Short-sighted sites like m-w.com and Wikipedia limit their definition of a muse as any of the nine sister goddesses in Greek mythology who presided over song, poetry, and the arts and sciences. Things have evolved since the day of the Zeus excuse. (Evidence)

Each of the writing designs below is available in an assortment of shirt styles, greeting cards, coffee mugs, and other items. This means you can create a writing gift set with a t-shirt and a matching coffee mug, for example. — Click on the images in the middle or right columns to navigate to complete index for that design. (Each T-Shirt design image link will open a new window to the index for that design.)
Has your muse gone incognito disguised as a man to fool you? Or is he the child of a muse? Or maybe he evolved to that state. Regardless of how he got that way, if you’re abused by a muse who amuses himself by avoiding you, then you’ll love these blue muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you, then you’ll love these blue muse abuse designs! (Check out the muse’s designer dress!)	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does your muse abuse you — like make you think of things like the color mauve and then skip out on you? If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you when you need her, then you’ll love these mauve muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does your muse like to make you come up with an idea, promptly make you forget it, and then leave? If you’re abused by a muse who amuses herself by avoiding you when you need her, you’ll love this these pink muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design
Does it drive you crazy that because of today’s emphasis on non-sexist language your muse keeps posing as a non-gender-specific, gender-neutral influence? Then you’ll love these brown muse abuse designs!	Shop for this Design	Shop for this Design

You can find other Blue Rose Bouquet writing gift ideas designs on the Writing Woes Gift Gear page.

You can see other designs by Pamela Rice Hahn at TShirtCollections.com and Chronic-Illness.org.

Muse Abuse Designs is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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A writing career as a professional writer requires more than just the ability and desire to string words together in an interesting and compelling way.

Even if you’ve had publishing success already, there are still questions that you must (or should) answer before you can realistically make the decision as to whether or not you have what it takes to be a professional writer.

1. Do you possess enough time management discipline to meet your goals and obligations?

In this case, goals do not refer to that wish list of resolutions you set for yourself on New Year’s Day. (Most people have trouble sticking to a diet and not every successful dieter can carry that discipline over to other areas of his or her life.)

When it comes to a writing career, your goals will need to include aspects of your work that you may find tedious or boring. Pick your least favorite part of writing – such as editing, proofreading, or promotion – and then truthfully determine whether or not you can picture being able to force yourself to perform that chore or those chores on a regular basis.

Your primary writing obligation will involve meeting or exceeding deadlines. In addition to the deadlines for which you are obligated by contract to meet, you’ll also need to allow time to do the work that it’ll take to get the work you’ll need once you meet your current work project deadline. Unless you start off with a million dollar book deal right out of the gate, the reality of a writing career is that it can often require more work (in the form of query letters and book proposals, self-promotion online and in person, and so forth) to get the work than it takes to do the work.

2. Do you have a reasonable expectation of what it will take to meet your financial obligations?

Allow me to get personal for a moment:
Prior to my diagnosis with a disabling physical condition that has now exacerbated to the point to where I can no longer work outside my home, I maintained a full-time job along with a full-time writing career. The job paid the bills; the writing paid for the extras and fun stuff. I now often joke that after spending several years getting disability [lack of] income I was able to write my way into [the lousy cash flow of] a full-time freelance writing career.

Regardless of what type of freelance writing career you pursue, you’ll face the same realities that I do, which require that you possess:

• The trust that editors who receive their paychecks according to a predetermined schedule will remember that they have to put in the formal request that you receive your check
• The patience to wait the time that it takes for your check request to work its way through the often weeks-long maze it takes to arrive at the desk of the person who will actually issue the check
• More patience while you wait for your check to arrive in the mail or get deposited into your account
• A reasonable expectation about the amount of time that will lapse once you have this fat check in your hand before the next one arrives

(In an ideal world, you’ll have enough money on hand to act as a cushion you can use to fund your writing career. This cushion will allow you to draw regular paychecks from the amount on hand so that you’re depositing new checks into that fund rather than spending the money as it arrives. This allows you to have a margin of error that allows for late checks, nonpaying clients, or canceled contracts and still maintain your financial stability. Unfortunately, I wasn’t blessed with an ideal world. I work without that margin, yet I still make or am the victim of errors.)

A professional writing career is stressful enough. Having that cushion of the amount of money it will take you to maintain your lifestyle for a minimum of six months can help you avoid adding financial stress to your life.

As you budget for that needed six months-worth of money in reserve, keep in mind that once you become your own boss, your financial obligations will include additional things like purchasing and maintaining your own office equipment. It’s true that you may receive checks larger than any that you ever received at your previous full-time job, but chances are there will be longer periods of time between when you receive one check and then the next. Feast or famine.

Once you get a large advance check or one arrives for a completed writing project, you’ll naturally want to reward yourself. Even if you have the luxury of a working spouse or partner, you’ll need to possess the financial discipline necessary to recognize what you can budget for a reward and what monetary amount constitutes an unnecessary indulgence.

3. Is everything all about you?

You need to make a realistic assessment about whether or not you need direct supervision to be productive.

If you were a guest on a talk show, are you the type who could maintain your composure once you’ve moved down the sofa?

Or are you more like the guest who, once he or she’s moved off of the seat for the featured guest, feels compelled to continue to crack jokes and interrupt the host or the new guest in order to focus attention back to him- or herself?

Some people simply need immediate and somewhat constant supervision or feedback. There’s nothing wrong with admitting that about yourself if you fall into that category. There are plenty of careers available that allow you to work full time, write [whatever] according to assignment, and then hand your work over to a supervisor whose feedback will help make you feel like you’re always in the spotlight as the featured guest.

Granted, there are ways that a freelance writer can introduce immediate feedback into his or her writing life. Bloggers who’ve managed to reach the point where they receive numerous comments on each of their posts are somewhat in this position, although the comments they receive aren’t always as indulgent as those that can come from a boss who’s working toward the same goals you are. A more productive alternative to having the immediate feedback from a boss is to develop a reciprocal online or writer’s group relationship with another trusted writer.

The immediate support and feedback from a boss can also help you if you’re the type who is prone to procrastinate or digress. Although those gifted at avoiding work can always find ways to do it, it’s more difficult to spend time playing computer games or any of those other things you’d rather be doing if there’s the risk of a boss catching you in the act.

4. Do you know the difference between reasons and excuses?

Few things in life ever go exactly according to schedule. Accept that and plan accordingly.

Of course you can’t plan for every contingency. An extended electrical outage due to a storm is a reason. A death in the family is a reason. But, multiple reasons strung together can (and do) constitute moving beyond having reasons for not getting the work done and making excuses to try to justify your lack of discipline.

Recognize the difference and work accordingly.

5. Do you have more reasons why you can and should be a professional writer than you have excuses for why it’d never work?

If you do, then do it!

5 Ways to Tell if You Have What It Takes to be a Professional Writer is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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One of the best things that can happen to a serious writer is to find an active, supportive writing group whose members have goals similar to yours. At their best, these writers will listen to your query letters, synopsis, and chapter problems and be able to offer constructive advice. Chances are, it’ll be much more satisfying than asking the plumber who thought he was just there to fix the leaky faucet. Or, the glazed look you get at the dinner table at home when you ask for your family’s help.

Don’t think your family’s reluctance to critique your writing as being abandoned in your time of need by the people you’ve loved, supported, and fed all their lives. After all, there was that time they actually had some ideas and you burst into tears over your meatloaf. No one in your family wants to go there again. Do you?

Sometimes the people around your dinner table are silent because they have no advanced writing skills and they hate to be wrong. Don’t we all? So, most likely, they’ll hem and haw until they get their dessert, then they’ll leave you little sticky-notes on your computer behind your back. More about those notes later.

Better to take your questions to some people who will be more objective. Your family will be happier (relieved is more like it) and you’ll be happier and further along in actually fixing the problem, whatever it is.

Your fellow writers will also be a valuable resource when you have to make other decisions like: which writing conference is worth the time and money and which isn’t. Who’s buying the kind of stuff you’re writing? What’s new on the Internet?

A serious organization should have set times to meet in a dry place with tables and chairs. It should be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A circle of writers that hopes to be productive should have a moderator who’s there on a regular basis and appoints someone to sit in her place when she’s absent.

Luckily, the group I’m in has a published writer who’s also an editor at the head of our table. She doesn’t just maintain order and make sure that all members get a chance to read, she can offer legitimate help on any writing project, big or small. Maybe her best quality is she’s so tactful. Every meeting, we tax her critiquing skills more than once or twice. I’m sure one of us could read aloud from one of Nixon’s old speeches, and she’d think of something encouraging and constructive to say.

Sometimes the perfect collection of writers to encourage your creative flow isn’t easy to find. If you don’t feel comfortable with the first writers you visit, try, try again, until you find your “writing home.” For instance, I knew that a group I visited wasn’t a good fit when I was the only writer at the table who didn’t have on a marijuana tee-shirt. The second bunch was okay but too far away to get me off my couch on stormy winter nights. My next “home” was perfect, and I’ve been there for several years now.

So, get out there and find some other writers you’re simpatico with. Either that, or get used to coming home to find that your family has left notes stuck all over your computer with messages like these:

• Mom! I had a few minutes before baseball practice, so I made a few improvements on chapter seven for you. Hope you like the scene I added with the giant spider. -Ritchie
• Dear, your editor called and said you needed an “expendable character,” so I murdered your protagonist in chapter three. Hope that was all right.-Mike
• Sis! I went through your new Thesaurus and underlined all the literary-sounding words in red. If you’re more literary, maybe you can be on Oprah. -Molly
• Mom! I thought your Times Roman was looking a little flat, so I changed everything to Ravie. It’s way cool, and added another fifty pages to your book. So I solved your page-count problem, too! -Kandy

Well, you did ask sometime over meatloaf for their help, remember?

Believe me, you’ll be much happier if you find a good writing group and make a commitment to it. If you want to become a better writer, you have to set aside the time to make it happen.

Members also have an obligation to be there to help their fellow writers, cheer when the news is good, and lend encouragement when needed. I should also add: be nice. Some of your fellow writers will be there for the camaraderie, so spare them the twisting knife in the ribs after they read.

. . . Wait a minute. I just found another sticky-note. This one says: “Hey, lady! What’s with all that back story in chapter two? Ya’ gotta get that stuff outta there, else you’ll slow down the pace.” Signed: Joe the plumber.

It was bound to happen. A plumber who writes. Turns out, he was right. Maybe I don’t need a writing group after all. Maybe what I need is another leaky faucet.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Janelle Meraz Hooper
All Rights Reserved

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

Get Thee to a Writers’ Group! is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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and other information about Michael O’Donoghue.

Note: Keep in mind that this article was written in the 1970′s. It’s still timely. As a matter of fact, I believe you’ll get some insight into what influenced Dave Barry’s writing and probably the South Park creators, too. Read more about Michael O’Donoghue at the end of this article.

“If I could not earn a penny from my writing, I would earn my livelihood at something else and continue to write at night.”
- Irving Wallace

“Financial success is not the only reward of good writing. It brings to the writer rich inner satisfaction as well.”
- Eliot Foster, Director of Admissions, Famous Writers School

Introduction

A long time ago, when I was just starting out, I had the good fortune to meet the great Willa Cather. With all the audacity of youth, I asked her what advice she would give the would-be-writer and she replied:

“My advice to the would-be-writer is that he start slowly, writing short undemanding things, things such as telegrams, flip-books, crank letters, signature scarves, spot quizzes, capsule summaries, fortune cookies and errata. Then, when he feels he’s ready, move up to the more challenging items such as mandates, objective correlatives, passion plays, pointless diatribes, minor classics, manifestos, mezzotints, oxymora, exposes, broadsides, and papal bulls.

And above all, never forget that the pen is mightier than the plow-share. By this I mean that writing, all in all, is a hell of a lot more fun than farming. For one thing, writers seldom, if ever, have to get up at five o’clock in the morning and shovel manure. As far as I’m concerned, that gives them the edge right there.”

She went on to tell me many things, both wonderful and wise, probing the secrets of her craft, showing how to weave a net of words and capture the fleeting stuff of life. Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten every bit of it.

I do recall, however, her answer when I asked “If you could only give me one rule to follow, what would it be?” She paused, looked down for a moment and finally said, “Never wear brown shoes with a blue suit.”

There’s very little I could add to that except to say “Go to it and good luck!”

Lesson 1 – The Grabber

The “grabber” is the initial sentence of a novel or short story designed to jolt the reader out of his complacency and arouse his curiosity, forcing him to press onward. For example:

“It’s no good, Alex,” she rejoined, “Even if I did love you, my father would never let me marry an alligator.”

The reader is immediately bombarded with questions, questions such as “Why won’t her father let her marry an alligator?” “How come she doesn’t love him?” and “Can she learn to love him in time?” The reader’s interest has been “grabbed”!

Just so there’ll be no misunderstanding about grabbers, I’ve listed a few more below:

“I’m afraid you’re too late,” sneered Zoltan. “The fireplace has already flown south for the winter!”

Sylvia lay sick among the silverware…

Chinese vegetables mean more to me than you do, my dear,” Charles remarked to his wife, adding injury to insult by lodging a grapefruit knife in her neck.

“I have in my hands,” Professor Willobee exclaimed, clutching a sheaf of papers in his trembling fingers and pacing in circles about the carpet while I stood at the window, barely able to make out the Capitol dome through the thick, churning for that rolled in off the Potomac, wondering to myself what matter could possibly be so urgent as to bring the distinguished historian bursting into my State Department office at the unseemly hour, “definitive proof that Abraham Lincoln was a homo!”

These are just a handful of the possible grabbers. Needless to say, there are thousands of others, but if you fail to think of them, feel free to use any or all of these.

Lesson 2 – The Ending

All too often, the budding author finds that his tale has run its course and yet he sees no way to satisfactorily end it, or, in literary parlance, “wrap it up.” Observe how easily I resolve this problem:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a truck.
-the end-

If the story happens to be set in England, use the same ending, slightly modified:

Suddenly, everyone was run over by a lorry.
-the end-

If set in France:

Soudaincment, tout le monde etait ecrass par un camion.
-finis-

You’ll be surprised at how many different settings and situations this ending applies to. For instance, if you were writing a story about ants, it would end “Suddenly, everyone was run over by a centipede.” In fact, this is the only ending you ever need use.*

*Warning – if you are writing a story about trucks, do not have the trucks run over by a truck. Have the trucks run over by a mammoth truck.

Lesson 3 – Choosing A Title

A friend of mine recently had a bunch of articles rejected by the Reader’s Digest and, unable to understand why, he turned to me for advice. I spotted the problem at a glance. His titles were all wrong. By calling his pieces such things as “Unwed Mothers – A Head Start on Life,” “Cancer – The Incurable Disease,” “A Leading Psychologist Explains Why There Should Be More Violence on Television,” “Dognappers I Have Known and Loved,” “My Baby Was Born Dead and I Couldn’t Care Less,” and “Pleasantville – Last of the Wide-Open Towns,” he had seriously misjudged his market. To steer him straight, I drew up this list of all-purpose surefire titles:

________ at the Crossroads
The Case for ________
The Role of ________
Coping with Changing ________
A Realistic Look at ________
The ________ Experience
Bridging the ________ Gap
A ________ for All Seasons

Simply fill in the blanks with the topic of your choice and, if that doesn’t work you can always resort to the one title that never fails:

South America, the Sleeping Giant on our Doorstep

Lesson 4 – Exposition

Perhaps the most difficult technique for the fledgling writer to master is proper treatment of exposition. Yet watch the sly, subtle way I “set the scene” of my smash play, The Last to Know, with a minimum of words and effort.

(The curtain opens on a tastefully appointed dining room, the table ringed by men in tuxedos and women in costly gowns. There is a knock at the door.)

LORD OVERBROOKE: Oh, come in, Lydia. Allow me to introduce my dinner guests to you. This is Cheryl Heatherton, the madcap soybean heiress whose zany antics actually mask a heart broken by her inability to meaningfully communicate with her father, E. J. Heatherton, seated to her left, who is too caught up in the heady world of high finance to sit down and have a quiet chat with his own daughter, unwanted to begin with, disposing of his paternal obligations by giving her everything, everything but love, that is.

Next to them sits Geoffrey Drake, a seemingly successful merchant banker trapped in an unfortunate marriage with a woman half his age, who wistfully looks back upon his days as the raffish Group Captain of an R.A.F. bomber squadron that flew eighty-one missions over Berlin, his tortured psyche refusing to admit, despite frequent nightmares in which, dripping with sweat, he wakes screaming, “Pull it up! Pull it up, I say! I can’t hold her any longer! We’re losing altitude! We’re going down! Jerry at three o’clock Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggh!”, that his cowardice and his cowardice alone was responsible for the loss of his crew and “Digger,” the little Manchester terrier who was their mascot.

The empty chair to his right was vacated just five minutes ago by Geoffrey’s stunning wife, twenty-three- year-old, golden-tressed Edwina Drake, who, claiming a severe migraine, begged to be excused that she might return home and rest, whereas, in reality, she is, at this moment, speeding to the arms of another man, convinced that if she can steal a little happiness now, it doesn’t matter who she hurts later on.

The elderly servant preparing the Caviar en Socle is Andrew who’s been with my family for over forty years although he hasn’t received a salary for the last two, even going on so far as to loan me his life’s savings to cover my spiraling gambling debts but it’s only a matter of time before I am exposed as a penniless fraud and high society turns its back on me.

The dark woman opposite me is Yvonne de Zenobia, the fading Mexican film star, who speaks of her last movie as though it was shot only yesterday, unwilling to face the fact that she hasn’t been before the cameras in nearly fifteen years; unwilling to confess that her life has been little more than a tarnished dream.

As for her companion, Desmond Trelawney, he is an unmitigated scoundrel about whom the less said, the better.

And, of course, you know your father, the ruthless war profiteer, and your hopelessly alcoholic mother, who never quite escaped her checkered past, realizing, all too late, that despite her jewels and limousines, she was still just a taxi-dancer who belonged to any man for a drink and a few cigarettes.

Please take a seat. We were just talking about you.

This example demonstrates everything you’ll ever need to know about exposition. Study it carefully.

Lesson 5 – Finding the Raw Material

As any professional writer will tell you, the richest source of material is one’s relatives, one’s neighbors and, more often than not, total strangers. A day doesn’t go by without at least one person, upon learning that I’m a professional writer, offering me some terrific idea for a story. And I’m sure it will come as no shock when I say that most of the ideas are pretty damn good!

Only last week, a pipe-fitter of my acquaintance came up with a surprise ending guaranteed to unnerve the most jaded reader. What you do is tell this really weird story that keeps on getting weirder and weirder until, just when the reader is muttering, “How in the heck is he going to get himself out of this one? He’s really painted himself into a corner!” you spring the “mind- blower”: “But then he woke up. It had all been a dream!” (which I, professional writer that I am, honed down to: “But then the alarm clock rang. It had all been a dream!”). And this came from a common, run-of-the-mill pipe-fitter! For free!

Cabdrivers, another great wealth of material, will often remark, “Boy, lemme tell ya! Some of the characters I get in this cab would fill a book! Real kooks, ya know what I mean?” And then, without my having to coax even the slightest, they tell me about them, and they would fill a book. Perhaps two or three books. In addition, if you’re at all interested in social science, cabdrivers are able to provide countless examples of the failures of the welfare state.

To illustrate just how valid these unsolicited suggestions can be, I shall print a few lines from a newly completed play inspired by my aunt, who had the idea as far back as when she was attending grade school. It’s called If an Old House Could Talk, What Tales It Would Tell:

The Floor: Do you remember the time the middle-aged lady who always wore the stilletto heels tripped over an extension cord while running to answer the phone and spilled the Ovaltine all over me and they spent the next 20 minutes mopping it up?

The Wall: No.

Of course, I can’t print too much here because I don’t want to spoil the ending (although I will give you a “hint”: it involves a truck…). I just wanted to show you how much the world would have missed had I rejected my aunt’s suggestion out of hand simply because she is not a professional writer like myself.

Lesson 6 – Quoting Other Authors

If placed in a situation where you must quote another author, always write “[sic]” after any word that may be misspelled or looks the least bit questionable in any way. If there are no misspellings or curious words, toss in a few “[sic]“s just to break up the flow. By doing this, you will appear to be knowledgeable and “on your toes,” while the one quoted will seem suspect and vaguely discredited. Two examples will suffice:

“O Sleepless as the river under thee,
Vaulting the sea, the prairies’ dreaming sod,
Unto us lowiest sometime sweep, descend
And of the curveship [sic], lend a myth to God”
- Hart Crane

“Beauty is but a flowre [sic],
Which wrinckles [sic] will devoure [sic]
Brightnesse [sic] falls from the ayre [sic]
Queenes [sic] have died yong [sic] and faire [sic]
Dust hath closde [sic] Helens [sic] eye [sic]
I am sick [sic], I must dye [sic]: Lord, have mercy on us.”
- Thomas Nashe

Note how only one small “[sic]” makes Crane’s entire stanza trivial and worthless, which, in his case, takes less doing that Nashe, on the other hand, has been rendered virtually unreadable. Anyone having to choose between you and Nashe would pick you every time! And, when it’s all said and done, isn’t that the name of the game?

Lesson 7 – Making The Reader Feel Inadequate

Without question, the surest way to make a reader feel inadequate is through casual erudition, and there is no better way to achieve casual erudition than by putting the punchline of an anecdote in a little foreign language. Here’s a sample:

One crisp October morning, while taking my usual stroll down the Kurfurstenstrasse, I spied my old friend Casimir Malevitch, the renowned Suprematist painter, sitting on a bench. Noting that he had a banana in his ear, I said to him, “Excuse me, Casimir, but I believe you have a banana in your ear.”
“What?” he asked.
Moving closer and speaking quite distinctly, I repeated my previous observation, saying, “I said ‘You have a banana in your ear!’ ”
“What’s that you say?” came the reply.
By now I was a trifle piqued at this awkward situation and, seeking to make myself plain, once and for all, I fairly screamed, “I SAID THAT YOU HAVE A BANANA IN YOUR EAR, YOU DOLT!!!”
Imagine my chagrin when Casimir looked at me blankly and quipped,
“Meh soon kahi sakta – meree kaan meh kayla heh!”
Oh, what a laugh we had over that one.

With one stroke, the reader has been made to feel not only that his education was second-rate, but that you are getting far more out of life than he. This is precisely why this device is best used in memoirs, whose sole purpose is to make the reader feel that you have lived life to the fullest, while his existence, in comparison, has been meaningless and shabby….

Lesson 8 – Covering The News

Have you ever wondered how reporters are able to turn out a dozen or so news articles day after day, year after year, and still keep their copy so fresh, so vital, so alive? It’s because they know The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism, key constructions with which one can express every known human emotion! As one might suppose, The Phrases, discovered only after centuries of trial and error, are a closely guarded secret, available to no one but accredited members of the press. However, at the risk of being cashiered from the Newspaper Guild, I am now going to reveal them to you:

The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism

1. “violence flared”
2. “limped into port”
3. “according to informed sources”
4. “wholesale destruction”
5. “no immediate comment”
6. “student unrest”
7. “riot-torn”
8. “flatly denied”
9. “gutted by fire”
10. “roving bands of Negro youths”

Let’s try putting The Phrases to work in a sample news story:

NEWARK, NJ, Aug. 22 (UPI) – Violence flared yesterday when roving bands of Negro youths broke windows and looted shops in riot-torn Newark. Mayor Kenneth Gibson had no immediate comment but, according to informed sources, he flatly denied saying that student unrest was behind the wholesale destruction that resulted in scores of buildings being gutted by fire, and added, “If this city were a Liberian freighter,* we just may have limped into port.”

*Whenever needed, “Norwegian Tanker” can always be substituted for “Liberian freighter.” Consider them interchangeable.

Proof positive that The Ten Magic Phrases of Journalism can express every known human emotion and then some!

Lesson 9 – Tricks Of The Trade

Just as homemakers have their hints (e.g. a ball of cotton, dipped in vanilla extract and placed in the refrigerator, will absorb food odors), writers have their own bag of tricks, a bag of tricks, I might hasten to point out, you won’t learn at any Bread Loaf Conference. Most writers, ivory tower idealists that they are, prefer to play up the mystique of their “art” (visitations from the Muse, l’ecriture automatique, talking in tongues, et cetera, et cetera), and sweep the hard-nosed practicalities under the rug. Keeping in mind, however, that a good workman doesn’t curse his tools, I am now going to make public these long suppressed tricks of the trade.

Suppose you’ve written a dreadful chapter (we’ll dub it Chapter Six for our purposes here), utterly without merit, tedious and boring beyond belief, and you just can’t find the energy to re-write it. Since it’s obvious that the reader, once he realizes how dull and shoddy Chapter Six really is, will refuse to read any further, you must provide some strong ulterior motive for completing the chapter. I’ve always found lust effective:

Artfully concealed within the next chapter is the astounding secret of an ancient Bhutanese love cult that will increase your sexual satisfaction by at least 60% and possibly more–

(Print Chapter Six.)

Pretty wild, huh? Bet you can hardly wait to try it! And don’t show your appreciation by reading Chapter Seven!*

*This insures that the reader reads Chapter Six not once but several times. Possibly, he may even read Chapter Seven.

Fear also works:

Dear Reader,
This message is printed on Chinese poison paper which is made from deadly herbs that are instantly absorbed by the fingertips so it won’t do any good to wash your hands because you will die a horrible and lingering death in about an hour unless you take the special antidote which is revealed in Chapter Six and you’ll be saved.
Sincerely,
(Your name)

Or even:

Dear Reader,
You are obviously one of those rare people who are immune to Chinese paper so this message is printed on Bavarian poison paper which is about a thousand times more powerful and even if you’re wearing gloves you’re dead for sure unless you read Chapter Six very carefully and find the special antidote.
Sincerely,
(Your name)

Appealing to vanity, greed, sloth and whatever, you can keep this up, chapter by chapter, until they finish the book. In fact, the number of appeals is limited only by human frailty itself…

LESSON 10 – MORE WRITING HINTS

There are many more writing hints I could share with you, but suddenly I am run over by a truck.

-the end-

Copyright © Michael O’Donoghue
All Rights Reserved

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From: www.evergreenreview.com/102/contrib/mod.html
Michael O’Donoghue was a frequent contributor to Evergreen Review. He was an author, playwright and filmmaker. He was a major writer at National Lampoon as well as one of the original writers at Saturday Night Live and creator of some of its funniest black comedy sketches. He also occasionally appeared on camera, on sketches like Mr. Mike’s Least Loved Bedtime Stories. His 1979 television special Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video was dropped because of censorship concerns and became a theatrical film instead. Michael O’Donoghue died in 1994.

###

Editor’s additional notes: I figure anyone who “hated Al Franken and once threw a script Franken had written out a 17-story window” has to be one of my heroes! [source of quote: Laughing in the Shadows by Patricia Wynn Brown]

For more of Michael O’Donoghue’s work, check out:

	Buy This Box or We’ll Shoot This Dog: The Best of the National Lampoon Radio Hour [AUDIO CD BOX SET] Disc 2, selection 6 is one of my all-time favorites: The Immigrants: “The Hillbillies,” along with about everything else in this 3-disc set!
	Gold Turkey: National Lampoon Radio Hour/Greatest Hits Well-Intentioned Blues is on this less expensive, single disc collection, as is The Immigrants.
	Mr. Mike: The Life and Work of Michael O’Donoghue by Dennis Perrin Paperback
	Written by Michael O’Donoghue VHS DVD

Inspired Michael O’Donoghue:

	Flash and Filigree: A Novel by Terry Southern This edition was published in 1996; however, Michael O’Donoghue was quoted as saying that reading this Terry Southern novel is what he felt gave him “permission to be a writer.”
	Now Dig This: The Unspeakable Writings of Terry Southern, 1950-1995 by Terry Southern Writings from the man who along with Stanley Kubrick wrote Dr. Strangelove.
	Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Special Edition) (1964) DVD VHS

How to Write Good is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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I went out to get the mail in yesterday. For those of you who are really serious about writing, I don’t need to explain the fixation I have for the mailbox. For the rest of you, let me say that the mailbox is Mecca, the sacred totem that must be faced once daily, the bringer of all news foul, yet a comfort beyond all my ability to describe.

So you can see why I was flustered when I discovered that our recent ice storm had temporarily welded the danged thing shut with a sheet of ice as thick as a standard pencil.

I stared at it for a moment, then tried the key anyway.

Why do we do things we already know aren’t going to work? The key butted ineffectually up against the ice.

In the meantime, the temperature is fifteen degrees, and I’m standing there in my leather jacket, a pair of galoshes over my slippers, and no hat fer cryin’ out loud. My cheeks are beginning to sting, and I’m sticking an inch-long key up against a glacial sheet of ice, pretending that it’ll somehow pierce its way into the heart of the mailbox and help me fish out the stack of rejections that must surely be behind that wall.

So I did what any self-respecting male of the species would do. I made a fist and hit the mailbox.

A small piece of the ice shattered, but did not fall away.

So I hit it again.

It gave me satisfaction, I’ll admit, but it became obvious that it would be nearly as quick to let the ice melt as it would be for me to pound the stuff away with my fist.

By now my ears hurt and I’m having flashbacks to when my dad read me Jack London’s “To Build a Fire”, a short story – probably a Novella – about a man in the Yukon who freezes to death. (Let’s not spend, much time thinking about why an adult would read a story to an eight-year-old about a man freezing to death in the Yukon, okay?).

Despite the cold, though, I felt another tickle up my spine. The mailbox stood there mocking me – you know – “Wassa matter, Ron?” it whispered. “You gonna let a little ice keep you from seeing what’s behind the box that Carol Wayne is standing beside?” (Let’s also not spend any time wondering why the mailbox is talking like a truly psychedelic combination of Richard Prior and Monty Hall, okay? We’ll just blame it on the ice crystals that were forming in my brain and leave it at that.)

At this point, it’s gotten personal. I would sooner be carried into the hospital stiff as a board than return to the house empty handed.

So I trudged stiff-legged back to the garage, grabbed the hammer and a heavy screwdriver, lashed the dogs to the sled, and set off on my own version of the Iditarod. A minute later, I stood before the mailbox, chipping at ice like an arctic Michelangelo.

Cars crunched by, their drivers grinning at me and shaking their heads like I was insane. I ignored them, though. After all, if they couldn’t see the damned gremlins sitting on the hood of their cars, who was I to flag them down, eh?

Ice flew through the air like ocean froth against the bow of Ahab’s ship. Tears in my eyes froze against my corneas, blurring my vision. If I had a beard, frost would have formed in it from my exhalations. But I was not to be swayed. I was winning, you see. The mailbox was yielding.

Finally, I could slide the key into the slot. A moment later, the rest of the ice was gone.

I was victorious. All of Rome was mine.

The fact that I could no longer feel my ears did nothing to dampen my soaring spirit.

So I turned the key, and opened the box.

Inside was a single letter, envelope neatly sealed and addressed to me.

. . .

If anyone wants a special rate Visa Card, let me know.

Copyright (c) 1999-2008 Ron Collins
All rights reserved.
No parts of this essay may be reprinted
without the expressed written consent of the author.

Author Bio:

Ron Collins lives in Columbus, Indiana with his wife and their daughter. He is an engineer by daylight and a writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at night. He has published several short stories, including work in Dragon Magazine, the original anthology Return of the Dinosaurs, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY Magazine (for which he was awarded a Cauldron Award for being a readers’ favorite author), and Adventures of Sword and Sorcery. Ron Collins’ writing has also appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Dragon, and several other magazines and anthologies. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize, and a CompuServe HOMer Award. You can find out much more about him at his award-winning web site, –> TYPOSPHERE <–.

Ron and the Mailbox is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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In the fall, I spend Saturday afternoons sitting on an aluminum seat, watching my beloved Louisville Cardinals play something that passes for football. The general process of watching these games goes something like this:

• Arrive at the parking lot two or three hours before kickoff.
• Drink a beer (or whatever) while scarfing down a bratwurst.
• Wander around and talk to old college buddies and pretend like we’re still the kids we were fifteen years ago.
• Soak up the sunshine and have a great time (unless it’s raining, then you bitch and complain and have a great time).
• Throw a small football around and generally act like you should be on the field sometime in the next hour.
• Enter the gate and watch the Cards find a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
• Complain about the coaching and generally act like we know what he’s doing wrong.

COMPLAIN about the coaching and generally ACT like we know what he’s doing wrong.

On my way home from the last game, I was suddenly struck by how much this last bit reminded me of several conversations I’ve had with various people who call themselves writers.

You know who I’m talking about.

It’s that person who’s always hanging around the on-line chat area that adamantly voices the “rules” of the trade, but never has anything on the market. It’s that individual who knows what Gardner Dozois is buying this month, but hasn’t sold a story in the past three years. It’s . . . well . . . I could go on forever.

Take this for what it’s worth, and realize that I’m perhaps a bit cranky after being sleep-deprived for the past week or more, but these “writers” are starting to really bother me.

Seriously.

Mike Resnick once told me that you’re not a writer until you’ve sold a story to a professional market. Unfortunately, he made the “mistake” of telling that to a scad of new writers at the same time. For this sin, he paid the price of being unmercifully flamed by a bunch of people who started getting the dictionary out to support their argument. (Ever notice how people who grab a dictionary to argue a point generally don’t get it?) Never mind that Mike is among the most decorated and well-off science fiction writers in the field, he had intruded upon egos and was to be put in his place. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

At the time, I didn’t consider myself a writer, despite having written seriously for over two years. I sided with Mike. You can call it sucking up if you want, I really don’t mind because I know what it was. (It wasn’t.) And now that Mike knows me a bit better, he understands what it was, too. So think what you will.

Now that I’ve sold a dozen stories professionally, I can only say the feeling is even stronger.

Writing well enough to sell in the professional market is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It takes talent. And it takes luck. And it takes guts. And it takes wanting it more than you want other things.

Ever notice how on-line lurkers never have enough time to write, but always have enough time to chat?

I’m talking priorities here. I’m talking taking control of your life and setting goals. People who are writers are among the most goal-oriented people I know. Note, one does not have to be organized to be goal-oriented! And when push comes to shove, they have developed a vital talent–that ultimately selfish act of giving their writing priority over almost everything in their life.

If you’re not writing because you don’t have enough time, then you’re not a writer. If you’re not writing because you haven’t quite fleshed out the last bits of that great idea you have, then you’re not a writer. If you’re not writing because . . . then you’re not a writer.

And likewise, selling.

It’s a whole package.

If you’re not writing (for whatever reason), you’re not a writer. If you’re not selling work professionally, you’re not a writer.

Get over it.

Don’t get caught up in the details, folks. I’m talking profession here, not rudimentary activity.

I play basketball every fall, yet I am not a basketball player. Michael Jordan is a basketball player. As is Alex Sanders (U of L center), who is receiving something–an education worth several thousand dollars–in return for his services. For the purposes of discussion of the point, I’m even willing to believe at least some high school players fit the category if they are being actively courted by a college. I’m not here to pick nits.

There’s nothing terribly ignoble about not being a writer. And being told you’re not a writer is not meant to be an insult.

I’ve been working at it since 1991 and I barely qualify.

So, why the rant now, you might ask?

Well, to be honest, I’m ashamed of myself.

Driving home from this week’s Louisville game (we won, by the way) I realized that as I stand around swapping stories with my college friends, talking about the bonehead calls the coaching staff made, or the pass the defensive back should have intercepted, I’m doing the same thing that those writers who don’t are doing when they talk about the profession. I’m pretending I know something that I don’t. Just because I played Little League football doesn’t mean I know anything about coaching the sport. Just because I have an opinion doesn’t mean I’m qualified to voice it. Yes, I’m free, to do so–if you’ve read this far, this little rant is enough to prove that. But I’m not qualified to tell Ron Cooper how to coach.

I can certainly judge the quality of the end product, and just like I can choose whether to buy the next Orson Scott Card series by the quality I perceive of his previous series, I can choose whether to purchase a ticket to the game.

But Ron Cooper is a better football coach than I am. I’m not qualified to tell him what to do. And he’s justified in getting angry at me (and those people like me) who get on his case. Just like I’m justified in being a bit put off by writers who don’t write telling me how I should comport myself in this business.

I’m taking a vow today.

No more questioning the calls. No more complaining when a running back misses a hole, or a linebacker misses a tackle.

At least not until I’ve walked in their shoes.

Copyright © 1997-2008 Ron Collins
All rights reserved.
This article may not be republished, in any medium, without the prior written consent of the author.

Author bio:
“Ron Collins lives in Columbus, Indiana with his wife and their daughter. He is an engineer by daylight and a writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy at night. He has published short stories, including work in Dragon Magazine, the original anthology Return of the Dinosaurs, and Marion Zimmer Bradley’s FANTASY Magazine (for which he was awarded a Cauldron Award for being a readers’ favorite author), and in Adventures of Sword and Sorcery. Ron Collins’ work has also appeared in Asimov’s, Analog, Dragon, and several other magazines and anthologies. His writing has received a Writers of the Future prize, and a CompuServe HOMer Award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Louisville, and has worked developing avionics systems, electronics, and information technology. You can find out much more about him at his award-winning web site, Typosphere.”

Writers Who Don’t is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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1. Beg for work.
2. Get work.
3. Ask self, “How the hell will I ever finish this on time?”
4. Bitch about work.
5. Finish work.
6. Wait to get paid for work. Forever.
7. Rinse.
8. Repeat.

Copyright © 1997-2008 Mike Johnson
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Mike Johnson aka treetop is a writer/manager/editor/publisher who enjoys promoting the positive aspects of people, products, places and events. His work appears regularly in consumer and trade magazines, newspapers and business publications.. You can learn more about him by visiting his Web site. “

Writer’s Evolution is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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In the beginning my first drafts were filled with holes, barely resembling the story I wanted to tell. The characters were cardboard, rambling mindlessly on far too many unknown paths, and usually ending up in a lagoon or bug-infested swamp with no where to continue forward.

Consequently, I hated writing first drafts. I abhorred them. I procrastinated writing those first drafts; and then when I would finally get started, it took me forever to write them. I think I would have preferred cleaning bathrooms all day. Seems there were some days I did.

Now, however, my approach to writing first drafts is totally different. I no longer dread them. I can’t say that I love writing first drafts because that would be an outright lie, but I no longer hate them. Now first drafts are actually fun to start, and I can’t wait to write that first sentence, first paragraph, first page. Once I’ve written that first page, I try not to stop until I reach THE END, and the faster I can get there, the better.

Why the change of heart? I learned what a difference pre-plotting can make. You already pre-plot, you say? That’s what I said too until I took a weekend-long screenwriting workshop and realized how little I was plotting and defining my characters. The different techniques I learned in writing a script, I found were techniques that I could apply to fiction writing, even nonfiction.

The secret? Basically, it comes down to creating a storyboard. I employed such techniques as using 3 x 5 cards or Post-its, then making an extensive outline once I’m satisfied with my story structure. Consequently, this pre-writing allowed me to write that first draft fast. I couldn’t help BUT write fast since all my thinking had been done in the plotting stage. Now I was just dictating the character’s speech and writing down how they moved across the stage of their story.

The last book I wrote, the first draft took me only four days to write. Granted they were long days: 18-hours, and a couple chapters missing. Astonishingly though, by the time I got to the end of the book at the end of that fourth day, I knew what needed to go into those missing chapters. I liked how I didn’t waste time wondering what to do next. I had skipped over that part, knowing I could fill it all in later. The process worked.

A second key component was that as I was writing the first draft and knew that I had to make changes to earlier dialogue or even plot structure, rather than going back and rewriting at that time, I simply make notes about those changes. By the time I got to the end of the first draft, half of those changes were no longer necessary, because I had made other changes that took care of those issues. Had I gone back and rewritten at that time, I would have been wasting my time, not to mention getting off-track from the first draft.

The best thing is that now my first drafts resemble what used to be my fourth or fifth drafts. I’m saving time.

I used to spend one-fourth of my time plotting, and three-fourths of it writing; now my time spent is flip-flopped. I spend three-fourths of my time plotting and developing my characters and only one-fourth of that time in actual writing.

Shitty first drafts? They’re a thing of the past for me, providing I do all the necessary pre-writing, which often can take a year or more and I ponder, research, scribble, and ponder some more. Consequently, my first drafts rarely find themselves stuffed in a drawer, ending up deserted and forgotten, which also means that I get that project out in the mail and get it sold.

That’s a great bottom line in my draft of a book.

Copyright © 1998-2008 Diana Fox (Diana Stout)
Used with permission of the author
All rights reserved

Author bio:

Diana Stout, who wrote this original article and has written romances as Diana Fox, began her writing career with a humorous weekly newspaper column, then wrote magazine articles and short stories, then published three romance novels, and optioned a screenplay.  Her writing  (fiction, nonfiction, drama, screenplays, and plays) has won awards, and she is a frequently requested speaker.  Stout has a M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing, with a huge interest in Medieval Studies and Woman’s Studies.  She has taught in the English departments at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Kellogg Community College, and Davenport University.  She taught online for a number of years privately, through the former Painted Rock writer’s colony where she taught Writing Fast, Creating Characters, Time Management for Writers, and other classes, and has taught on several other online writer’s websites. A professor of remedial English, composition, research writing, and business writing at Davenport University, she is also the Department Coordinator for English, Communications, English Foundations of Learning, and Foreign Language, overseeing thirty-plus adjunct instructors, covering Kalamazoo, Holland, and Battle Creek, Michigan locations.  Stout is currently at work on a medieval mainstream novel.

Fast and Efficient Creative Writing is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Jack London (1876-1916) never actually worked as a magazine editor. However, his second wife, Charmian Kittredge London, was the niece of Roscoe Eames, editor of the once-prestigious Overland Monthly. Eames purchased a few freelance pieces from Charmian, including a feature she wrote about Jack London before they were married. Eames also bought several short stories of London’s to publish in Overland Monthly, including “To the Man on Trail,” “In a Far Country,” “The Priestly Prerogative,” and “The Men of Forty Mile.”

Robert Frost (1874-1963) was a contemporary of London’s, even though his first collection of poems, A Boy’s Will, was not published until 1913. It is not beyond the realm of possibility to imagine that had Frost submitted “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” to the Overland Monthly as early as 1903, Roscoe Eames might have asked Jack London to look at it and offer an opinion. If he thought that the poem was supposed to be about the Far North, I can imagine that Jack’s comments to Frost would have gone something like this:

Bob -
My wife’s uncle passed along your “Woods” poem to me for a look-see. Not that I’ve ever claimed to be a great poet, but, hey, I did have a limerick in Town Topics in May of 1900. You see it? No? Your loss. Well, at any rate, I’ve made a few comments on the “Woods” piece (and by the way, I love that pen name of yours, “Frost … Snowy Woods,” yeah, I get it, I get it) to let you know why we feel it needs a major rewrite.

WHOSE WOODS THESE ARE, I THINK I KNOW
This is a “given,” Bob. The Canadian government is keeping its claim to most of the wooded areas of the Yukon. Now, stream beds, that’s a different story. A guy could strike a little claim in one of these areas and do some panning for a couple of years, no problem. But woods … well, everyone knows whose woods those are. No mystery.

HIS HOUSE IS IN THE VILLAGE THOUGH
Village? What village? Only the Indians live in villages. White men live in mining towns or out on the trail in trading posts. So, what then, is this guy a half-breed or something?

HE WILL NOT SEE ME STOPPING HERE TO WATCH HIS WOODS FILL UP WITH SNOW
This is a moot point, Bob. Come February in Alaska, nobody sees anyone amidst those blizzards. If you go out into a mess like that and are crazy enough to stand still long enough to watch the snow coming down, you’re gonna be frozen in that same spot until the spring thaws.

MY LITTLE HORSE…
Icks-nay on the horse, pal. Sled-dogs, wolves, malamutes, they’re all believable, but nobody’s going to buy into the idea of a guy riding a horse through the Yukon in winter. It doesn’t gibe with the terrain or the season of year, Bob. Are you with me on this?

… MUST THINK IT QUEER
He’s not the only one, Bob. Some of the guys around the editorial office were really wondering about you. This whole poem … well, it’s pretty wimpy. We were hoping for something a little more rugged. You know, something that comes straight out of the chute, like, “The YUKON – where to lose a glove was to lose a hand!” Our readers really go for that he-man stuff.

TO STOP WITHOUT A FARM HOUSE NEAR
Gold, Bob, gold! Farming is out, mining is in. Nobody goes to the Yukon to grow corn and tomatoes.
Okay, now we’re cooking, Bob-o! “Frozen lake” is good. “Darkest evening of the year” land of the Midnight Sun – yes, yes, now you’re in the groove.

HE GIVES HIS HARNESS BELLS A SHAKE TO ASK IF THERE IS SOME MISTAKE
The “mistake” here, Bob, is the harness bells. Any sourdough who ever gussied up his dog harnesses with jingling bells, even at Christmas, would have been laughed out of Dawson. I once knew a French fur trader named LeBeau up near Chilcoot Pass who tied scalps on his harnesses to warn off would-be dog thieves. And there was a “cheechako” (greenhorn) I met at Bonanza Creek who tied leather streamers to his harnesses because he thought it looked impressive to have them blowing in the wind as he raced by. That guy’s dogs ate him his fourth day on trail, so he probably doesn’t count. But, no, I never heard of any harness bells in the Klondike.

THE ONLY OTHER SOUNDS THE SWEEP OF EASY WIND AND DOWNING FLAKE
Here you are on dangerous ground, Frosty. This borders on direct plagiarism of my short story, “The White Silence,” which ran in Overland Monthly in February 1899. The whole premise of my story was that in the Far North it can get so cold and so quiet, you lose all perspective of things. The snow and wind are the only things that have any impact on you, and they only serve to numb you. This was my idea, pal, mine. True, I did take the premise from Chapter 42, “The Whiteness of the Whale,” in Melville’s Moby Dick, but I was able to condense into one paragraph what it took him an entire chapter to explain. And now – what? – you’re trying a little one upmanship by reducing my one paragraph to two lines? Don’t press your luck, pal.

THE WOODS ARE LOVELY, DARK AND DEEP
Back to the Midnight Sun reference again, are we? A bit redundant, but, okay, we’ll let it slide.

BUT I HAVE PROMISES TO KEEP
Wait a minute, wait a minute! You never said this guy was on a mail run from Whitewater to Nome. I thought he was supposed to be just a routine prospector out scouting a strike. Man, this changes the whole focus. No, sorry, Bob, but you can’t suddenly introduce a whole new concept here in the last stanza. You aren’t being fair. Readers need some foreshadowing before you spring this sort of role redirection on them. Suddenly here at the end he becomes a man-with-a-mission? Oh, please, Bob, get real.

AND MILES TO GO BEFORE SLEEP AND MILES TO GO BEFORE SLEEP
It sounds to me like you’re already nodding off.
Look, let me explain something: They pay five cents a word at Overland Monthly and, take it from me, Roscoe Eames is a tight-fist ol’ badger. You won’t find him paying twice for the same line. Either cut the echo or come up with something fresh to end on.

Now, I would be the last person in the world to discourage you, Bobby, but, quite frankly, I don’t see a lot of hope for this “Snowy Woods” piece. Why don’t you leave the Klondike to guys like Robert Service and me? Hey nothing much has been written about New Hampshire or about the entire area “north of Boston.” Why not focus on that instead? Just a thought.

Yours for the Revolution,

Jack London

Copyright © 1997-2008 Dennis E. Hensley
All rights reserved.
Reprinted … permission of author.

Author bio:

“Dr. Dennis E. Hensley is the author of or contributor to numerous nonfiction books and novels, including Man to Man: Becoming the Believer God Called You to Be (September 2003), Write on Target: A Five-Phase Program for Nonfiction Writers (with Holly G. Miller), How to Write What You Love and Make a Living at It, and Alpha [Macmillan] Teach Yourself Grammar and Style in 24 Hours (contributor) . He is a professor of English at the Fort Wayne campus of Taylor University. He is a regional correspondent for Writer’s Digest magazine.”

If Jack London Had Edited Robert Frost is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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wOOhOO: Celebrate Good News is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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