There may times you have to reassess your audience…or your message.
Category Archives: Writing
Writers Horoscope September 5: Get a leg up on your competition.
- Ask editors lots of questions.
- Read–with a reader’s eye and an editor’s eye–what the competition is writing.
- Hunker down with some ‘Best of…’ article collections.
- Make bulletin board material out of the ‘best of the best’.
And, don’t forget the one writer you should always be competing with: the previous version of you.
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photo courtesy of Gratisography
Writers Horoscope September 4: Today, your persistence is mightily challenged.
You face-planted on your last foray into a new genre. Critics cared enough to send their very best…jeers, barbs, and insults. [Remember, writers, everything comes in threes.]
Trust that you will find your voice. Characters will come alive. Plots will write themselves. [Again with the threes?]
It’s time to hop back on and start pedaling. [After some reassembly.]
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photo courtesy of Gratisography
I should have been writing. Instead…
First of all, I’m thankful my boss is so forgiving, so understanding, so
- interested in cooking as I am.
- accepting of the power of displacement activities. [i.e. baking, procrastination in the form of picking up apples from the backyard, watering the front yard heathers to stave off the 100 degree heat, baking some more, making poblano pesto, watching golf–a sure sign that I’ve completely succumbed to the lures of the passive life]
- open to writing tasks being mere suggestions in one’s life, not mandates.
Of course, I am he. [Yes, that’s grammatically correct and it sounds so wrong, so snooty, so…sophomore year English class.]
Well, anyway…[picture Brother McCarthy hovering, arms crossed, berating me for not getting to the point within the first 20 words]
I’ve pounded out my first 1000 words already, but I’m in debt from the two previous days of productive weenieness.
I blame my neighbors.
You see, no matter how misguided and unjust the practice, my boss is also firmly on-board with
Those nice folks dropped off a bag of fresh-picked plums and my wife [and co-boss] mentioned the word ‘galette’ and since I took French during my first two years of high school, I really had no choice.
And because I am extremely intuitive when it comes to baking, I concluded that I needed a crust.
No big deal. I like to try different crusts, but I would say any crust should work for you.one-and-a-half of these little hummers are sitting in the fridge–
I now have one-and-a-half of these little hummers [aka crusts] sitting in the fridge–all those gluten strands relaxing, all those fat/flour/butter globules [hardly prime terminology for cookbook authors] hydrating.
The half of a crust resulted from me thinking, ‘Hey, I have a half cube of butter, plenty of flour, plenty of salt, plenty of sugar, full-fat yogurt, and an adventurous spirit!’. Okay-yes, my inner monologues aren’t quite that formal, but I threw those together in proper proportions, fed that adventurous spirit by tossing in cinnamon and some vanilla, and well…
Will let you know how this all shakes out.
Writers Horoscope September 3: March (write) to the sound of a distant drummer,…
guitar player, or saxman.
Experiment with different working audio.
Even try migrating from digital to…
yes, vinyl. [Granted, if you’re under a tight deadline or you’re on a roll, you might have to hire someone to switch albums for you and nudge the turntable in the event of skipping. Talk about a narrow niche for a side-hustle…]
You might also consider background noise [not counting the barking dog next door].
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photo courtesy of Gratisography
Writers Horoscope September 2: Today–rewire your brain.
A little change in circuitry might just do the trick.
“My dear friend, clear your mind of can’t.”– author Samuel Johnson
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Find many more positive thoughts here, thanks to Barrie Davenport.
It also seems fitting here to acknowledge the passing of Louise Hay earlier this week.
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photo courtesy of Gratisography
Writers Horoscope September 1: Remind yourself that criticism is subjective.
Remember the message of August 29: Don’t linger too long on writing’s low points.
https://www.arcamax.com/thefunnies/rhymeswithorange/s-1991391
Besides, if you’d followed the sage advice from August 05, you’d have already steeled yourself against apathetic responses to your work.
What’s on my bookshelf? The Writer’s Idea Book
From my bookshelf, The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron, published in 2000. [Note: There is also a 10th Anniversary Edition.]
It’s broken down into four sections: Bending and Stretching, Exploring, Finding Form, and Assessing and Developing.
To quote the author: “…the tone of the book will vary, from high-minded to playful to downright crabby.”
I really haven’t come across the crabby parts, which sound well worth tracking down.
Heffron–an accomplished writer and editor [Writer’s Digest Books, Story Press, and currently copy director at Barefoot Proximity in Cincinnati] provides over 400 different prompts to nudge, shove, cold-cock the reader into some fertile writing territory.
Some examples:
- A Day in the Life of a Writer. In this mindfulness exercise, “Your goal here is not to develop material for a single piece, but to plump your notebooks with ideas and details.”
- “You’re very old. You’re on your death bed…Family and friends gather around you. What do you tell them about life? What advice about living do you offer them?”
Apologies to the ‘absolutes’ police: With this book, you’ll never have nothing to write about…ever.
What’s on my bookshelf? The Writer’s Idea Book
From my bookshelf, The Writer’s Idea Book by Jack Heffron, published in 2000. [Note: There is also a 10th Anniversary Edition.]
It’s broken down into four sections: Bending and Stretching, Exploring, Finding Form, and Assessing and Developing.
To quote the author: “…the tone of the book will vary, from high-minded to playful to downright crabby.”
I really haven’t come across the crabby parts, which sound well worth tracking down.
Heffron–an accomplished writer and editor [Writer’s Digest Books, Story Press, and currently copy director at Barefoot Proximity in Cincinnati] provides over 400 different prompts to nudge, shove, cold-cock the reader into some fertile writing territory.
Some examples:
- A Day in the Life of a Writer. In this mindfulness exercise, “Your goal here is not to develop material for a single piece, but to plump your notebooks with ideas and details.”
- “You’re very old. You’re on your death bed…Family and friends gather around you. What do you tell them about life? What advice about living do you offer them?”
Apologies to the ‘absolutes’ police: With this book, you’ll never have nothing to write about…ever.
Writers Horoscope August 31: Reach out to your readers.
No matter the audience size, it’s a good idea to open up, to gauge your readership.
After all, you’re a wordsmith. A master of your message.
And your readers’ reactions? Wellll, it’s anybody’s guess.
With that in mind…why am I doing this writer’s horoscope [WH]?
Not necessarily in order of importance:
1. This is a project that will keep my head in the writing game. I like to stay involved in the process and if I have to think daily about even one aspect of it, well, that’s helpful.
2. I’m writing for me. I’m facing up to a self-issued challenge and since I’m not a great finisher up to now, I want to see if I can finish a year of it. [I can hear the groans from the folks who read the WH and really, you’ve been great, but I’m guessing you might roll your eyes at the repetition of some of the topics/themes I explore, which brings me to…
3. I’m thinking that if certain themes keep rearing their ugly heads, well, that’s telling me something–namely, they are issues that I consider important, if for no other writer than myself.
4. Maybe a different reader/fellow writer happens upon [is force-fed] my blog, say, a month from now. They’ve missed all my other gems [just humor me on this] about sticking your neck out, but the one on their screen might just hit home.
5. Each time I click ‘Publish’, I’ve given resistance a small-scale whack on the side of the head and believe me, resistance deserves it.
6. I really do ascribe to Austin Kleon’s ‘Show Your Work’ principles two and three ‘Think Process, Not Product’ and ‘Share something small every day.’. It’s giving a peek behind the curtain because frankly, the WH is obviously a work in progress. I mean, really, depending on the day, is it really a horoscope?
7. Maybe some of those dominant themes will co-opt themselves into a different form later on.
8. It’s fun to look for the photos that cast a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ eye at the various themes. [I’m sorry, but when the absurdity of that bizarre three-body-part-in-one phrasing popped in my head, I just had to go with it. Can you tell this is first-and-a-half draft material?]
9. Short pieces like this W.H. work for my limited attention span. In fact, this 450-word post is downright exhausting. [I can only imagine what an ordeal it is for anybody who has read this far.]
Okay, that’s nine reasons, with probably a couple more hovering out there.
So, feel free to keep reading and when you come upon repeated topics, just reassure yourself: A] “it’s not you, it’s me.” [Thank you, George Costanza.] It’s my experiment. B] My own denseness requires plenty of repetition.
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photo courtesy of Gratisography
Word Inventions 