Days of Learning, Days of Growing

Courtesy of BJ Jones Photography

This past couples of weeks has been interesting. Have you ever had a time in your life when you seem to have gone back to school, but you don’t go to class? It’s as if everywhere you go, everything you encounter are lessons of one form or another.

What do you do with the experience of meeting a person casually who begins telling you their life story at that moment, for seemingly no other reason than because you happen to stand next to them? And what do you do when something in what they say “clicks” in your head audibly, telling you that this bit of information, this insight is something that must be remembered?

Here’s another example. I’ve been concentrating on several small projects lately aside from the blogs and website. I send out at least two, sometimes three, submissions each week; poetry at least once and fiction. I’m putting together a growing list of submission markets for both genres.

My biggest project at present is my book of poetry “The Moon Sees All.” It’s out with my beta readers. It’s being poked, prodded, and evaluated for necessary/suggested changes to make it absolutely irresistible to publishers. That’s an enormous step for me.

My rejection rate is decreasing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I’d just like to know the reason. In the meantime, I’ll accept this change and the blessing.

Life seems more settled for me in many ways right now. I actively write less, but produce better, given the acceptances lately. I don’t feel harried any longer, which is another blessing. On top of all that, these tiny lessons in changing my thoughts, attitudes, aspirations, etc. have begun bearing fruit in small but effective ways.

Perhaps, in the end, that’s really the take-away for life. Small changes—choosing to spend the day enjoying the outdoors and appreciating those natural gifts we can only experience where they live—repay us with fresher minds and hearts. Our spirits are rejuvenated because we focused on something outside ourselves for a while.

Doing the dishes allows for quiet thinking time. It isn’t the task that’s so important, it’s the time you spend with yourself, considering and pondering those caches of thoughts tucked away in mental closets that you’ve not had time for lately. Mundane chores, while necessary to a tidy household, are also opportunities to review, renew, and reconnect with that piece of yourself that you’ve neglected.

At least, that’s what I’ve concluded. For instance, a few weeks back I showed everyone my office area and how bad it was in the disorder department.  I’m about to get radical with it. I’m clearing out those things that don’t grow corn for me anymore.

About half of the items occupying my space will be eliminated in the next few weeks. I am simplifying my life, my work, and my intentions. The goals remain the same. It’s the approach that needs a clean sweep.

And there you have it. Part of my studying has led me here. The rest comes from lessons encountered willy-nilly in unexpected places.

Things should get really interesting before long. I’m looking forward to it.

Now, let me ask you again. Have you been given surprising lessons lately? Leave a comment and tell me about them. We all have them. It’s whether we recognize their delivery or not.

Until later,

Claudsy

Author Platforms and Hoops

Robert Lee Brewer has set participants mighty challenges amid the relaxers this month.

I’ve created work schedules, as you all know too well. They work or they don’t, depending on how motivated I am on any given day. Lately, my motivational level has remained high, I think in part by writing for so many challenges in the past few months.

So far Robert has had us building networks, investigating both others’ blogs and having Twitter chats with large groups of people, along with serious writer stuff like Editorial Calendars. I managed to get that last item completed and revved up. Now he’s got up getting our nets prepared to seine for experts; experts to provide us with interviews on whatever subject we’ve chosen for our blog.

Brother, does that open up possibilities. Should I go after someone new or recycle one from the past? Hmm… choices come hard sometimes.

In truth, I’ll go for something new. Okay, that’s decided. Now, what area do I want to go for? Should it be poetry, fiction writing, screenwriting, ooo… or maybe—no, scratch that as too controversial.

I think I’ll go for film. I haven’t done anything with that in a long, long time. Besides, I just don’t have it in me to create an entirely new blog for other subjects. I have enough to worry about on that score.

And I still have to deal with guest blogs; someone else’s and my own, as well as investigate a social media management tool like Hootsuite. Yep, it’s going to be a long next few days.

Here’s hoping everyone out there has a grand finale to their week and a productive next few days. I’m working toward taking a few days off, but only after completing my appointed rounds and jumped through all of my hoops.

Until later,

Claudsy

Life Is Full of Challenges

I’ve filled Claudsy’s Blog with poetry for this month’s challenges, but I haven’t really done anything with the Author’s Platform Development Challenge. I mention in passing on Wordpress and BlogHer but don’t discuss it.

Calliope will work well for periodic posts to keep me motivated to develop a “professional” brand, platform, persona, what-have-you.

Robert Brewer, of “No Name is Not Bob” fame and Poetic Asides, has been working to train writers on the development of a professional author’s platform for some time. He chose to do this challenge to get writers fired up and engaged in their own futures. Additional articles and reading recommendations extend the background material, which encourages the writer to step out and march forth into her chosen future.

The challenge is four days in and I’ve managed to have all of them done before dinner of the fourth day. Below are the first two days’ worth of tasks: defining myself as a writer and setting goals for segments of the next year.

Day 1: Platform Challenge – Define Yourself

Name: Claudette J. Young

Position: Freelance writer—multiple genres, retired teacher

Skills: Freelance writing—no current clients have me on retainer, though I have other contracts completed, poetry—published, fiction—published, non-fiction—published, travel writing—published, part-time writing coach, blogging, research, book review writing, interviews, newsletter writing, problem solving, idea generation, story development brainstorming, logistics detailing

Social Media Platforms: Facebook, Wordpress (2), Blogger, LinkedIn, Branch Out, She Writes, BlogHer, Jacketflap, Google +, Twitter

URL’s: http://claudsy.wordpress.com/

              http://claudsy.blogspot.com/

               http://trailinginspirations.com/

Accomplishments: Published poetry in two anthologies—2009 & 2011, published poetry in four online mags, published poetry on numerous websites, published writer’s articles (4) in ICL Newsletter, published travel articles for Assoc. Content and on Trailing Inspirations, published op-ed work for Associated Content, did contract work for both Assoc. Content and Yahoo News, published children’s fiction for British publisher and online Catholic children’s mag, supplied educational materials for SuperTeacher Worksheets, Completed ICL Basic Writing Course through ICL, ready to finish writing course for Great Courses, took travel writing course through AWAI, Graduated from BSU with two Bachelor’s degrees and two Master’s, taught at both college and elementary level successfully, survived non-stop corporate work for IBM in FSD, and managed to become a senior citizen without feeling old until I got there.

Interests: Writing, travel, learning, friends and family, developing into the best human being I can be, crocheting, beading, camping

In one sentence, who am I? I, Claudette J. Young, am a writer who almost waited too long to take her desire and her words seriously; a person who yearns to learn all that time and patience will allow; a person whose gypsy spirit never settles in one place before moving on to a new possibility; a woman who’s always traveled life without a partner or offspring; a woman who could neer be happy living a conventional life; one who would travel continuously if she was financially able; and a woman with emotions that run so deep they overtake her, at times, upon seeing a simple commercial.

Immediate Goals Today:

1.     Complete poems for challenges—PA, PB, and BlogHer. DONE

2.     Post each resulting poem to appropriate Websites and blogs DONE

3.     Begin rewrite on “Moon Sees All” after checking to make sure of format DONE

4.     Complete workout this afternoon DONE

Goals for This Week:

1.     Do each day’s challenges from poetry sites and post them all.

2.     Work min. one hour each day on “Failures to Blessings”

3.     Work min. one hour each day on “Moon Sees All” revision

4.     Work min. one hour each day on course work—either online or BGS

5.     Take at least one hour to relax with a good book each day.

6.     Talk to Peg

7.     Finish going through boxes and organizing office—use one hour per day

Goals for This Month:

1.     Complete all challenge’s for poetry and platform development

2.     Complete BGS course and set aside

3.     Get good handle on Lisle course

4.     Develop work schedule that allows for rewriting mss and writing poetry

5.     Get Cookbook layout completed, recipes placed and formatted

6.     Create Budget for the month to allow for what we need and money for next month

1.     Finish rewrite and submission process for “The Moon Sees All.”--Knopf?

Goals for 2012:

2.     Get Cookbook finished and to publisher/self-publish

3.     Lose at least 60 pounds

4.     Get more fit so that I won’t need a knee replacement

5.     From April through Dec. submit at least two short stories/articles each month to print/online publishers

6.     Finish and submit “Failures to Blessings” to Hay House and two other publishers by Sept.

7.     Finish and submit “Dreamie’s Box to print publisher/MuseItUp

8.     Finish and submit “Forest Primeval” to publisher—Knopf?

9.     Successfully conclude the first nine months of writing course.

Goals to Accomplish Before I Die:

1.     Visit Europe on extended vacation

2.     Publish at least three books in both fiction and non-fiction

3.     Produce a steady stream of published articles, stories, essays, and poetry

4.     Find a place where I can be content for more than a few years

5.     Become the person I know I can be

6.     Have enough continuous income that I don’t feel concern when a bill arrives

7.     Get rid of both properties that are weighing me down.

8.     Learn to sail

9.     Go to Disney World and Epcot Center

10.  Experience all of the National Parks in the country

11.  Enjoy good health and vitality for a long while before death.

The tasks for Days 3 and 4 had already been done. I already have a Facebook account and profile, along with having it on the new Timeline format, and I already have a Twitter account and profile. Although, I do need to refresh the Twitter profile. I haven’t done that in over a year.

Throughout April, posts will appear here every few days, outlining my progress through this challenge to attain a professional standing within the writing business. Check back in each week to see how my journey progresses. Feel free to comment on any post, give advice, cheer me on, but no raspberries. Those are for the table.

Working Through NaNoWriMo

Most of the writers I know are hip-deep in NaNoWriMo this month. The question arises with each writer, “How can I complete NaNo and do everything else in my normal schedule?”

Whether you’re single or married with a family, as a writer trying to find time to write can be a bummer. For all that, we still manage. I’m luckier than many because I’ve retired from the active work force and can commit whatever time I choose to NaNo’s pursuit.

Take today, for instance. It’s now a quarter past 2pm. Have I started on NaNo yet today? Why yes, I did. I spent a most productive hour on that little beastie before noon. Also before noon I slept until 9:30 (not recommended) because I didn’t get to bed until after 2am. Bathroom duties followed by large coffee, and I was ready to tackle the work.

I checked e-mail—both accounts. Dealt with all that. Checked my favorite forum. We have our own monthly writing challenge over there, so checking on that is habit as much as anything else. Then I did monthly bills. That took time away from writing, but without that time spent, I wouldn’t have a place to write, so it balances out.

Maintenance man came to fix my closet door and replace one of the light fixtures in the kitchen. By the time he left, it was time to decide on a PB idea for PiBoIdMo. I’ve got some doozies going right now. Somewhere in there, I managed to make myself something to eat. I was getting a bit light-headed.

Next, I wrote the Claudsy’s blog post and got it up and running. Now, I’m on this one. When I finish this and get it up, then I can go on to my daily work on the PAD Poetry Chapbook Challenge. It’s only for one poem in rough draft, so that won’t take too long. Then, I’ve got to go to the bank.

From that point on, I can go back to writing on my NaNo poetry book, “Moon Sees All” and hopefully get at least the next sestina finished for that. By that time, it dinner will have found its way to a taco bowl near me. Yes, that’s right. Taco salad all around for this household tonight. Drool, people, drool.

Gotta run so that I can finish and have something of an evening for some studying on another writing program I’m doing. I’m ready for chapter eight out of 24. A writer’s life is always in flux. That’s what I’ve been taught, and I feel it’s the only accurate description of my life.

And to answer the question about completing NaNo and living a normal life, I ask another question. Whoever said a writer had a normal life in the first place? We think differently than "normal" people. Our minds are constantly cluttered with a variety of characters, facts, figures, plans, schedules, etc. that would drive the average person to drink or go mad. We can't look at anything or anyone without trying to place him/her or it into a current WIP or future project.

What about that is normal? Completing NaNo is a goal. Living has nothing to do with that goal, really. Either you find a path using determination and ingenuity or you don't. The ultimate prize from NaNo, however, is the knowledge of what you can do in a time crunch and how much you learn about yourself and your abilities because of your work there.

Take care, all, and be sure to stop long enough to drop me a comment on your writing experience with NaNo, or barring that, your writing experience in general.

Until then,

Claudsy

Let The Insanity Begin

That's right, folks. NaNoWriMo is here, rip-rearing to go. Yours truly will be on the frontlines again this year. Perhaps with hard work, determination, and loads of luck, I'll be able to finish this time around. Family crises have keep me from that goal two years running, so this year I've loaded my weapon of choice and readied to punch out a couple of marketable books of poetry out of this.

I do know that this is for a novel. I haven't had any luck trying to do novels during this monthly endeavor, so I thought I'd switch tacks and try something new. I know it doesn't fit the criteria, but people, criteria is for the writer doing the work. Right. A badge of completion is a wonderful thing. But for me, it's the dedication of the month to doing only writing on one selected project to get it to a point where finishing it is doable in a short amount of time and getting it out to publishers.

I have these two books of poetry I need to get written for me. Not for anyone else. Personally, I do have three such books to do, but I thought that might stretch things a bit. To that end, I picked up a children's illustrated story book instead.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I do know I'm slipped a few gears. But it was so kind of you to point that out so that it's been verified.

Now that you know how I'll be spending most of my time for the next month, what do you intend to do to keep yourself occupied?

I've been submitting articles, stories, and poems like mad for the past few weeks, so that I could clear the way for this wonderful challenge.

Have a great week, my friends. If you're doing NaNo along with me and the rest of my friends, good luck, and have lots of fun along the way. I'll drop in here every few days to report on my progress. I'll consider that my coffee break around the water cooler.

Until then,

Claudsy

Finding the Writer in Everyone

This morning I helped submit a contest entry written by my sister to the lit agency running the contest. She’d written it on a lark because when I read the prompt to her, she felt it was too good to pass up.

Now Sis is a good writer on her own. She just doesn’t do it very often, which is more the pity. She has a strong voice on the page and a terribly creative mind to back up her words. But I digress.

I had agreed to edit the submission for her so that it would meet guidelines. The contest prompt was like none other that I’ve seen in any contest, and Sis was right. The thing was a hoot. It’s entire concept was made for the quirky minded and those who could take any five words handed them and make a story from them. Poets use this kind of prompt all the time for building poems. It’s a heck of a lot of fun.

Sis is very good at that, too. Just remember that. I’ll come back to it later.

Editing her work wasn’t difficult. I do it on a regular basis for several of writers. Most of us do. It keeps us on our toes and it keeps us honest, too. What we find in other’s writing that needs changing is always a lesson for our own work. None of us is perfect, by any stretch of a rope.

I tend to see certain problems a writer might have because I have difficulty with that same issues… parentheses and punctuation, for instance. Does the question mark go inside of the end paren even at the end of a sentence? That’s always a killer for me, and I can’t seem to ever retain the answer.

If you’re a writer, you know what I mean about learning from the mistakes you see in other’s work. Me? I’m one of those readers who gets stopped dead in the written road when my eyes come across a typo on the printed page. Until I correct it in my head, I can’t continue reading.

And don’t shake you head. You know others like me, too.

Regardless, writing and editing well requires two people. One to write, one to edit, and then the first gets to rewrite and so on until the work gets as close to perfection as they can make it. I learn far more from the editing process than I ever did from the writing lessons. The lessons stick far better, too.

In some ways, I’m an advocate of the “throw the aspiring writer into the deep end of the publishing pool with a good and patient editor” school of thought. Unfortunately, there simply aren’t adequate numbers of free editors hanging around the untaught, willing to take on that challenge. At least, that’s how it seems sometimes.

Now, let me return to that line from above about how my sister is a good writer. I gave her five words just a few minutes ago to use for the basis of a story with a word limit of 100 words.

The words I gave her were: monkeys, hammer, night, howling, and gratitude. I accept the caveat of using derivatives for this purpose (i.e. plural, singular, different verb tense.)

Here is what she wrote as she sat down with her e-mail.

Monkey’s Birdhouse

      The young boy carefully gathered his materials. He and his father were building a birdhouse together. His Dad had nicknamed him Monkey, because he loved to climb trees. He picked up his tools and began to assemble the birdhouse. He used his hammer, some glue and a saw. As he tapped in the last nail, he hit his thumb! He howled like a wolf in the night. It throbbed and was sore but not badly injured. He could now put up the birdhouse in the tree and listen to the sweet song of a bird's gratitude. (98 words)

Five minutes and a few words. Storyline -- Check, Main Character -- Check, Plot -- Check (Simple & straightforward,) Problem solved -- Check.

Does it still need work? Sure, doesn’t every rough draft? But is it a viable story? I think so. Yes, I would rearrange a couple of things, but that’s a matter of presentation and flow. The elements are there, the direction is obvious, most kids could relate to it in one way or another. It has achieved its goal of being a story under 100 words, using the target words given as its major points.

These words could have produced a multitude of stories and never repeated. And they wouldn’t have all been for children, either.

So, dear writer friends of mine. I issue the same challenge to you. Can you build a complete story in 100 words or less from the target words and make it work? Any genre or target age. And do it in less than ten minutes?

Feel free to post your resulting stories here for review by the small mass of writers who wander through. Think of this as part of the deep end of the pool and enjoy the swim. I dare ya!

Take care all. Watch your words. They have powers hitherto unknown to man. Hope to see you back here soon with great little rough drafts for all to read.

Until then,

Claudsy