The Right Writing Age: Attitudes Struck & Myths Dispelled

Whenever I begin a new Creative Writing Class, I stand at the board and ask people in the class--people of every size, age, stripe, to give me a list of reasons why they find themselves unable to write...what negative reasons one's mind gives the would-be writer to give up before they begin and invariably, high on the list beside "I am too young to write, too inexperienced" is the opposite: "I am too old to begin writing now! Too old to start a writing career, too old to dabble, etc., etc..."

Trust me, I get a long list of negatives on the one side of the board, and this is followed up by asking the class to help me REWRITE all these negative statements into POSITIVE statements such as "I am at the perfect age to write. This is a wonderful time in my life to write."

As awful a negative as I have heard - "I can't write because my job, working with kids all day, sucks all my imagination out of me..."  and "I can't write because my mind is on worrying about my dying wife" these too can be rewritten and the attitude that these are damn good reasons to write can prompt wonderful results.

On a Five Star chat group among Five Star authors, a negative similar to those above came up and suddenly Jim Ingraham (author of Sahara Dust, and Evidence of Evil, work in progress: Duff Kerrigan)  leapt into the fray with the following comments that I believe every 'older' or just starting out author, young or old, ought to hear.  Here's Jim in his own words after all this came up via the catalyst of my urging authors to take up the standard of becoming an Indie Author publishing with Kindle/Amazon.  Here's Jim in his words:

"It's not how age affects me as a writer that's important. It's how it affects me as a man. Because I have shed many illusions about myself and my life and have accepted who I am and who I have been, my relationship to people and to my work is more sensible than it once was. I am no longer crippled by fears that I won't "make it." I know that "making it" is an illusion. The only important result of writing is the work itself.

I liken it to playing golf. Winning a tournament is fun, but trying to is not what keeps me playing. The real reward is striking the ball well, that feeling coming into my hands when I watch the ball sail down the fairway, when I watch it fall into the hole from 30 feet across the green.

If the reward of your work is something other than finding the right word, building a solid paragraph, turning out a well-crafted story, then you miss the true rewards of being a writer.

If I am true to myself, the results of my work will reflect the gains I have made over all the adversities that have plagued my life. I hope that readers grow from my work. It pleases me that others enjoy my stories. But I write, not to please others, but to please myself."

Jim Ingraham
following is a photo of Jim & his son at the piano!

                                                                        
Wow...Man, wish I had Jim in my class. Jim is 87 years old by the way. Read his book Sahara Dust from 5-Star, and Evidence of Evil on Kindle/Amazon.  And do find Jim at http://www.jimingraham.com/ - great website. You won't regret it.

Now I am outta here, kiddies, kiddos, and kid-kids.  Happy Writing and do affect the right attitude. Attitude is the one and only thing we ultimately can control in this life...that and sometimes our characters.

Rob Walker
Chidren of Salem, Killer Instinct, and coming soon to a Kindle near you, Titanic 2012 - FREE first 14 Chapters for a click found at http://www.robertwalkerbooks.com/  That's seven chapters per each storyline, 1912 and 2012

Abnormal Behavior & Pavlov's Doggie

PSYCH 101 for Writers and Their Characters Continued
                 
\Q 3— How does ‘abnormal behavior’ enter into the realm of crime writing and fiction in general?

Answer: Have you read any one of my books? OK…risky word phrase this ‘abnormal behavior’ as you have to ask then what is ‘normal’ behavior in a species that ‘won’ out as the meat eater of all the great apes? Authors are forever dealing with perceptions of what is right and what is wrong, what is good, what is evil, and the common error of taking things at face value. Is writing and painting and creating ‘abnormal’ in itself since, like actors, all artists have to be driven and obsessed to become a player in this field? This question may be too complex to answer here, but let’s keep exploring.

Appearance is seldom what it seems in a novel, especially a mystery or suspense or thriller. Societal norms are taken to task. Since I write about murder and often times serial murder, murder is my stock and trade, my INC. This means ‘abnormal behavior’ is my bread and butter but once removed as I have killed no one except on a stage. My evil antagonists are always into aberrant and sickening words and actions; what he says, thinks, and does is who he or she is (see Final Edge for the worst female killer in all the history of books! Laurelie Blodgett). Such characters are motivated by sick fantasies, mania, fear, psychological disorders, obsessions, phobias, actual physical deformities, actual illnesses just as are Shakespeare’s worst villainous scum like Iago. They are motivated often by ‘abnormal’ beliefs, but often such ‘abnormal’ beliefs come out of popular cultural beliefs, legends, even religion as in anti-religious behavior on a grand scale. Some sick beliefs have a foothold in historical fact about mankind–as in cannibalistic behavior, perhaps even necrophilia–sex with the dead. Certainly there are enough scatologically disgusting elements about mankind and his history to provide fodder for many, many an aberrant behavior or belief system or ‘nutty’ fantasy, desire, want, goal.

I don’t have to mention Stephen King and Anne Rice made a killing on abnormal behavior, do I? Still there is a fine line at work here. Abnormal can slip over into caricature and unintended funnies in the blink of a Cyclop’s eye if one is not careful. How far from the ‘norm’ can our ‘abnormal’ Grandma Grimwood go before she becomes a twisted Dickensian comical granny?

In books about psychotics, sociopaths, organized and disorganized killers of every stripe there is great latitude in defining abnormal, but in all cases the sociopathic monster has to have its\his\her roots in humanity and where we’ve come from…from the primitive lizard brain to the present…roots are sunk deep. This is why the abnormal among us, in the end, are human after all. Humanity swings a wide arc across the rainbow from purity to the unspeakably vile and no author can turn away and not see this if the story demands it. Those who do turn a blind eye to the absolute end of the spectrum, the deepest rung in the pit miss an entire part of the human condition and it’s like being color blind, missing an entire spectrum of the rainbow itself.

OK…believe it or not.

Robert W. Walker
author Killer Instinct, Fatal Instinct and Dead On
Thanks so much and find me on facebook, twitter, myspace, and at www.acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com and do leave a message here.

Time Management

Ah, a challenge to us all, but especially those of us who work fulltime and write and teach - and volunteer way too much. I've always wondered about those who say they are bored and have nothing to do.

Did I mention several writers conferences, putting in a garden, and taking on more responsibilities at work? Yes, mine is a hectic life but I'm having so much fun and even though I really need to cut back on some things, it's tough to decide which ones to give up, so I'll keep them all.

So, if you really are bored and can't find anything to do with your life, don't worry. I'm probably doing enough for both of us.

Hope to catch you at a writer's conference soon.

Check out Chicago's Spring Fling this weekened. Info at the link below:

www.chicagospringfling.com

So many blogs so little time

There are many reasons writers participate in blogs. Blogging is primarily a way to connect with readers, librarians, booksellers and even other writers. It’s also a way to advertise our work and even ourselves. But how much is too much. How much information do we really need to share and how many blogs do we need to participate in.

Well, I think that’s a question that needs to be asked on a regular basis and it’s an ongoing balancing act. I have a few blogs that I haven’t updated in awhile and that’s a big no-no in the world of blogging. I plan to rectify that soon as some major energy drains in my life are nearing resolution - a great big yeah!

Ah the joys of being a writer when life gets in the way.

Anyway, blogging also helps writers keep their minds sharp and their writing skills developed, even though we sometimes do not have the luxury of a lot of edit time, so you will find some mistakes along the way. Although, one could say this just shows that writers are human - to err is human, anyone? (Just in case you don’t recognize it, this is a quote from Alexander Pope - To err is human; to forgive, divine.)

In some ways blogging is like writing a column. Granted columnists have more editorial input and many, many blogs have none, but putting our thoughts out there helps to connect bloggers to readers in a similar way, and that can be exciting and a bit scary at the same time.

It’s important to know how much information to share because once it’s out there - it’s out there! A more recent technological example of this is “sexting,” where people send explicit photos of themselves to someone and either by design or unintentional button pushing, the image often gets a wider distribution than originally intended. A number of just-turned-eighteen adults have found themselves in front of the law for spreading child pornography because someone underage person sent them a photo and then they forwarded it to others. Guess their barometers for acceptable, even legal behavior is still not fully developed. Of course, we have enough recent examples in the news of much older, more responsible “adults” doing similar or even worse things.

So, just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should. It’s almost too easy to post information on the world wide web (www) frontier, and like any other frontier, there are predators and legal authorities still struggling to see who gets to be in control. So, arm yourself with at least some protection in the form of common sense when it comes to not only blogging but posting comments as well.

Maybe I’ll let my characters do all the talking for me.

BTW I’ll be blogging tomorrow at www.romanceuniversity.org. So come on by and watch me behave myself. However, my characters might not.

When Love is Murder

Catchy title huh! Love is Murder CON, or more familiarly LIM, is a wonderful Con held in Feb each year, and for 2009 it's coming up soon (Feb 6-8). Go to www.loveismurder.net for more information. But before I go on I must let you know that I am on the board for this Con but lots of members of this blog will be at LIM this year so take a gander at the website and please join us if you haven't signed up already. I have to say that LIM is one of the best and most fun Cons I've been to and been involved with and lots of folks seem to agree.

Being a board memeber is rather interesting and exiciting. Long before I became a member of the LIM board, I of course like many others attended lots of writers conferences/conventions (LIM inlcuded) and from that perspective I often thought and questioned why certain Cons ran things the way they did. Regardless of how a Con is run let me tell everyone that these endeavors are a bucket (I really want to say *#@!) load of work. Now it's not that we don't love to have suggestions to improve and enhance on what we do because believe me we do. BUT it's important that everyone undersand just how much thought and effort goes into a Con even if everything doesn't go they way they want it to.

A recent article from the Romance Writers of America National Organization laid this out quite well explaining all the planning effort invovled in one of these events from finding a hotel to accomodate the Con and the attendees at the most reasonable price possible without detracting from the Con itself, to making the cost of the Con such that the right talent is attracted as headliners and agents and publishers so that the attendees get what they want out of the Con. In other words it ain't as easy at it looks.

The questions that each attendee has to ask him/herself of attending any Con are as follows:

- what will attending this particular Con provide for him/her such a face-to-face meetings with agents, editors, publishers, & librarians (LIM has that)
- meeting top notch writers for both readers and writers (LIM has that)
- networking with other readers/writers as well as the agents, editors, publishers and librarians (LIM has that)
- having a bunch of fun socializing with all of the above (LIM has that)
- and so much more.

So, join us at Love is Murder in 2009 and become part of the coolest crime scene that happens every winter in the Chicago area!

For more information go to www.LoveisMurder.net.

See ya there!

How I Learnt to'Write or Read as Writers Read by Robert W. Walker

You read. If you want to be a writer, you read. Then you read more. After this, you sit or stand or lay down on the hammock with a book and guess what, you read. Writers who eventually get published have been lifelong readers and so lifelong learners. But writers who succeed not only read, they read as a writer.

If you are confused by that last statement, pick up ten or so How To Write books from your local library and look at the last chapter of each. Most will end with READ like a WRITER, and if they don’t end the book with this chapter, they will begin with it, and if not, look for this chapter somewhere in the How To. Read like a writer, which could be extended to OBSERVE like a writer, be tuned in like a writer. Reading like a writer means keeping a close pulse on how the guy who wrote the book I just read moved me…moved me to laughter here, to tears there, to mixed emotions in another scene—intending it so. Read with a close eye to how another author, someone who has come before you created a memorable character, a hated character, a beloved character, a beloved or disturbing setting, a fight scene, a love scene.

I “cut my writing teeth” on Dumas, Twain, H.G. Wells, Conan Doyle, Dickens (all of whom moved me). If I was particularly moved by a scene or a dialogue section or the setting of the stage, or the language itself, I would re-read that “moving” moment in the story, asking “How did Dumas do that to me?” or “How did Twain pull that out of me?”

With my City Series – City for Ransom, Shadows in the White City, and City of the Absent—soon to be E-books from HarperCollins, I began to fulfill a prophecy by none other than Dean R. Koontz. Dean said to me once, “Calm down, kid. You don’t do your best work until you turn fifty.” He was so right (by the way, Dean Koontz was one of the many authors I READ as a WRITER reads, to learn from). The City Series came after I had come well into my fifties. What I learned from writing this trilogy was that I could take ALL the lessons learned from the masters before me and put those lessons to work for me. I believe the City books my best work to date. I hope that some young writers some day pick up one of the City titles and reads it as a writer reads and sees clearly how I managed to pull tears or fears or both from him or her.

My next title returns me to the present and back from the year 1893 to 2009, current day Atlanta and the darkest woods anywhere on the Georgia-Tennessee border area in DEAD ON. Dead On was intended to please another author I call friend, Ed Gorman, founder of Mystery Scene Magazine and a man who has helped more mystery and horror writers than anyone on the planet. DEAD ON is dedicated to Ed who called me up and asked me to please send him something he could publish for me via Five Star/Tekno Books.

Now it may seem less than humble of me to offer anyone here who is a young author an opportunity to learn from me in a fun-filled way, but as Twain was loathe to say, “I was born humble, but it wore off.” Such is the case with my turning 60 on November 17th – cards and letters welcomed. I have been putting fiction on blank pages now since my 11th birthday. That’s about fifty years. I submit to you that reading DEAD ON could well teach you something about dialogue (Tess Gerritsen, who loved Dead On, particularly loved the dialogue, calling it rapid-fire fun), setting—Atlanta and the Georgia woods—characterization (Ken Bruen particularly loved the characters), the voice, plotline, beginning, ending, and more. And you can do so FREE, as the book is being offered to any reader willing then to say a word—either pro or con—about the book to one other person, book club, chat group, or other party. The free form is in the form of a pdf
file which with the click of a click goes right to you, and you can convert it to use on a palm pilot, a sony reader, a kindle or your PC and printer.

If you are seriously interested in improving your writing, you could not do better than to get your hands on the pre-publication E-book ARC (the final version), and it is available right beside the fantastic cover art that goes along with it at www.robertwalkerbooks.com

Rob Walker
www.myspace.com/robertWwalkerbooks

THE APOSTROPHE'S BUBBLY NATURE By Robert W. Walker

The lowly apostrophe loves to shine but seldom takes center stage, while damn it, it’s the hardest working, least understood mark, and yet it retains its bubbly nature. How does the apostrophe keep its positive outlook and energetic, even electric personality? Let’s us just consider how put upon it is and yet it just keeps on giving….The most maligned, misused, misunderstood grammatical mark of them all and also the smallest yet self-made and courageous.

“Why do perfectly intelligent people, even geniuses, have a problem seeing the apostrophe much less using it properly?” --St. Ignatius of Tyrn 1402…

“Some of my best friends act as if they’re going under the knife when confronted with the use of the apostrophe….” --Dr. Lucius Derleth, MD 2004…

“Little’s changed since the MONKs figured out SYMBOLS for us all to ABIDE by in order to communicate in writing….” Author Robert W. Walker, 2007…


First reason the apostrophe causes confusion: it’s (that is IT IS) used for two separate and distinct purposes that’ve absolutely NADA to do with one ’nother. The simplest use is to show ownership in THINGS. Things he, she, we, they, us, him, her, them and Joe OWNS.
Ownership as in HIS THINGS or Joe’s things….ought to end all confusion there since if you SEE the connective tissue of ownership, like as if the apostrophe in ownership situations is a little arrow that points to what Joe owns. Joe’s Harley…Joe’s eyes…Joe’s girl…or Joe’s future. Who owns that future? Who’s hole is it anyway? Joe’s hole. He dug it. But it gets a bit complicated when it is not Joe or John or any name ending in a letter other than S….Damn, now what?

How do we deal with Phyllis’s stuff or James’ junk? Marcus, Jesus? Jesus and these others end in S but that does not make a noun or a name plural! ….if a name ends in S…then we’re looking at JESU’s if we put the apostrophe in the wrong place….pointing at the wrong letter….as in Phylli’s, Jame’s. Notice that if you don’t put the apostrophe pointing to the S, then you are cutting away at Jesus’ name! Another complication, it can be shown either way: Jesus’ or Jesus’s. In most modern usage we have dropped the double S for the sake of simplicity but my publisher WANTS it there thanks to the Chicago Manual of Style. All the same, there are not many names ending in S, so this should not be so hard for folks to follow.

The notion of single and plural plays havoc with people’s heads, however. People—or any GROUP designation like FAMILY already has PLURALness inherent, so adding the S can only mean ownership, not MORE plural. A green light doesn’t get any greener, nor does a plural word like jury get any pluralER…see? So it is the Jury’s decision and once again the apostrophe hugs the WHOLE word (like the whole name) and not an add on form….like Jurys’….which only works if you are talking about two or more juries…(unlikely).

But what of nouns that’re not names like teacher, lawyer, and aviator? Suppose you are talking about one lawyer’s briefcase? Then notice one lawyer ends with R….not S….while two lawyers’ briefcases shows the S on lawyer(S) see? So then it becomes: All of my teachers’ habits annoy me; or every one of my teachers’ habits annoy me. A single on TEACHER in that sentence CHANGES the meaning significantly. Again the issue of single\plural has a lot to do with where the apostrophe wants to fall…

Now the ownership thing ought be easy, folks! Ther’re only a handful of words in the whole freakin’ language that have OWNERSHIP built in already, like MY, MINE…His…Her…so these do not need the HELP of the lowly apostrophe. But Mike or Rob does if you’re’a speakin’a what Mike or Rob owns…so this is a major ‘juice’(use!) of the apostrophe. Another is to show emphasis as I did in de’ bad ‘joke’ around ‘juice’ buy nowadays this kind of emphasis calls for quotation marks or italics.

The second major ‘juice’ or ‘use’ of the ‘comma that leaps up atop words’ really screws with people’s heads, but I do not (don’t) know why it should. For instance, there’s an ITS that sits on the same plane as MY and his and hers, yours, mine, ours, theirs…for ownership built in is in ITS like MY. The only other IT’s in existence is a CONTRACTION….

Contractions ought be a simple affair. If you write this: ITS color is as strong as IT’s powerful….then you are using both ITS/IT’s in the same sentence. A good practice. Write TEN sentences using ITS and IT’s in same breath. “IT’s a smart dog that scratches ITS own fleas.”

Its\It’s is so instructive if you realize or see the pattern here. This is in a nutshell the two PRIMARY uses of the apostrophe. ITS, like HIS requires NO apostrophe ‘cause why? Because it has ownership built into IT same as Her. Whereas IT’s is two whole words shoved together, something American English loves to do, especially in dialogue. We all of us only learn if and when we see the connectiveness and the pattern of things—like words and apostrophes are like the pilot-fish following the shark. If you look REAL close, you’ll see that the apostrophe points toward what it modifies or changes. Tom is Tom but to modify Tom into changing from the subject of the sentence to what he owns as being the subject, Tom’s becomes necessary, so the subject becomes Tom’s lunatic brother… or Tom’s broken arm…

OK, hopefully ownership’s ugly head has been cut off thanks to this old grammarian’s ability to make it clear. As Stephen King’s illegitimate son, I think I can quote Dad faithfully by saying, “If you can’t make it sing, at least make it clear.” Apostrophes are your friend…a friend of the writer. Notice if I use an apostrophe, I can say A writer’s friend instead. How droll is it to read: The backdoor was squeaky and needed oil now. Much better to say, “The backdoor’s scream signaled years of neglect.”

Now onto the CONTRACTION in more detail. Read any one of my books and you’ll find people speak in contractions ‘cause we’re Americans. So if the apostrophe is not ON STAGE to show ownership, then it’s doing its second, UNRELATED job of POINTING out where in a word we’ve TOSSED out letters! The lowly lil’ apostrophe FILLS the GAPs, and sometimes these gaps are enormous. Don’t you see that the O is missing in DO NOT in Don’t so the apostrophe takes ITS place (not it’s--it is place)? OK, DON’t is too easy. ‘Cause ‘fraid we also speak in multiple contractions as in:

Mike would have loved to see Madeline’s upper body movement, but when he had attempted it, she clocked him so hard he had fallen into a coma.

Mike would’ve loved to see….etc. but when he’d etc…he’d fallen…etc.

I have used triples such as Mayn’t’ve, couldn’t’ve, wouldn’t’ve. NOTICE exactly the number of letters missing from these contractions: May not have…could not have, etc. So often the apostrophe is carrying the space of several missing letters, often four, five missing letters! Damn but this mark is strong….

So no longer do ya’ gotta’ wonder why a proper Britisher hates us for what we’ve done to the language. Much of it’s contractions as in “Wha’up?” from: What is up? So the apostrophe is a real workhorse! You can’t ignore it, can’t run from it, can’t hide. It’s ever’where its use is found and sometimes, too often, it’s used incorrectly. So WATCHA’ back and watch the signs as in Buck’s Gunshop.

All that said, in your novel use contractions liberally but never use an ownership apostrophe in a place where it does not ADD anything as in: The ocean’s floor….just ocean floor…or the Clock’s tower….if the Clock Tower works just as well…actually better. Ownership apostrophes help cut out long prepositional phrases as in this example:

After Paul stepped through the house’s front door, he heard the door’s hinges creak behind him as it closed.

Rather better to say: After stepping through the door, Paul heard it squeaking as it closed.

G’luck with grammar’s lowliest mark!
Rob Walker (www.robertWwalkerbooks.com
www.myspace.com/robertwwalkerbooks
www.Murdermustadvertise.com
www.Loveismurder.org

WRITER BLOCKED! Top 10 Reasons For The Disastrous Fate of Writer's Block by ROBERT W. WALKER

TEN: Not enough sleep. A writer needs his sleep. Some of the best stuff comes of the sub-conscious. Weariness, when it comes knocking, will shut you down fast, resulting in a Writer’s Block.
So write while unconscious however you can. Keep pencil or pen and notebook at hand. When you wake with an idea at three in the morning. Jot down a single word or phrase and it should come back to you full-blown in the AM when you read this jog-to-your-memory. Works for me. Try it.

NINE: Too much sleep! Writing is a conscious effort and requires work after all, despite the juicy help from the unconscious mentioned above. Too much of anything turns to poison, even sleep. Often you are not writing because you’ve found other things to occupy yourself with like dusting or vacuuming, or playing ball and jacks, or taking too many naps. One brief nap during the day, good sleeping habits at night will keep Writer’s Block at bay.

EIGHT: Over-indulging in food. Yes, I am convinced of it. A major distraction to writing—already a sedentary exercise. Have a Snickers bar and a cup of coffee but keep writing. Okay, reward yourself but not until after you’ve finished a scene.
Make your office as far from the refrigerator as possible. If you do go for a bite, the walk will help those cramped legs. Food, like so much else, is a distraction that can lead to what else—Writer’s Block.

SEVEN: Allowing kids and other family to distract you from writing. A constant threat in a household with children. You must CONVINCE children that your writing is not just a fun time or playtime for you but SERIOUSLY IMPORTANT to you. If you
cannot convince children, or sister, or brother, or husband, or wife to grant you your writing time, you will be plagued with Writer’s BLOCK coming from all these directions. Other people will be the block! Stiff arm your loved ones. You have to tell them that unless there is blood, you don’t want to hear from them
during your scheduled meeting with yourself at the office.

SIX: Allowing Hallmark to determine your holidays and weekends off can induce Writer’s Block. Seems every time we turn around nowadays there’s another day declared THIS DAY or THAT DAY. For Father’s Day, I want to get a chapter written. That’d be the best gift for this writer. The worst gift is to be stymied by my
“special day.” Bahh-hum-bug if you will but I’ve written over forty novels be working weekends, holidays, and days off from the job.

FIVE: When the paint on the wall over your computer keyboard begins to peel and rain down over the keys, finding a home in the crevasses of your beloved hardware, well now this—after a while—this can stop one cold with the block. Stop is to exchange the keyboard for a scraper and a paint brush, and thus results
the dreaded Writer’s Block.

FOUR: When the grass on the lawn begins to resemble the famed Serengeti Plain—and if you have no lawn, then when the garbage bags begin to reach the ceiling—this can induce Writer’s Block.

THREE: When the electricity and water is shut off to the home, and you haven’t the money for Motel 6, this can induce Writer’s Block.

TWO: Life throws us lemons like the examples above, but the really, true major life crisis we face from turning fifty to a death in the family to an approaching tornado, earthquake, tsunami that create circumstances that are not only out of our
control but bearing down on us—well these certainly cause the most dreadful and long-lasting of Writer’s Block, but even from these we can bounce back and take up the pen again in time. I mean you can write before the storm and after the storm, but you can’t write amid the storm of such life experiences, and if you
can, you are SuperAuthor and Superman rolled into one. What I am driving at is that Writer’s Block exists for everyone, including those not writers—it stops readers from reading, sculptors from sculpting, CPAs from counting widgets. We seldom hear of CPA Block but that’s because CPAs are not a “glamorous” as we creative types, right?

ONE: Fear + Anxiety + Depression = Major, hard-to-come-back-from Writer’s Block. Negative feelings, negative vibes that well up from whatever source are going to impact and impinge on any creative endeavor and yes non-creative endeavor. Any feelings of inadequacy to the task will take a toll. Any bad karma can kill
an idea or a sentence in its tracks. Any self-abasement—even the words, spoken or thought—can deter progress on a work in progress or kill one just getting underway. Depression, the mother and father of black time misery, will shut any person down—including we authorial types, despite an alpha male personality.

How much more in the way of rich stories might we have seen from Hemmingway or Styron had they not suffered debilitating depression? Talented young people grow up believing that the one thing no one, no God, can take from them is their ability to
perform in their chosen art. Not so. Depression has you relinquishing all decisions, and writing stories and novels is all about making hundreds, even thousands of decisions in crafting a world.


To combat these various causes of THE BLOCK, try desperately to never have a single problem ever arise in your life. HA! Yeah, I know. Okay, so now you know that I equate Writer’s Block with LIFE BLOCK. Do all you can to remain upbeat about the small problems that interrupt your “flow” and actually work at being able to leap right back into that flow if you are pulled out of your story. Do this by realizing that there are computers in the world that do four jobs at once; you ought to have the capacity to do two jobs at once—parenting and writing—at LEAST. Do all you can to remain calm, postive, cool, and collected to avoid Life Block in daily life in general so as to avoid Writer’s Block in your writer’s life in particular.


That’s my top ten list and my best advice and ammunition to use against THE BLOCK. I hope it helps. Does it make sense? I suspect it does.
Happy Writing and Avoiding THE BLOCK. Today I learned that GEICO –despite the Gekko and for all their smiling and chatting me up are not going to pay for the damage one my car. Gotta smile and keep writing to pay for them damages myself.


Rob Walker
See me at www.RobertWWalkerBooks.comwww.myspace.com/robertwwalkerbooks.com
Amazon me – for more books than you can shake a stick at
Google me – for articles on many an aspect of the writing game
For editing services write inkwalk@sbcglobal.net

Did you hear!

Originally posted on http://sleepingwiththeauthor.blogspot.com/

Hoping to push sales, publishers are starting to allow free downloading of some of their books at the same time that they are published in print - even hardcover. What the heck is going on?

It wasn't that long ago that I was sitting at a luncheon during a writers conference and the keynote speaker was discussing the reluctance on the part of traditional publishers to embrace ebooks. The evidence? Ebook versions of mainstream novels usually cost the same as the hardcover so why would anybody spend $25 on an electronic download when they could get the real deal for the same amount of money? It was clear that publishers were pretending to embrace ebooks while undermining their acceptance. When ebooks didn't sell in numbers that rendered them commercially viable, the mainstream publishers seemed to be saying, "See we told you it wouldn't work!"

Then came the smaller, independent publishers who embraced ebooks with a passion at a time when many in the industry treated ebooks like a dirty word. Elora's Cave stands out as one of the pioneers as does Echelon Press and so many others. Writers everywhere owe these pioneers a tremendous amount of gratitude for hanging in there. Now the mainstream publishers are embracing ebooks with a passion as well - which signals that it's now a money maker.

But why now?

There are lots of reasons but a pivotal one is generational. The newer generations - X, Y, Millennials, Igen, or even Z are so much more comfortable with technology that they almost demand it as the media of choice. They're busy, they're mobile, they're wired and can out multi-task previous generations.

Publishers know that if they are to grow they need to recruit new readers and if they want new readers from these newer generations they have to play on their turf.

A recent interview of a young writer in Japan who has the number one "cell novel" which is not only being read on the cell but she wrote it on her cell. Yes, wrote it on her small little cell phone in bits in pieces - on her lunch breaks, on the train, anywhere she had an inspiration she flipped open her cell phone an started texting. The book was available for free on the internet but then something extraordinary happened. A publisher decided to make a print copy available and even though it was free on the web, it sold millions in a very short period of time.

There are so many ironies here but one is that the technology that main stream publishers have been so afraid of for so long may actually be the very thing that saves them and gives them a future.Take a look at the following article at USAToday and you'll understand what I mean.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2008-03-03-free-books-downloads_N.htm

St. Joseph's Day Table by Morgan Mandel

To add flavor to a book and make your character seem authentic, it's a good idea to include family and cultural traditions. Who hasn't heard of the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding? That movie is filled with many cultural references and customs.

You'd have to live in a cave not to be aware of March 17, St. Patrick's Day, a day for wearing of the green, when even people who aren't Irish pretend to be.

In passing, I just happened to mention to a few people about St. Joseph's Day, an Italian feast day, celebrated on March 19, a day for wearing of the red. They'd never heard of it before. Also, they'd never heard of a St. Joseph's Day Table.

If you belong to the category of people who have never heard of or participated in a St. Joseph's Day Table, you've missed out on a wonderful event.

The St. Joseph's Day Table is said to have originated in the Middle Ages when a drought struck Sicily and families prayed to God and also to St. Joseph. To stay alive, many of them resorted to eating fava beans. When their prayers were answered and the rains came, the Italians named March 19 as a special feast day dedicated to St. Joseph. They set up a grand table of food to share and celebrate. Since it was Lent, the food was meatless, but plentiful. Flowers and other decorations added to the festivities.

From such roots the present St. Joseph's Day Table was born, traditionally celebrated sometime near March 19, consisting of a massive buffet of meatless dishes, usually with more than one variety of pasta, along with salads, breads, plus almost any kind of pastry you can think of, with lots of flowers and other decorations. The St. Joseph's Day Table not only provides a grand feast, but also lucky fava beans, a talisman purported to prevent pantries from going bare.

I've posted a few photos of the St. Joseph's Day Table I attended last Saturday sponsored by Our Lady of the Wayside Church in Arlington Heights. I hope you enjoy them.

I'd be interested to know if anyone else has heard of St. Joseph's Day or a St. Joseph's Day Table. Also, have you been to one?

I'm going to stop now. All this talk of food is getting me hungry.
Morgan Mandel
www.morganmandel.com
http://www.myspace.com/morganmandel
http://bookplace.ning.com
http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com
http://mysteryturtles.blogspot.com

Chicago-North RWA By Morgan Mandel

Left to Right: June Sproat, author of Ordinary Me, Morgan Mandel, Margot Justes, author of a Hotel in Paris.

To become a published author, you can try going it alone or you can join a support group for discipline, reinforcement, comfort and fun. After stumbling along, doing some writing here or there and making amateur mistakes, I realized I needed help.

Since I joined RWA over 12 years ago, I've learned more about writing than I ever have from how-to books, magazines or conferences. Each meeting is like a class, with writing discussions and critiques, writers encouraging other writers, and ideas flowing. We share our disappointments, along with our victories. Also, our celebrations.

The top photo and the one below are from our annual Holiday Party.



Left to right: Lindsay Longford, In back: Suzette Enderlin, Margaret Watson, In back: Christy Fixemer, Myrna Mackenzie, Morgan Mandel.


If you're serious about being a writer, consider joining a writing group such as Chicago-North RWA like I did. For more information on Chicago-North RWA, check out our website at http://chicagonorthrwa.org

Morgan Mandel
www.morganmandel.com
http://www.myspace.com/morganmandel
http://bookplace.ning.com
http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com
http://mysteryturtles.blogspot.com

So What the Heck Am I?

A humor writer?

A mystery writer?

A YA writer?

Judging by results only, I'm a humor writer. Both of my published works are humor. But, then again, they both are also fantasy and sci-fi and mystery.

(as in it's a mystery I got them published?)

Shaddup!

(make me!)

Fine!

Whap!

(Ow, dammit, that hurt)

Maybe one clue is that I'm a member of the Mystery Writers of America, but not the Humor Writers of America.

Wanna know why?

Cuz there ain't no Humor Writers of America. That's why no one takes humor writers seriously.

This all came up because I'm planning out some of my wanderings this year ... going to the Baltimore Book Festival later this month, Love is Murder in February and Erma Bombek Writer's Shop in April. Sprinkle a few local fairs (Orland, Kankakee, et. al) in there, and I'll get around, atriangle and asquare over the next few months.

But I venture into other areas. I'm currently working on a YA vampire novel, I'm shopping a kidnapping novel, one of my first ventures was a horror/sci-fi.

So what the heck am I?

A writer...

Norm

The Adventures of Guy ... written by a guy (probably)
The Next Adventures of Guy ... more wackiness