ARE YOUR NARRATIVE ‘TELLS’ OBVIOUS?

By Kasie Whitener

Poker players have ‘tells.’ Maybe it’s tapping a pinky on the table, crossing or uncrossing legs, or blinking a little bit longer than usual. Tells are the minor behaviors that indicate the cards dealt the player are either very good or very bad.

Writers have tells, too. Whether it’s a pattern of development that is beyond genre conventions, or a particular phrase a writer favors, writer tells are the things we love to hate about reading the same authors over and over.

Ben Blatt captures these tells in his book Nabakov’s Favorite Word is Mauve. Using a method he describes in this article, Blatt suggests that the frequency of certain words in a piece works like a fingerprint to identify the author.

I’d argue that the fingerprint is just part of establishing one’s narrative voice. Prolific authors, like my favorite Kindle Unlimited romance star J.A. Huss, rely on the well-exercised muscles of vocabulary and voice to deliver stories quickly. I can’t be certain Huss isn’t being intentional about the fingerprint; I’d be more willing to bet she’s writing what she knows will sell.

So where would the identification of the fingerprint be really useful? Blatt explains the method was created to identify the true authors of anonymous writings like The Federalist Papers. Historians are notoriously dogged about assigning credit to things like anonymous essays.

How can the fingerprint concept teach us about our own writing?

While reviewing my novel, After December, before sending to a professional editor, I noticed what I described to my publisher as “The Brady Bunch Habit.” Everybody was looking at everybody else. Eye contact is my go-to narrative action. During this most recent revision, I worked on switching out neck-up action for whole-body action: posture, weight shifts, clothing fidgets, shoe scuffing. Anything to add action to the scene that wasn’t characters looking at one another (or looking away because eye-contact-avoidance is my second favorite).

I’m reading a series now where the author more than once has a character admit to being unable to read another character’s expression. Turns out these people are really bad at recognizing facial tells. Or, more likely, the author loves the way an inability to read one’s listener forces the speaker to take a chance on whatever she’s about to say. It’s an effective device used once per book. Unless you’ve read five of her books. Then it’s a recognizable tell.

On the daily our preferences as consumers are being catalogued by ones and zeroes wherever we leave a digital footprint. Facebook shows us relevant ads, Zappos basically stalks us, and Amazon suggests titles that match our browsing and buying history.

The author’s fingerprint is just another algorithm by which we can code the sloppy, emotional wreckage of creation. Whether it’s sentence structure or vocabulary, as we become better (and more prolific!) writers, we shape our own fingerprint through our work. Now we just have to decide if we’re intentionally telling other players we have a full house.

What are your narrative tells?

COUNTERFEIT BOOKS on AMAZON

By Bonnie Stanard

Counterfeiting is becoming a problem for writers who publish and sell their books on Amazon, according to the New York Times. Though it’s not considered widespread, there’s no reason to believe that book counterfeiters will willingly retrench their profitable activities, especially considering that there’s no organized measures being taken to track down counterfeit books.

How do you know if somebody has copied your novel and is selling it on Amazon? The discoveries so far have been made by readers who have recognized book duplicates or irregularities on Amazon. For example, an Atari buff discovered and exposed a counterfeit copy of Breakout, by Jamie Lendino. A certain Steve S. Thomas remade Breakout and sold it as his own. He got rid of the title and replaced it with the subtitle — How Atari 8-Bit Computers Defined a Generation. According to the NYT, “He put on a new cover and substituted his name for Lendino’s” and kept Lendino’s biographical details. 

Other writers have said their books have been copied and sold by counterfeiters: Andrew S. Greer (her novel Less); Tish H. Warren (Liturgy of the Ordinary); Danielle Trussoni (Falling Through the Earth); Lauren Groff (Florida). According to the NYT, “For 18 months Amazon has sold a counterfeit of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express despite warnings in reader reviews that it is a ‘monstrosity,’ dispensing with such standard features as proofreading and paragraph indenting.”

Amazon tells prospective publishers and sellers, “It is your responsibility to ensure that your content doesn’t violate laws or copyright...or other rights.” In other words, Amazon does not assume any responsibility for selling counterfeits. And our courts have not found Amazon liable for selling counterfeit products. The company has successfully argued that it is a platform for sellers, rather than a seller itself.

The Authors Guild, in advocating for the creation of a small claims court, points out that a major factor to the rise in book piracy is that the law does not hold internet platforms accountable for copyright offenses of sellers in the same way as brick and mortar stores, which are held liable for unlawful sellers on their premises.

Andrew Hunt, publisher of a computer book that was stolen, pointed out that when somebody buys a counterfeit, the real author may get cheated but Amazon still makes a sale. “You could ask, What’s their incentive to do something?” he said.

So where does that leave you? It means that you must figure out if Amazon is selling counterfeit copies of your book. When it comes to issues such as copyright infringement, we as individual writers have no clout. Which gives us a reason to join an organization and find strength in numbers. One of the best known for its advocacy of writers is the Authors Guild.

If Steve S. Thomas and a gang of counterfeiters are rounded up, can we expect them to be prosecuted? Will they go to jail? Not according to James Gibson of the University of Richmond School of Law: “...the chances that a copyright infringer will suffer any legal consequence – criminal or civil – are vanishingly small."

There is hope on the horizon. Congress is currently considering the proposed Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (CASE) Act, which would create a small claims tribunal to hear counterfeit charges. Currently such cases must be brought in federal court at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars.

HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH RESEARCH?

By Rex Hurst

Currently I am finishing up a book, called Sunday Morning at the Peak of Hell, the setting of which is the great beyond, the bad place where the souls of all the people we don’t like go. It’s a modern day odyssey through the afterlife, similar to the one Dante took in the 11th century, only updated for modern times.

So far it’s taken me five years to complete. Not because of the plot, there isn’t much of one, it’s because every time I had a new historical figure, I feel the need to stop all work and research the hell of that sad soul.

Granted a lot of these characters aren’t exactly well known in the public domain: Decius Mus, Upnastium, Alistair Crowley, Anton lay Vey, Tomas de Torquemada, Hetty Green, Ambrose Bierce, Wilhelm Reich, and John Romulus Brinkley. Recognize any of those names and you get a gold star. However, when I added each of these characters, often knowing very little myself about their lives, I felt the need to stop everything, buy every book I could on them (often this didn’t amount to much more than two books, in two of the cases there weren’t any and I was forced to use Wikipedia alone), and absorb the whole of their lives.

Which is why the whole of the book has taken five years to complete.

You’re probably going to laugh when I say that all of these months of research often only resulted in a few extra paragraphs (maybe half a page at most) of text. But I was also trying to absorb the flavor of the historical figure’s personality, so that their dialogue in Hell would seem accurate to the two readers who would read my novel and also know who John Romulus Brinkley or Hetty Green were. For some reason, it needed to feel right to me.

Now later on, as I’m polishing this work up to actually send to publishers, I’m wondering if I just spent too much time, literally years, on making these obscure characters as real as possible. Maybe I’m too much of a perfectionist. Maybe I’ve got OCD. Maybe I’ve been wasting my time and no one will give a damn.

As a final taste test, I gave the latest draft to my wife. She read over the manuscript and shrugged.

“It’s pretty good,” she said.

“What did you think of the depiction of Ambrose Bierce?”

“Oh, is that a real person?”

Ah well….

MANAGING FEEDBACK to IMPROVE WRITING QUALITY

By Ruth P. Saunders

Getting feedback from other writers is not enough; we must also use it productively to improve the quality of our writing. Here are some guiding thoughts to consider.

      · Share an early draft but not the first.  

Develop the piece through self-editing before sharing but not for too long. Getting input sooner moves the writing forward and reduces opportunities for attachment, which can inhibit the openness needed to manage constructive criticism.

· Separate yourself from the products you have created.

The critique applies to the piece, not the person producing it. Self-doubt predisposes us to infer what comments mean about the writer rather than about words and sentences. Seek constructive ways to increase confidence rather than pursuing “evidence” to support personal misgivings. Alternatively, feeling accomplished as a writer may incline us toward reluctance to accept criticism of new work.

· Try it all on and then take off what doesn’t fit.

Treat all criticism as valid initially—open your mind completely and try out suggestions on the page. It’s like shopping for clothes or accessories: experiment, put on something new, and take a good look in the mirror. If it doesn’t look good or feel right, take it off.

· Allow time for processing and incubating.

Grant yourself days, weeks, or months to review feedback, reflect, “try it on,” and see how it works. Some comments become clearer with repeated consideration, and others need to incubate undisturbed for periods of time. Check with trusted others about remarks you find disagreeable or unclear.

· Pay attention to patterns.

Notice similarity in feedback received from different people over time and incorporate fixes for these into your self-critiquing and self-editing process. For example, I overuse the word “that.” I search for and correct this as part of my writing process.

· Consider the source and the circumstances.

Writers vary in ability to provide constructive criticism, which is a learned skill separate from the art of composing. And accomplished critics experience transient events affecting ability to provide useful feedback on a single occasion. Remember this if you are baffled by a review.

· Strive to provide useful and empathetic comments for others.

As your ability to critique others’ writing develops, you improve at assessing and applying feedback to your own.

· Affirm yourself as a writer.

Keep a balanced focus on what succeeds as well as the problems in every piece. The goal is to strengthen your work and you control this process. And, as always, keep writing.

THE LATEST ADDITION

Meet a New Columbia II Blogger

SAM GRIFFITH

Sam is an English teacher from the American southeast. He writes poetry, fiction, and, occasionally, song lyrics. An early reader of fantasy, his tastes now range from Russian epics to Japanese haiku. When he isn’t doing something related to literature, he enjoys playing disc golf or collectible card games with friends. As of August, 2019, he will begin a teaching position at a public high school in Qingdao, China.

Sam's first post on this page follows.

WRITING VULGARITY

By Sam Griffith

For the past couple years, I have experienced a growing fascination with vulgarity. As writers, how should we write coarse language on the printed page? Do we transcribe word for word and censors be, um, darned? Do we skirt the issue by using phrases like, “John cursed loudly…”? Obviously, we each must find our own style, but it seems to me the former strategy is becoming more and more the norm. I wanted to know what that says about us, both as individuals and as a society.

An article I found early in my search by Katy Steinmetz (written for Time) delved into the science of why we swear. She writes that swearing helps us quickly communicate the intensity of our feelings. Not only that, swearing can trigger physical changes in our bodies: increased heart-rate, pores opening, pupils dilating. Swearing, it has been scientifically demonstrated, can help us handle pain. It was interesting reading, but it didn’t speculate on why we appear to be swearing more, or what that might mean.

Digging deeper, I found stories by Simon Worrall (interviewing Emma Byrne for National Geographic) and Matthew J.X. Malady (writing for Slate). Both articles talked about how vulgarity is changing. Historically, our vulgar words have commonly fallen into two categories: bodily functions (and the privacy of those functions) and religion. For centuries, religious vulgarity contained some of the most shocking phrases you could say (that’s why it’s called cursing). Today, we still have those phrases, but fewer people care. Meanwhile, a rise in the concept of personal privacy (which is really not more than a few hundred years old) saw an attendant rise in the power of swear words associated with those things that happen in private. These words took up the slack of our waning religious zeal, but even they are today being supplanted. Both articles mention a new category of vulgarity emerging: the vulgarity of sociological abuse, the language of bigotry.

Imagine two people. One goes around using the F word regularly in public. Another regularly uses racial slurs. Perhaps you feel neither is positive, but which of the two would you feel more comfortable being seen with? And it’s not just racial slurs. Malady’s article points to words like “retarded” or even “fat.” They pack a more powerful punch than they did even 20 years ago. People don’t often say them publicly without at least glancing about to see who may be listening.

So maybe it’s not that our society is more vulgar. Maybe our vulgarity is changing. As a writer, I’m sure I’ll continue to wrestle over what I want the printed page to say and how to best capture the language of our time. I encourage you all to check out these articles yourselves. There is a lot of interesting material I didn’t get the chance to go into at all, like how casual vulgarity among friends builds trust, or how chimpanzees taught themselves to curse.

Coach Your Characters to Self-Discovery

By Raegan Teller

In a past work life, I was an executive coach. A coach facilitates discussions with others to help them gain self-awareness, clarify goals, achieve their objectives, and unlock their potential. Rarely does a coach “tell” someone what to do or offer direct advice. Instead, she asks insightful questions that lead to self-discovery. While professional coaching requires many hours of training, any writer can employ simple coaching techniques to develop characters.

I can’t take credit for creating this writing technique, but I have used it for years and can say it’s truly magical. My readers have said things like “your characters literally jump off the page” or “I feel like I know these characters personally.”

What I discovered was that the typical character profile is the equivalent of “telling” characters who they are, what they believe, and how they are supposed to behave. If you have flat characters, it may be because you don’t have enough insight into what drives them to act or react when faced with your plot. Through a coaching-type process, you can gain a deeper understanding of characters than you can with typical writing techniques.

Here’s how it works. If you are further developing an existing character, or creating a new one, as I was this week for the fourth book of my Enid Blackwell series, simply coach that character to self-discover who he or she is. You do so by asking the character a series of questions. For example, ask your character to respond in first person to the questions below. You simply answer as though you are that character. Write stream-of-consciousness style for a full five minutes. If you run out of steam, simply reply, “I don’t know what else to say,” over and over until you can resume. Set a timer on your phone or computer and don’t cheat by stopping early. Some of the most revealing character revelations come near the end of the five-minute session.  

Here are some examples of character-coaching questions:

· How would you finish this sentence: Everything will make sense when . . .?

· What do you see when you look in the mirror?

· What was the most defining moment of your life?

· Who was the most influential person in your life—why?

· What are five things you want to do before you die?

Note that these are “deep” questions, not superficial ones like, “What’s your favorite color?” There’s nothing wrong with asking easy questions, but you won’t learn much from them.

Remember that when you are writing in first person as your character, you must resist the urge to force the answers. You are merely the conduit—the reply should come from your character. While it may seem weird at first, close your eyes and try to hear your characters talking to you. If you can push your preconceived notions about them aside for five minutes and just let them talk, you’ll be amazed at what they have to say. 

SURFING THE 3 LEVELS OF CRITIQUE

By Kasie Whitener

I’ve been moonlighting with Columbia III, being very strategic about how I get feedback from my two different critique groups. I take half the short story to Cola II on Monday, I fix the story with their feedback and take the updated six pages to Cola III the following Tuesday. I repeat the process for the second half of the story and at the end of the month I have a well-polished short story.

Then I send it to my long-time critique partner, Jodie, and get her take. Then I send it to my publishing friend and get his take. Finally, I fix what Jonathan said was broken and submit the piece for publication.

I speak frequently on the importance of seeking feedback and on how difficult it can be to take criticism on something you are sure is your best work. So when one of our Cola III writers brought romance novel pages that the rest of the group said needed some serious work, I confidently said, “I can fix this.”

Two things about that: 1) I’m a serial romance novel reader, I’ve already finished over 100 romance novels this year and read about 150 last year; I know the genre, know the formula, and generally know what makes a good one and why some of them just stink.

But, 2) no one can “fix” your work for you. Not even me.

I should have said, “You can do these three things which may address the challenges here.” To suggest I can “fix” the work is both arrogant and presumptive. I honestly just got so excited about helping a romance writer.

There are levels to feedback and you should know, as the submitting writer, what level you’re looking for.

Level 1

People who know you and love you and will encourage you to keep going. This is my Cola II group and I frequently bring them stuff that may or may not be a real story.

Level 2

People who don’t know you but do know writing and are willing to tell you (compassionately), “This needs work.” This is my Cola III group and I only bring them the polished stuff.

Level 3

People who may or may not know you but it doesn’t matter because they’re judging the work as professionals. This is Jodie and Jonathan. They have serious writing chops of their own and know I can take the line-by-line “this works” and “this doesn’t” or the overall “this story bored me” or “you really have something here.”

Critique should always, always be about the words on the page.

If you’re new at critique, work with your Level 1 people for as long as it takes to build up the calluses you’ll need at Levels 2 and 3. It’s safe to assume a critique group is not Level 1 unless you’ve been with them a while. And even then, the good ones will push you like a Level 2. 

Writing Makes Speech Come to Life

By Nick Rolon

Recently, I was fortunate to attend the graduation ceremonies of two of my wonderful nieces, Nicole and Tori. One ceremony was outside with the sun shining bright and the other inside with university banners hanging from the rafters. As a proud uncle, I sat with family and friends eager to see my nieces receive their diplomas and to experience the planned commencement exercises including the inspiring speeches. Written words now brought to life.

  

As I listened to the speakers, who ranged from the Valedictorians and Salutatorians to the keynote speaker (who included a state Commissioner of Education), I heard brief comments on what inspired them to write their speeches. Each had put a lot of thought into the writing of their speech, the message, and how they would present it to the audience. The words they spoke were written by them and you could hear the passion in their voices.

There are many types of speeches with some informative (educating a group of medical students on new procedures), persuasive (emphasizing company goals, missions, plans, and expectations), and some for special occasions (recognizing achievements at graduations, wedding toasts). In many cases, particularly graduation ceremonies, the speaker shares experiences, values, and offers advice.  They seek to motivate, recognize, and inspire students.

I reflected on some key points:  

1) Know your audience- take time to understand your listeners.  You can write your notes to have emotional appeal to that specific audience.

2) Know the message that you want to convey to your audience – what will be the takeaway, what is the key point you want to the listeners to know; save the most important message for the end.

3) Begin with an impactful, enthusiastic introductory statement that defines your speech and quickly captures the attention of your audience.  Remember, you want to have fun writing the speech; feel confident.  You Got It!

4) Tell a personal story that engages listeners.  Use storytelling to make your point and let your personality come through.  This will help bring your written words to life.  If the listeners feel comfortable with you, they will listen more closely to your message.

5) Speak Slowly – no need to rush; factor your provided time limit into writing the speech.

6) Speak with feeling – No one likes to be bored; show your passion for your words.

7) Memorize your speech – don’t read unless you must; you may have a copy of your speech but avoid simply reading word for word.

8) Thank someone- recognition is good; it creates a good feeling throughout the audience.

9) Conclude with your most important message – reiterate the key takeaway; we want listeners to walkaway informed, inspired, happier, and healthier.   

10) Thank everyone for listening.

Many of us, have the same fears expressed by one of the student speakers when she said, “My principal told me I have good news and challenging news – the good news is you were selected class valedictorian and the challenging news is now you have to write a speech and give it.”

Have you ever written and then given a speech? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

Grammar Precisionism Is a Big Fat Pyramid Scheme Part I

By El Ochiis

     There, I said it. No, actually, another critic in a

literary magazine stated that Grammar was a Ponzi Scheme and I,

not only agreed, but was glad someone else, who already had a

publishing career and contract, finally said that which I’ve

always believed.  Every time I write something, I have imagined

a secret underground bunker in some location in the universe

that houses volumes of Grammar Penal Codes; Therein is a list of

all the things I’d be in error to commit – crap, have I just

violated a grammar tenet of monumental stature? I feel so

bohemian – a rebel with a very valid cause.

     Who is this grammar enforcement and who appointed them said

title?

     Even the Ponzi scheme is a Ponzi scheme.  The original idea

had already been carried out by a woman named Sara Howe, in

Boston in the 1880’s. But, someone, with some concealed regulation book of rules and appointments of history, attributed the concept, renaming it, after an Italian man, named Charles Ponzi, much later, in the 1920’s. The same appointees, who robbed Sara Howe of her rightful authorship of the schematic fortitude to defraud solely female clientele by charging them an eight-percent monthly interest rate, and then stealing the money that the women had invested, could, possibly, be the very ones overseeing grammar guidelines. A scheme in a scheme, I resound. And, yes, the sentence before this short one, as well as others herein, is lengthy; all hail long sentences. Martin Luther King: “A Letter from Birmingham Jail.” 310 words; Marcel Proust: “Remembrance of Things Past.” 958 words; and, Gabriel Garcia Marquez: “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship.” 2,156 words. Go off you scribes of creative fiction, build great and extended sentences. Don’t forget to toss in some necessarily appropriate words ending in “ly”.

     I meant, “ladies and gentlemen of the jury, who really

knows what an infinitive is?”  And having acknowledged this,

what human can actually, decipher when he or she has split one.

An infinitive is the uninflected form of a verb along
with to – to jump; to run; to correct. “She urged me to casually walk up and complain,” should be written, instead, as: “She urged me to walk up and casually complain.” Listen you, alleged,

grammar purists, Henry James and Rudyard Kipling split

infinitives and they weren’t detained.

     A dangling participle, you say?  And, which offenders keep

dangling them?  Participles are a type of verbs; they act as

adjectives. See, this is so confusing.  “The filtered water

tastes great.” Filter is an adjective that modifies water and is

derived from the verb: “filter.”  “Sitting on the park bench,

the moon disappeared behind the building.”  “Sitting on the park

bench” has nothing to modify and is just existing there, by

itself, thus, dangling.

Which and what governing body decided that the following sentence is incorrect: “Him wants to eat dinner”. I can hear your imperiously hifalutin tone there, Ms. Prudence Persnickety, when you emphatically replied: “It’s ungrammatical, the pronoun is in the object form instead of the subject form he.” But the rule that says to use a subject pronoun here was not decided by some governing body. It wasn’t an idea someone came up with and then demanded English speakers comply. Instead, this grammar rule is derived from how people actually use the language. Grammar, therefore, is at its heart, a set of standards based on common practice. If suddenly everyone in the English-speaking world started saying him wants instead of he wants, sometime in the next century him would be correct, sanctioned by every grammar authority alive.

Grammar Precisionism Is a Big Fat Pyramid Scheme Part II

By El Ochiis

“Oh dear”, admonished Madame Persnickety, with a supercilious sneer: “That’s not JUST non-standard English, it IS complete and utter, savage colloquialism.” Stick a pencil behind your ear, position yourself in a James Dean stance, by folding your arms across your chest, and diplomatically demand: “Tell me the rule I have broken your ladyship?” I’ve refused to capitalize the “L” in protest, that may or may not be entirely due to my intent of a grammar revolt.

Firstly, if Prudence Persnickety began using a phrase and it caught on, everyone else would be using it. Take for example, “currying favor.” It’s “currying Favel”, from a French poem about a horse. “For all intents and purposes,” not, “all intensive purposes”; “A damp squib”, not “squid”.

     If all the people made the same mistake, it could come to

take root in our collective consciousness, sometimes replacing

the original phrases entirely.

If someone was wildly mistaken, would you say they had another thing coming? Well, it’s actually another “think” coming. But, this correct phrase, to most of you, just sounds all kinds of wrong.

     These are the sorts of changes that keeps lexicographers

updating their dictionaries so that they reflect how language is

really being used by people, rather than instruct on how

language should be used.

The grammar enforcement, the screiben das Gefangnis, yes, it’s my opinion they could, most likely, be German. What other language can scare the daylights out of you when vocalized by humans in black uniforms wearing monocles? Your punishment, though, will be British – literature that is – the most insipid English prose. Your reading list will consist of three sleep inducing novels – read one-hundred times each - staying awake is imperative: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Marble Faun”; Spenser’s “Faerie Queene”; and, John Milton’s “Paradise Lost. Quizzes on all things Milton will be given for the sole purpose of driving you to ways to plot your escape. Consequently, the guards will apprehend you and throw you into solitary confinement with a bound copy of George Elliot’s “Silas Marner,” along with, copies of: The Cambridge Handbook for Editors, Authors and Publishers; The King’s English; and, The Oxford Style Manual – the guards are, indeed, sadistic.

     Good luck on your appeal to the non-existent, invisible

guardians of the grammar penitentiary system.

Their source, conveniently, is never revealed. They know what’s wrong but they will never tell you how they know – as if they have the only copy, in existence, of the “Grammar Penal Code” and you don’t, so you will forever be at their mercy.

     Be careful what you write in your petition and how you

write it because every word you pen or speak, will put you in

danger of an extended sentence or, re-incarceration for breaking

a rule you never knew even existed.

     However, there is hope, if enough people commit the same

grammar infraction, yours might end up in the dictionary -

paradoxically confusing, isn’t it?  The grammar law universe can

reverse itself.

If, by chance, you do manage to get released from grammar detention, as you exit the gargantuan, iron doors, peer upwards and pay attention to the inscription to your left: “Caesar non supra grammaticos.” After gathering your meager belongings, you should, timidly, ask the release guardian what that quote means? She, most likely, will pull her monocle further down on her nose, contorting her mouth into a smug sneer and reply, in contemptuous condescension, “The Emperor is not above the grammarians.”

     You hang your head and affect an obsequious mannerism – oh

hell, you become a complete sycophant, realizing that

grammarians surely have taken themselves way too seriously. They

not only produced imperative, language usage demands, on mere,

lowly writers like you and me, but on one of the most notable

Emperors of Rome - they be bad. You WILL go forth and continue

to anguish about whether you had dangled a participle or split

an infinitive because the Grammar Ponzi Police still wields the authority to batter ram your mind and force entry into you writing with all intents and purposes of making your writing so much better that you will earn enough money and fame to break their rules without risking arrest.

WRITING MEMOIR

By Sandra Schmid

My memoir began when I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail twenty years ago. Like many memoirs, something extraordinary happened, something so contrary that I had to remember and try to put it into words. I needed to know why hiking in nature for six months, alone, made me so happy.

My search for words started a new journey. When we moved to Maryland, I published my first short story about my trail experience. The thrill of being in print was comparable to standing on Mt. Katahdin all over again.

In Boise, I joined a writer’s group. We shared our deepest stories. Vulnerable, we became friends. My book gave me a home. 

In Tallahassee, writing classes and seminars opened doors to more publications and friends. I had a focus. I would finish my book.

By the time we moved to Asheville after following work with the Forest Service for twenty years, my story went into a suitcase holding candles and incense on the floor. 

Moving to Columbia just last year, poetry sprouted from the musty case. I read one out loud at Kool Beans with Al Black. 

My memoir is my life. I don’t want it to end. Until I find the right words to express my love for the trail, the journey goes on.