Writing for one's own amusement?

"Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and child birth. But amusing? Never." -Edna Ferber

The Rant 'N' Rave Section

I think Edna Ferber hit the nail on the head though there is a certain amount of amusement also inherent in writing. At least I find that to be so when it comes to fiction. In and amongst all of the aforementioned ditch-digging and all, I always find little veins of not only amusement, but sometimes amazement. Like when words flow onto my monitor with a brilliance that I know can't be mine or when a character I've worked long and hard on suddenly comes to life. Those times are, to me, magic.

Now if I could just control those moments. Maybe once just sit down and write a story without having to continually fight with that inner voice that says everything I write is junk. Maybe not let it get to me when I think of the massive amount of work I've yet to do in order to master the art of writing. Sometimes I get to a place where I think I should just walk away. Leave it. And I do but only for a few days. After being away from the keyboard for a while, the art calls to me. Softly at first, then louder and more insistent. The characters I've created, the imaginary realms and the magic moments when the words flow like molten silver all lure me back to them like treasures just waiting to be unearthed. Perhaps the most amusing part of it all is the fact that I'm incurably hooked. Oh well, guess I'll get back to working on my novel....


"TIDBITS"

In keeping with this month's rant I found the following good advice.

Show Up and Write Down the Flab
by Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ (shery AT writesparks.com)

Do you know why when some writers write, the words come easily?

Why it doesn't seem to require any effort at all for the words to take shape on the page?

Why their prose is almost fluid?

Why, when other writers may take seven, eight or nine drafts, it only takes them two or three drafts to the final draft?

The answer is simple: These writers keep showing up and writing.

They have made it a habit to show up on the page regularly -- whether it be every day or every other day or some other schedule.

Showing up and then writing means most of the time, you end up writing mostly flab -- excess fat.

You do not tone muscles and get a shapely and perfect body right after an hour of aerobics or tae-bo. It requires months and months of religiously following a regimen -- a balanced diet and continuous work outs.

Writing is no exception. It follows the same principle: you follow a writing regimen. You face the page no matter what. And you keep on writing down the flab, the awful stuff, the icky drafts.
Eventually, they will give way to the good stuff -- your prose becomes more textured, your voice clearer and more true.

Write as much and as often as you can, and never allow bad writing to stop you from writing.

Copyright © Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ
About Shery: Shery is the creator of WriteSparks!™- a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks!™ Lite for free at http://writesparks.com

Last but Not Least
"I didn't know that!"
"Ambrose Gwinnet Bierce"

Vanished without a trace in 1913. No one knows what
became of him. See below.

Ambrose Gwinett Bierce , 1842-1914?, American satirist, journalist, and short-story writer, b. Meigs co., Ohio. After distinguished Civil War service, he turned to journalism. In San Francisco he wrote for the News-Letter, becoming its editor in 1868. He soon established a reputation as a satirical wit, and his waspish squibs and epigrams were much quoted. In London (1872-75), he wrote for the magazine Fun and finished three books, including Cobwebs from an Empty Skull (1874). After his return to San Francisco, he wrote for the Argonaut, edited the Wasp (1881-86), and was a columnist for Hearst's Sunday Examiner (1887-96); his writings in the Examiner made him the literary arbiter of the West Coast. Later he was Washington correspondent for the American and a contributor to Cosmopolitan.

Bierce's collection of sardonic definitions, The Cynic's Word Book (1906), was retitled The Devil's Dictionary in 1911. Often dark in tone, grisly or macabre in subject matter, and masterful in their spare language, his short stories were collected in such volumes as Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891) and Can Such Things Be? (1893). He was also highly praised for The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter (1892), which he adapted from a translation of a German story. Bierce's distinction lies in his distilled satire, in the crisp precision of his language, and in his realistically developed horror stories. Disillusionment and sadness pervaded the latter part of his life. In 1913 he went to Mexico, where all trace of him was lost.

Bibliography: See his Collected Works (12 vol., 1909-12; repr. 1966); Collected Writings (ed. by C. Fadiman, 1946); Phantoms of a Blood-Stained Period: The Complete Civil War Writings (ed. by R. Duncan and D. J. Klooster, 2002); biographies by R. O'Connor (1967) and R. Morris, Jr. (1996); studies by M. E. Grenander (1971), C. N. Davidson (1984), and R. Saunders (1984).
With thanks to High Beam Encyclopedia. http://www.encyclopedia.com
Well, that's it for this time, see ya later gater…..Aelf

Sites to see, places to go and groups to join
Long Story Short:http://www.alongstoryshort.net/
My Writing Friend: writingfriend@yahoo.com
Nick Daws Writers Circle: Nick Daw's Writer's Circle.
Wridea: http://www.wridea.com/
J.D.Vine Publishing: http://www.jdvine.com/
Tennessee Writers Alliance: http://www.tn-writers.org/
USA Patriotism, Poetry: http://www.usa-patriotism.com/
The Write Place: Poynter: 30 Writers Tips: http:www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=707

Freebie Writers Tools

Auto Crit Automatic manuscript checker: http://www.autocrit.com/
Word Web download : http://www.wordweb.info/

I’ll be adding to the above list as time goes on and I find more newbie friendly sites.
Copyright © 03/17/08

Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp.

"Writing is the voice that calls us from dreams, that peeks out of the corner of our eyes when we think no one is looking, the longing that breaks out hearts even when we think we should be happiest, and to which we cannot give a name." Judy Collins (1939) U.S. Folk Singer, Film Maker….

The Rant 'N' Rave Section

First I must aplolgize for not posting anything for two months. It's not that I didn't try to, it's that I couldn't. Every time I tried to post, I got an error message telling me my article was posted but with errors. When I checked to see if it was on line, NADA, nothing, blank, zip. I tried to figure it out ( that's what took so long) on my own. Finally, I called in the big guns, in this case Kathy at MyHelpHub.com. It was fixed in a flash. "Thanks Kathy." Now, on to the posting.

I thought I'd have lots of time to write over the last few months. I was sure that, with winters cold breath keeping me inside I could skip all the distractions that come with spring, summer and fall. WRONG! I found just as many distractions inside to keep me out of my writing chamber. Oh well, I did get a few short stories written and off to pubs. I also sent some out to contests. Speaking of which, I found a really good site that tracks upcoming contests. It's The Write Place-contests column by Kimn Swenson Gollnick. Now some of you may already know this site but for those who don't, check it out. The site has lots of goodies for new as well as published writers. Be sure to cruise the whole site, not just the contest listings. The web address is http://www.kimn.net/. I've also listed it at the bottom of the page under sites to see, places to go and groups to join.

Next, one of the hardest things for a new writer to overcome is lack of acknowledgment. It's the stuff that life is made of. It's that which tells us we live, we matter, we are noticed by others as being worthwhile. Without it we fade and shrivel up to nothing. Without it our works become meaningless as do our lives. So, how do new writers overcome that first hurdle on their way to success? A mule-stubborn mindset is the key. It doesn't help when friends and family tell you how good you are. Most of the time you know they are just being kind. It's only when, in and among all the rejection letters you get, you find one that says your work has been accepted. That is the key that unlocks the prison of lack of acknowledgment. That is the weapon that fights and conquers the self-doubt that permeates the minds of first time writers. That is the first big step along the path to becoming a pro. Okay, enough pontificating, on to Tidbits......

"TIDBITS"
Here's a helpful article I picked up in my surfing travels.

Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

1. Keep it simple. "He said" and "She said" will usually do. Your reader is trained to
accept this repetition.

2. Forget you ever heard of strong verbs. Skip the "He yelped" and the "She sighed."
They slow your dialogue down. If you feel need them, look at the words.the actual
dialogue. your character used when he was yelping. Maybe it doesn’t reflect the way
someone would sound if he yelped. Maybe if you strengthen the dialogue, you can ditch
the overblown tag.

3. When you can, reveal who is saying something by the voice or tone of the dialogue.
That way you may be able to skip tags occasionally, especially when you have only two
people speaking to one another. Your dialogue will ring truer, too.
4. Avoid having characters use other characters’ names. In real life, we don’t use people’s
names in our speech much. We tend to reserve using names for when we’re angry or
disapproving or we just met in a room full of people and we’re practicing out social skills.
Having a character direct her speech to one character or another by using her name is a
lazy writer’s way of directing dialogue and it will annoy the reader. When a reader is
annoyed, she will not be immersed in the story you are trying to tell.

5. Avoid putting internal dialogue in italics. Trust your reader. She will know who is
thinking the words from the point of view of the narrative.

6. Be cautious about using dialogue to tell something that should be shown. It doesn’t
help much to transfer telling from the narrator to the dialogue. It just makes the character
who is speaking sound long winded. Putting quotation marks around exposition won’t
draw the reader into the scene or involve him more than if you’d left it part of the
narrative.

7. And magic number seven is, don’t break up dialogue sequences with long or overly
frequent blocks of narrative. One of dialogue’s greatest advantages is that it moves a story
along. If a writer inserts too much stage direction, it will lose the forward motion and
any tension it is building.

For more on writing dialogue check out Tom Chiarella’s Writing Dialogue (Writers’
Digest) and for more on editing in general.from editing query letters to turning
unattractive adverbs into metaphoric gold.find The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book
Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success on Amazon.
----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson is an instructor for the UCLA Extension Writer's Program. The first book
in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books, The Frugal Book Promoter, won USA Book News'
Seven Easy Ways to Keep Dialogue Sharp by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 478 words 2
Best Professional Book Award and Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award. The
second, The Frugal Editor, was just released and includes many editing tips on dialogue, the use
of quotation marks and more. Learn more at www.howtodoitfrugally.com .

Last but Not Least

"I didn't know that!"

"Sax Rohmer"

Arthur Henry Sarsfield Ward (February 15,1883-June 1 ,1959 ), better known as Sax Rohmer, was a prolific English novelist. He is most remembered for his series of novels featuring the master criminal Dr. Fu Manchu.

Born in Birmingham, he had an entirely working class education and early career before beginning to write. His first published work was in 1903, the short story The Mysterious Mummy for Pearson's Weekly. He made his early living writing comedy sketches for music hall performers and short stories and serials for magazines. In 1909 he married Rose Knox. He published his first novel Pause! anonymously in 1910 and the first Fu Manchu story, The Mystery of Dr. Fu Manchu, was serialized over 1912-13. It was an immediate success with its fast paced story of Sir Denis Nayland Smith and Dr. Petrie facing the worldwide conspiracy of the 'Yellow Peril'. The Fu Manchu stories, together with those featuring Gaston Max or Morris Klaw, made Rohmer one of the most successful and well-paid writers in of the 1920s and 1930s. But Rohmer was very poor at handling his wealth. After World War II the Rohmers moved to New York.
Ward was often attacked, even shortly after the Manchu stories were published, for creating a character that reflected "racist assumptions". He himself, while "bemused" at the furore, occasionally defended his character by saying that the portrait was "fundamentally truthful" because "criminality was often rampant among the Chinese", especially in Limehouse.
Rohmer died in 1959, somewhat ironically, due to an outbreak of Asian Flu.
*Thanks to Wikipedia for the above.

Well, that's it for this time, see ya later gater…..Aelf

Sites to see, places to go and groups to join

Long Story Short: http://www.alongstoryshort.net/
My Writing Friend: writingfriend@earthlink.net
Nick Daws Writers Circle: Nick Daw's Writer's Circle.
Wridea: http://www.wridea.com/
J.D.Vine Publishing: http://www.jdvine.com/index.html
Tennessee Writers Alliance: http://www.tn-writers.org/
USA Patriotism, Poetry: http://www.usa-patriotism.com/
The Write Place, Poynter, 30 Writers Tips : http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=5408

Freebie Writers Tools

Auto Crit Automatic manuscript checker: http://www.autocrit.com/
Word Web download : http://www.wordweb.info/

I’ll be adding to the above list as time goes on and I find more newbie friendly sites.
Copyright © 05/01/08