Writers---Let Me Tell You a Secret

BORING ALERT!  If you aren't a writer or wanting to be, you will not find this interesting. 

I will preface this with these two points





*Though I've been writing all my life, I've been self publishing for about three years. I have sold and do sell books but I'm no million best seller (I can honestly say thousands sold) or award winning author (my rewards are that people do read my books). Obviously, this is my personal unsolicited opinion that I'm sharing today.

*I am not discouraging authors from using any tools available to improve their writing skills.  You don't have to have a degree or a piece of paper that says you are a writer. The internet is full of free help and advice on grammar and punctuation, voice, tense and point of view, guides and suggestions about plotting, structure and creating fiction and non-fiction.  I urge you to continuously research and study any material you can get your hands on. 

I also have to echo a common piece of advice. Grow a thick skin. Whether you have requested a critique of your work or you receive a review,  look at every piece of the appraisal carefully. Ask yourself honest questions about whether you understand what has been noted and if you need to make adjustments and corrections to your writing. Even if it's a stinging negative opinion, do not discard it. Analyze it and use it to your benefit.

Quoting Charlie, "SIGH-H". I've said that and now I'm going to tell you the secret. There are no Laws of Writing. The grammar Nazis have no power, the comma police can't put you on trial, a run-on sentence will not get your insurance cancelled or cause bodily injury.  It's true that there are some rules of writing, some widely accepted standards that are presumably intended to make your words readable. There's some logic to that.

Let's face it, unless you're some eccentric gnome of a writer, hunched over your computer and not giving a whit if your word soup ever sees the light of day, you really would like to be read.  Whether you're writing fiction or non-fiction, self-improvement revelations or erotic rot, you really would like to have someone read it. Crass as it may seem, in order to read it, they need to buy it and that has it's own little advantages.  We can probably agree, you want your work to be read.

I self publish, frankly because I can. I became aware that it was a possibility and ran like a gal with her panties aflame with it.  It has been a great joy for me and I'm proud of my minor success. Best of all, I don't have to answer to editors, agents or publishers. In reality, I don't have to answer to anyone except myself and the readers that I've come to treasure. 

Now, if you have your heart set on being published traditionally, then I encourage you to pursue that with enthusiasm. You will have to deal with the gods that control that domain and you will need to conform to the their standards and self imposed laws.  I'm not being snarky when I say, best of luck.

As for me, I've learned that the only important people are the readers. It is very important to me to present the most professional and enjoyable work that I'm capable of offering to those readers. I want them to travel with the characters that come from my heart through unexpected adventures that come from my imagination.  I don't write for agents or publishers. I'm not trying to please them.  I don't have to "grab" my reader in the first twenty words or apologize for voice or style. If a stray comma trips up the reader on occasion,  I hope that I've created enough interest to make them stomp right over it.

Readers rarely give bad reviews based on the mechanics of writing. They might say, "That sucked." or "I didn't believe the story" or "Won't read another book by this author",  etc.  It's not that readers are stupid, they just want to read. They don't feel like it's their job to tell you how to write. Unless your writing is a jumbled unintelligible mess, they don't comment and simply don't buy again.  Editors, critics, and unfortunately, other authors often are the ones that give scathing bad reviews. The thing is, most of them have lost their ability to just read a story without seeing all the mistakes.  When you're trying to sift through the suggestions you're given, keep this in mind. Only you can decide, what is my goal with my writing? why do I write?

My secret is no law when it comes to your writing. Beware, do not allow your creative spark to be smothered in the fault-finding of arrogant experts. Weigh and pick your advice, work hard at your craft and keep writing.

In Need of a Giggle

One Man, One Gun

I doubt that there's many Americans who haven't thought about the tragedy in Orlando, for the past weeks. Who wouldn't? who couldn't possess compassion for such a senseless massacre of fellow human beings. There's such an ache in my heart and I've thought about it a lot. I've thought about why? thought about what should be done, is it possible that it could've been prevented. The thought that innocent people would be cowering in a bathroom and calling their mother or loved ones to say, I love you and I'm about to die, is just about the sickest horror I can think of. Just as it was on 911.

 

The bad guys will have a gun, if not a gun, a bomb. THEY will have their weapons of destruction. One good guy with a gun could've saved many lives in Orlando, perhaps nearly all. It's foolish to think that the solution is to take all the guns away. Should weapons that blast off hundreds of rounds in a short span be highly restricted?  I'm pro gun and I'm not certain that there is a legitimate reason for owning such weapons. And yet, the same facts still apply---a good responsible person will have no ill intentions for the weapon and the bad guys will still find a way to get them.

 

Our founders, writers of the Constitution knew well about tyranny and intended that the citizens of this new democracy would be protected from government over reach but also would be able to protect their home and family.  Think about a world where only governments had the stockpiles of weapons, no citizens of earth allowed to have guns.  Does that make you feel safe? Do you really trust the governments and their military to have the power?  Has the banning of guns prevented Paris or Europe from the terrorist attacks?  No incident comes to my mind of a shooter entering a place where the people would be armed and performing their maniac deeds. Even if suicide is their intention, their goal is to murder as many innocents as possible before they go down.

 

I'm so sorry for those of you who believe that you will stop this terror by disarming the good folks. The only hope that our society has for stopping these unspeakable tragedies is that we must shoot first. If our guaranteed rights are taken from us, if good people have no protection, then we will maybe die on a dirty bathroom floor or in our workplace or in the restaurant, our church or on our doorstep. Worst of all, we may die at the hands of a government who has ALL the power.

Who Made You God?

My heart hurts for the victims and families of the Orlando massacre

Who made you god?

What made you think that you have the right.

Who are you, of small mind and soul

To think you can choose who will live or die.

If there was such a god that believed in evil

Then he would not be sacred, he would be a demon.

When the seed of hate began to grow inside of you

It devoured your humanity and left a rotting heart.

Why are you here, in my beautiful America?

Why are you here, you terrorist, you haters.

You, who despise my country, my people

How much longer will you be allowed to come or stay.

I have no forgiveness, I have no understanding

I do not wish you to go in peace.

I wish to see you at the gates of Hades

With your victims as your judge.

If only they had the opportunity to shoot first

In Stephen King's The Green Mile, the character said, "He killed them with their love."   In America, our love, our trust, our tolerance, our almighty rights and freedom...all of our good traits that so many claim we do not have, those traits are being used to get close and destroy us.



Can Ya Fix That, Please?

In a long time marriage, you gradually assume what you presume is your job as a partner and generally take it pretty serious. The trick is that when you have a partnership, it is necessary sometimes for you to take on the job of the other partner.  Thing is, it's normal for one partner to not only take on the responsibility of certain jobs, it's typical that you begin to count on your partner to handle his or her duties. Easy to take it for granted that the job will get done and resent it if it doesn't.

Just recently, the hubby and I---forever, comprising and making new rules---had to come to new understanding.  We had both become defensive. If I mentioned that the board on the deck was going to have to be replaced, he, (assuming that it would be his job and he was right), immediately felt like it was a nag.  But, I wasn't nagging, just observing and didn't intend that he would jump right up out of chair and fix it. Just as when he says, this tastes different, (and my job is generally chief cook and bottle washer) he doesn't mean it's bad or that I made a mistake.  We had to agree that we wouldn't get offended at such small things.  After all, things change---such as taste buds, believe it or not. Most importantly everything isn't fixable.

It's true, not everything in your life or in the world can be fixed. Sometimes that old thing about learning to accept the un-changeable is the best tool we have for survival and preserving our sanity.

Some hurts or problems are plain un-fixable, incureable.  Those things need to be pushed behind you and moved past.  Not everything can be fixed, not everything can be changed to fit your particular liking and most importantly not everything is someone else's fault or anyone's fault. If you can't fix it, forget it.