Finding a Publishing Home

By Jodie Cain Smith

I was finished writing. Every word had been carefully crafted into my perfect 300-page newborn:  unspoiled and unpublished. However, I knew my bouncing baby manuscript would not be fully realized as a novel until I put it out into the world. Succeed or fail, I had to try.

But how? I have been asked this several times since finding a publisher for my baby. How did I do it?

First, I did my research. For weeks, I dug through websites such as Poet & Writers, Writer’s Market, and Publishers Weekly. I attended classes on the publishing industry. I purchased and read nearly every word of 2013 Writer’s Market:  Where and How to Sell What You Write.

Next, I put my gigantic, sometimes fragile ego in check. Had I written the next Pride & Prejudice? No. Had I written a story I believed in; one I wanted to share? Yes. Had I written a story with a great hook? Definitely. My baby was begging to be published, but which avenue should I choose?

Shelving my ego allowed my true publishing goal to emerge. I wanted the experience of working with a professional editor without coughing up the cash, so self-publishing was out. I had also learned aiming for the Big Six as an unrepresented author would be equivalent to flying to the moon. Let’s just say that NASA is not banging on my door.

I was left with one choice:  query agents or submit unsolicited to small presses? I decided to roll the dice with small press publishers rather than attaining an agent first. Sharing 10% of nothing didn’t appeal to me.

After compiling a list of over 100 small presses from around the country, I began eliminating those organizations deemed “a bad fit.” I removed all genre specific and nonfiction publishers from my list. My baby is mainstream fiction. Querying the we-pride-ourselves-in-scaring-the-piss-out-of-tweens publishers would be a waste of time, paper, and ink. I read offerings from several small presses, evaluating each for quality and parallels to my book. Yes, I was looking for novels similar to mine. My baby needed siblings, a family of books in which to belong.

After the elimination round, I knew I had a group of real contenders: twenty small presses who accepted simultaneous submissions from unheard-of authors. Most of the presses’ catalogs were comprised entirely of Southern authors writing mainstream fiction. As a woman of the South, I dreamed of being counted among them.

I spent the next month writing twenty query letters, infusing each with specific reasons why my baby would be the perfect addition to their family. I double-checked submission guidelines for each before licking the stamp or pressing send. I was a mother sending her baby off to college. Would she come back to me rejected from the cruel world or return triumphant with the hope of being molded into an even better version of herself? 

Nineteen presses tossed her aside. But one, one said, “Welcome home, baby.”

The Joys of Writing Instructions

By Sarah Herlong

For this latest trip to a writer’s conference, I wrote instructions for the sitters, two pages for the cats, and one page for mother. I put a lot of work into writing instructions and enjoy it as much as writing a story. Here I share my truncated page of cat instructions.

Ours is a merged feline household. A Brady Bunch of cats. That’s right we have 5 cats, but that’s still 20 less than an animal hoarder.

The Original Gangster
Mother’s cat showed up at a family reunion as a kitten, and got brought home as part of the family. That’s what happens when you crash someone else’s family reunion.Spooky: Cream-colored seal point with stunning blue eyes. He’s the only male. And this means my cats relentlessly chase him when they’re outside. Inside they’re civil.

The Kittens

Found under the compactor of our local dump. They are actually 2 years old now.

Isis: She’s the fat tabby cat. Her good quality is that she loves Grammy with all her heart. Her bad quality is she shreds important papers. She also likes to jump out and scare the other cats. As you can imagine this isn’t appreciated. Keep her out of my room.

Josephine: She is a fluffy black cat. Her eyes resemble an owl and she is a gentle soul. In a show of solidarity she hangs out with the other black cats in my room.

My Old Cats

Rescued shelter cat and failed foster kitten. They stay in my room.

Hortense: She’s a black and white tuxedo. She has no faults except pooping and peeing on my bedclothes when trapped in the room with no access to the bathroom. Learned that one the hard way with an inattentive pet sitter.

Zoe: She’s another fluffy black cat. She’s got a smoker’s meow and the temperament of a smoker kicking the habit. She looks like she’s missing hair around her neck and on her tail…and she is. To tell them apart, Josephine has an upbeat attitude and never meows. Zoe is sarcastic and only looks at you with the stink eye. She meows her smoker’s meow often. Whereas the other cats will move out of your way, she gets in your way and you have to step over her, even in the dark. She has not figured out that we humans can’t see in the dark or maybe she just doesn’t care. Zoe will cut you if you try to pick her up.

The three black cats segregate themselves into my set of rooms separated from the rest of the world by the kitchen pullout door. If this door is not treated correctly it is the portal to anarchy. Creepily Josephine and Isis can open the partition door so it is important to keep my bedroom door closed too.

My old cats exclusively come in and out of the house through the left window over the orange table in my room. This is where they eat. Being black you won’t see them in the window at night and will have to open it just to see if they’re there. They grew up free feeding, so they like little amounts of food throughout the day if they stay inside. The other cats get fed in the morning and then again around 4:00 pm which they interpret as between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm. Basically the feeding chair is magic to them. They sit in it, and food appears. I never said they were geniuses.

The Importance of Storytelling

By Laura P. Valtorta

                                     

Stories are like cinnamon buns. They unfold into sweetness.

As I continue filming my third film (a documentary about water service) and planning my fourth (a dance film), the need for storytelling becomes clearer.

Before filming begins, the director needs to write a storyboard. A storyboard maps out the look and feel of the film so that shooting time is not wasted. A storyboard might include drawings of film angles, descriptions of dialogue, or notes about the action in a scene. Through storyboarding, the producer or director may be able to find the arc of the story – the beginning, middle, and end of the tale, or a progressive chain of events leading to a big climax!

As my musical colleague and I began brainstorming for our dance movie, we discovered the need for another story – a fable illustrated by the dance we want to create. What sort of message do we want our dancers to convey? Since I’m the writer in this mix, I decided to devise the story myself, based on what the music says to me and fables about our subject matter – an Australian bird.

The choreography will end up being the story within the story when our film is finished.

Some innovative filmmakers, such as Simon Tarr at the University of South Carolina, are able to make their films with no evident narrative. Tarr has a 2009 film called Giri Chit, recently shown at Tapp’s Art Gallery, that gives a clear picture of the look and feel of Tokyo in various locations around town, including a rooftop garden and colorfully-dressed teenagers. The film is the art form, and this 14-minute piece seems more like an abstract painting than a film. It features mysterious camera tricks. Tarr’s work is beautiful, but I don’t know how to manipulate the camera like that.

For now, my work must rely on storytelling.

          

I Love Words

Marion D. Aldridge

 “The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.”—Mark Twain

The first time I remember being impressed by the “right word” was when, as a young man, I read Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice. In a letter to Beverly Axelrod, he wrote, “Your letters to me are living pieces—chunks—of you.” I still have the paperback where I underlined that sentence and made note of the descriptive word: “chunks. “

No lightning bug there. Lightning!

Piano lessons cost money, so I never took a piano lesson.

Libraries, on the other hand, are free. So I read. Tom Sawyer. Swiss Family Robinson. The Mark of Zorro. I won the summer reading contest at the West End Free Library on Eve Street in Augusta, Georgia. I learned to love words.

Words do not have to be multi-syllable to be savored. Being incarcerated is no better than being jailed. The prisoner probably cannot tell the difference.

I’m pretty sure no one except doctoral students ever says “methodological parameters.” You can research the entire corpus of John Steinbeck, Margaret Atwood and Alex Haley and never read that phrase. Simple and clear is almost always better.

Some words are loaded with meaning and continue to be fresh even though they have been around a while: grace, paradox, courage, wisdom, hope, curious, integrity.

Some words are fun. Persnickety. Brouhaha. Rambunctious. Imp. Skittish. Chartreuse. Slimy.

Plurals can be fascinating: A congregation of alligators. A flight of butterflies. A murder of crows. A pod of whales. How did people know this stuff before Google? A tower of giraffes. Is Google pulling our long legs? A scourge of mosquitoes. In South Carolina, that one is easy to believe. The best, of course, is an exaltation of larks.

I enjoy the dynamic nature of our language. Cookies and the cloud mean something different than just a few years ago. What’s not to value about a vocabulary that includes such words as: earworm, ringtone, Zen, diss, netiquette? I could probably live without twerking, kankles, sissification and incentivize, but with language, you take the ugly with the exquisite.

Word combinations can double the pleasure: mash up, extreme scrupulosity, password fatigue, and unintended consequences. I have a personal affection for pleasantly plump.

Maybe the best word of all for a writer: period.

Good Rejection, Bad Rejection

By Bonnie Stanard

Recently I had a good rejection for a short story, at least I thought it was a good one. And yes, there are good rejections—something other than a slip of paper the size of a classified ad returned in your self-addressed stamped envelope. I have a file of select rejections, those with handwritten comments like “”some really nice lines in here,” or “this was a tough call,” or “Submit again!”

The rejections that really annoy me begin with, “We are writers too and we know how it feels…” as if we’re neophytes with no rejection experience. Just give me a reason or say “no.” By the way, I don’t mind the short, photocopied notes, but one time I got a slice of 8.5 x 11 paper no wider than ½ inch. Now that’s getting close to disrespectful.

One year, after my manuscript for a novel wasn’t chosen for the University of Tennessee’s Peter Taylor Prize, Director Brian Griffin wrote me a nice letter. I’ve read that rejection letter a number of times.

Anyway, back to what I thought was a good rejection. The editor wrote that my story just wasn’t what she was looking for and advised me to style my writing after that of a particular writer’s work in Narrator, a literary journal. This sounded sincere. 

I looked up the website and found the article in the archive and read what was a nostalgic essay on the way things once were. It’s hard to figure out techniques for writing fiction from an essay. Maybe the editor was suggesting I get out of fiction and into nonfiction.

Being the cynic that I am, I’m beginning to wonder if even this “good” rejection was as generic as the four-line formulas. Maybe every rejected submission to that journal got this same response. Maybe the objective wasn’t to help me with my writing style but to increase the online traffic for a certain writer.

Looking ahead, the days of the rejection letter are numbered as editors and writers transition to the internet for submissions and communication. We’ve already seen the profusion of www magazines. Even elite print journals are adding online satellites. Whether online or print, most journals request or allow email submissions in which you either paste your manuscript in the body or attach it as a document. 

A number of journals employ online submission managers. I have accounts on several of these. This eliminates email. You simply upload the document containing your work. Decisions from the editors are posted in a grid space reserved for rejections and acceptances, which you access by signing in. There’s virtually no communication between writers and editors.

Though this is easier and faster, it has a downside. With letters (or slips of paper), you can trash all those rejections and forget about them. However, with the submission manager, every time you sign in, you see all the material you’ve submitted that has been declined. If you’re like me, one rejection at a time is manageable, but it’s disheartening to see a long list of them. And on the other hand, you don’t get those nice, hand-written comments either.

You Don’t Need Blurred Lines to Write a Song

By Kimberly Johnson

Hey, Hey, Hey. Those three words are burning up the radio waves, especially on 104.7 FM. The intro line belongs to Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines. (Some old school listeners say Fat Albert needs to jump into this). The groovin’ chart topper got me thinking. I want to write a song without blurred lines, you know, something catchy, something that will sell and make millions. Ok. I didn’t major in Music in college. I didn’t play an instrument in high school and I am not acquainted with the formal definitions of harmony, rhythm, and chord progression. But, I pay attention to words and their arrangement in a composition—guess that comes from my newspaper writing training. Listen to the words in the title song from the 70s sitcom, Maude. Lyricists Dave Grusin and Andrew Bergman knew who the target audience was (women), found a universal theme (strong women who had conviction) and tapped into a catchy beat (search for it on YouTube).

Lady Godiva was freedom rider. She didn’t care if the whole world looked. Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her. She was a sister who really cooked.

Those are the elements needed to write a good story. And like any good journalist-turning-songwriter, I cranked up the Internet and came up with a hodge-podge of tips.

 1: Write it out www.music-industry.squidoo.com

    *Keep a notebook handy and write down words, lines and verses that embody how you feel and think.

2: Be organized: www.greatsongwriting.com

   *Get a central theme or subject. Outline what your message is to your target audience. Organize and       focus on what emotion you want the audience to take away from your song.

3: Keep Music 101 in mind and work through the technical stuff. www.howtowriteasongtips.com

   *Write the chorus, first. It showcases the main idea in your song. Make it catchy.

   *Compose a melody, using a music scale “Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti” .

    *Write one melody for the first line, and then use various types of melodies for subsequent lines in the     song.

   **Hint: “A traditional song has four to five verses of four lines. Writing at least five plus a chorus can really help to make the verse and melody happen, as these are the most important things of the song to a lyricist. Write two last verses. Even the most experienced song writers are waiting for the inspiration how to write song lyrics by them, because these are normally the hardest to write.”

Ok. I didn’t major in Music in college. Nevertheless, I did write for a living and I know what components make for a good story.  I need to take a music class and not get blurred lines when I start this songwriting gig.

The Latest Addition

Meet a New Columbia II Blogger

JODIE CAIN SMITH

Jodie Cain Smith spent her childhood exploring the shores of Mobile Bay with her three siblings.  As a teen in Mobile, AL, Jodie’s grandmother told her the gripping story of an adolescence spent in 1930’s rural Alabama, the rumors surrounding her parents, and the murder trial that would alter her life.  The tale took root in Jodie’s memory until at last it became The Woods at Barlow Bend, her debut novel to be released January 2015.

While attending the University of South Alabama, where Jodie earned a BFA in Theatre Arts, she met her husband Jay.  They began their life on the Army road in 2001 and have not stopped moving since.  As an Army Wife, she has lived in six different states from the extreme heat of Texas to the blizzards of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where she earned a MAE in School Counseling at Northern Michigan University. 

No matter where she has lived, Jodie has been fortunate to hold on to two of her favorite passions:  tennis and live theatre.  Even in the smallest of towns, as she uses her childhood explorer skills, Jodie has been able to find a community theatre to play amongst the local artists and a tennis court for herself and her favorite opponent, her husband.

Jodie Cain Smith’s feature articles and columns have appeared in Chicken Soup for the Military Spouse's Soul, The Savannah Morning News, and the Fort Hood Sentinel.

To learn more about Jodie Cain Smith and her thoughts on ruling, renovating, and escaping her corner of the world visit her blog The Queendom at http://thequeendom.org.

Jodie's first blog at this site follows.

Army Action Planning: The Writer Surrenders

By Jodie Cain Smith

Recently, due to another Army-mandated move, I left my sixth job in 12 years. I knew well how to start again at the bottom and catapult up the ladder, but I didn’t want to. A hidden family tragedy had been bouncing around in my head for 20 years. So, I made a deal with my husband: give me one year to write a book. If I don’t, I will get a “real” job. But if I do…

After 12 months of research, writing, revising, and perfecting the manuscript and query letter, I submitted my work for publication. My heart broke with each rejection. Then, the unimaginable: a small press accepted my work.

“What now?” the husband asked.

“Well, I keep writing,” I told him, content with being a slave to the creativity gods.

“No. Not good enough,” he said. “You need a plan.”

Several weeks later, the husband reminded me of the plan. Boxes appeared for another move.

“Jodie, you still need a plan,” he said.

We unpacked the boxes. He grabbed a legal pad, a pen, and a six-pack. I surrendered, opened a beer, and the plan that will guide me through the next two years was born.

(Full disclosure: creating the plan required several six-packs over a few weeks. I often wanted to punch the husband in the throat for imparting his soldier stuff on my writing world, but I resisted. He is extremely supportive and incredibly useful. If I start punching him, he may stop being so cooperative.)

1. Identify the Lines of Effort

After much discussion, I identified what I want most: to sell my book, to establish myself as a writer, and to sustain a writing career.

With my action verbs identified, I wanted to jump over a few steps and brainstorm individual tasks. The husband forced me to cool my jets and follow the action-planning process. This was the first time I felt a tingling in my fists.

2. Define an Endstate for each Line of Effort

Specifically, what would each line of effort look like when accomplished? What is my sales goal? Describe an established writing career. How do I define sustainment?

After several hours, I answered these questions. But my head hurt. Possibly, it was the beer. More than likely, it was from thinking so hard.

3. Create the Task List

Finally, I used my squirrel-like attention span to write down every possible task having anything to do with accomplishing each line of effort. I pinged from sell to establish to sustain– on and on, the list grew. Each task was assigned to one line of effort.

4. Create the Calendar

Next, the husband drew a chart containing three rows (the lines of effort) and twenty-four columns (monthly blocks representing July 2013 through June 2015). The endstate for each line of effort was placed in the last month of each row. Working backwards from June 2015 to the present, I placed every individual task on the calendar; ensuring tasks were performed in the correct sequence. Backwards planning forced me to focus on the endstates.

5. Evaluate the Plan

My two-year calendar was complete, filled with tasks directly related to accomplishing my dream. My husband then leaned on the back of my chair and began to read the plan over my shoulder. He read each endstate and searched for tasks in the corresponding line of effort to accomplish that endstate.

“Are you checking my work?” I asked.

“I’m making sure we didn’t miss anything,” he said.

Oh. Smart. And he did say we. Uncurl your fists, Jodie.

6. Display the Plan!

Would I be able to resist the temptation of online shoe shopping if the plan is hidden in my desk drawer? No. So, I hung the action plan on the wall next to my desk. Now, when I walk into my office, the plan orders me to work, to move my wild dream forward. Now, my dream doesn’t seem quite so wild anymore.  

As for undertaking a project like this with your significant other, consider yourself warned. Your fists may start to tingle.

Where I Write

By Sarah Herlong

I’m lucky to have an entire room devoted to writing. In the Spring, I have a great view of the blooming dog wood tree, as well as the occasional bird that alights on the windowsill. This drives my cats crazy. Even the whip snake that coiled itself in the vines growing up the window caused quite a stir, amongst us all.

I sit in a somewhat raggedy yet comfortable oversized chair and roll my computer to me via a nifty little computer desk on wheels. When I’m finished writing for the day or night, I simply roll it away from me. Likewise I have a rolling table that holds stacks of important papers.  Everything at my finger tips just a roll away. I have a variety of children’s books to use as examples of age appropriate writing. Regrettably I have a small messy pile on the floor of magazines to read, books to read and some paperwork. This is material under the constant threat of Isis the cat, who shreds paper like she works for a shady politician.

I don’t have a name for my room. I rarely call it my writing room despite that being its primary purpose. I just call it my room.  It also contains my curio cabinet. Housing the stuffed alligator, large bird skull, the glow in the dark, collapsing skeleton, and the pink head that giggles. It’s creepy… trust me. I have a more regal skeleton in the corner wearing a silk ribbon around its head, and a pink necklace that my grandmother used to wear. It sits cross-legged in a chair around a green candle. He’s a yes man. Never gives good advice.

I try to write every day, sometimes broken up with doctor’s appointments for my mother, or having to assist her throughout the day. She allows me as much private time as I need for writing, but still gripes about it. She’s lonely despite having close friends, and a daughter as an attendant. I can’t do anything about her loneliness, but I can write about it in my room.

Vagrant Philosophers and Poets

By Bonnie Stanard

Perhaps I ask too much of poetry, but I want it to shed light on the big questions like: Who am I? What has meaning? Why are we here? This is not to say I want answers as such, but I’d like to gain some understanding about our existence. We’re not talking religious poems here, rather, ones that provide illumination, or a least ideas to stimulate reflection.

The grand masters of poetry didn’t shy away from the big questions. Their best poems encode concrete images with transcendent meaning. Transcendent meaning as used here embraces much that is unexplainable about poetry. Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is one of my favorites. There are many others, but I especially like: Tennyson’s “Break, Break, Break;” Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Spring and Fall;” Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening;” and Gwendolyn Brooks’s “Song in the Front Yard.” These poems say something profound in a way that seems effortless.

When a poem spells out a message that is too obvious, it runs the risk of becoming simplistic and limited to singular interpretation. From the following excerpt of John Berryman’s “The Ball Poem,” I hope you’ll see what I mean:

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, 


What, what is he to do?...


No use to say 'O there are other balls… 


Now…He senses first responsibility 


In a world of possessions. People will take balls, 


Balls will be lost always…

Poetry has been trending away from obvious meaning for some time (and obvious form as well, but that’s another subject). It’s as if EB White’s advice, “Be obscure clearly” is being taught in every MFA course on writing poetry. As we’ve become more informed, we resist being spoon-fed somebody else’s version of truth. We want to discover our own truth. Ergo, poets try to engage the reader with carefully ordered images in the hope that meaning will emerge as the reader recognizes or identifies some insight, if not a truth.

You can see from today’s poems that writers are grappling with traditional material (concrete images) to produce meaningful obscurities … at least obscurities that lend themselves to interpretation by a body of readers. This has produced works that range from simple to inscrutable. Understated poems lean heavily on the reader’s imagination. Take a look at “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams, which either says a lot on not much at all:

so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

Some poems read like free association, as if we have been given a Rorschach test of written rather than visual images. These poems are more challenging, and there are academics who can provide the logic behind the images. The popular poet John Ashbery provides many such examples. Below is a verse from his poem “Elective Infinities.”

It was all over by morning. The village idiot

was surprised to see us. "...thought you were in Normandy."

Like all pendulums we were surprised,

then slightly miffed at what seemed to be happening

back in the bushes. Keep your ornaments,

if that's what they are. Return to sender, arse.

Lest you think the above lines become more explicit in the context of the poem, see the entire work at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23170.

The poet and philosopher John Koethe, describing poetry as an artful form of talking to yourself, said, “I’ve always thought of poetry as a kind of inner soliloquy, reflecting the capacity for self-consciousness that makes us human.” I guess that’s what poets are doing, and as time passes, the configuration of thought changes. We’re motivated to write from stimuli and experiences, and then we hope somebody will help us understand what we’ve said. 

Website Tips

By Fred Fields

I have a website, www.efcopublishingco.com and its purpose is to get my name and book before the public.

Last year, at the SCWW Convention in Myrtle Beach, I learned something about blogging. There were several seminars dedicated to the subject, and here are some of the basic tips I remember and am using, about developing an active website:

·  Post blogs to your site regularly. Try to have a new blog posted on the same day every week. Although your site should have a theme, you don't have to remain true to it every issue. My site is mainly about golf, but come Monday, if I have something else that may interest my readers, I'll write that. Sometimes I'll put in a joke, golf related or not; or write a tip on some other subject. I wrote a blog about how I lost 20 pounds and have kept it off for 6 months. This week I wrote about the value of experience and studying history. Anything to keep my audience coming back for more, and always on Monday, so they know they can count on its regularity.

·  Associate your website with others, so that anyone arriving at your location will learn about them, and vice-versa.

·  Keep your blogs short and sharp. Three hundred words should be your maximum. Don't bore your readers. If you can tell stories or add humor, that's a good way to keep them coming back for more, and mentioning your site to their friends.

·  Use artwork whenever possible. Visuals attract attention. Drawings or photographs, both are good. Color is better than black and white, but either is better than words alone.

I have made one serious mistake with my website. Efco Publishing Co. is the name I have chosen for my publishing company, and it will market all the books I try to sell. My next book, however, is planned to be a cookbook, and will require a separate website, not tied to the golf format. So I am planning to expand to a master website for the company, and separate sites for each book, or at least every category of books. The company site will, of course, direct readers to the internet location of their interest.

This plan is possible because we are not limited to only one website.

Blogging is effective and inexpensive. Once your website is up on the internet, it is free advertising. Your only expense is the time invested to inform your readers who you are and where you are, and find ways to entice them back to you.

No Kind of Expert

By Laura P. Valtorta

It’s a spiritual experience when Marco and Dante head off to mass on a Sunday, leaving me alone with my MacBook Pro, a headful of ideas, and a novel to work on. I fill the bird feeder, set up on the dining room table, and put on some music – maybe the album Avalanche by Sonia Jacobsen, the saxophonist and composer who’s working on scoring my latest short film, Disability.

Writing is necessary. Even when I’m working on films and thinking about directing them and producing them, with all the hyperactivity involved in producing (the funding, the scheduling, interviewing, shooting, editing, and promoting), a filmmaker still has to find time to Make Art. Also run a law office.

Without art, we would be nowhere in the filmmaking business. I worry about Clabber (that’s not his real name). He is my partner in making these films. The one who does all the “Real Work,” as he calls it; The Real Work involves set building, shooting, and finessing the sound and lights.

Good old Clabber. He wears shorts and a baseball cap to work, but he’s so far from the land of Laid Back that once in a while it sends him a postcard. But that’s it. With a business to run, three small children at home, and several casually-clad employees to shepherd, he has very little time to write. I worry about this. Keeping Clabber happy is something I want to do. Because he’s a nice guy, and because he’s my studio executive.

Although I’m no kind of expert, I believe that Creating Art is one of the five pillars of happiness, along with Family, Work, Exercise, and Charity. Art is pure communication. Someday, when I’m not scripting films and writing novels, I want to learn how to take better photographs and paint portraits along the lines of Modigliani and Frida Kahlo. Art should always be a part of Family, Work, Exercise, and Charity. And vice versa.

Keeping a Writer’s Day Planner

By Sarah Herlong

This year, I decided to get a business day planner to help me achieve my goals with regards to writing. It helps me see writing as a business instead of a hobby. And like any good business you need to see where you’re going and where you’ve been.

I keep track of how many hours a day I spend writing.

I’ve noticed that after entering times like 1 hour a day, I became shocked at how little writing I was actually doing. Without really noticing it, I started working harder, and my time entries have started ticking upwards. I realized this by flipping back through the planner and seeing how far I’ve come.

I make notes about what I’m working on each day.

This has made me appreciate how much work I put into each story. I make a special notation when I finish a story. This means I can keep a quick count of what I’ve completed through the year. I’ve already written as many stories this year as I did all of last year. This day planner is really helping me!

I use it to keep track of who, what, and where.

I keep track of which agency, and the specific agent, where I send my writings. I keep track of contests I enter, including the date when the winners are announced. You would think this would be depressing to read if I’m not landing an agent or winning that contest, but it’s not. It shows progress. The year before, all I did was attend a conference. The year before that, I did nothing. At least that is all I can remember since I didn’t have a writer’s day planner.

I use it to plan my goals.

Holding the year in your hand makes it easier to conquer. I make a list of goals, and plot them throughout the day planner. I leave notes referring to the goal in the pages leading up to the important date. That way it isn’t a complete surprise what your goal is, the one you set up 6 months ago. That wouldn’t do anyone any good. Another handy tip is to have a master list briefly stating your goals attached in the front of your day planner. Then you’ll never miss a goal. Who knows where you’ll be in a year? You will.

Book Review, Part IV: STORY ENGINEERING by Larry Brooks - Practical Principles for Writing

By Chris Mathews

Story engineering, Larry Brooks contends in his book by the same name, must contain milestones, which he defines as the points in the story where new information changes the direction, tension, and stakes of the story(the first plot point, midpoint, and second plot point, he calls “major milestones”).  Here are the milestones he outlines, along with my illustrations of his points using the Little Red Riding Hood story:

1)       The opening scene of the story—the set-up scene(the mother in Little Red Riding Hood, for example, carefully instructing her daughter to stay on the path and not to talk to strangers as she goes to take goodies to her sick grandmother)

2)       A hook (first 20 pages in novel, first 10 pages in screenplay)—the reader is grabbed by a question he/she must know the answer to(Why does the Wolf want to know where Little Red is going?)

3)      First plot point (occurs about ¼ of way into story)—the hero suddenly has a quest and a mission as the antagonist emerges(Little Red meets the manipulative BB Wolf and we see he may have bigger plans in mind—or else why wouldn’t he just eat her?—he could.) Conflict, without which there can be no story, comes into sharp focus here. (This wolf is big and bad and conniving and he is going to get in Red’s way.)

4)      The midpoint (at the exact middle of the story) which shifts the story’s context--probably occurs in Little Red when she gets to her grandma’s and starts to realize there is something a little wrong with this picture.

5)      The second plot point (3/4 of the way through the story)—in Little Red, when Red learns that the wolf is playing the part of Granny(“the better to eat you with”). At this point, the true power of the antagonist is revealed.

6)       The final resolution scene (In Red Riding Hood, this scene occurs when the hunter bursts in and kills the wolf.)

I find Brooks’ outline of structure useful, but too programmed.  Fortunately, he realizes that while screenplays must adhere closely to this structure, these points might be better thought of as principles for the novelist, rather than hard-and-fast rules.

Scene execution and writing voice comprise his final core competencies for the aspiring writer. The most important point he makes about scenes, I believe, is that each scene must move the story forward. All scenes must have a mission. He suggests writing scenes that propel the story forward, ending a scene with a question that drives the reader’s interest on. Brooks spends even less time on writing voice, feeling this competency is way overrated, especially at writing conferences. His watchwords are: keep it simple, and less is more. He favors “essence” over “eloquence.” While he acknowledges the importance of dialogue and feels you can develop an ear for dialogue, writers fail, he maintains, when they don’t get outside themselves in their dialogue.

In Story Engineering Larry Brooks has put together good benchmarks to help writers stand a better chance of being published. His contention is that knowing where you are going as you write is a good thing. Outlining can help strengthen and hold your story together. Intuition can be cultivated. Little Red Riding Hood may not be much of a heroine, by Brooks’ definition, but the story is compelling because the construction of the story holds. Theme is intertwined with character and conflict: listen to your mother, don’t be too naive, there are bad creatures out there. The storytelling of Little Red Riding Hood is tight. Every part fits together and has a purpose that leads forward.

Last Words Can Mean So Much

By Kimberly Johnson

The other day, at lunch, a friend of mine asked me how to write an obituary. We were eating at McAlister’s in Forest Acres. The place was pretty crowded and I wasn’t sure I heard him clearly. He repeated it and chewed on his club sandwich cautiously.  In a split second, a couple thoughts flashed through my mind: “(a) he must be really grief-stricken, and (b) why did he ask me?” To me, an obituary is a highly personal thing. I had to write one for my aunt, for my father and for my grandmother. So, after sipping some lemonade, I said:  “Just write from the heart. The rest will come to you.” My friend slightly persisted, “I want a Homegoing service that reflects the memory of my momma, not the staid stuff from the funeral home. I want the words to mean something.”

Back at work, I stared at my computer screen. Another thought entered my mind: Is there a formal way to write an obituary? That’s a heavy question. And I narrowed my search and found out, yes. Definition: An obituary is a news article that reports the person’s death, personal information and funeral information. Or, it can be the life story of the deceased in the funeral program. Text/layout and design: There are websites that provide templates. There are websites that restate what the funeral home staff explains. There are websites that provide instructions. Here’s one I liked: “Show, rather than tell. Show that the person was charitable by actual examples. Show with interesting stories, rather than telling with just dry facts.” (www. obituaryguide.com) Cultural notes: My friend wants a Homegoing Service. It’s a phrase used in the African American community to celebrate the life and achievements of the deceased.

Alana Baranick, a newspaper obituary writer echoes the same sentiment I encountered, and soon my friend will face: “Summing up a life is an awesome responsibility.” 

My Biggest Writing Regret

By Sarah Herlong

I‘ve never written a story about my first epic road trip. I remember the route, but not all the fresh insights of seeing this country for the first time. We were just out of college and I had the trip planned to Arizona. With my boyfriend Eric, we pieced together the rest of the trip on the fly. We drove 10-12 hours a day. We were busy stopping at national parks and monuments, and roadside attractions. We were poor, so we stayed at hostels and Motel 6’s along the way. So here is the story of my epic road trip in 394 words.

We traveled through 26 states in 15 days. We left Charlotte having been paid by my boyfriend’s mom for making her a sequined Christmas tree skirt. Weird, I know. We sped away from an angry mob in New Orleans, where we saw burned out cars. Stayed in El Paso in a hostel full of cowboys. Then to Tucson where we saw the most beautiful sunset ever amongst the saguaro cacti. Then it was on to the meteor crater. That’s in Arizona along with the little known place called the Grand Canyon. If you have a choice, go to the meteor crater, seriously.

At this point I was faced with driving through the desert at night up into the hills and then over the Hoover Dam. There were lots of white crosses with messages warning about hell that added to the ambience of fear. Then we rounded a curve and there was Vegas laid out beneath us, lighting up the sky. It was breathtaking. We stayed in a Motel 6 off the strip with lots of people clutching briefcases, and wearing desperate looks on their faces.

It was disconcerting.

The next day we drove the length of Nevada, which is all desert. We crossed over the Sierra Nevadas and made our way to San Francisco. We were totally overwhelmed with its beauty, and promptly made our way through the tenderloin district on foot. I looked as tough and mean as I could. Eric did too, but he was wearing a sweater vest, and that look is hard to pull off. We made quite the bizarre pair alongside all the crack heads.

Then to Yellowstone where we made the acquaintance of some menacing buffalo surrounding our car, with us still in it. And we saw a moose minding it’s own business. We went to Thermopolis, a town with an old hot spring spa turned hostel. I remember a scary lady staring out at us from her window, never taking her eyes off us. It was a little Bates Motel. We had to use a payphone to contact the manager to actually let us in, which we were having a considerably hard time doing. This was before cell phones. I swear some places are just built scary, like that’s what the architect had in mind. Then after some more adventures, it was time to go home.

The Latest Addition

Meet a New Columbia II Blogger

MARION ALDRIDGE

Marion Aldridge is enjoying his retirement career as a writer, blogger, humorist and consultant. His latest book is about coming “unstuck” at any age:  Overcoming Adolescence. It has sold over 20,000 copies.    He has written over 100 articles for magazines ranging from SC Wildlife to Sandlapper to Tennis. Aldridge is married, has two adult daughters and one grandson and was recently awarded the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor. 

Marion's first blog at this site follows.

Writing Non-Fiction Articles and Columns

By Marion Aldridge“Writing Non-Fiction Articles and Columns”

Marion Aldridge

for July 7, 2013, SCWW Blog

“Two types of writers fall short; those who write well about unimportant things, and those who write badly about important things.” Edward Hoagland, Tigers and Ice

Bodies don’t fall out of closets in most non-fiction, which is what I write. Short of corpses, I try to begin my articles, columns or chapters with some startling fact, or a clever, edgy, surprising, or funny phrase or story. Is there an elephant in the room that needs to be named? I like it when my writing provokes an “I can’t believe you said that!” response.

Start with a bang, and then assume that your reader has Attention Deficit Disorder.

Write about your passion. If the subject bores you, pity your poor reader.

Upgrade the verbs and adjectives in your document. If you treat one subject frequently, create your own thesaurus for that topic.

Avoid duplicating words, unless you use repetition for effect. I am utterly predictable in my critique groups. When someone uses the exact expression two times in close proximity, I will circle each instance. If the author returns to the cognates of that term over and over in the course of a manuscript, I believe a writer must find a way to say the same thing differently.

Read. The first time I heard someone declare that though they wanted to write, they did not enjoy reading, I thought that might be the stupidest confession I have ever heard. If you don’t like to read, don’t write.

Be witty. Even in the most serious of novels, odd and quirky events provide texture to the narrative. Entertain. Light and airy is better for most people than dense and intense.

Read what you have written out loud. Revise. Cut. Get to a fifth draft and a sixth draft. Whatever it takes. No short cuts. Composing an article is torturous and tedious work for me. I have served on boards when people would ask me, “Would you write up an account of this meeting? You are a good writer.” Would you ask a painter to sketch a watercolor of the meeting? Would your request that a pianist provide a melody describing the meeting? The person making the request doesn’t understand what they are asking. Writing, for me, is serious business and hard work.

Give the readers some way to respond to your composition with their senses. What in your article can they taste? Or smell? Get them to snap their fingers. That involves sound and touch. Don’t let the reader get bored or go to sleep. Can you add some color, maybe a vivid neon orange, or a subtle violet?

The biggest mistake I see in wannabe writers is thinking they will be the next Emily Dickenson, that when they are dead, someone will come along and find their clever words and finally appreciate the genius that they were. Not gonna happen. It occurred exactly once in history—and that was to Emily Dickenson. Every other writer had to work at the craft. William Shakespeare wrote for profit and on deadline. You are not better than Shakespeare. Hunker down. Write. Practice your profession. We learn to write by writing.

Book Review, Part III: STORY ENGINEERING by Larry Brooks

By Chris Mathews

I have been looking at the usefulness of Larry Brooks’ Story Engineering to the aspiring writer. We have looked at three of what he deems the six core competencies of storytelling: concept, character, and theme. Although I believe concept and theme could be combined into one category, I did find his breakdown of character very useful in identifying it as having three dimensions (surface, backstory, and character growth, or character arc). However, Brooks, I believe, takes too long to get to the most important aspect of writing from which the title comes, not beginning his explanation of structure in good storytelling until Chapter 22, almost halfway through Story Engineering. I have been using the story of Little Red Riding Hood to test out his advice(my choice, not his).

He breaks storytelling into “four boxes.” The first box is subtitled “The Setup.” In this section of the story, we learn what the stakes are for the main character(what he or she has to lose). There should also be some foreshadowing of the antagonist in this section. And empathy for the main character or hero needs to be created. In the case of Little Red Riding Hood, box one would include her backstory that her mother told her not to leave the path, and her encounter with the wolf. Here we see how naïve she is when the conniving wolf wheedles information about the grandmother out of her and tells her to pick flowers thereby leaving the path and we glimpse the wolf’s duplicitous nature. Box One ends with the first plot point when we sense what conflict is going to take place—in this case Innocent Red versus scheming wolf. According to 

Brooks this is where the story really begins.

The protagonist’s quest begins the second box, which should show the hero studying the problem faced. In Little Red, this section would include Little Red’s questioning of the wolf(“My, grandma, what big eyes you have”), culminating in the Wolf’s “…the better to eat you with.” Brooks calls this moment the midpoint of the story. For Little Red, her purpose is clear: the wolf is out to get her.

This third box, the attack, occurs in stories when the protagonist becomes proactive. At this point, the protagonist usually mounts his or her strongest attack against the antagonist or dies trying. In most versions of Little Red, it is the later. The hunter’s entrance on the scene would mark the second plot point. The final struggle now takes place in this box.

The fourth box is the resolution. In the Grimms’ Brothers version, the hunter cuts the wolf open and Little Red and Grandma are both freed, and after he replaces rocks for humans and sews him up the wolf meets his demise. According to Brooks, Little Red would fall into the category of “lame part 4 hero status” because she is not the primary catalyst in the story’s resolution, the hunter is.

In a final blog on this book, I will examine Brooks’ remaining structural component of structure, milestones. In addition, I will comment on his final two competencies, scene execution and writing voice.

My Musings About a Music Mogul

By Kimberly Johnson

I had no intention of reading The Soundtrack of My Life, music mogul Clive Davis’ biography. I assumed it was a mea culpa about the late Whitney Houston. It wasn’t. It was a handcrafted tale of how a Harvard law grad working at Columbia Records in the late ‘50s, transformed the record industry by becoming the producer-manager-confidante to folks like Simon & Garfunkel and Alicia Keyes. I thought it was an industry insider’s regretful recount of a pop diva. It wasn’t. For me, it was about a storyteller (Davis) and a story writer (Anthony DeCurtis). Anthony DeCurtis, a 30 year veteran of Rolling Stone magazine, employs the simplest of writing techniques to recreate the venerable Brooklynite’s rollercoaster life.

Rollercoaster ride 1: ‘ 70s icon Barry Manilow. DeCurtis chronicled the music lawyer’s tempestuous “handling” of the songwriter. By infusing a casual tone, the author made me feel like I was there when Davis and Manilow slugged it out over Mandy, a song that Manilow detested. Davis won: 1974’s Mandy catapulted Manilow into the stratosphere.

Rollercoaster ride 2: American Idol runner ups Clay Aiken and Chris Daughtry. DeCurtis glosses over the producer’s “I know what’s best for you” attitude by portraying Davis as a veteran trying to mentor neophytes.

Rollercoaster ride 3: Whitney Houston. DeCurtis threads the needle on a sensitive subject: Houston’s career and untimely death. He helps the producer to combat the Svengali “handling” of Houston by portraying him as a father figure that was unaware of her demons.

I thought those rollercoaster rides were enough. They weren’t. Davis’ pre-Grammy parties and peccadillos added to the ride. I recommend you get this book.