Writing About Special Springtime Celebrations

There are lots of special days in the spring of the year. I've noted just a few above but you can also add Passover, St. Patrick's Day, Memorial Day and Father's Day. Many publications, whether in print or online, seek stories to commemorate each one of these celebrations.

It's a great opportunity for writers. Fiction, creative nonfiction, essays and poetry are all sought by editors of magazines, ezines and newspapers. The writing can be serious or humorous. It can be a made-up story or fact. Just be sure the made-up story is labeled fiction. 

Memoir writing works well in this holiday or special day writing category. There are anthologies filled with holiday stories. The market is there, but what should you consider when writing for it?

1.  Decide on a children's story or one for adults. This should be step one and an easy decision to make. Unless you're like me and write for both children and adults.

2.  Gather information and background before you begin to write. We have the information about our own family celebrations but it might be to your benefit to read all you can about the day--how it started, what different people do to celebrate, how it became popular and more. Weave these bits of info into your story or essay, or keep it strictly an informational article with many facts and figures.

3.  Don't try to hurry up and write something for a special day happening next week. This, to me, is one of the big problems when writing holiday, or celebration, stories. You know that Easter is on a certain date each year and a week or two ahead, you decide you'd like to write a story and get it published. Not likely to happen that quickly. Editors want stories for special days sent in far ahead. They need them early for planning purposes. But you and I both know, we do our best when writing for a special holiday when it is close and we are seeing advertising that brings back memories. Or, we're getting ready to celebrate within our own family. The emotion is there. If I try to write a Christmas story on a hot July day, I'm not going to be able to feel it as well as I might in early December. What to do? Go ahead and write the story when the holiday is close but save it to submit the following year. You'll have plenty of time to let the story simmer on the back burner, plenty of time to revise and edit. Write too close to the celebration day and you hurry, you have less chance of being published, and you probably won't do your best writing.

4.  Aim for a religious or nonreligious market, don't try to mix the two. Another decision that should be fairly easy. A mix of these two is pretty difficult to achieve in a satisfying way even though it can be done. I'd suggest aiming at either the religious side or the commercial as your main thrust.

5.  Look for a new angle. I see editors remarking over and over that they get too many of one kind of story or another. Approach it from a different angle and you might hit paydirt a lot sooner.

Selecting Your Writer Name

This is a post from 2012 that I thought worth repeating. 

When I first began writing, I used the name Nancy Kopp. Why not? It's mine, and I felt proud to have it on my work. Some writers choose to use only initials and last name, others use both names and still others choose to use a pseudonym. I've always thought they did it if they weren't proud of their work, but perhaps they wanted anonymity only for privacy sake. If I spend hours writing an article, story or poem, I'd like my real name on it. I’ll admit that I didn’t give a great deal of thought to the name that appeared on my work at the beginning of my writing life. I spent my energy on the content instead.

Then, one day I was walking through Walmart and passed by the book section. It's nearly impossible for me to ignore a book browsing spot, so I wheeled my basket around and went back to scan the titles. My eyes moved from one shelf to another until a certain book stopped me cold. I couldn't tell you the title today, but in big letters under the name of the book was the author's name--NANCY KOPP. My heart beat faster, and I grabbed the book. I checked the back cover, frontispiece and inside to see who this imposter was. It turned out that this Nancy Kopp works at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and writes mystery novels on the side. What are the odds of having two Nancy Kopps who are both writers? I placed the book back on the shelf and moved on to the grocery section, but as I picked out lettuce, melons, and green beans, my mind kept wandering back to the book section.

As the week progressed, I continued to ponder the discovery I’d accidentally made. I wondered if it really posed a problem of any kind. After all, I don’t write mystery novels. But at the time, I lived only an hour south of the novel writer. Maybe that could be a bit too close for comfort. For days, I did nothing, but the whole thing kept nagging at me. What solution served both of us, hurt neither of us and could be accomplished in a relatively easy manner?

A simple answer was to add my maiden name, so I typed it to see how it looked, and I liked it. It looked professional and rather nice, so my new writing name came into being, the easiest birth ever. I've used it for a number of years now, and it feels comfortable, especially when an envelope arrives by Snail Mail addressed to Nancy Julien Kopp with a check inside in payment for something I've written.

If you hope to publish your work, give some serious thought to the name you want to use and be consistent in using it. Google your name, along with the keyword writer, to learn if there is any other writer with the same or similar name. You can use two monikers and still be the same person. The nurse in the doctor's office may know you by one name and your readers by quite another. Pick one for your writing life that feels good to you, one you’ll be proud to see in print under the title of your published work. The writing you present to the world is important, but so are you, the author. 

Get Off The Worry Wheel

There's a lot of truth to this poster. I should make a copy and put it where I see it every day. Lately, I've been worrying about a lot of little things. Nothing that is going to change my life greatly but things that matter to me, maybe more than I realized until I started worrying. I know better, but things get to you sometimes.

The problem is that,once you start the worry wheel going, it gets harder and harder to stop it. Ever hop on the worry wheel when you don't know why your submissions bounce back to you or are never acknowledged by an editor? If you're a writer, you'll answer in the affirmative. It happens to every writer now and then.

As the poster says, it's a waste of time to worry over the fact that you're not getting published as often as you'd like. Or ever perhaps. It definitely is not going to change unless you get off that worry wheel and start figuring out the why of it.

Take a look at the submissions that haven't made it. Then look at the ones that you have had published (if you've had some). Do you see any differences? Does anything stand out? Try to be objective, and I know how difficult that can be, but try it. Be honest with your assessment. Ask yourself If I were an editor, would I want to publish this? 

Ask yourself some other questions:

Is this piece polished enough to be published?
Does it engage the reader right at the beginning?
Would someone want to keep reading?
Did I include lots of sensory details?
Have I used emotion in my writing?
Are there lots of active verbs? 

You get the picture. Ask yourself these questions and more. Sometimes we can figure out the reason(s) that a piece did not get accepted. Other times, we can never come up with the answer. It could be somethng as simple as having a great story but choosing the wrong market.

Don't waste your time on the worry wheel. Don't let it mess with your mind and steal your happiness.

Writing and Reading Personal Essays

Listening to a choir in Wertheim, Germany prompted a personal essay.

The personal essay appears to be a popular trend, and I hope the trend continues for a very long time. Much of my writing falls into this category. 

What is a Personal Essay?  It's factual but it's also filled with the author's feelings and opinions about a subject. A formal essay will present both sides of a question without bias. In the personal essay, if you have strong feelings about a subject, you can express them freely. It can feature a place you've visited that left you with the kind of emotions that drive you to write. It's written in first person. It's more informal, almost conversational. An example might be The Presence of God which goes along with the picture above.

Where do you publish your personal essays? Newspapers use them as human interest peices. I've had several published in a sernior newspaper. The Christian Science Monitor has a special section where they publish personal essays. Magazines and ezines publish them. Go to your favorite search engine to get many suggestions and guidelines for submitting. Southern Living magazine publishes a personal essay by Rick Bragg on the final page of each issue. Woman's Day published personal essays on the final page of their magazine for a long time but no longer do so. I think it was a mistake to do away with it. 

Why should I read personal essays? There are lots of reasons but one of the best ones I can think of is that you can relate to this kind of writing. You may find yourself nodding your head at some of what is said because you've been there or know someone who has had the same kind of experience. You feel almost as if you're having coffee with the author and listening to him/her tell you about an experience they had. It feels--yes--personal! You can travel around the world reading personal essays that feature travel experiences. Even with all the personal notes in these essays, you're most likely to learn something.

Where can I learn more about writing personal essays? For more detailed information on writing the personal essay, take a look at this article. Sheila Bender is an essayist who has written how-to books on writing essays. Her book Writing and Publishing Personal Essays is an excellent source for those wanting to perfect the writing of personal essays.

A final note:  If you like one of the posts on my blog, please pass it on to others who might be interested. One of my writer friends, often shares this blog with her facebook friends, while others forward a link to their email list friends. It's one way bloggers increase readership and is greatly appreciated.

Want To Write? Try This

I liked this quote by Theodore Roosevelt. Wise man. April is National Poetry Month so why not believe you can write a poem? As Teddy told us, if you believe you can, you're on your way. Who doesn't know the story of The Little Engine That Could ? Most of us have read it aloud to children or grandchildren. It's the children's version of the poster above.

Believe you can write a short story, a novel, a chap book, or an essay. Yes, even a poem. Believe it and I'm willing to bet that you'll do it. Does it mean it's going to be worthy of a Pulitzer? Not by a long shot. Those first efforts are rarely masterpieces. The big deal about it is that you wrote it.

If you write one essay, poem or story, chances are you'll write others. Of course, the more you write, the better writer you'll become with a few stipulations. Don't build a defensive wall around your writing world. Invite the people who are knowledgeable about writing to come in. Ask for critiques and accept them with grace. If it is returned to you with editing remarks everywhere, just like some of those high school English essays, don't be offended. Rejoice! Well, maybe not quite that but do be appreciative of this great opportunity to learn.

If you don't feel ready for a full crit group, look for one person to be a Writing Buddy. That's the way I started and, to this day, I am filled with gratitude for the many things I learned from my writer friend, Barb.

Other eyes see our work objectively. Other writers will see problems, and also the great parts, much more easily than we do ourselves. I've heard it over and over again in my critique group. Why didn't I see that? is the common response after a crit.

Have you always had a desire to write but are afraid of trying because you think you'll never be able to get published? Do whatever it takes to believe in yourself. It's the best way to get started in the writing world.

Food Memories--Good and Not So Good

This little poster made me think about the foods we ate in our growing-up years. For those of you assembling a Family Memories book, this is a hot topic. Who doesn't like to eat? You can even write a personal essay about food for a memoir magazine or ezine.

Think back to your early days and the special foods your mom, or dad, fixed on a regular basis. A lot of kids  grew up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch. Another popular lunch that brings back happy moments was tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm betting that most often, that soup came right out of a can with a Campbell's label on it. How about the macaroni and cheese that came out of the blue Kraft box? What special made-from-scratch recipes did your family have?

Maybe your mom wasn't a very good cook. You can write about that, too. Might have a lot of humorous tales to tell if that's the case. Or maybe mom was a very good cook who had occasional disasters. We've all had a few of those over the years.

Include the holiday dinners your family had. We tend to be traditionalists, so our holiday meals often feature the same foods every year. Whether Christmas, Passover, Easter, or Thanksgiving, it's an easy menu for moms to plan. I do vary the Christmas dinner menu a little but Thanksgiivng is always the same. Any changes and my family gets upset. One year, I didn't make the Green Bean Casserole and my son nearly cried. Never made that mistake again.

Here are a few memory triggers to help you write about foods in your family, then and now:

1. What foods did you have in different seasons of the year?

2.  What was your mom's (or your own) specialty?

3.  What was your family's favorite cookie recipe?

4.  What cold winter morning item did you eat most often?

5.  What holiday foods were traditional in yoru family?

6.  Who did the cooking in your family?

7.  Where did you have holiday dinners? At home? At Grandma;s?

8.  What is your comfort food today and why?

9.  Did your family have a garden?

10. Did your family have to pinch pennies at the grocery store?

11. Was yours a family that lived to eat or ate to live?

April Words

April has arrived with the promise of showers and flowers. It's a lovely month followed by an even nicer one--May. Maybe I love May because it's my birthday month, but I also like it because of the beautiful green shades of spring, the tulips and flowering trees and milder temps in our section of the country. 

My April words for today are about something that many published authors do that bugs me. I probably have no right to be criticizing men and women who have published multiple novels but, hey, I'm a writer and I look at all the writing details when I read a novel. 

Case in point is this:  Our book club selection for April was a great read. Breaking Silence by Linda Castillo. It's the third in a series about a young chief of police in a small town inhabited by many Amish families as well as the Englishers (those not of the Amish faith). Kate understands the Amish people better than most because she grew up in an Amish family and in her teen years was turned out by them. In this third novel of the series, we see Kate working a horrific case of murder in an Amish family that keeps growing. Of course, a bit of romance is tossed in and Kate's own character flaws become an important part of the case. It's a page turner that keeps the reader guessing who the killer might be. It tugs at the heart in several instances, too. The book gives us a fine sense of place, many sensory details. good character development and more. But...

Yep, there's a but. This seasoned author repeats the same information more than is necessary. She tells the reader over and over that Kate was from an Amish family, that she was turned out etc etc. Once is OK, twice perhaps but not more than that. One of the finest writing teachers I know came down hard on those in my writing critique group if we were too repetitive. Don't insult your reader, she'd say. Give them some credit. They don't want to hear the same information over and over again. They get it!

She made me very aware of this problem. I don't mean to be picking on Ms. Castllo, because I truly liked the book. It is my one and only criticism. She is far from alone in repeating information. I read a fine nonfiction book a few months ago--a memoir that was riveting in content but the author gave the reader some of the information far too many times. A small reference to whatever that important bit of info happens to be will suffice but we don't want to read the same thing a dozen times. 

What puzzles me a bit is why the editor of these books has not caught the problem and corrected it. If the book is self-published, the answer is clear, but if it's been published by a big house that let it slip through, then I'm not happy. 

Watch for the repetition problem in the books you read and it might help you avoid doing it in your own writing. I'm not saying that I've never done it because, most likely, I have. However, the more aware I become, the less I will do it myself. 

The first two books in the series of Amish mysteries featuring Kate, the police chief are Sworn to Silence and Pray for Silence. A high bit of praise came from a member of my book club who told me I don't usually like mysteries but I adored this book and I'm going straight to the library to get the first two in the series. High praise indeed coming from one of the best-read women I know.