Writers, Ink. of Greater Phoenix
Like us!
  • Home
  • About Our Members
  • Member Blogs
  • Contest Winners 2016
  • Writers, Ink. Contest 2018
  • Ink. Spots Anthologies
  • Member Publications/Awards
  • Writing Contests
  • Items of Interest
  • Links
  • Contact

The Shadowlands of a Writing Relationship

8/24/2016

1 Comment

 
by Marielena Zuniga
(Edited from the original--with permission--by Shari Broyer 8-24-16)
 
Ever want to give up writing? I mean really give up?
For many of us, the answer is “yes”. I know I have. Countless times. But when I have doubts about continuing to write or calling it quits, I’ve come to see that struggle as healthy. Those doubts tell me that I am in an honest-to-goodness relationship with my writing.
​
And relationships, as we all know, have their good days and bad days. Look at the meaningful relationships in your life now. I’m sure you’ve had contented and amazing times, as well as times when you wanted to walk away from it all. And yet, you stayed.

The truth is, when we are truly invested in and committed to our writing, we are in a real relationship. That means we stay. No matter what. No matter how many doubts we may have.

In many spiritual teachings to “stay” has great power. To “stay” means that we are completely “present” to whatever might be happening. We stay during the days of doubt, rejection and uncertainty. And we also “stay” when we rejoice in a chapter finished and a book finally written and published.

Author Anne Lamott puts it this way:
“I have a lot of faith. But I am also afraid a lot and have no real certainty about anything. I remembered something Father Tom had told me–that the opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. Certainty is missing the point entirely. Faith includes noticing the mess, the emptiness and discomfort, and letting it be there until some light returns.” (Excerpted from: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith)

In her classic book, Bird by Bird, Lamott also writes:
“I heard a preacher say recently that hope is a revolutionary patience; let me add that so is being a writer. Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work; you don’t give up.”

In my own life, I have waited, watched and worked for some time. Among other pieces, I had written an essay that felt intensely personal, too transparent to put out into the world. Yet, I did put it “out there”. After many rejections, I shoved it into a desk drawer where it gathered dust for years. One day, however, I gave it one more try.

I brushed off doubt, drummed up faith and sent it off to the Writer’s Digest annual writing contest. Not only did it place in the top 100 of the inspirational category, but my essays placed in the top ten in that contest for the following two years.

So, if nagging doubts show up, they are there to test our relationship with writing and push us through the gritty days of stark fear and terror that come with our craft and our calling. Most likely those doubts will never go away, those questions of “Am I called to do this? Should I be doing this? Does it matter?” will never cease.

But we will also have those days of blessed contentment—of a sentence well crafted and a poetic phrase that conveys to perfection what’s in our hearts.

At the end of one of my favorite movies, Shadowlands, writer C.S. Lewis offers advice that could be applied to our writing:
“Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore. Only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I’ve been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chooses safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That’s the deal.”

So, dear writers, we are always living in the shadowlands of our relationship with writing—the pain now is part of the happiness later.
​
In the end, perhaps doubts are not to be crushed, but to be embraced. Yes, they hurt. But they can make us better writers if we choose to move beyond safety.

We can’t have one without the other. And that’s the deal.
​
(This blog post originally appeared in a varied form in Birth of a Novel blog: https://birthofanovel.wordpress.com/2012/11/15/being-in-a-writing-relationship/)

_________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Marielena Zuniga, November 15, 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: mzwriter@yahoo.com
​​

About the Author

Picture
​Marielena Zuniga is an award-winning journalist of more than 35 years. For the past 15 years, she has focused on spirituality and women’s issues. Now retired, she writes creatively. Although her first love is inspirational and spiritual writing (her blog is Stories for the Journey: Reflections on Writing, Life and the Spirit, https://mezuniga.wordpress.com), her “shadow” side escapes every now and then in works like her novel, Loreen on the Lam: A Tennessee Mystery. The book is a Southern romp, a white-trash road trip in which an escaped con steals a country western singer’s tour bus. It’s available through her publishers at iPulp Fiction: http://www.ipulpfiction.com/indexLOREEN.html. She resides in Bucks County, PA and is our first truly long-distance member with plans to contribute more blogs in the future. Reach her at mzwriter@yahoo.com.
1 Comment

Reading Aloud: It's Not Just What You Did in School, It's an Awesome Editing Tool!

7/31/2016

0 Comments

 
By Shari Broyer
 
As a bestselling author and manuscript editor for hire, I’m a stickler for good editing. In these days of “hurry up” self and traditional publishing, there are far too many books, articles and blogs out there that are littered with errors, even the works of major bestsellers. I get frustrated and pulled out of what I’m reading when there are too many typos, instances of poor grammar, or repetitions. And I know I’m not alone in that.
 
Once a month, I facilitate this group, Writers, Ink. of Greater Phoenix. Writers come from all over the metro area to meet at a surprisingly successful indie bookstore, Changing Hands, in Tempe. We’re a casual group in that there are no professional speakers, no regular dues required or specific exercises or assignments to complete. Members are encouraged to bring two to four double-spaced pages of their WIPs (works in progress) to each gathering for critiquing and feedback. If they haven’t written anything, it’s okay to simply attend and give input, if desired. However, when prepared, they are required to read their pieces out loud.
 
Why read aloud? Several newcomers have balked at this. They’re shy and haven’t ever done it before. Many of them mumble or talk really fast to get it over with. I make them speak up and slow down because reading aloud isn’t just for kindergarteners or first graders; it’s for us, too. If a writer achieves any kind of success—i.e., crosses over from dabbler to published author—sooner or later they’ll be asked to read their works (or excerpts thereof) in public, and this practice helps prepare them for this, especially when they read aloud in front of others. Also, whether done alone or in public, it’s one of the most useful editing tools there is.
 
I was first introduced to this notion when I attended the Gold Rush Writer’s Retreat hosted by Antoinette May and her husband, Chuck Herndon, in Mokelumne Hill, CA, several years ago. This author has achieved what all serious writers strive for, a sustainable living from her writing. She’s the bestselling biographer of Pilate’s Wife (not to be confused with The Pilot’s Wife) and The Sacred Well, plus numerous other books and articles.
 
On my second morning at the retreat, I went to Toni’s house hoping to speak with her in private. Chuck informed me she was working and would not be available, said she wrote religiously every morning for four hours. Since I was standing outside her office, I could hear her talking, and at first, I believed, He’s shining me on. She’s in there with someone else right now.
 
Having a “too expressive face”, I must have shown my thoughts, because Chuck explained, “She’s reading her work aloud. She always does that.”
 
Later, when I asked Toni about it, she told me, “Reading aloud helps me catch my mistakes and make sure things flow right.” I took that to heart and have been doing it myself ever since, even if it does make me sound “cuckoo” to an uninitiated bypasser.
 
The novice members in my group discover the same thing the very first time they vocalize their work and stumble on an improperly worded sentence. The timing gets interrupted, and they realize they need to fix it. Because I insist on a slower pace, they can better hear what’s not working.
 
In order for this special editing tool to work to its best advantage, writers need to learn to listen as they read aloud for several things, not just flow.
 
1)  REPETITIONS—My BIGGEST bugaboo as an editor, and the sign of a lazy or careless writer. Every wordsmith should have a voluminous vocabulary (and a good thesaurus) at their disposal.
 
These abound and include:

  • Making the same grammatical or spelling errors over and over again (Reading aloud should slow the writer down enough to catch some of these, especially if they are speed readers or fast typists.)
  • Repeating the same word (or root word—says, said, saying—for example) more than once in a sentence or in the same paragraph
  • Starting multiple paragraphs with the same word on the same page or throughout the piece
  • Using a pronoun in place of a name too often (This can confuse the reader as in: “His uncle is convinced there will be an attempt on his life once he enters the capital.” [Actual editing error used with author’s permission.] Whose life is in danger? The uncle’s or the nephew’s?)
  • Characters replicating the same actions—usually mundane—such as “She woke up and…”
  • Duplicating the same idea, phrased with slight differences, that has already been introduced (Readers generally remember when they’ve read something before and don’t need to be reminded.)
  • Two or more adverb (“ly”) or adjective (“ful”) endings in the same sentence or paragraph (Use of adverbs, in general, is frowned upon today. Stronger verbs can often take the place of these. However, I don’t agree 100%; just employ them sparingly.:-)
  • Excessive metaphors and other writing devices (Two or more metaphors, mixed or otherwise, in one paragraph or even on one page can be two too many—and there’s another form of reiteration—homonyms, words that sound alike used too close together. But I did that for effect. :-)
 
One caveat: Sometimes, restating a theme can be used effectively to hammer a point home as in Martin Luther King’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech, but this takes real skill and talent to pull off. Err on the side of avoidance if you’re not certain this intentional ploy will draw readers in or repel them.
 
2) SEQUENCING

  • Word order (We all tend toward dyslexia when writing and often don’t catch this when reading silently.)
  • Sentence arrangement—when a sentence at the beginning of a paragraph should be at the end or vice versa
  • Synchronicity—events are out of order (except when flashbacks are utilized)
  • Full circle (Does the story conclude by transporting the reader back to the beginning or to the main theme somehow? This is an exception to the idea rule above.)
 
3) OTHER THINGS TO LISTEN (AND LOOK) FOR

  • Proper paragraphing (Does the body of the paragraph go with the first sentence—the topic? Is there a new paragraph for each change in dialog or separate action?)
  • Punctuation (Pausing, even for a split second, that indicates a comma, colon or semi-colon is needed depending on the circumstance; yelling or raising one’s voice points to an exclamation mark; coming to a full stop means a period should be placed there, etc.)
  • Setting and descriptions (Are these too verbose and/or unwieldy? Do they work to propel the story forward?)
  • Verbs (Are action words weak or strong, passive or assertive? Notice I used the word “hammer” instead of “bring” when writing about purposeful echoing above. That, too, was deliberate. :-)
  • Dialog (Is it realistic? Does it sound the way we really talk? I’m forever turning words into contractions when I edit dialog because we don’t speak formally and say things like, “I cannot believe it!” or “That will not work.” We say, “I can’t believe it!” or “That won’t work.”)
  • Showing versus telling—are you, the narrator, telling the reader the story, i.e.: She told John to stop it. Or, are you showing the reader the story: “Stop it, John!” She backed away. “I mean it!”
 
There are multiple other functions served by giving voice to our written word, things we discover for ourselves when we make this a habit. The more we, as writers, slow down and read our works aloud with the conscious intention of improving, the faster we will advance, guaranteed. Then we can graduate from “grammar” school with honors.:-)
____________________________________________________________________________________ 
Copyright © Shari Broyer, July 31, 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: shariannegaylee@gmail.com
Picture

About the Author

Shari Broyer, founder/facilitator of Writers, Ink. (Est. February, 2011), has been writing—and winning awards for it—from childhood. She’s been dubbed “Queen of Quirk”, and most of her works reflect that. She doesn’t stick to one genre when she writes, but her quixotic stories almost always include unusual heroes and heroines. She contributed two short stories, "The Package Deal" and "The Exchange", to the group's Ink. Spots: First Annual Anthology of Works, released December, 2014. Her first novel, Ether Man, a “not your normal paranormal” mystery/romantic comedy about a woman who thinks her lover into existence, appeals to both men and women and is available on Amazon, as well as some of her shorter pieces. Her Christmas parable, Jesus on a Park Bench, has remained in the top 100 of the Inspirational category on Amazon ever since its publication on 12-24-12. Her second novel, a romantic comedy entitled, Fish Story: A “Tail” of True Love, which was a finalist in the 2013 Minnesota RWA Romancing the Lakes Contest, will be available in 2017. When not feverishly writing or editing and/or publishing the works of other authors, she attends the meetings of other writers’ groups and is a member of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) local chapter CWOW (Christian Writers of the West) and The Write Bunch. She also founded "To the Streets", a fundraising project to give copies of Jesus on a Park Bench with a $5 gift card for McDonald's inside to hundreds of homeless at Christmastime in both 2013 and 2014. She is now working as a Field Rep for the United States Bureau of the Census conducting surveys in the Phoenix area. When time permits, she enjoys reading, swimming, mild hiking, the arts, traveling, spending time with friends and family, and playing with her cat, Baby, who by the way, is featured on the cover of The Cat Who Would Be Black, her Halloween e-book for children. Visit her at http://sharibroyerbooks.weebly.com
​
0 Comments

Never Alone

11/25/2015

0 Comments

 
By Shari Broyer

(Since I've been so busy with my US Census Bureau work these past five months and haven't had much time to write, and the group is on Holiday Hiatus so members aren't contributing blogs for November and December, I decided to reread the blogs on my personal website: http://sharibroyerbooks.weebly.com
and update one of them, quite belatedly, for the November 2015 post. Working on this old blog has served to remind me of the gifts I have been given in my writing life, and in the Thanksgiving spirit, I extend my deepest gratitude.) 

Every writer wants time alone. Being alone, for most of us, is, in fact, a necessity. We can't think, can't write, can't be creative if we're not alone. 

In the years just prior to 2010--when the school I worked at in California downsized due to state budget cuts, and I was one of the casualties--I was so distraught and overwhelmed I began inwardly screaming, "Just. Leave. Me. Alone!!!" Before my position was axed, my workload steadily increased every year while my benefits and the value of my hard-earned dollars decreased. I was swamped at work and had to take on outside jobs to make ends meet, as well. Worse than all that was the shadow of doom that came to hover menacingly above the school starting in about 2004. Every year from then on, that shadow loomed ever larger and darker over all our heads as we watched others around us get swallowed up by it. It was terribly depressing, never knowing from one school year to the next who would and wouldn't be there any longer, who would or wouldn't have a job.
 
When the axe finally fell for me, I was almost relieved. I had to slow down and re-evaluate, and what seemed at first a terrible misfortune turned out to be an unexpected gift that allowed me to give myself permission to pursue my lifelong passion for writing. These days, however, I'm alone so much that I sometimes get bored, or antsy, or even bluesy. I tell myself, "Well, you got what you asked for, to be left alone." But then...

Then, I open up my email boxes, or go on Facebook, and I see all the friends I truly have, friends I may not see in person very often, if at all, but they are there for me, nonetheless. Like the members of Writers Roundtable (now Writers, Ink.), the group I founded in 2011--the year after I moved here to Arizona--and facilitate at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. We only meet once a month, but I am in touch more often than that with some of the members, and all of us regular members have become true friends; indeed, I call them my family.

And while I've had to drop out of Desert Rose, the local chapter of Romance Writers of America, and also the Scottsdale Society of Women Writers, and I no longer attend Arizona Dreamin', a readers-meet-writers convention that began in 2011, I still see some of the writers occasionally and remember fondly the good times I had when still a member or attendee of these groups. I had a blast at the first Arizona Dreamin', and I remain friends with hunky romance cover models Jimmy Thomas and Ryan Diaz, and local authors like Amber Scott, Deena Remiel, and Tamala Vinson. They're the best!

I still belong to CWOW--Christian Writers of the West--the Phoenix area chapter of ACFW, American Christian Fiction Writers, where I enjoy lunch and the inspiring speakers that they have bi-monthly. And I do still attend the free day-long Desert Rose Workshop held every year in November at the Scottsdale Civic Center Library. There, I reconnect with writer friends, and I always take away new nuggets of information about the writing world and craft,  as I just did on November 14th of this month.

I've had, alas, to cut back on a lot of writing activities over the last year or two--first due to lack of finances when my business faltered a bit while still finding its feet and then due to having to seek employment of the usual sort--but I'm grateful to have work that allows me to set my own hours and basically remain independent, work that provides a steady income to supplement my writing/editing/publishing self-employment. The jobs I've had thus far with the Census Bureau have been short-term, part-time, and intermittent, but I've just been offered a permanent part-time position that will be less demanding than the ones I've taken on before, so my little detour back into the workaday world will ultimately be of great benefit. I'll continue to have steady income and more hours to get back to what really matters--my world of writing.

I've also met some great friends while working for the Census Bureau; good people who work hard and conscientiously, like I do, but who love to laugh and have fun when the opportunity arises. And the public has been, by and large, a joy to work with, as well. The surveys and special censuses have gotten me out and about, I've learned more of the lay of the land, and a bit about the people of the area, too. (Of course, I can't divulge particulars, but I've discovered that there are a lot of great folks living here in the Phoenix area--both regulars and "snowbirds".)

Yes, I've been "back-burnering" much of my own writing again, juggling editing clients and the Census work, but "back-burnering isn't always such a bad thing. Throughout the years of "back-burnering" I still met a lot of other authors, aspiring writers, agents and editors that I've kept in touch with, people who've helped me and people who've been helped by me. It's a win-win situation, and I'm grateful to have made--and to still be making--these connections. They remind me that the writing world will still be waiting when I can get back to it, that there is a supportive net beneath me.

Nor could I possibly forget to mention my editing/publishing clients. The people whose works I edit (and now also publish) have brought so much more into my life than cash flow! I've never even met some of them in person, but through our working relationships, I've come to know them personally and to consider them beloved friends.
 
(Whew! This list is growing longer by the minute, and I'm not done yet!) I haven't included those authors and others in the "biz" who've simply shared their expertise with me at conferences or in books or online. Perhaps I should rephrase: "simply shared" doesn't begin to cover the wealth of wisdom I've gleaned from them, all the ways they've helped me, too, even though we've never had one-on-one contact. 

When I think about things from this perspective, I can see how densely populated my writing world is. There's no way I could ever be alone!

So, the next time I start to feel alone and lonely, I'm going to pull up this blog to remind me that a writer's profession is never the solitary thing it so often seems. None of us creates or promotes or sells our writing in a vacuum. There are multitudes working alongside us, with us and for us, even if we rarely, or never, see them, and we are not alone.
 _________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Shari Broyer, April 24, 2012, November 25, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: shariannegaylee@gmail.com
Picture

About the Author

Shari Broyer, founder/facilitator of Writers, Ink. (since February, 2011), has been writing—and winning awards for it—from childhood. She’s been dubbed “Queen of Quirk”, and most of her works reflect that. She doesn’t stick to one genre when she writes, but her quixotic stories almost always include unusual heroes and heroines. She contributed two short stories, "The Package Deal" and "The Exchange", to the group's Ink. Spots: First Annual Anthology of Works, released December, 2014. Her first novel, Ether Man, a “not your normal paranormal” mystery/romantic comedy about a woman who thinks her lover into existence, appeals to both men and women and is available on Amazon, as well as some of her shorter pieces. Her short Christmas story, Jesus on a Park Bench has remained in the top 100 of the Inspirational category on Amazon ever since its publication on 12-24-12. Her second novel, a romantic comedy entitled, Fish Story: A “Tail” of True Love, which was a finalist in the 2013 Minnesota RWA Romancing the Lakes Contest, will be available in 2017. When not feverishly writing or editing and/or publishing the works of other writers, she attends the meetings of other writers’ groups—currently, she facilitates this group, Writers, Ink. and is a member of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) local chapter CWOW (Christian Writers of the West)--as well as founding her own "To the Streets" fundraising project which has given copies of her book, Jesus on a Park Bench, with a $5 gift card for McDonald's inside to hundreds of  homeless at Christmastime in both 2013 and 2014. She is now working as a Field Rep for the United States Bureau of the Census conducting surveys in the Phoenix area. When time permits, she enjoys reading, swimming, mild hiking, the arts (theater, ballet, concerts, art galleries, art shows, museums, etc.), traveling, spending time with friends and family, and playing with her cat, Baby, who by the way, is featured on the cover of The Cat Who Would Be Black, her Halloween e-book for children.Visit her at http://sharibroyerbooks.weebly.com 
0 Comments

Write from the Heart

9/30/2015

1 Comment

 
This blog was first posted 12-7-11 on Birth of a Novel at Wordpress:
https://birthofanovel.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/write-from-the-heart/
and again in August, 2015, on the author’s blog, Stories for the Journey at Wordpress:
https://mezuniga.wordpress.com/2015/08/
It is making its third appearance here on this site, slightly edited and amended from the original.
 
 
Let me tell you a brief story. Seven years ago I wrote an inspirational essay about my mother. For those many years, it languished in a desk drawer. Why? Because it was deeply personal. By sending it out into the world, I knew I would be revealing my heart. I would be vulnerable and I would risk appearing maudlin, too serious—or, at worst, foolish.
 
Still, something within me whispered, “Share it. It might touch others.” At the last minute, I sent it in to the annual Writer’s Digest competition, and it placed in the top 100 of the inspirational category.
 
What’s my point in telling you this? I believe as writers we are challenged to “write from the heart”. Terrifying? You bet. But plumbing such depths is also what I believe to be our calling. When we have the courage to be authentic—when we dare visit and share those deep, hidden places with their fears, sorrows and memories—then our writing in some mysterious way also touches a universal chord.
 
In her book Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott writes:
 
“So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this.”
 
Reflect for a minute on the books that touched you most. What heroines or heroes made you cry, laugh, or breathe a sigh of hope because they spoke, loved and struggled from the heart? Was it Lily in The Secret Life of Bees? Or Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre? Or Mariam and Laila in A Thousand Brilliant Suns? In protagonists such as these we discover our humanity, our common journey. We discover our own hearts.
 
How do we write from the heart? I have no definitive answers. I do believe, however, we must make room to hear what our hearts are telling us. For some, listening may be achieved via meditation, prayer, gardening or a walk in the woods. Ultimately, it’s allowing ourselves a receptive space where we can get out of our heads and into the sacred place where our own truth resides. And then, we must have the courage to put ourselves on paper for others to see.
 
It’s a lofty challenge, but, according to Roger Rosenblatt, the only one of worth. In his book, Unless it Moves the Human Heart: The Art and Craft of Writing he states, “Nothing you write will matter unless it moves the human heart… and the heart you must move is corrupt, depraved and desperate for your love… you must write as if your reader needed you desperately, because he does.”
 
The final words in the book are even more compelling: “For all its frailty and bitterness, the human heart is worthy of your love. Love it. Have faith in it. Both you and the human heart are full of sorrow. But only one of you can speak for that sorrow and ease its burdens and make it sing—word after word after word.”
 
So be yourself. Trust yourself. Dig deep. You owe it to your readers to share your heart. It may sting a bit. But when you write from an authentic space, you also touch a universal chord that heals and blesses you, as well as others. And isn’t that worth the effort involved?
_________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Marielena Zuniga, December 7, 2011. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: mzwriter@yahoo.com
 
Picture

About the Author

Marielena Zuniga is an award-winning journalist of more than 35 years. For the past 15 years, she has focused on spirituality and women’s issues. Now retired, she writes creatively. Although her first love is inspirational and spiritual writing (her blog is Stories for the Journey: Reflections on Writing, Life and the Spirit, https://mezuniga.wordpress.com), her “shadow” side escapes every now and then in works like her novel, Loreen on the Lam: A Tennessee Mystery. The book is a Southern romp, a white-trash road trip in which an escaped con steals a country western singer’s tour bus. It’s available through her publishers at iPulp Fiction: http://www.ipulpfiction.com/indexLOREEN.html. She resides in Bucks County, PA and is our first truly long-distance member with plans to contribute more blogs in the future. Reach her at mzwriter@yahoo.com.
1 Comment

No Accidents

9/1/2015

2 Comments

 
By Shari Broyer

When I was a child, I was extremely accident prone. I was always falling down and hurting myself someway: banging my head against something or barking my shins, forearms, elbows… Back then, I threw myself headlong into things without any thought of the consequences and was always getting into some scrape or other. Over the years, not that much has changed. I’m still getting into some scrape or other—the difference now is that these scrapes are generally more emotional in nature than physical, and I’ve also come to realize, due to some of the outcomes, that these are no accidents.

Everything that happens, every misstep or supposedly wrong road taken, is leading us forward in this journey through life. None of us knows the full ripple effect of our actions. Even some of the most horrific instances of “evil” in history—such as the holocaust, or 9-11—have elicited bravery and goodness in the most unlikely people. The saying, “There is no such thing as an accident,” is only part of a famous quote by Napoleon Bonaparte. The entire quote is actually, “There is no such thing as an accident; it is fate misnamed.”

But Ella Wheeler Wilcox said, “There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul.” And just this morning, well before I sat down to write this, I stumbled across a gem in the book, The Last Ride, by Nicholas Sparks, Grand Central Publishing: “Moments of circumstance, when later combined with conscious decisions and actions and a boatload of hope, can eventually forge a future that seems predestined.” (Italics mine.) The sentence struck a chord in me, so I wrote it down, completely unaware at the time that I would be using it in this piece.

What all my “accidents” and these two seemingly opposing ideas mean to me as a writer is that “EVERYTHING”, as another old adage goes, “is grist for the mill”. Or, as I wrote in a poem as a young girl, “invert and multiply”. Some of my best works have been borne of my angst over something that I’ve felt has gone wrong in my life—yet another so-called “accident”. Witness my Amazon best-selling short story, Jesus on a Park Bench, which I wrote when I was so down and out I feared ending up homeless.

And it has been no accident that all my stops and starts in life, all my detours, have led me to the place I’m in now, one that finally makes room for my long-banked embers of creativity to flare into flame.

These “accidents” have given me so much to work with when writing, even at a very young age. When I was only sixteen, a neighbor—impressed by the notebook of poetry I had shared with her—said, “You’ve already experienced more in your young years than most people do in a lifetime.”

That observation still holds true. I’m sure I’ve already experienced more lives in this one than the proverbial cat, and like the cat, I somehow still land, if not on my feet, at least where I’m supposed to, even if I don’t recognize it at the time. If I had followed my highest calling from the beginning, I might have become a famous author by the time I was twenty. Or, I might have foundered because I ran out of things to write about, perhaps have been a “one-book” sensation.

Instead, I got lost. I turned down this road and that, in search of what, I knew not, not consciously. I look back and realize that I wasn’t really lost, “I [was] exploring,” as my friend, Jana Stanfield, wrote in one of her songs. Now that I’m older and can’t physically explore as much, I’m on an inner journey, one that requires a re-examination of all my “accidents”, being grateful for both the good that’s come of them as well as the “bad”, always aware that I can use both in the pages I produce. I’ve made the conscious decision to answer the call in me to write and I’m taking deliberate action.

Right now, besides this blog, I’m writing a deeply personal story, fictionalizing a “chance encounter” with a man who was then killed in a freak “accident”. I don’t know why his life ended the way it did, but I do know that meeting him and spending the last few hours of his life with him that night affected me profoundly. I also know that I have to write his story, and I have no idea where putting it “out there” will take me. I’m simply following my inner compass, which, in the end—despite all the “accidents”—has never steered me wrong.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Shari Broyer,August 1, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: shariannegaylee@gmail.com
Picture

About the Author

Shari Broyer, founder/facilitator of Writers, Ink. since February, 2011, has been writing—and winning awards for it—from childhood. She’s been dubbed “Queen of Quirk”, and most of her works reflect that. She doesn’t stick to one genre when she writes, but her quixotic stories almost always include unusual heroes and heroines. She contributed two short stories, "The Package Deal" and "The Exchange", to the group's Ink. Spots: First Annual Anthology of Works, released December, 2014.Her first novel, Ether Man, a “not your normal paranormal” mystery/romantic comedy about a woman who thinks her lover into existence, appeals to both men and women and is available on Amazon, as well as some of her shorter pieces. Her short Christmas story, Jesus on a Park Bench has remained in the top 100 of the Inspirational category on Amazon ever since its publication on 12-24-12. Her second novel, a romantic comedy entitled, Fish Story: A “Tail” of True Love, which was a finalist in the 2013 Minnesota RWA Romancing the Lakes Contest, will be available in 2016. When not feverishly writing or editing the works of other writers, she attends the meetings of other writers’ groups—currently, she facilitates this group, Writers, Ink. and is a member of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers) local chapter CWOW (Christian Writers of the West)--as well as founding her own "To the Streets" fundraising project which has given copies of her book, Jesus on a Park Bench, with a $5 gift card for McDonald's inside to hundreds of  homeless at Christmastime in both 2013 and 2014. She is working as a Field Rep for the United States Bureau of the Census conducting surveys in the Phoenix area. She also enjoys reading, swimming, mild hiking, the arts (theater, ballet, concerts, art galleries, art shows, museums, etc.), traveling, spending time with friends and family, and playing with her cat, Baby, who by the way, is featured on the cover of The Cat Who Would Be Black, her Halloween e-book for children.Visit her at http://sharibroyerbooks.weebly.com 
2 Comments

Soup's On!

8/15/2015

0 Comments

 
[Webmaster's apologies: Due to "life happening" this blog is being posted two weeks later than usual.]

By Verl Hatch

I went to a writer’s thingy. It wasn’t a conference. We didn’t confer. It wasn’t a workshop. We didn’t work. It was a writer’s lecturia featuring some good contemporary authors lecturing about how to. I’m eighty years old and don’t remember what I had for lunch that day, but the women were lovely and I learned one thing—either I do it all wrong, or everyone else does. As I understand from the lecturia, in order to write you sit down at the word processor, type, and a story appears, characters grow, plots thicken, and then you need a publisher. Who am I to say that this is not how to?

I start with a pencil, myself. Could be I’m watching a child learning to ride a bicycle. I make a note of what I observe—just to remember. Could be I’m in a deep sleep, dreaming. I awake, write a note—just to remember. My notebook is full of unrelated trivia. Now, I’m at my desk by the window, pencil and pad in hand. The pot starts to heat. I create an outline, no details, but a series of ideas leading to a conclusion. The pot comes to a boil. At that point, I spend a lot of thought on producing a unique finish. I throw a veggie in the pot, add a little spice, constantly stirring and adding to the pot (in other words, perusing my notebook for clues, discovering points of interest, things I’d forgotten). Now I have a soup! In short, by the time I’ve completed that outline, my story is written. Soup is not the whole of dinner, however. It’s just the starter. All I need do now is write the entrées, the side dishes, the dessert.

No, I have not sold a tale in years, nor have I crafted anything I feel is worth money, and I do have that in common with ninety-nine and nine tenths of other contemporary authors, but I sure know how to make a good soup!
____________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Verl Hatch,May 28, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: vhatch2@cox.net
Picture

About the Author

Verl Hatch turned 80 years old in 2014. He does nothing but write and he loves it. His favorite things (besides writing) are the people in the Writers, Ink. group and country music/hillbilly jams. He writes poetry and fiction. (Does that make him a sentimental liar?) The genre he’s most fond of is science fiction. If you can see that blue stain on his shoulder, that’s Elohim, his main character, an alien who thinks he’s God. (He’s also a very good cartoonist.) All of his poetry is Christmas-themed. He’s very versatile musically and plays the accordion, guitar, steel guitar, banjo and mouth harp. The mouth harp is his favorite instrument. The difference between a mouth harp and a harmonica is in the way it’s played, just as the fiddle differs from the violin only in how it’s used. Verl grew up in the dust and debt of the 1930’s way back in the hills of Custer County, Nebraska. With the help of his wonderful wife, Kathleen, he overcame his poor beginnings to finish high school, after which he managed to squeak past two Bachelor degrees, completed a Masters degree and dang near got a Doctorate. Mind meld with Verl: vhatch2@cox.net
0 Comments

Journaling to New Life

7/7/2015

1 Comment

 
[This submission follows last month's post so well, I had to post it now. Apologies to Verl Hatch--who was in line for this month with a new blog post. Look for his blog next month. Shari Broyer, Facilitator, Webmaster.]

By Janice Hastert

When I began to keep a journal, I was taking baby steps to a possible writing career. Only story ideas and occasional observations made their way into my entries in a theme book borrowed from my children’s school supplies. My jottings read like a cross between a notebook and a diary (e.g., “What if a woman travels to...” or “Why does my sister get so...”) but without the inclusion of adolescent yearnings or sordid love affairs. Married and a mother, I had no time for dramas or trysts. None of my dreams and fears, too private to risk discovery, found their way into those pages, either. I had grown up in a family in which dark secrets and strong emotions were never spoken of, so I learned to keep my experiences and feelings to myself. Sometimes I didn’t know what I felt.

As dead-ends and disappointments in my life unraveled me, I did as I had always done. I kept my confusion and pain locked away from others. Joy and enthusiasm slowly suffocated as the weight of pent-up anger and repressed grief sat upon them. After years of struggling to make my life work, then enduring the failures when it didn’t, I felt dead inside.

Gradually, however, without realizing how or when they did so, troubling incidents and anxious thoughts crept into my journals. I reviewed arguments, spelled out conflicts, and explored my despair. My journal began to mirror back to me my difficulties and longings, but I still hid away the evidence carefully when not writing in it.

When I could no longer deny the toll of passively enduring my misery—so vividly apparent on the pages I had filled—I called an agency in the yellow pages to request counseling. Through that difficult but long overdue call for help, I found a support group and a patient counselor. With encouragement, I learned at last to share my life out loud with another human being.

I continued to write in my journals, and the writing became more honest and direct as did my encounters with others. My thoughts were no longer a source of fear or shame. I learned I could share them in a safe setting, in my journal or with trusted confidants, and my world would not explode. While struggling to make some difficult choices, I noted on my pages all the bits of wisdom I received along the way. As the contents of my journals expanded, so did I.

Through writing about my inner and outer experiences, my views of past and current events were altered I and began to see possibilities for a fuller life. Positive phrases that I recorded planted seeds of hope and a new confidence. I began to understand the necessity of taking care of myself as well as others, and of letting go of the past so new doors could open. By writing about my situation, I had unconsciously created a lifeline, something I could cling to on my way out of despair. Self-respect and the courage to act on my own behalf emerged.

When I moved across the country in order to help my daughter, I needed to leave many things behind. One of the most wrenching decisions I had to make involved the fate of decades of my journals.

Although I seldom looked at any of those “history books”, I felt like I was throwing away my lifeline, abandoning old friends who had not only accompanied me thus far on my journey but who had also transformed me from a timid and hopeless to an assertive and determined woman. Sometimes we have to let go of old friends and move on, make room for the new. I made peace with the loss when I reminded myself that I always carry my past in my memories and my future in my new goals and aspirations.

Children learn useful information through the process of writing out spelling words or math facts over and over: “Welcome, welcome, welcome” or “5 + 6 = 11, 5 + 6 =11, 5 + 6 = 11”, etc. Writing a book report helps them remember the story they read and so on. So it was that I developed a better way of being in the world. I wrote my story; I wrote about my interpretations of that story, and, at last, I wrote about my new direction. I grew up, and also became deeper and more rounded by writing about my experiences, my emotional states, my outlook on the world and how it felt to be alive in the present moment.

I’ve started a new journal since my arrival here in Arizona. My journal is my spiritual companion and inner travelogue, always available, always ready to contain my unfolding life. With each stroke of my pen, I sort out muddled thoughts and feelings, examine difficult relationships, and paint new dreams with words. I will continue to capture the next chapters of my life in its pages. I can hardly wait to see how much more I will change.
 __________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Janice Hastert, June 23, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author:  janice.s.hastert@gmail.com
Picture

About the Author

Janice Hastert is a freelance writer recently transplanted from Naperville, Illinois to Gilbert, Arizona. Her humorous essays, short stories and poems have been featured in the Chicago Sun Times Sunday Magazine, Senior Connection, Byline, Rivulets and other publications. She served as Editor for the Naperville Writers Group’s annual anthology for four years. When not writing, she is reading other people’s writing or visiting her grandchildren. Reach her at: janice.s.hastert@gmail.com
1 Comment

Guidelines for Keeping a Journal

6/3/2015

0 Comments

 
By Joe Sophy



Adapted from and Inspired by the following publications:

Adler, Mortimer J. and Van Doren, Charles. How to Read a Book: the Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. New York: Touchstone, 1972 (1940).


Baig, Barbara. How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play. Cincinnati: Writer's Digest Books, 2010.


Brande, Dorothea. Becoming a Writer. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, 1981 (Harcourt, Brace, 1934).


Jones, Danell. The Virginia Woolf Writers' Workshop: Seven Lessons to Inspire Great Writing.  New York: Bantam Books, 2007.

________________________________________________________________________

 Background: 


A good friend of mine, her husband, and their twelve-year-old daughter are going to Germany and Northern Europe this summer. My friend and I spoke of the possibility that she might give her daughter a travel journal for the trip, as a tool to make the event more memorable for the girl. Journal-keeping is also a good habit for young people to develop. It would delight me if something I put together helped awaken the intellectual excursions of this young girl and her parents. I decided I would some "Guidelines for Keeping a Journal" that both they (and I) might use in our own “journeys” on the printed page. I thought it might be good practice for me to synthesize what I have read about journaling and also that it might rouse my sleeping muse and help me to rededicate my own efforts at writing.

In this spirit I offered the following advice:

First, go to your favorite book or stationery store or online merchant and obtain a journal/diary that delights you by the way it feels, how it looks and the way it smells, its heft, lined or unlined (according to your preference), its size and the number of its pages, as well as the way you feel when you actually write in it. You may not be able to grasp all of these parameters consciously when you first purchase your journal, but they will register at some level. Alternatively, your journal may be a gift bought on your behalf but with someone else's parameters in mind. Embrace it as your own. As a token of affection and admiration, it will remind you of the person who gave it to you and the esteem in which you are held.

Many of those who consider what ought to go into a journal point to the date as an essential component of each entry. In general, this is a good rule of thumb, but it is not absolutely necessary. It is true, however, that dates enable more ready organization once your journals have started to accumulate. Also, dates can help fix in your own mind a sequence of events in your life and in your journal as a reflection of the same.

Remember, no eyes but yours will see your journal, unless you permit the disclosure. You should not feel hampered by other people's expectations or demands regarding what should be put into your journal and what should be kept out. Be aware, however, that nothing is more inviting to unwelcome casual investigation than a journal left out in the open. Your journal belongs in a space designated as private, unavailable for public perusal, unless that is your intent. Keeping a journal is fundamentally an exercise in discretion; even if you decide to put "everything" into it, your journal is a document you are encouraged to reread, reconsider and rearrange again and again as the years pass. A journal is also recursive and circular in that you will always be returning to the same ground, to the same physical pages in their successive versions, and to the same ideas that will permeate your intellectual life. Selection will occur of its own accord because time, space, and attention are all limited, as well as the fact that written language is material in nature and therefore also finite.

A technique for beginning one's journal writing is to do what is commonly referred to as "freewriting". When freewriting, you open your journal to a blank page and begin jotting down whatever comes to mind, remembering only to keep your pen moving across the page, iterating "I don't know what to write," if that becomes the case, until the flow of words, if not ideas, resumes. Do this uninterrupted for 10-15 minutes at a time. This can be very difficult, but it is a skill that can be practiced and learned. It is also handy to be able to write something in your journal at just a moment's notice. Later on, you may reconsider such entries and try to organize them, or you can just keep generating more and more text.

You can also begin an installment in your journal by freewriting and then, in the same entry, transition toward more structured/directed forms of writing. When freewriting, do not be concerned if the entries are not grammatical, or well-structured, or even coherent—you are simply opening the floodgates and recording what pours out. The point of writing in a journal is not to come up with something finished… at least not right away. You must allow yourself the freedom to explore your own ideas in a non-judgmental setting. Give yourself permission to do this, and try to accomplish writing in your journal several times a week, at different hours of the day, until you find a pattern that suits you.

Another way to get started is to aspire to write 100 words every day. That is, you might manage a session by giving yourself that easily attained goal. You’ll find yourself routinely exceeding the word count. (The point here is to launch each session and let it develop as it will.) What tomes could ultimately be accomplished if a person would set aside the time to write 100 words every day? The pages would add up before you knew it, and you'd be well on your way with whatever project you conceive.

Inspiration for a journal can also be found through reading. Your journal is an ideal place to air thoughts about subject matter that is everywhere available to our minds' inspection. The effort to write about other written pages is a primary method by which to understand and assimilate what is read as well as make sense of experience. Let your world be a literate one. That this phenomenon occurs is magical, but it also has distinct steps that can be mapped out in your journal. (The process of reading a book mindfully has been delineated by Adler and Van Doren in How to Read a Book, cited above.) Some of the best writing advice I have encountered, on more than one occasion, is to read widely, everything you can get your hands on, and follow your own tastes. There is much we are obligated to read and write in our daily lives, and the journal can help with those assignments, but think of it also as a tool for self-exploration, pages wide open for discovering what it is you most enjoy thinking about, doing and speaking of.

We must find room in life for the expression of what is close to our hearts, and our journals are a place in which to practice the attitudes that we wear (more or less convincingly) during our interactions with the rest of the world.

 __________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright ©Joe Sophy, March 26, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: jsophy@earthlink.net 

Picture

About the Author

Joe Sophy graduated in 2005 with his third degree in philosophy but realized he did not wish to be employed academically. He contributed the short story, "Eliza Did Little", to the group's Ink. Spots: First Annual Anthology of Works. He had been told in college that he was a gifted writer; could he possibly write and, if so, what? Thus began a journey of discovery that would take him from a rigorous class in poetry composition at ASU to consulting numerous how-to books on writing in a "long apprenticeship" somewhat characteristic of other aspiring writers. Ultimately, Joe understood he would need to find a group of like-minded individuals who met regularly and shared their work. Shari Broyer had already conceived of and convened just such a group in the Phoenix area: Writers, Ink., as it is now known. Today, Joe dreams of writing fiction, a novel someday, but he writes smaller pieces for now. Joe enjoys reading and indoor gardening, and he would prefer to spend more time with his cats instead of traveling as much as he does. Joe may be reached at jsophy@earthlink.net 
0 Comments

Boulder Demolition – An Essay on Writing

5/4/2015

5 Comments

 
By Howard Russell

There was this boulder in my way. I kept bumping into it. I tried moving it, but it wouldn’t budge. I tried going around it, but it kept shifting positions with martial arts speed, always landing directly in my path. I cursed at it. I hit it with my pen and whacked it with my journal, but it remained steadfastly in my path, just staring at me, stone-faced, benignly indifferent to my ineffective frontal assault.

So what was the problem? Apparently, the problem was me. I was getting in my own way, blocking my own progress, stifling my own creativity. My “boulder” was my pre-conceived notion of how things ought to be. Conditions to write had to be right. The mood had to be perfect. And, of course, the inspiration had to be a towering, universal truth only I could shed light on for the rest of humanity. It never occurred to me that, perhaps, nobody cared what I thought. “Hey, that sounds great,” I could hear my friend, Bob, say, “but I’ve got bills to pay and problems of my own. Good luck with your writing. Keep in touch.”

I attempted to fix the boulder problem by myself. I checked out books on disc from the library and listened intently in the car. I wrote furiously in my notebooks, challenging myself to find the insight I must certainly have missed in my fifty-plus years of experience. Surely there was an answer, a way to express my thoughts so others could see themselves and find solace in my words. What I needed was a little help, some new direction. I discussed it with my son, and he had a suggestion for me: “Why don’t you take a creative writing course at one of the local community colleges? You insisted that I go to college to expand my mind. Maybe you should try it, too?”

Oh, what drivel comes out of the mouths of snotty, sarcastic 25-year-old brats! Go back to school? Ha! I’d rather be boiled in oil, my skin used to line some cannibal’s canoe, my bones laced together to form a Korowai’s hut. Submit myself to textbooks and teachers after all this time? Nonsense.

He was right, of course. He is wise beyond his ego. So, with apprehension, I signed up for a class at Scottsdale Community College.

On the first day, the professor, an expert in boulder demolition, immediately began eliminating the obstacles her students thought they faced. With a determination borne of sincerity, she established new conditions under which we would operate. “We’re a community of writers,” she said. “Just like in Vegas, what happens here stays here.”

Then, she put us to work. Clichés were banned, forever consigned to the geriatric home for worn-out phrases. Next came target practice. “Take the words: ‘white,’ ‘lake,’ and ‘apple’ and write a love poem. Make me smile or cry, or do both,” she said. There were readings and lectures, discussions and disagreements.

Finally, she pulled out the big gun and conducted a terrifying exercise she called a “workshop” in which every word, every paragraph, every strophe was examined, critiqued, and constructively commented on by a room full of anxious strangers.

And the big gun worked. I watched as its bullets blew holes in my boulder, the debris swept downstream on a river of awakening. As I listened and learned, reacted and responded, I realized I didn’t have to try so hard to be something that I wasn’t. I only had to be myself, writing honestly from my heart. In my efforts to sound intellectual and sophisticated, I had forgotten how to write simply, directly. “This above all to thine own self be true,” The Bard, Shakespeare, said, “and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

So I wrote, at last, a poem of unrequited love. The lyrics flowed from some crevice deep inside—a heart broken and seared in the furnace of another, the sunrise transformed from wonder to dull ache—as I laid bare an ancient wound that had been too painful to share before. I wrote the experience down in graphic detail and waited for the results of its first public review.

There was silence at first, during which I thought it a good time to shrivel and die. Then, one by one, hearts and mouths opened. “That happened to me!’ came Anne’s response, “I felt it, too!” said Carl from the back row. “This is a whole new side of you,” Tracie marveled. “Where’s it been hiding?” With that, I heaved an inaudible sigh as the last bit of my boulder crumbled to dust.

Now, without that pesky boulder in my way, I am experiencing a freedom I haven’t felt in years. Will anyone ever read anything I write? It no longer matters. Does literary fame await me? I no longer care. The truths I’ve discovered are worth more than all the accolades I could hope to accumulate. I am merely thankful for an intelligent son and appreciative of the capable professor who so skillfully aimed her Uzi with such precision, blasting that boulder to smithereens and exorcising my invisible nemesis.

I recommend taking writing courses for improvement to anyone with passion and a pen.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Copyright © Howard Russell Gershkowitz, May 4, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: Rusel0630@gmail.com
Picture

About the Author

Howard Russell is 58, married for 35 years to the same woman (his awesome Lisa with somewhat eclectic tastes—just ask her!). He’s taken to writing in several genres, including poetry, short stories and mid-length novels and tries to draw upon the accumulated snafus of a lifetime, documented in his journal. He spends a lot of time near the water, not as much as he would like to, but retirement may make that easier someday. He doesn’t care if it’s a stream, a lake, or an ocean, as long as he’s there and can be alone. He hopes, through his writing, to shed light on the human condition, particularly the condition of family, friends, and co-workers who won’t mind seeing themselves in print (with names changed to protect the potentially embarrassed). 
5 Comments

Why Introverts May Make Better Writers

4/2/2015

3 Comments

 
(Based on the Thoughts of an Introvert)

I am strongly introverted. I’m not a huge fan of trying to make small talk. Here are some of my thoughts on why introverts might make better writers than extroverts:

Introverts like to sit back and take notice of things around them. When I talk with my sister or mom, half the time they don’t think I pay attention all that much until I reveal what I’ve taken in. I, personally, observe how different people interact with each other. I also analyze how surroundings affect the way they act. I can then take what I see and put it into a novel. Extroverts, however, are engaged with their surroundings, and may not notice how other people around them interact.

Another thing that introverts do, myself included (pretty sure all introverts do this), is think a lot. If you’re not an introvert, then you might not get what I’m saying. On a daily basis, I think about the following:

1.      How and why people act, as I have stated above.

2.      Different scenarios. I will do something, and then I will think about what would have happened had I done it differently.

3.      What could have been/what could be. Imagine this: What if World War I hadn’t occurred? Would World War II have still happened? If World War I was non-existent, would we have had music by the amazing Louis Armstrong, Vera Lynn, Andrew Sisters, or Mills Brothers? If the Jazz Era never was, would music be the same today? If the Jazz Era didn’t arise in the 1920s and 30s, would it appear now?

This type of thinking can add realism to a novel and help create unique plots. Extroverts don’t always have time for this kind of deep thinking because they are so caught up in “doing”.

As an introvert who doesn’t spend much time with others, I have way, way, way too much time on my hands. It can get troublesome. However, I have more hours in which to write, unlike a few extroverted people I know.

These are just my thoughts on why introverts might make better writers than extroverts. Of course, I know some very good extrovert writers, so I hope that I didn’t offend any of them.

[This reworked blog first appeared on A Ginger and A Pen ]

Social Media

Find me on Twitter @katelynnrs

Find me on Pintrest at A Ginger and A Pen

Find me on Instagram @katelynn_ryanne

Have any questions or comments? Visit my contact page!
________________________________________________________________________

Copyright © Katelynn Showers, April 2, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be used or produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, email the author: katelynnryanne@gmail.com

About the Author

Picture
Katelynn R. Showers, our youngest member at just fourteen years old, wrote her first novel at the age of ten and finished it at when she turned twelve. At twelve, she started a blog about writing and reading, A Ginger and A Pen. Katelynn has not yet published any of her works, but she has shared her first novel (The Crown Games, unpublished) with the head of the Language and Literature Department at Arizona State University.

Katelynn dreams of being a traditionally published author while living in Manhattan, New York, later in her writing career.
3 Comments
<<Previous

    Authors

    The authors of these blogs are all members of or are affiliated with Writers, Ink. of Greater Phoenix. To learn more about each individual author, please be sure to scroll down past the end of each blog to the About the Author section.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2016
    July 2016
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015

    Categories

    All

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.