie Dillard made famous in her book, A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.

5. Tinker Creek allegedly orginates, at least in part, on our farm from a spring which flows into two ponds.

6. Others have it orginating on land behind us, property that is now a subdivison.

7. Regardless, the streams which run together to form Tinker Creek have no name that I'm aware of.



8. On Tuesday, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine appeared at Hollins University to applaud my alma mater for helping procure the Tinker Mountain Easement.

9. The photo above is Governor Kaine talking to Hollins University President Nancy Gray.

10. Governor Kaine wants to preserve 400,000 acres of Virginia land during his four years in office.

11. So far, just over 100,000 has been preserved and he has three years to go.

12. Conservation easements are hard to sell to the old farmers.

13. That means that land like what you see below will probably one day be sprouting houses instead of crops.

Dead man talking

I found the following article online this morning and thought some of it quite profound. The fourth estate, as I grew up thinking of our newspapers, is pretty much gone and is only a puppet of government or corporations or both. It definitely is a slave to capitalism and not the muckracking, truth-telling, news-gathering expose it ought to be. The larger papers in particular often leave me wondering where the real news is and whose toes are being protected.

Because it certainly isn't yours or mine.

From the Illinois Times
POSTED ON AUGUST 2, 2007:
Dead man talking
I have seen the past, and it works
By Roland Klose

As a young reporter, Lincoln Steffens learned that successful police officers had a somewhat ambiguous relationship to the law. Here’s how it worked in some New York City precincts in the late 19th century: Criminal syndicates did a thriving business in age-old vices (gambling, prostitution, thievery) and the police protected them, as long as they stayed within certain limits. If rich man lost his wallet to pickpocket, a detective would call in a favor from his criminal associates, the victim’s goods were returned, and the cop looked like a crime-solving genius. ...

... For Steffens, a college-educated naïf, learning how some cops worked their beats helped launch him on a lifelong quest to understand the difference between the righteous and the sinners.

Eventually he’d write “The Shame of the Cities,” a magazine series about municipal corruption that made him famous. . . .

... I’m fascinated by Steffens and the other muckrakers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who showed what an aggressive, independent press could do. ...

... Steffens started his career, like many journalists, just plain curious about how things work. And he believed, as have many idealists, that simply exposing evil would be enough to kill it, like sunlight on mold. So he went about the business of exposing corruption and its consequences, and he named names....

... The idea that corruption was an urban phenomenon faded as he probed state governments. The belief that business was somehow more ethical or efficient than politics evaporated when reform-minded good-government businessmen took charge of cities and things became worse. ...

... On Wall Street, company presidents did not control — they were puppets of such tycoons as J.P. Morgan. In cities, it wasn’t the mayor who governed; he was a creature of the local political boss. And so it went with governors and congressmen and presidents and, yes, even newspaper editors and publishers.

Steffens recounted what he told one boss about political corruption: “It is not a temporary evil, not an accidental wickedness, not a passing symptom of the youth of a people. It is a natural process by which a democracy is made gradually into a plutocracy” — government of the people becomes government for the wealthy. ...

Steffens represents modern American journalism at its start, a time of hellraising and optimism and discovery.

Sometimes I feel as though I’m witnessing the end.

Newspapers where I spent most of my adult life are circling the drain — the consequence of years of betrayal by owners who sucked ungodly profits from their operations. Most news organizations today are gripped by fear; if they’re not cutting back, they’re selling out.....

Helping a Cause

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending an event hosted by the Hollins Communications Research Institute at Hollins University.

This non-profit works to help stutterers. This is probably not a problem that is high on people's radar in terms of disability, but the truth is it can be very disabling. Stuttering causes mental trauma and anguish and can result in low self-esteem, among other things.

It affects about 2 million people; most are men (4:1). Stuttering usually begins between the ages of two and four.

Stuttering is *not* the result of some kind of emotional or mental issue. Research at HCRI shows it is related to muscles, making it a physical problem. Their work focuses on retraining muscles so that stuttering is limited or removed entirely.

They have a 90 percent success rate with their treatment, but the treatment is expensive, costing thousands of dollars for their program. Even so, about 200 people go through their program each year.

Famous stutterers include Aristotle, Charles Darwin, Moses (although I am not sure how they know this), Marylin Monroe and Isaac Newton. At this event yesterday, people attended from all walks of life. Some were captains of their industries, which ran the gamut from pharmaceuticals to overseeing 33,000 school students.

According to HCRI's website, others who have sought help from the institute are Annie Glenn, wife of U.S. Senator John Glenn; Lester Hayes of the Los Angeles Raiders, for whom postgame interviews were torture; and 20/20 reporter John Stossel, whose speech problem interfered with his career.

Saturday's event was the kick-off of a multi-million fundraising campaign. The doctors at HCRI believe they are on the verge of medical breakthroughs for stuttering, but need an endowment fund to continue their research.

This is a very worthy program. The institute was founded in 1972 by Dr. Ronald L. Webster, who has pioneered work in the development of objectively defined, behaviorally-oriented stuttering therapy. The institute has helped thousands of people.

If you're looking for a local non-profit for your charity dollars, this one deserves a look.

The Virginia General Assembly honored the program during the 2007 session.

Books:Creatively Self-Employed

Creatively Self-Employed: How Writers and Artists Deal with Career Ups and Downs
By Kristen Fischer

First, a disclaimer: I am quoted in this book. The author took "interviews" as questionnaires on a writer's bulletin board two years ago and I liked the questions and submitted my answers. Some of the answers I gave are in this book.

This book is self-published by iUniverse. There is nothing wrong with self-publishing, but I have yet to read a self-published book that did not need an editor. This book had only one typo that I found, though I confess I didn't read it carefully. I thought some of it was repetitive and some tightening up would have been useful.

Essentially she quoted about 30 different people (there are 70 listed in the back - I don't know if they were all mentioned). We all essentially say the same thing - working for yourself is hard but worth it. There are a few gems of advice in the book, ways to make things easier or reframe your thinking. Readers might benefit from those.

2.5 stars

Confidentially

Congressman Rick Boucher represents a district in Virginia but not the one I am in. He is, I think, the best Congressman the state has.

While there are muckraking writers who deserve to be challenged (I am thinking of the stories made up about entertainers), I believe that is best handled with civil suits.

The idea of a being hauled before a judge and ordered to give up my sources on a story where I had to quote "officials" is chilling. When the entity seeking the information is the government and not an individual, it is beyond chilling. It definitely is not what I expect to see in a free and open government.

I try at all times to be honest and diligent in the things I write, but I do worry that something I write will be misconstrued or challenged. Things are often misread; people generally read what they want to into the things they see.

One civil case I've been following and writing about for a year in particular has fretted me lately. I know one side sees all coverage about its traumas in court to be negative press and not objective reporting and there's nothing I can do about that.

But that's not going to get me in front of a judge. I am not an investigative reporter and I don't write national news. Sometimes I am quite glad of that.

I think Virginia, by the way, is one of the states that doesn't have a statute that protects reporters. At least that is what I've been told. There may be common law protections, but nothing on the books.

Reposed Thoughts

Yesterday I interviewed a couple who ditched their lives in northern/eastern VA and moved here. They bought an old (very large) house and are embarking upon a restaurant/B&B adventure.

They are 43 years old. They called this their "retirement".

He has retired from a police force; she used to be in marketing. They travel to Europe two or three times a year and also across the US.

I always wonder how people can manage to do these things. Where do they get their money? Did their old house sell for millions?

Police officers do not make that kind of money, unless other cities do better than Roanoke. Roanoke's retirement packages might keep you afloat but you're not going to move forward with it.

Maybe marketing pays better than freelancing for newspapers?

When we take vacation, my husband farms and uses the time to plow or rake hay or do whatever needs doing; I just keep working on writing work. I might take a day for spring cleaning, but I don't think that really counts as recreation.

We do not go to Europe. We're lucky if we make it to Myrtle Beach for a weekend.

Is this envy? No, more like curiousity. I just want to know how it's done.

Freelancing

I have been freelancing since 1994. You'd think after all that time I would be good at it.

But mostly I have worked for only a few select companies, with odd jobs thrown in for good measure. Those jobs have included editing, acting as a glorified secretary for an old man (in his 80s) who wanted to write a World War II textbook, newspaper writing, magazine writing, substitute teaching, post-closer for a real estate attorney, and tutoring (which only lasted a month, I am so not a tutor).

Freelancing for me has been a one-woman adventure. I am the writer, the purchaser of equipment, the cleaning lady, the accountant, the receptionist - everything. It all rests on my graying head.

Of course it is this way for most sole proprietors, so I am not alone. It would be nice if, at some point, I made such vast amounts of money that I could afford an assistant, especially for the filing, but I don't see that in my future. Most of the time I don't mind doing everything. I have my own little system worked out, I can find my paperwork, and things flow smoothly.

Until, that is, I have to be the Bill Collector.

Occasionally I work for someone who deems it okay to pay me late, or not at all. This becomes a major issue with me, particularly if it is a goodly sum of money. And particularly at this time of year, when I need my cash.

As it is, I am today the Bill Collector and suffice it to say, I don't like it much. This is the part of being a sole proprietor that I truly dislike. I am still working for this particular client and I don't want to lose the business (not yet, anyway), so I tread lightly. But I think treading lightly allows me to be abused.

I don't like confrontation so it is hard for me to say "pay up". And then of course the only "or else" I have is to say I won't work for them anymore. And they don't really care because, although I do wonderful, even award-winning work, for them, I am completely replaceable.

I know this, so I tip-toe around the payment issue.

Tip-toe.

Tip-toe.

Even though I am, technically, a free spirit doing my own thing, I am just as much caged as the worker in the cubicle who answers "yes sir" to the big man. The big man always gets his way, I think.

Tip-toe.

Tip-toe.

(The bird in the picture is not in a cage; it is behind a roll of fence. It is much freer to fly than I will ever be.)