Thrift Shopping for Gems Overlooked

Yep, that’s one of the things I did last week while waiting for my computer connection to be repaired.

We went to the new Goodwill that opened here not long ago. We spent over an hour in there and BJ, our friend Jody, and I all came away with something new to us, something that filled current needs. We left because we had no spare cash to get more.

I found something—an electric fuzz shaver—that I’d been looking for in stores and catalogs for at least six months. Btw, it works great. I also got a set of new flannel sheets for $5. I couldn’t beat that with a stick.

Later, while in the same frame of mind, I looked on my desktop’s hard drive when I got home. My poor documents directory was full of stuff that I had yet to do something with. There were articles for children and adults, literary essays that only needed a finishing polish before sending them out, as well as stories for all ages and in all genres.

Among the poetry files were two books that needed those finishing touches. Both could go to competitions. I knew that. So, why hadn’t I already put together a poetry chapbook to enter, or polished the full-length poetry book so that it could begin the rounds of agents/publishers? What about our travel book and the women’s novel?

I had no real excuse. There were some good pieces within my personal slush pile, and I was ignoring them in favor of new ideas or flights of fancy. I’d delegated these potential gems to a littered cache on my desktop to languish unappreciated until some undefined whim moved me to rescue them. How could I have so little faith in myself and my abilities?

That’s when the truth raised its arms and brought the 2x4 down, hard, on my head.

It wasn’t a lack of faith that had intervened and prevented me from completing the writing cycle on any of those wee gems. It wasn’t fear, either.

It was because I had more interests and less discipline than I needed. I saw potential in everything. “Ooo… That would make a great little filler piece for the travel mag that we enjoy so much.” “Hey, I could do a piece on that dog sled race from last weekend. We have pics available, and it could go for kids.”

My problem was that I’d lost control of my ideas, again. (I really have to carry more ropes with me so that I can keep them corralled better.)

I’d diagnosed the disease. I looked for a treatment, one that I could begin immediately. I realized the only way to do the job justice was to take the time to do them all now and be done with it.

“Travel slowly and grasp the details.” became my new work motto.

I chose to take one piece every other day and revise, edit, rewrite, redirect, or whatever it took. Before I could begin work on another, I had to submit the first one somewhere. A paying market wasn’t as important as simply beginning the submission process and having the thing out of my drive. I could easily live with it sitting in a submission’s tracking program.

Now that I’ve begun slowly, it will be easier to move forward. Before I lost my connection with the Internet, I’d already placed three poems and this week I plan to send out at least two articles/stories. I’ve finished a revision on one article and begun the marketing process. I can submit the one article tomorrow since I’m back online.

I spent today doing marketing research that I’d never heard of before, but which seemed to be a good fit for some of what I have to send out.

There you have it, peeps. I’m doing a bit of thrift shopping in my own computer for future published pieces. The cool thing is that a few of the ones I glanced at gave me ideas for at least two or more articles/stories out of that same subject that I can peddle to other venues.

I think I’ll shop closer to home more frequently. How about you? Oh, I also found several pieces that will make great children’s books for a couple of publishers I’ve been investigating.

A couple of weeks away from the net and I’m energized again for these projects. My new scheduling program will work well with this newly intended writing activity.

Dive into your personal slush file and see what you can drag out into the light. Distance lends perspective, they say. Have a great week, all.

Until later,

Claudsy

Smoothies Anyone?

The eerie, yet compelling, music of Kitaro fills my ears from headphones purchased at Wal-Mart, music played on a computer bought at Best Buy, while I sit in a rocking chair procured from who-knows-where years ago. My eight-foot counter came from Home Depot and acts as my desk and work space.

Why do I talk about these things? I suppose it comes from the reality that I don’t particularly care where something comes from, how little I paid for it, or how strange it looks so long as it functions in the job I’ve assigned it.

A straight counter top, held up by six long table legs screwed into its underside, is as viable as a desk as it would be to top base cabinets in a kitchen. It cleans up easily and gives ample work room. Uniform file boxes, filled with items not in use, stacked to a convenient height and covered with a tablecloth, functions very well as a table. If I’m going to stack them up anyway, I might as well be able to use them for something.

Right?

I think most of us think along these lines at one time or another. I simply prefer thinking like this all the time. And being a writer only encourages the practice.

Why do I say that? Well, examine our daily work for the answer.

We create stories. In other words, we’re cooks disguised as builders. As writers we stake our reputations on our ability to utilize disparate ideas, words, etc. for the purpose of telling stories or relating information. That’s our job in a proverbial nutshell.

Except for the verification of information used within said stories and articles, we don’t care where we got our ideas. We don’t care where they’d been used before for something else. I’m not referring to plagiarism here. I’m talking about taking a bit of information or sparked idea gotten from reading a newspaper, magazine, or another book and putting together our own idea using that information.

An example here is Matthew Bennett’s break-out bestseller for expectant mothers, “The Maternal Journal.” He certainly couldn’t use personal experience for his book since he was male. He could take information found elsewhere, add opinions and insights from obstetric specialists as well as experienced mothers, and tie it all together into an easy-to-follow pregnancy guide. Of course, smart marketing helped sell the book, but the idea was built on a personal question and information gathered from elsewhere.

Writing is hard work within the murky, ever-shifting tides of the publishing industry. There are no clear-cut answers since many of the deciding factors about who’s published and who’s not stems from an editor’s gut reaction upon reading the manuscript.

Yet, above all else, writing is taking tiny particles of dream(s), putting them in a blender half-full with words, adding dashes of character-driven action, a nebulous theme that peaks out at the reader at unexpected points in the story, teasingly rambunctious characters who play with the reader’s mind, and pressing the pulse button until all ingredients are smooth and ready for the palate.

The end result depends on the cook, not on the origins of each ingredient. Like the workability of my office with its countertop, computer, headphones, and workspace, the story has arrived on the reading table because of how I use the makings I can find and how I combine them for that purpose.

How do you cook your stories and serve them up? Care to share? Feel free to tell me how you find your ideas, combine your ingredients, or market your wares. I’m always interested in learning another’s techniques.

Until later,

Claudsy

One More Silver Lining

For the past two weeks I’ve been dealing with pneumonia and its many twists and turns. Antibiotics make me sleepy, among other things, and this time being sleepy didn’t help matters since coughing and shortness of breath were my main symptoms.

I don’t tell you this for sympathy but, rather, to set the stage for what comes next. If you’ve ever had a respiratory infection or pneumonia to any degree, you know that sleeping on the horizontal isn’t going to happen. The lungs won’t allow for it. Throw in a slight sinus infection, and you’ll really not sleep much.

So, there I was, not sleeping in an upright and locked position, cradled on the corner of my bed, back against three pillows, one of which actually did hold my head up and allow me to turn it from side to side.

While I sat there for hours in the darkness, not sleeping but wallowing in that twilight state of antibiotic-drugged drowsiness, my mind was free to run wild, without destination, purpose, or forethought. The hors d'oeuvres of primitive thought kept floating in front of the mind’s eye, offering up delicacies of unlimited scope in the creative sense.

Entire novels rolled by, pulled onward down an ever-lengthening road by a team of amusing characters that were fit to assemble into something miraculous if I could just hold onto them to write down enough during the day to remember them. Unfortunately, such was not the case. They drove away on their wagonload of plotline and interesting twists before I could fully grasp enough details to hang onto the storyline.

Dragged behind that wagon came another book; I called it “The Book of Notions.” This one stuck with me and expanded with each new consideration. A vision flashed across my inner movie screen; a man dressed in period costume—late nineteenth century—carrying  under one arm a large book, bound in black, thin and mysterious. The title, embossed in gold, was “The Book of Notions.” I never saw the man’s face. It didn’t matter. The title stuck in my mind.

Now I had something to hold onto. Substance couldn’t be too far away. Suddenly that great little story that I’d just written for a competition took on a whole new meaning. It was the first of the “Notions” and would anchor all of the rest. There would be between 15 and 20 Notion stories and they would use the same narrator and all would be slightly quirky, sad or amazing, funny or chilling. I could see the entire project; a project I could do over time and look for just the right subjects to fill the book.

The whole project resided within that black binding with gold lettering. I knew where I’d look for the stories. I knew the approach I would take. I knew it would work.

It isn’t often when I come across something like this that has such a feel of rightness to it. I always hang onto those with both hands, and they’re always worthwhile. And it isn’t as if I don’t have enough projects already on my plate. I have five that I’m working on now. This one, though, is one that haunts, but in a good way; a way that forces me to keep it in mind, forces me to keep thinking about what the stories will be. I won’t neglect this one for long between story installments.

Perhaps this is a true example of inspiration. Perhaps it’s only an example of hallucinations and fevered dreams. Either way, I have a long-term project that will hold my interest in easy installments and that’s something worthwhile.

Here’s hoping that all of you are so fortunate to find a silver lining for yourself. Until later,

Claudsy

Headlines, Toed-lines, and the Gut

Curious or just confused?

Each day, whether delivered on the ether, on television, or in the daily paper we are inundated with headlines of things that happened near and far. What we do with those headlines is an individual choice.

Most people discuss the story and its impact, or the story and its cause. Implications run the gamut of pros and cons. There are those who obsess on the story, especially if it involves a celebrity. Some dismiss the news almost as soon as it’s been heard.

On the sidelines sits the writer. Headlines represent a wealth of story ideas, research possibilities, and general interest. So many gems of plot potential exist in the average bold print of the front page, including those headlines that mislead the reader in some way. If you don’t believe me, watch Leno for his take on headlines. He tantalizes his audience once a week with bold-print words from local papers sent to him by viewers.

Okay, that takes care of headlines. How about those toed-lines? What’s a toed-line, you ask. It’s the line of distinction a person doesn’t cross for the sake of self-interest.

Remember those headlines mentioned about celebrities? Here’s an example of how someone couldn’t toe the line.

It was reported this morning on Yahoo! that CPS visited Mariah Carey when she and her husband brought her new twins home from the hospital. It had been reported to the agency that drugs and alcohol had been used in the hospital room after the birth of the twins. Is the allegation true? No. It’s believed that a chance remark made about beer and breast milk production by someone in the room had been overheard and misinterpreted by a passerby.

The headline, to be sure, impelled any reader interested in the entertainment industry to read further. Yes, readership of the magazine increased, but to what end? Money? Perhaps not. What did the good-Samaritan receive for making the accusation? Self-satisfaction, maybe?

The magazine checked the facts. The person who began the story by reporting a falsehood to CPS obviously didn’t check those facts before jumping to a misjudgment and creating the subsequent distress for new parents and their families. In the end it’s unimportant that this happened to celebrities.  

What’s important about this story is that it happened to any new parents. For the average new parent, it’s unlikely that a national magazine would investigate the truth of the allegation. Instead, lives would/could be permanently damaged, if not destroyed.

Us Magazine toed the line. The accuser didn’t. What about the writer who reads this story for an explanation of that headline?

This is where the gut comes in. Here’s a fantastic opportunity for an article, story, or book. There are slants, angles, and genres waiting to be utilized for such a juicy premise. Women’s fiction, horror, non-fiction expose, and YA fiction all vie for possible avenues of use.

The Gut tells the writer whether to use the story, how much of it to use, the angle, slant, etc. that will work the best for whatever purpose desired. That gut reaction depends on the writer's moral stance, experience, and preference. It also depends on timing. If the need for extensive research exists for a proposed use, the writer may choose a quicker use for the information.

I’m not interested in using this premise. It’s not my kind of story. There are many writers who would take it and run with it, though, and rightfully so. It has potential to become a winner.

This example helps define what I call Headlines, Toed-lines, and the Gut. More potential material exists in the daily headlines than any writer has a right to expect. Choosing to use them requires thought and discretion much of the time. Without fail, the Gut will tell the writer what to use and how to use it. All the writer needs is trust in her personal choices.

Tell me how you choose a storyline. Share how you decide when to use headlines in a project.

Until later,

Claudsy