Professionalism
Topic: Professionalism
We never know who may be visiting our forums and blogs. Our next reader might be an editor, a publisher, or simply someone with connections. I strongly advise that we mind our behavior online. This applies not only in what we put forth in our daily work, but also in our interactions with others.

As some of you know, our work is searchable on the internet. Maybe you've submitted a piece of work somewhere and the editor feels it may have potential but isn't quite what he needs now, it is entirely possible (though not likely) that he could search to see if we have anything else available.

This does not mean we cannot be friendly or make friends. This simply means to treat each new reader with courtesy and respect. It also means to watch the comments you make to others. The next potential editor might absolutely love your work but not the way you take suggestions.

An editor doesn't want someone who will be difficult to work with. He wants someone who will stand behind their work and defend it when needed, but also be willing to listed to good advice. Use good judgement in how you deal with your current readers. The next reader might be the important one.

Professionalism is the key. Simply because our audience is anonymous and we really don't know who we are dealing with, we need to always put our best foot forward. Doing so allows us to maintain a respectful distance when needed and judge our surroundings accordingly. Once we know who we are dealing with, the guard can be relaxed somewhat.

Let your work receive the attention. Save yourself for a live audience.

The Value of Words
Topic: The Value of Words
Here's another article I wrote previously. It may contain some repeated messages, but reinforcement isn't necessarily a bad thing.

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Words are the keys to life. At some point it became more effective to describe objects with words, rather than symbols, and so the alphabet and language evolved to perform important functions in civilization. Words now make up our books; they are our main means of communication; put them to music and they become art. Of course, the evolution of language is more complex than this, but the general idea is the same. Although we are left with the adage that a picture is worth 1000 words, where would we be today without our instruction books?

Language is not an exact science. Just look at the number of languages in existence today. We have variables of context, syntax, and dialect at work?just to name a few of the many variables attached to language. Inspiration, mood, and personal circumstances can also affect results of communication. Try a little experiment. Listen to the results as people interpret a photograph just to experience the affect of some of these variables. Objects mean different things to different people. What is happening in our lives also determines how we see things. A picture of the World Trade Center in New York would bring a different reaction today than it did three years ago.

Words are often insufficient and can lead to trouble. They are subject to interpretation at various levels of comprehension; when comprehension fails, interpretation falls short of its intended goal. We abuse words. We misuse and misspell words and punctuate our sentences incorrectly. Often, we use our words to be deliberately hurtful as well.

Hurtful words are not always deliberate. They may be misconstrued and become hurtful; perception, or interpretation, is relative. Factors such as personal taste and preference, education, and environment play roles in our understanding and comprehension. What we know of the speaker who delivers the message will play a part in how we react to that message. This is especially true when reviewing the work of other writers.

We are more likely to pay attention to that which we are interested in. How much of the newspaper do you read? Do you skim the headlines until something catches your eye? Do you read every poem or only the ones with the catchy titles? Therefore, the selection process also becomes important.

Okay, so we have something to say. We know roadblocks are at work. Where do we go from here?

Don?t get lost in your words. Detours in our discussion are fine if they add value and reach the result, but tangents, on the other hand, promote aimless wandering. You control the direction and destination of the work. Rambles, or streams of conscience, can be quite entertaining, but often have little actual value in their message.

Like driving, most of us don?t drive aimlessly; we drive with a particular destination in mind. Most of what we do in life is similar. We do things for a reason and hope to achieve a specific end. This brings us to a short list of questions to keep in mind. Think of these questions as the fuel that we put into our cars so they get us where we are going:

1. What is the message?
2 Who is the audience?
3. How will we convey our message?
4. What result do we want?

These questions must be considered in most everything we do. If we fail to answer even one question, we may not reach our goal. I will provide an example. My message is to show the importance of words and how we easily misunderstand them. My audience is a general one, but most likely to be the readers of this newsletter who are also writers. The conveyance is this article and uses reason to make a point. My desired result is to increase awareness and thoughtfulness.

Even in poetry, we must have an idea of these answers before we begin to write. Poetry, of course, gives us license to steer away from plain language. We do, however, have to convey our original message. Sometimes we miss the mark completely. Our titles should entice the reader and lead them into our poem and should not trick or tease the reader. Even when we veer off course in our creation, grammar, punctuation, and spelling should help our reader along. Readers should not have to stop and proofread what we have written.

Take the time to make sure you are speaking effectively; it doesn?t matter whether we speak verbally or with the written word. In verbal communication, we try to look our best when we interview for a job. We avoid street language and slang when we speak. Our choice of words, our tone of voice, and body language help to show our interest. The written word is simply dressed differently.

Written words, of course, are more permanent. They are also easier to dispose of when they don?t meet our needs. Misspelled words are often words in themselves and can twist our context terribly. Grammar errors can also distort meaning and signify laziness. Capitalization can relay emotion. Make sure that the subject and verb match in number and use active voice whenever possible. What is most important, give some thought to what you want to say and how you want to say it. Once you lose the interest of the reader; it is over. If you've dressed your words properly, you attain your goal--you've been read and understood. The second cannot be achieved without the first.

Having said all that, one might ask, "who cares?" Many may not care about this article. As a writer, the message means something to me. It is my responsibility to make you listen or read long enough to explore my meaning. If I have done my homework, I will have succeeded.

Human Nature
Topic: Human Nature
I've been thinking a lot about the nature of humans lately. Actually, I've been getting quite pissed off about the nature of humans. The thinking part is good, the pissed off part is not. Getting pissed off doesn't help anything. Getting pissed off makes us do things we wouldn't necessarily do under normal circumstances. How do we overcome human nature in our work as writers?

If we consistently produce a good product and are true to ourselves in the process, we gain in the end. What is the saying? Good things come to those who wait? Well, lord knows, I'm waiting. If we share our knowledge and experience with others, we may be able to eventually refer them to some of our work. If we treat the work of others with respect and interest, hopefully the favor will be returned. This is what we call "reciprocity."

It is not that I feel that I have some super-special message I need to convey. It is that I feel worthy of being recognized for some small insight I may impart. I would be quite happy to have someone argue with me that they totally disagree with everything I have written. That would thrill me simply because my words reach someone enough to cause a reaction. A negative reaction is better than no reaction.

I believe myself to be flexible enough that if someone makes a better point that I do, my views can change. I firmly hold that a coin is not sufficient since it only has two sides. I take pride in the fact that I can often find a third side. I admit the third side of the coin is often the most obvious and therefore the least thought of point, but it is a valid point nonetheless.

Poetry Board Etiquette
Topic: Poetry Brd Etiquette
Refrain from posting all of your work in one day. Check the rules of the board or forum you are visiting to find out what their requirements are. One poem per day or week is a good rule, especially on a new board. Be sure you are willing to respond to several poems of other artists for each that you post. If you are posting in more than one forum, follow these guidelines (or the posted ones) for each forum.

Make sure your post is appropriate for the forum. There is nothing more disconcerting than finding adult content in the children's forum. Check for a rhyming forum if you have a tendency to follow a rhyme scheme. Posting in the incorrect forum may lead to alienation and, possibly even, deletion.

Share your opinions and you might find people willing to sharing theirs with you as well. Expect to spend some time on the board in order to gain acceptance. New posters tend to go through an initiation phase no matter where you land your pen. Persistence in responding, restraint in posting, and pleasantness in attitude will go a long way.

Be courteous! If you don't like a poem, you are entitled to your opinion, but don't be nasty about it. State your reasons, if you must, and suggest how it might be done differently. Just do it nicely! Possibly start your comment with something like "this is not my cup of tea, but I liked how you...."

Please add a title to your work. Some sites use titles as their link to the poem. If you don't add a title, your piece may not be read. Also, your title is the first thing that a reader sees. Use your title to attract your audience! Of course, it should be appropriate to the poem, but creativity is what it is all about.

Learn to edit your work. Editing is your key to perfection. Use this function to fix spelling errors or to make other corrections (including adding a title!). You can even do a full-fledged edit with this handy function as well. Use it!

Finally, always, always, always keep a copy of your work. The internet is a wonderful thing and poetry boards are great; but technology, conflicting personalities, and accidents can cause havoc without proper protection. If you write directly onto a site, one suggestion might be to cut and paste your creation into an email and send it to yourself. Otherwise, it is a good practice to create your work in a wordprocessor, save it to your hard-drive, and then cut and paste to the site.

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National Poetry Month

Never underestimate
A word of kindness.
This shared smile
Is possibly the
One gift--
Never expensive,
Always welcomed--
Loved by all.

People seldom
Offer words of praise.
Everyone has complaints;
Those we hear often.
Realize the impact
Your words will have.

May the sun suffuse
Our universe and remove
Negativity; may
The moon guide your
Heavy thoughts.

We Write to be Read
Topic: We Write to be Read
We write for many reasons. Regardless of why we do it, one thing remains the same. We write to be read. If no one reads us, we have wasted our time, effort and talent. It is not enough to hope to be "discovered" after we are gone. Life doesn't normally work that way. Today is all about explosion and controlling that explosion (for example, population explosion). Online words get purged. Hardcopy work gets shredded, buried, burned, and who knows what else.

Let's face it, there's not a whole lot we can do about how the world is. Only a handful of people can be credited with affecting major changes. Our best hope is to be able to reach a portion of the world and to make a difference to that portion. In most cases, change starts out small. Who does the commercial that says something like "changing the world, one smal step at a time?" This may be all we can do.

If I can make a difference in one person's life, I suppose that, by some measure, I have been successful as a writer. Mind you, I'd never be a rich writer. It may be that we need to examine the issues of who we are writing for and how we are writing. Maybe it would only take one instance of recognition before others will join the band. I don't know. Maybe it is only a matter of promotion.

The more people we can get to read our work, the better our chances of affecting the reader. The more we affect the reader, the more readers we will have. Word of mouth is a very powerful tool.

National Poetry Month
Topic: National Poetry Month
Well, here we are in April again and ready to celebrate National Poetry Month. What does this do for us? What does this do for poetry?

With the loss of attention and reputation that poetry has suffered over the years, National Poetry Month permits us to bring poetry back to the limelight for a whole month. There will probably be more works of poetry and poets showing up in the news during this month than in any other. For the past 10 years, April is the month that attempts to reverse the damage done to poetry by showcasing the art and its artists.

Many organizations, especially on the internet, are hosting special events all month long to explore, exploit and celebrate all that poetry is and should be. Will National Poetry Month do its part to put poetry back in its place? I don?t think anyone really knows the answer to that question. As long as leisure time continues to diminish in our society where one is forced to maximize the quality of that leisure time, poetry may have a long hard road ahead.

The decline of poetry and whether a decline has actually happened will have to remain for another day. Research offers varying opinions on this and I have not done any real work on the subject in some time. In the meantime, use this month to learn more about poetry. Some links have been provided to get you started:

National Poetry Month

Info Please - National Poetry Month

Against National Poetry Month

Ten National Poetry Month Activities

League of Canadian Poets - National Poetry Month

Newsletters
Topic: Newsletters
I subscribe to several newsletters each month that deal with writing. Some I don?t give more than a cursory glance through; others I read avidly. I haven?t canceled the ones I only glance at simply because I don?t know that I won?t need it tomorrow.

One such newsletter is the Poetry Market Ezine. Now, each year, a new softbound book is published that proclaims to have the latest and greatest markets for publishing poetry. I believe there are similar books for short stories, etc. This newsletter gives me a select few entries each month similar to what can be found in the book. This newsletter may actually be more accurate since it is updated monthly. The book published for the year 2005 is actually released 3 to 6 months prior to 2005.

Let?s say I?ve written a phenomenal poem. I can go back to my email newsletter and see if my masterpiece fits any of the guidelines currently being advertised. If I find something that works, I can go ahead and submit. If not, I still have a good piece of poetry under my belt. In another month or two, someone may be looking for it.

Let?s say that I don?t have a phenomenal poem, but I want to write. I can look through the guidelines to see if a particular theme for a publication appeals to me. This may give me the incentive I need to write. This doesn?t mean that I will necessarily submit, but it lets me know what people are looking for and gives me some incentive to produce.

Other newsletters get a thorough read. I have once from WriteSuccess that fascinates me. I read to find out what other writers are doing. I read about their successes and their failures. I find out about new products and services as well as new ways of looking at things. I make mental notes of things I want to look into in more depth. I store any new ideas that I might read for a future date.

Newsletters are a great way to explore the particular world you have an interest in. If you have an interest in science fiction writing, subscribe to some science fiction ezines or newsletters. Whatever your interest is, do a search to see what you can get your hands on. Even if you don?t read them faithfully, reading just one might send you flying through space.

Web sites for the two newsletters mentioned are listed below:

The Poetry Market

Write Success

So-So Results
Topic: So-So Results
If we?re in the habit of writing everyday, some days will yield much poorer results than others. Does this mean we shouldn?t do it? No, this means no such thing. It means that we take the good with the bad and deal with it. Even our worst writing days can provide us with marvelous gems that are well worth the effort.

Just to fortify our mission to write everyday, keep a pile of your bad work. Highlight the gems hidden within. On a day that we can?t find the inspiration to write something new, pick up something from the questionable pile and redo it. Choices would range from re-writing the piece to doing some heavy editing. We might just want to take the general idea and start with a clean slate. See if we can rewrite it better than we did the first time.

If we remain true to writers, we are also reading as much of other peoples? work that we can. While you read, make a note of anything you see that really ?works.? I certainly don?t mean to copy passages, but make a note of general ideas that made the article. We never, ever want to copy someone else?s words. Maybe it was a certain type of description that just made everything clear.

All of this, of course, assumes a self-imposed deadline for writing. Self-imposed deadlines allow us the luxury of re-do. If we have a deadline from an editor, we may have to revisit the piece later the same day. If the piece is as bad as you think, walk away from it and do something else for a while. Then, pick the work up with a fresh eye. It may be that there were four really good sentences on the entire page. Maybe we can start with these four sentences and re-write the rest.

Find a method that works for you. Experiment with different ways to improve your work. We want to be flexible enough that we don?t want to box ourselves in. Yet we want to have enough discipline that we can meet our deadlines and turn our quality work in the process. We just need to remember that everyday will not result in a masterpiece even if that?s what we would like.

From Point A to Point B
Topic: Point A to Point B
It is generally a good idea to have a complete plan when we begin a project. We have an idea of what we want to say and where we are going. Unfortunately, life doesn?t always work out that way. Sometimes, we are able to identify Point A and Point B but aren?t sure exactly how to get there.

My advice, in this instance is to go ahead and write what we know. Once it is down on paper, the path from the one to the other may become clear. If not, we have our starting and ending points and can set this aside for a later date. It may be that we simply haven?t given thought to how to connect the dots. On the other hand, maybe we thought the two points would be enough to make our case. Once we actually write it out, we find this is not the case. Either way, we may be able to fill in the blanks at another time.

I?m an advocate for writing everything we can about a subject and then pruning the unnecessary information afterward. I?m probably wrong for thinking in this way, but I don?t believe in stifling creativity when it is flowing freely. The worst case scenario, in my opinion, would be that we may write enough to complete three works instead of just one. There?s nothing wrong in that.

I suppose it depends on what we?re working on. If we have specific guidelines for what needs to be accomplished, this overwriting can get us into trouble. We need to adhere to posted guidelines for any job that we tackle of a professional nature. Never presume that you know what?s better for a publication than the editor. You?d never see another offer of work from them again. Once you?ve established yourself, you might be able to make suggestions. Until then, hold your tongue.

If the project is one of our own choosing, the more words we write, the merrier we?ll be. We may have just written the first three installments of a serial.

Keep Going
Topic: Keep Going
Let?s say you?ve done all of your homework and you?re ready to start writing. You know what you want to write and you have a plan for writing it. You sit and the computer and the words come. You?re moving along quite nicely when all of a sudden words just gush forth. The gush is welcome except that it isn?t the exact path that you had previously outlined. What do you do? Don?t stop the flow!

If the words are coming that easily, let them come. They can always be moved later. As long as the words continue, go with them. It may be what you?ve just written will be better than your original plan. If not, they can be moved to another area of the document or to another document completely. They may even provide the foundation for a totally separate work. Nine out of ten times when this happens to me, I am able to use what I wrote. Never turn off the fountain, though, when it offers a wealth of words.

Instead, learn to use your word processing program to your advantage. Take advantage of the cut and paste feature. Move the words or paragraphs you?ve just written to another place. You might move them to a blank document until you know whether you can use them. Please, please, remember to save your work often. Save the document you?re working on and save the piece you moved. It is always better to be safe than sorry. You wouldn?t want to lose that valuable work should the computer fail.

To this day, I still use the backspace key to fix mistakes. I backspace over everything I just typed, erasing letters and words, to re-type something very similar. I am consciously trying to break myself of the habit. It is so much more efficient to use the arrow keys or the mouse to return to the spot where a letter needs to be added. I can save myself the retyping if I would remember to do this. I can also go back after the fact and fix these errors if I would do a better job of proofreading my own work.

Fixing errors after the fact allows your flow to continue without interruption when you?re writing. The first priority is to get it down. If you stop too often to fix the little things, chances are you?ll lose the train of thought that got you going in the first place.

There are three things, then, to consider today. 1) Never interrupt a flow of words even if they are not exactly what you wanted. 2) Be flexible enough in your plan that these outbursts can be worked into the piece. And, 3) know how to use your software efficiently so that you have the advantage of the first two considerations.