Keep Perspective in Mind When You Write

I'm not asking you to hang upside down like this cat but the photo did prompt me to think about  perspective in writing. 

When we write, we are looking from our point of view. We're pulling up memories and experiences that help us write whatever it happens to be--fiction, essays, articles, poems and more. Those memories and experiences belong to us as individuals. 

When I write a scene about the downtown shopping area of a large city, I dig deep into my memory bank and relive those many times when my mother and I took the 'el' train to downtown Chicago. I remember the sights, the smells, the sounds--oh yes, the sounds. There were horns honking, trains roaring across tracks above us, whistles blown by policemen, the click of  shoes on pavement, the flapping of pigeons' wings--all of those things are part of my perspective of the downtown of a large city. Moments of Christmas magic return to me when I think about the wonderful animated holiday windows at Marshall Field's. Even now, thinking about them, I can feel my mother's hand holding firmly onto my much smaller one. That, too, is Chicago to me. 

What about a writer who grew up in a small rural community? Can they give the reader the same perspective in a scene in downtown Chicago as I, who lived there, can? A few might but not all. Conversely, I could probably not write nearly as well about a rural scene since I don't have those sounds, smells and more locked into my memory bank. I might make them up but they might not come across as well to the reader. 

Write what you know. How many times have you heard that? I think we can write about things we don't know but we will probably write better about things we do know. Our perspective, or our attitude, will change with the topic. 

Should writers give thought to the way their readers will look at what they've written? Yes, I think we must step back every now and then and try to place our self in the reader's place. Try to figure out how they area going to see what you wrote. Not so easy since we have so many different readers, all individuals. Still, you can do this in a general way. Open the gate and step through the fence from the writer's side to the place where the reader resides. Try to see your own writing through their eyes. 

As an exercise for today, choose a character and take them to a place you know. Describe what they see, hear, feel, smell in this place. If it is familiar to them, let your reader know. If it is a strange new place, specify that, as well. Try writing the scene from two different perspectives. It's not as easy as you think. 

Memoir Needs Facts and Feelings, Too

Isabel Allende

A memoir forces me to stop and remember carefully. It is an exercise in truth. In a memoir, I look at myself, my life, and the people I love the most in the mirror of the blank screen. In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts, and to write honestly, I have to confront my demons. Isabel Allende
 (Quote posted at Brainy Quotes)


Memoir appears to be continuing its popular trend. Recently, I talked about writing and publishing short memoir pieces as well as the book length ones. Whether short or long, one part of the quote stood out for me and rings true for both. 

It was the sentence 'In a memoir, feelings are more important than facts.' Ms. Allende is not saying that facts are not important. you and I both know they are mandatory in memoir. However, to write a memoir people will read, the author's reaction and feelings to whatever occurred are the choice nutmeat in the hard shell of truth. 

Readers want to know what happened but also how the author felt, how he/she handled the situation. Was the author depressed, angry, elated, mournful? We want to know the problem but the problem alone is not what readers seek. Problems beg for solutions. Solutions to our lifetime troubles involve feelings. Our feelings lead us to the solution. Hopefully, it will be a satisfying one. 

Readers are looking for the human side. They want to be able to relate to whatever happened to the memoir author. 

We often mention that memoir can be a step in healing a deep hurt. What does that involve? Feelings. 

All memoirs are not tragedies but a good many are. Even someone who writes a memoir about a blessed, happy life needs to include feelings. In this kind of book or short piece, the feelings will be of a different kind than in those that address a sad life or situation. 

Whether we write fiction, personal essays, or memoir, it's our innermost feelings we must reveal to the reader, but perhaps most of all, to ourself. 

Call For Submissions From Chicken Soup For The Soul

               

I have stories in each of these books. Can I find one more mom story to write?

Every now and then, I check the submissions page at Chicken Soup for the Soul to see if there are any new titles that writers can submit to. It's been longer than I thought since I last checked. I found several new titles and more than one made me sit up and pay attention. 

Notice that the three book covers above are all using the theme of mothers. I'm not sure how many books Chicken Soup has that dwell on moms but they may rival the many Christmas theme books. Mothers appear to hold a special place in the hearts of many. They are often released in time for Mother's Day which, I believe, is the reason we see spring flowers and colors on the three covers above, along with Mother's Day gifts on one. The middle one, My Amazing Mom, was released on March 20, 2018, I have a box of them sitting here in my office. It's been fun giving them to various people in my life. 

Here are the newest titles and deadlines. You can go to the Submit A Story page at the Chicken Soup website to read the details on each one.  There are eight new titles. A bonanza! All deadline dates below are for the year 2018.

1.  Grandparents--deadline August 31st

2.  Life Lessons From My Cat--deadline October 31

3.  Life Lessons From My Dog--deadline November 30

4.  More Messages From Heaven--deadline September 30

5.  Stories About Angels--deadline September 30

6.  Stories About Miracles-- deadline September 30

7.  Stories About My Mom--deadline September 30

8.  The Golden Years--Life After 60--deadline June 30

The miracle, angel, messages from Heaven themes are being used over and over as are the dog and cat books. These themes, along with the ones on mothers and Christmas top the list. 

I urge you to study the Guidelines page carefully before writing your story, or finding one in your files. Don't submit until you have double checked your story against what those guidelines specify. 

Those dates make it seem like you have lots of time. Try to get your story in sooner rather than later. From what I've been told, the earlier stories are given careful consideration and many selected for the short list. Yes, you can still submit a week or a day prior to the deadline but you are lessening your chances. Remember that the submissions number in the thousands--4 or 6,000 for some books--but only 101 make it. 

I'm excited about these new titles. I already have ideas swirling in my head for stories I would like to write, or ones in my file that I might update and/or revise. How about you? 

   

Advice From A Master Storyteller

Quote by Pearl S. Buck

Yesterday, I posted thoughts about one of my favorite authors, Pearl S. Buck. One thing I forgot to mention in that post was that critics did not treat this author kindly. Her readers, however, loved her early books and continued to look for more. Who buys more books--the critics or the readers? Case closed.

Today, let's take a look at a quote by this gifted author. Pearl Buck's quote tells me something about her personality. She wasn't a dreamer, sitting idly waiting for inspiration. She knew that to write you had to get busy and do it. She must have been a practical person in many ways.

If you worked on a line in a factory, what would the supervisor say if you stepped back and waited to be inspired to do your work? How about a football quarterback waiting for inspiration to move the ball to the goal line? We often hear about those in the arts world waiting for inspiration to write, paint, sculpt, or compose music. Perhaps our best work does come when we are fully inspired. 

Even so, there are more times that we must skip that waiting period and 'get down to work.' We need to put bottom in chair and fingers to the keyboard and start typing. So what if the result is not worthy of a prize or publication? We have taken the biggest step--getting down to work. 

Once you begin, your mind clicks in and you probably write increasingly better as you go. Don't forget that we have the great gift of being able to revise and edit right up to the moment we submit. 

We can also 'get down to work' by beginning with a writing exercise. Most are short but they get those creative juices flowing. The best part is that you are writing, not sitting around thinking about writing. 

A lot of would-be writers are dreamers who loll around thinking about writing but somehow never do the actual writing. I'm waiting for inspiration. Reason or excuse? Your call.

If you want to write, the rule is to to actually write. "...get down to work." Good advice from a master storyteller. 

What Writers Can Learn From A Writer of Yesteryear

Pearl S. Buck  1892-1973

The woman pictured above happens to be one of my all-time favorite authors. I discovered her books at my local library when I was a young teen. After reading one, I devoured every other book on the shelves that had her name listed as author. 

My Book Club is reading Pearl Buck's Pulitzer Prize novel, The Good Earth, the second book she wrote. This will be the third time that I have read the book. At each age I have read the book, I look at it from a different perspective. Ms. Buck was a prolific writer, writing over 100 books. I zipped through 47 pages last evening and upon slipping my bookmark inside and closing the book, I started thinking about they way books were written in Ms. Buck's time as compared to today. 

She went to college in Virginia, leaving China where she grew up with her missionary parents, then returned to that Asian country once she graduated. She spent over half her life in China, so it is no wonder that most of her novels are set there. I spent some time today reading a bit about her life. Guess why she started writing? To earn some money. Sound familiar? 

She didn't attend writing instruction classes, she picked up her pen or sat at her manual typewriter pounding the keys and learned as she went. Yes, we did have to 'pound' the keys on a manual. How amazing that she won the Pulitzer Prize with the second novel in 1932. A born storyteller? Perhaps. 

The opening line in The Good Earth is 'It was Wang Lun's marriage day.' How simple and yet it immediately makes the reader want to know who this person is. The name makes us want to know where the person is from. We sit up and pay attention when we learn this person is about to get married. We also want to know if Wang Lun is man or woman. Six words that leave you with questions and so we read on. Ms. Buck knew that the opening line had to hook her reader.

In one biographical sketch, she was quoted as saying that when ready to begin a new book, she had a fresh ream of paper and proceeded to fill the pages. A ream is a great deal of paper. Think how daunting it wold be to face 500 blank pieces of paper and you have given yourself the task of filling them all with words that tell an interesting story. 

She had no Scrivener, no Nano writing challenge in November of each year. She most likely did not belong to a critique group in China. She didn't blog to promote her books. She didn't belong to facebook or twitter or instagram or snapchat. None of those things were there to help her gain readers. Once published, her publisher helped market the books. Today's publisher pushes the writer to do a great deal of the marketing. 

I doubt that she had access to a myriad number of the how-to-write instruction books that writers today have available. She was on her own. Perhaps the phrase learn as you go might be applied to her methods. 

She picked a topic that was of interest to people here in the USA. In the 1930's, people knew little of the people of China and they were curious. Read one and they wanted more.

What this all comes to is that we writers today have so many tools at our finger tips to teach us and help us produce some good writing. We probably don't give enough credit to the writers of old. Some wrote entire books by hand. Would you be willing to do that? 

Despite being pretty much on her own, Pearl Buck did a lot of things right, even by today's standards. Human instinct? Maybe. A natural storyteller? Most likely. An intelligent reader of other books. I'd bet on it.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of The Good Earth. I have a feeling I might check at my library to see how many more books by Pearl Buck are sitting on the shelves.

Pick out a favorite book you read long ago and see what you think of it now. As you read, give thought to the era the writer lived in, how was the writing world different then? 

I Blog, You Blog, She Blogs, He Blogs

I played Bridge yesterday afternoon with a woman whom I have met a handful of times. I knew more about her husband and son, both well-known football people in our state, than I did about her. The one thing I did know was that I had liked her the first time I met her and hoped to get to know her better as time went on. Yesterday, I did get to know her a lot better.

I had brought a copy of the newly released Chicken Sout for the Soul: My Amazing Mom book to give to my partner. That led to questions and answers from the other three. I learned that one of the women had started a blog on women and aging (my ears perked up--my group of folks!). She said that she had dived heard first into it without knowing a whole lot about what she was doing. I had done the same a good number of years ago. Long story short, we agreed to get together so that I could help her learn a few things about blogging. We're meeting the middle of next week at my house. A good incentive to clean up the office! 

Our conversation got me thinking about blogging. Some of the questions that came to mind were:

• Who can blog?
• Should all writers have a blog?
• What does having a blog do for a writer?
• Why should writers bother with adding one more item on their To-Do List?
• What should writers know about blogging before they begin?
• What helps draw readers to a blog? 
• How often do I need to post on my blog?
• Who will be the most successful at blogging?

Who can blog?  Anybody. If you wanted  to start a blog about pulling weeds on your property, that would be fine. There is no need to be a professional, or even hobbyist, writer. You're in charge; you pick the topic and a lot of other things.

Should all writers have a blog? I would encourage anyone who writes to try blogging. We hear the term build your platform in our writing world over and over. A blog is only one step in doing that. It gives you a place to promote your writing. I have done that here by making this blog about my writing world and giving tips and encouragement to writers. It allows me to help others and to promote my own writing.

What does having a blog do for a writer?  As stated above, it helps get your name out among writers and readers. It can help draw readers to your writing, be it books, short stories, essays or poetry. It creates a regular time to write--you know how I am always preaching to write something every day. What better writing exercise than to write a blog post on a regular basis?

Why should writers bother with adding one more item on their To-Do List? It will reap benefits in the long run. You may not see them immediately but over time, you will. When I attend my state authors convention, a lot of people there identify me as 'a writer, a blogger, and a workshop instructor.'  All those things add to my platform. I will also add that I have learned a lot about my own writing methods, attitudes and more because of what I post. 

What should writers know about blogging before they begin? Google keywords like 'learning to blog,' 'how to blog,' and more. So many articles will pop up that you'll be overwhelmed. Don't attempt to read more than a few at first. Pay attention when a suggestion is repeated in several articles. There are people who dive into the deep end of the pool with eyes shut. I did way back at the beginning but I learned to read about what I was doing and to use the information.

What helps draw readers to a blog?  I could write an entire post on this question. Instead, I'll give you a list of words:  conciseness, photos, good writing, appealing topics, social media. These are only a few of many.

How often do I need to post on my blog?  The more the better! The important thing is to be consistent. Post daily, 5 days a week, weekly, monthly or twice a year but have a schedule that readers will know about. Post 3 times in April and then not again til one day in June and you are going to lose a lot of readers. Figure out a schedule that works for you, but make it regular. I chose 5 days a week because I am more likely to retain my readers and it also pushed me to write something on an almost-daily basis.

Who will be the most successful at blogging? The person who puts the most into their blog is most likely to gain the most readers. She/he who stays to one theme (like writing) will usually be more successful. I occasionally veer off the path but try to have something to do with writing in every post. 

These are all short answers to questions for those who either do blog or have aspirations to do so. It occurs to me that I could write a full post on each one of the questions. Someday, I may do that. Meanwhile, give blogging some thought but do a little research and reading first. One of the big negatives I see is that myriad bloggers lose interest and quit. Those who persevere will be alright. Oh look--one of my keywords for writers works for bloggers, too. Persevere!

Writers Are Sometimes Their Own Obstacle

Wise words in our poster today. How many of us, myself included, have waited and waited to get a new writing project underway? See all those stars in the photo--each one might represent a writer who had an idea for a writing project--big or small--but never acted on it. 

We're wont to say that time is our enemy, that we let life get in the way, that circumstances weren't quite right for plunging into the new project. Excuses! I know many of you have used them. I have been guilty of spouting some of those words myself. 

I think what really holds us back comes down to the fact that we become our own obstacle. We have the idea but before we can write paragraph one, fear and doubt creep into the back of our mind. Thoughts like Can I do justice to this idea? Am I a good enough writer to tackle this monumental idea? What if I spend weeks, months, years on it and no one wants to publish the book? What if....?  Why does...? Round and round the thoughts go like the carnival carousel. Somehow, it seems easier to sit on that gaily painted carousel horse and keep going in circles rather than jump off and get to writing. 

I have a dear writer friend who has started many fine stories and books but she doesn't seem to reach the end. She quits and moves on to start something new. Why? I have asked myself that question several times. Is she afraid to finish because then she needs to market the project and there's a certain amount of fear involved? Does she prefer beginnings to endings? Something holds her back. She's a good writer with fine ideas and I've tried to encourage her but perhaps we all need to come to the solution on our own. 

Face the fact that the longer we wait, the older we get, the less time there is to finish and start the publishing process. Push fear aside and take steady steps to tackle those great ideas. Give yourself a pep talk if you must. Hey, there is nothing wrong with doing that. I've done it more than once. It's alright to remind yourself of your strengths and push the doubts aside. 

I have a folder in my files with stories, poems, novels and more that are partially finished. Occasionally, I look at them. One of the reasons I slide them right back in the folder is that I've hit a snag and I don't know how to tackle it. Which is easier? To put the project out of sight or to brainstorm with yourself (and maybe others) to get past the trouble spot? You and I know which is easiest but why not try the one that will be more productive? 

You might also have another folder labeled "Story Ideas" that goes through much the same process as those that are unfinished. Waiting buys you nothing. Don't be your own obstacle. Meet those unfinished projects/ideas head-on. Write the first draft. Then, revise and edit. Keep moving. The rolling stone gathers no moss. That's an old proverb that could apply to waiting too long to work on a story idea. Besides that, waiting does only make you older!