October Writing Goals: Poems, Yes, Word Counts, No

October Worksheet

It's October, and that means it's time to think about writing goals for the month. What do you hope to accomplish this month?

What did you accomplish last month? For me, I had set the goal to work on writing the outline and scenes for a somewhat complicated writing project, Starship Destine. I had 5704 words already written on this, and I planned to write 500 words a day, 6 days a week, for a total word count of 18205 by the end of the month. I only managed 15491 words.

This month I decided, for this month, to ditch the fixed word counts. And the writing projects for the month will for the first time include poetry, which I've always treated as a poor step-sister of prose before now.

My goal is to write at least 31 poems in the month. I also work on a series of poems I started called Sons of Jacob. And I want to write more sijo (Korean poetic form).

My writing project from September has been hairy since it involves some characters I've had in my head since childhood, and there are loads of stray story bits that don't seem to be easy to fit together into a single short novel. I divided the boatload of plot ideas into 3 novels. The name for the series, Starship Destine, doesn't fit this first story very well since the starship doesn't come in until near the end. So its current title is Tiberius Base and it will tell the tale of the disintegration of the Terran Confederacy's General Assembly and how the Fleet became an independent entity among the deeply  divided Terran worlds. (Watching the politics shows will be great inspiration for this.) The story will be told almost entirely from the viewpoint of a very young Fleet cadet who is a psion--- the first to ever be allowed in the Fleet.

I'm going to be doing both outlining (Snowflake Method) and writing scenes for Tiberius Base, and possibly writing a few short poems to serve as chapter headings for it.

So, now it's up to you to make your own plans, and then to carry them out. Or find some other writerly thing to do instead.


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Markets: Alban Lake Publishing

You know those market books that every writer is supposed to have? Writer's  Market, Poet's Market, those guys? Well, sadly, my most recent market book is a Poet's Market from 2010. Since I don't have enough money to buy the new book and my local library certainly won't have it, I decided to check out some of the old markets that had an online presence.

I made a list. The first one's site is now something in Japanese. My next two were a couple located at www.samsdotpublishing.com, The Fifth Di... (SF & F fiction and poetry) and Scifaikuest (SF & F haiku & similar). Alas, I got to the site and found the guy who started it had passed away (eternal rest grant unto him...).

I googled Scifaikuest and found out it is still around at a new web site, http://www.albanlake.com.  They are a small press and do books as well as periodicals.

Their magazines:

1. Scifaikuest: Scifaikuest publishes original scifaiku, haibun, senryu, tanka, and horrorku and other minimalist forms, and articles about these forms. In their guidelines, they even mention sijo, a poetic form I am abnormally fond of. The online edition of their magazine (very short) is here: Scifaikuest August 2013.

2. Illumen: Speculative poetry is one result of the application of imagination to reality. In speculative poetry, one’s “vision” often is taken from a different angle, from another perspective, perhaps even from another time and place. Speculative poetry is usually tinged with one or more of the genres. Thus, in speculative poetry you find hints of science fiction, fantasy, folklore, myth, the surreal…and yes, even horror. Good speculative poetry will awaken a sense of adventure in the reader. That’s what we’re looking for: good, original speculative poetry.

3. Outposts: Outposts of Beyond publishes original science fiction and fantasy short stories, poems, art, articles, reviews, and interviews. Preferred are adventure stories, space opera, and magic opera [like space opera, but fantasy]. Also preferred are stories that take place on other worlds. Stories must have the following: characters the reader cares about, plots and subplots, and settings that draw the reader into them. Must have. Outposts of Beyond considers stories between 3,000 and 8,000 words long. Outposts of Beyond considers poems between 12 and 100 lines long.

And more. You'll have to check out the rest on their site. It does seem though that there is more than one that I might consider submitting to. If only I had the money for the print versions of these zines! I'd buy myself one as a birthday present but I already bought a brand new used copy of You Can Write Poetry by Jeff Mock (after 20 years of being a mad, self-taught autistic savant poet, I'm entitled to start learning how it's really done.)

Since they do accept e-submissions--- all I can afford, mad autistic poeting doesn't pay well--- I'm going to submit a few after I've read through their online editions. I'm particularly considering Scifaikuest, even though I don't write haiku. Yet. Maybe they would be open to some scifi-sijo instead of scifaiku for a change. ;)


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nuclear sainthood profits/Writing Poetry Benefits Prose Writers

Self-portrait

 nuclear sainthood profits

wages after the labour, we beseech you, o limited nuclear war
a son is given to us, testing increasingly smaller warheads
if this limit is overshot, ground zero will accumulate debris
o mary conceived without sin, detonate a nuclear weapon
in the presence of mine enemies

behold, a virgin shall declare war on the soviet union and china
the market price of our pope, our bishop, and all true believers
included mutual assured destruction when wages and prices are high
and large numbers of intercontinental ballistic missiles
now and at the hour of our death

(c) 1990 Nissa Annakindt

OK, thing one. This is not one of those dreary anti-nuclear poems with a Very Important Message. It doesn't have a message. There is also no intent to be disrespectful of the Catholic faith, since such disrespect is also too dreary for words.

I used the juxtaposition method, using an angsty book about nuclear war, a Catholic prayer book, and something dull by Karl Marx as the source of the words and phrases. I like it. It amuses me. It makes me think strange thoughts. Which is all I ask of it. There is also no intent to be disrespectful of the Catholic faith, since such disrespect is also too dreary for words.

Shared at: Poetry Pantry #169

Writing Poetry Benefits Prose Writers

I read once about some sci-fi writer who warmed up for his writing sessions by reading poetry. It helped him appreciate beautiful and/or powerful language or something.

Writing poetry is also of benefit. It helps young/new writers get started producing writing, it helps writers whose work is not winning the attention of editors and the public, and it helps experienced writers who feel they have gone stale.

Poetry is about powerful and memorable words. Because bland poetry fades away into nothing before the reader's eye is finished with it. The skills used in writing poetry can help to avoid writing dull prose.

Poetry is a way to get into the groove of producing writing regularly. It helps build confidence in the neophyte and jump-starts a writer who is getting blocked or bored with writing.

Because poetry is not appreciated in our society in any financial way, there are no high stakes to intimidate you. Suppose you write a poem, and you learn something in the writing. If the poem sucks, probably no one will publish it and they certainly won't pay you money. If the poem is utterly brilliant, probably no one will publish it and they certainly won't pay you money. It kind of takes the pressure off.

New! Free Online Poetry-Writing Class: http://linalamont.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-class-in-writing-poetry-for-new.html 


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A Class in Writing Poetry for New Fiction Writers

Cheney the Election Day cat

 I've decided to teach a class in poetry writing. Since there is not a lot of enthusiasm for poetry out there, I've decided to aim it at young/new fiction writers who want to learn the craft through writing poetry. I think poetry writing, done write, is a cure for the bland boring prose so many churn out at first. And writing poems is less of a time commitment than, say, writing epic novels.

It's going to be an odd class. You see, I never officially learned how to write poetry. I'm more of a mad, self-taught autistic savant poet which I think is a great qualification for teaching a poetry class. Better than being one of those English majors who knows all about how to dissect dead poems but nothing about how to make poems live.

The class will be free. That's what I know at this point. I'm not quite sure how other people do online classes--- do you know or have experience in this? Please tell me!

If you might be interested in the class, make a comment, here or on my Facebook page (link below). Do you have questions? Ask them.

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Do You Have Goals? There's a Blog Hop for That

Visiting some blogs today I found out about the Do You Have Goals blog hop over at Aloha! Mark Koopmans says hi from HI. It takes place the last Friday of every month. Instead of putting your blog name in the linky, you put your goal. 'Write 28 Christian sex novels in Latin by next Tuesday', or 'Kill the wasps in the upstairs bedroom window before they destroy the universe' or 'write 5000 more words in Amish Zombie Apocalypse Book 3.'

The web site for the Do You Have Goals blog hop is here:
The Five Year Project: Do You Have a Goal?

And so, goals. Long term goals, short term goals. I set goals but never believe I can achieve them because I never do, or if I do they must have been so easy they don't count. So I don't think I will set a big or long-term goal this month.

My goal is: 'write 10 more poems in the Sons of Jacob series'.

To explain: I've been taking a few days off from the novel planning process for Starship Destine to work on doing an ebook version of my poetry book Where the Opium Cactus Grows. While working on it the project kind of grew. I am now doing an expanded version of Opium Cactus with the addition of about 20 or so newer poems, which means I will have to do a revised print edition as well.

Which takes 20 or so poems out of the poems I'm saving for the next book, which might be titled 'Sheep's Feet Dancing'. Or not. And it brought my attention to the fact that my poetry output this year has been pretty sparse.

So I've been setting to work, and on impulse I did something new--- I decided to do a series of 12 poems. You see, when I write poetry I grab random books to snatch words from, and the book I happened to grab this time was called Jacob's Dozen by William Varner. It's written by a pastor and is about the 12 sons of the Biblical Jacob, centered on the prophecy made by Jacob concerning his sons and their descendants.

I came up with the idea to do a poem for each of the 12 sons. It's not all Bible-y, though. I DO use the words of the Genesis text (in KJV) but I also use another book as source for other random words in the poems. So we end up with lines like this:

thy father's children bow down
before thee
using the most scientific methods

The thing about my doing the poetry is that it is something I know I can do. I was writing poetry 20 years ago and got quite a few published in 'zines and could do it again if I could spare the money for postage and sample copies of the 'zines. It's just that I've absorbed the idea that it isn't worth doing and that I'd be better off working on a failed attempt at a novel. But I'm beginning to suspect that's not the right way to look at it.

And so my goal is to finish the poem series--- which will be the centerpiece of a future poetry book I'm sure--- and stretch myself as a poet. To allow myself to be a poet. Perhaps I'll do better as a serious poet who writes a novel or two on the side than by trying to force myself into a prosier mode.

So that's my goal. Do you set goals? What has your experience of that been? What is your goal right now?

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Mindfulness and My Writing

Meditating kitten

Last time I was at my therapist's, he recommended that I do mindfulness meditation. I googled 'mindfulness' as he suggested and came up with a number of resources:

Online Yoga Classes: Mindfulness Meditation Series (and others)
Free Mindfulness
Mindfulness Exercises

All of the sites feature free MP3 guided meditations. Most involve being aware of your breath. Which is weird. But it seems to work pretty well. I like the first one because it's based on yoga and I used to do yoga including breathing meditation exercises years ago. Besides, it's a class with about 10 progressive lessons. And there is another class I can do after that.

This is the result so far: for two days in a row, I was planning to take a little nap in the afternoon as I often do since I'm so tired at that time of day. I decided to do a 5 minute meditation session--- the first lesson from the Online Yoga Classes. Each of these days, I couldn't nap but was more energized than if I had. Also on both days, I used the time I would have been napping to write poems. Both the resulting poems felt like they were a lot more inspired than usual.

I also have been doing the breathing meditation exercises while not listening to the MP3s. On the Online Yoga Class lesson, you are counting your breath--- you think 'in, 1' while you are breathing in the first time, then 'out, 1' while exhaling, then 'in, 2'.

I tried to do it with words to a prayer rather than counting.

inhale: 'Hail Mary, full of grace,'
exhale: 'the Lord is with thee'
inhale: 'blessed art thou among women'
exhale: 'and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus'
inhale: 'Holy Mary,'
exhale: 'Mother of God'
inhale: 'pray for us sinners'
exhale: 'now and at the hour of our death. Amen.'

What that did was that I was much less distracted than I normally am when I pray a Hail Mary. I was focused more on the meaning of the words I was praying. I tried this technique with the Our Father as well, but that was a bit more difficult. And I did the Glory Be, which worked out better.

Anyway, that's my Mindfulness update. Have you ever tried that sort of thing? If you write, did it have an effect, good or bad, on your writing?


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And the top two search terms are.....

 

 Just looked at my stats for this blog. The top two search terms ever used to find this blog since the beginning of the universe are:

1. billie piper pregnant
2. david tennant naked

What a pity I don't run a blog dedicated to naked and/or pregnant Doctor Who actors and actresses. I had noticed that 'billie piper pregnant' produced several times the number of hits that 'david tennant naked' did, and I felt sad about that so to compensate I put up a David Tennant naked picture. Please excuse the lack of naughty bits. I'm not that kind of girl.

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Nick Thacker's Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan

Kitten Aerobics Instructor

While wandering around the social media sites for no real reason this morning, I came across a marketing plan for the self-published book, which you can find at the link below:

The Official Self-Published Book Marketing Plan - LiveHacked

I read through the whole plan, which runs to about 4000 words. It seems like a sound plan, very well organized. I am planning a launch of the ebook edition of Where the Opium Cactus Grows, and it gave me some ideas.

Mind you, launching a poetry ebook isn't quite the same thing, particularly when the real-book form has been on the market, unlaunched and largely unnoticed, for two years. But I think I shall make up a modest marketing plan based on this one.

To find blogs where I might guest post I might start mentioning the possibility on my Sunday poetry posts which are shared on Poetry Pantry. I'm not sure any of those poetry blogs has reach, though. More than just mine alone though.

Another thing I shall do is I intend to make a shorter version of the book--- perhaps call it 'Opium Cactus Greatest Hits Album which shall be made available for free. It will contain the poems from Opium Cactus I've designated as 'shareable'--- the ones on even-numbered pages of my book. I set that policy so I'd have plenty of poems from the book to share, and plenty of poems that the purchaser of the book alone would have access to.

Of course, many enthusiastic would-be indie authors will try the book marketing plan and complain that it doesn't work. Here is why:

1. Spelling errors. Authors who can't be bothered to learn spelling or good English usage will not impress in their social media and blog work. And if they have not paid to have their book corrected before publication, that will scream out 'bad writing!' as well.

2. Clumsy hard-sell book-spam based marketing. Like the sad fellows who join Facebook groups, post a book spam post, and move on to the next group, and then get upset when their post is removed for not following the rules, saying they are so busy with their 'book launch' they can't be bothered to learn the rules of each group they are spamming.

3. Not helping others. You want people to do you a favor and buy your book? What are you willing to do for others? The least you could do is be friendly and interact with them (as best you can, if you have an autism spectrum disorder like Asperger Syndrome).

4. Lousy writing. Nothing will make up for the clumsy, boring, wordy writing of the amateur who hasn't yet seriously studied the craft. The answer: DON'T self-publish until you have a good reason to believe you HAVE learned your craft, at least well enough to start being published. How do you know if you are ready? In my case, it was when my voracious reading gave me the discernment to start noticing really bad books, or bad elements in so-so book, and I was able to transfer this discernment into looking at what I wrote (which some people have a hard time doing.)

What do you think? Have you participated in a book launch--- your own or someone else's? How did that work out?

My Book: Where the Opium Cactus Grows

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Is Your Blog Lonely? Here are 8 Cures for an Under-visited Blog

 Sometimes in my internet wanderings I find a lonely blog. No comment on post after post, only two or three followers--- if they even have a 'follow' widget on the blog at all. When the blog belongs to a writer, that can be especially frustrating. They likely blog to build a platform--- but how can a blog help with that if no one reads it?

I had that problem myself at first, but I learned some things that I could do to fix my blogs loneliness. In no particular order, here they are.

1. Put up at least one 'follow this blog' widget on your blog. There is one for Blogger blogs, and one from Networked Blogs, and one from Linky. I have all three in my sidebar somewhere. This gives people who find your blog and like it a way to find and read your blog posts.

2. Make a point of reading other people's blogs and commenting. I've read that author Alex J. Cavenaugh spends a few hours a day reading blogs. And as a result he's well known in the world of author blogs. Be sure to read the blogs of your own followers and comment on a few, and also reach out to bloggers you haven't met before. Set a goal of commenting on 3 or 5 or 10 followers' blogs and 3 or 5 or 10 new blogs every day, or every day you are working on your blog, anyway.

3. Make your blog about more than just you and your book. You may be eager to find new customers who will buy your book, but the hard-sell approach doesn't win you any new blog readers. So blog about your genre and issues related to it, or another genre you also read, or current affairs, particularly those of interest to readers in your genre. Post a recipe or a picture of your kitten getting a bath. Anything to make your blog more than just another author's buy-my-book blog.

4. Participate in blog events such as blog hops. When I started out blogging I discovered the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour. This is a monthly event where a group of authors reviews a work of Christian Science Fiction or Fantasy, and shares a list of the URLs of other tour participants. I got my first blog followers by doing the blog tour. Currently I participate in 2 monthly blog hops--- the Insecure Writer's Support Group and Indie Life. Links to these three blog events are in my sidebar, and you may find plenty more by looking through author blogs. By the way, if you are looking for new blogs to comment on, find the link list from a blog hop and check out some of the blogs on it, even if the blog hop is long over.

5. Join Facebook, and use the app 'Networked Blogs' so that you can make your blog posts appear in your feed. If you put up a Facebook author page as well, you can have your blog posts appear there--- or on both your personal page and your author page. Twitter and Google+ are other places to share your blog posts. I should point out that if you want to use these social media outlets to build up a platform rather than destroy one, use them like a grown-up. Don't send rude or hateful comments to random people who disagree with your political or (ir)religious views. Don't post pictures displaying some one's private parts and then scream 'censorship' when a grandmother asks you to take it down since her little grandkids are roaming around Facebook. Don't pitch a fit at ANYONE. And don't use curse words even if your Facebook friends do.

6. Blog regularly. When I was actively participating in the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour, there were a couple of lonely blogs I visited that had no posts except that month's blog tour post, and the previous month's blog tour post, and the month before that.... I can understand how that can happen, on a lonely blog. You get discourage when you post and post and no one seems to be reading it, except perhaps on blog tour day. But if you don't post regularly, your blog doesn't look active enough for anyone to want to follow it.

7. Do a mitzvah (good deed) for other bloggers regularly. Make it your mission. You can share a good blog post from another blog--- particularly a lonely blog. If a blogger speaks of technical difficulties they are having on their blog, tell them how to fix it. Give them a good review of a book they've authored if you can do so honestly. There are many ways that you can show that an important part of your identity as a blogger involves helping others--- not just asking others to help you by following your blog, buying your book, and the like.

8. Review your blogging stats regularly. Note which of your posts were most popular, so you can do more like them. Notice what search terms were used to find your blog. That may not help--- my top search terms are 'David Tennant naked', which, alas, is not something I provide here at The Lina Lamont Fan Club. But I do see a lot of searches which include 'asperger' or 'autism' and so I make a point to blog about the autism spectrum side of my life from time to time. And, finally, note new links to your blog posts. This will help you find out if someone has linked to one of your blog posts recently, so you can go visit their blog in return.

I hope some of these ideas can help you make your blog a little less lonely. Do you have any great ideas yourself for increasing blog traffic? Post them in a comment!


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The Steam Cranes/Why Novelists Read Poetry

 












the steam cranes

a sijo

a team of steam cranes, hydraulically
lifting brownish-gray metaphors
quarreling over work methods
and over who has a bigger engine shaft

but what good are industrial efforts
in the days of nuclear rains?

(c) Nissa Annakindt 2012

Shared on Poetry Pantry #168

This is a sijo--- a Korean poetry form. The topic was chosen by opening one of my encyclopedias at random. This poem is NOT included in my poetry book, Where the Opium Cactus Grows, which is available on Amazon.com.

Why Novelists Read Poetry

Some time I read about the working habits of well-known writers. One writer, whose name I do not remember, started each writing session by reading poetry. It helped him use sharper and more meaningful language in his novels.

Poetry is not much appreciated these days, and 'therapeutic' poetry which consists in someone's prose whines arranged as if it were free verse is considered of equal worth with the greatest poems ever written.

I don't claim to be expert in knowing the literary value of a poem, like the experts who think Nikki Giovanni's poem about 'n-gg-r can you kill a honkey' is the work of one of the greatest poets of our age. But I do feel I have a grasp on what poems are 'strong' and thus useful for the novelist reading to improve his prose. It's the language--- vivid images, strong and meaningful words, combinations of ideas which are unexpected, and strong attention to the sound of the words--- and, yes, that can include rhyme and alliteration even in modern times.

A novelist's reading list of poetry will include the great poets of the past like Robert Burns and Friedrich Schiller, and it will include something modern. In the case of modern poets it is perfectly acceptable to reject vast numbers of poets and schools of poets that don't speak to the reader. The verdict of literary history has not yet been passed on these works.

I would also include poems in translation. In college I read poems translated from Russian and Chinese and quite enjoyed them--- even though my experience in reading German poems in the original and then in translation made me aware that poems, like everything else, cannot really be translating without losing something.

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Writing in the Crosshairs blogs about Discouragement

It was a discouraging day for me, what with discovering that my eating money for the month has been reduced by more than 1/2, and that the food bank I'd been urged to go to turned out to be too challenging and uncaring for an autistic bum like me to navigate.  And then I got home to check on my blog and saw this in the blogroll:

Writing In The Crosshairs: ARE YOU DISCOURAGED?

Yes, Writing in the Crosshairs, I am discouraged. There's this nasty voice in my head that keeps telling me if I can't even handle the little things in life that even people with Down Syndrome or schizophrenia seem to manage,  how can I possibly manage finishing a novel (or novella) and self-publishing it?

But the article on Writing in the Crosshairs was very encouraging to me. Particularly the references to Lord of the Rings and Vincent van Gogh. (I really like Vincent van Gogh since he may have had an autism spectrum disorder, and, according to Doctor Who, he's a friend of the Doctor.)

One of the best things in the blog post was the advice not to compare yourself to others. I guess that's good, to compare myself not to famous writers like Orson Scott Card or Karina Fabian but to last-week-me and last-year-me. (I don't want to think about two-decades-ago me who was younger, prettier, and could write without all the conflict, indecision and angst that I currently bring to the task.)

Anyway, I'd like to know, are you discouraged? Have you found good ways to cope with it? Do you think the Writing in the Crosshairs blog post is a help to discouraged writers and bloggers?

The kitty in the picture above is kitten Therese my dwarf kitten. I posted it here to remind me to wash the cat.

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Bestseller Labs blogs on Hugh Howey's Clever Book Promotion

During my morning check of the blogs I read I came across this at Bestseller Labs.
Hugh Howey's 'DUST': The Cleverest Book Promotion I've Seen In Years | Bestseller Labs

Hugh Howey, one of the most successful of the self-published fiction authors, has done some clever things to promote Dust, the final book in the Wool series.

Clever is good. Too many self-published authors are floundering around trying to figure out how to promote their books. Some, modest, do next to nothing to promote. Others, perhaps following bad book promotion advice, alienate potential readers by book-spamming all over social media--- not because they are egotistical, but because they have been made to believe that 'buy-my-book' spam is the right way to promote books.

The Wool series takes place in a post-apocalyptic world in which the survivors, fearing radiation, must live in massive shelters, forbidden to go outside. The radiation warning symbol--- the black-and-yellow symbol in the photo above--- is thus a powerful symbol of the series.

Howey created an item to give to those who would spread the word and create book-buzz for him--- a thumb drive with the radiation warning sign, which contained ebook versions of all three of the books in the Wool series. This thumb drive is still available on Howey's web site.

He also has incorporated a version of the three-triangles symbol in his signature. This is an example of 'book branding'--- a concept I admittedly don't fully understand.

I thought the Bestseller Labs article was very helpful, since I am already beginning to think about how I'm going to promote my novel-in-progress when things get so far. I couldn't afford expensive gestures like having a special thumb-drive created, but I could perhaps come up with something symbolic that I could use for 'book branding'.

I encourage you to follow the link above and read the article. What do you think of it? Would the methods Howey uses be effective in awaking your interest in his books? If you are an author, are you considering using ideas inspired by Howey's book promotion for your own work?

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Writing and the Mindfulness Fad

Recently my shrink suggested that I google 'mindfulness' and begin mindful meditation to deal with some of my issues. Before this I had been unaware of the mindfulness fad. But my shrink said that there had been scientific studies done on mindfulness meditation techniques which showed they were objectively helpful.

In looking at the mindfulness resources online--- as well as mindfulness books I shall never be able to afford--- there seems to be a wide variety of material. Some of it is practical stuff that could help anybody no matter how they feel about the mindfulness thing.

Others, however, use 'mindfulness' as a way to push the superiority of their Buddhist/'Zen' faith on others, while still being able to look down their nose at Christians who evangelize. The problem with that is that Buddhism isn't true. (You may now freak out, screaming 'you are not allowed to say that!' even if you would have just smiled and nodded if someone had said Christianity wasn't true.)

I refuse to give up the truth for something less-true just in order to improve my moods, cope with my Asperger Syndrome, and/or improve my writing. If I believed that mindfulness=Buddhism I wouldn't touch it. But the shrink who recommended mindfulness to me is not only a Christian, he's a Christian pastor. So he's not out to make me into a Buddhist.

I found an article on Mindfulness tips for writers over at Write to Done blog: 7 Mindfulness Tips to Energize Your Writing | Write to Done   I've read it over and thought that the tips were pretty useful for writers generally. Though 'Zen' was mentioned, I think the tips can be used by writers of other faiths or no faith without compromising their religion. But I'd like to hear the opinion of my blog readers on this. Do you think 'mindfulness' techniques can be of use to the non-Buddhist writer?

And now, I'm off to do my morning mindfulness meditation.....

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Will Blogging be Replaced by Facebook and Twitter?

 

Used to be when I posted stuff on my blog, things got pretty lively around here. Sometimes too lively as when a former blog follower got very angry because I, a gay woman, gave my opinion on gay 'marriage' and it didn't coincide with hers.

But as Facebook and Twitter have grown, the blog world, at least around here, has shrunk. I don't know, of course, if that is true for all bloggers, and I suspect the big blogs are doing better than ever.

I have given some thought myself to replacing my blog efforts with work on my Facebook author page (link below). It's a bit livelier even though my follower base is still small. But I think it would be sad if thoughtful blog posts get entirely replaced by tweets and Facebook status updates. It makes for a world that is ever more  trivial and ignorant.

Also, the world of Facebook is dominated by some pretty vicious trolls. When I got opposition here on my blog, I was simply informed that I could not express that opinion since it offended the person complaining. When someone disagreed with essentially the same opinion expressed on Facebook, I was told I was a liar, a fraud, a hater, a moron, retarded and crazy--- pretty much in one sentence.

I am very inactive on Twitter though I have an account, but I got a taste of that kind of opposition there as well.

The blog world seems to me to have the potential of being more thoughtful and more kind than Facebook or Twitter. As a result I think I must spend more time on this blog and on visiting the blogs of others.

What do you think? How does the blog world compare with social media?

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Букварь: The Story of a Book I Love

 This story began over 20 years ago. I was living in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit, and one of my more intense special interests was learning the Русский язык (Russian language Russkii Yazik). It was hard to get books in Russian, especially on a budget, though I did score some free books of Russian lessons from the Soviet Union's Radio Moscow service.

They had this really big used book sale in our area and as a family of book lovers we all went. And in the section with assorted foreign language books, I first saw Букварь (pictured above) and for me it was love at first sight. 

Букварь (bukvar) is the Russian word for primer or first reading book. This particular Букварь was a school book published in 1973 and printed in the German Democratic Republic (Communist Germany). 

It was a charming, beautifully illustrated little book, though with a few scary pictures of Vladimir Ilich Lenin who was being touted as a friend of children in spite of being the guy who ordered the murder of the Tsar's five children and many others.

As a learning tool it is a delight since it introduced those strange Russian letters one at a time, and used primarily short words (though it was troublesome looking up each one in a Russian-English dictionary).

Last night I spent a good deal of time on eBay looking at their selection of Russian children's books. I found many different examples of Букварь, with the most interesting and charming being the most expensive. Finally I came across an example of my own beloved Букварь, though a much written-in example. 

I decided to curb my coveting of all those other Букварь and to appreciate my own more. Besides resolving to study through the whole Букварь in the next couple of months, I decided to make a photographic record of my Букварь for those not lucky enough to possess one of their own.

It is available on Facebook at this link: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.195913197246744.1073741841.149187465252651&type=1&l=b9a97761e6

Question: Do you have any unusual books you particularly love? If you are an Aspie, do you have any special interests which drive you to want to purchase hard-to-find books? Is it hard to control your spending on such books?

Posts on this blog are shared on my blog's Facebook page. It's a great place to continue the conversation.
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A page from Букварь

 

Indie Life: Using Asperger Special Interests in Fiction Writing

 

This post is a part of the Indie Life blog hop, in which we blog about life as an indie writer.  We are also remembering on this day the events of the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Welcome to my blog! For those who don't know me, I am not only an indie writer, I am a writer with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. One of the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome is special interests.

A special interest is a somewhat obsessive interest in certain things that brings a certain degree of happiness to those with Asperger Syndrome. They can be something useful, like an obsession with computers like Bill Gates has, something relatively normal like being an obsessive Star Trek fan, or something a bit odd like an obsession with railroad schedules or collecting doorknobs.

When it comes to writing, incorporating some of your special interests into the fictional work can have certain benefits. First, it helps keep up the writer's interest in the work of fiction in question--- an important issue for a writer who often begins and then abandons fictional projects. Also it can create reader interest when the special interest used is one many people have some degree of interest in.

Bringing the passion that the typical aspie has toward a special interest into a fictional work may pay off in the fact that a novel written out of a great passion is usually more compelling than same-old, same-old fiction. And, finally, the special interests you use in your fiction can help define the themes and topics which make your writing unique. Think of the Valdemar novels of Mercedes Lackey (who as far as I know does not have Asperger Syndrome). She often writes about child abuse, misunderstood children, horses, falcons/falconry, and, in a disguised manner, cops (the Heralds of Valdemar).

In my own WIP Starship Destine, I have used a number of my special interests. One of my earlier special interests is an obsession with the Star Trek series, particularly the original one. Starship Destine, like Star Trek, is starship-based science fiction. Some of the characters in Starship Destine are the extra characters I made up for Star Trek stories.

Another special interests I have is languages, and in particular created languages and international auxiliary languages like Esperanto  (learn Esperanto here).  I speak Esperanto pretty well, and I know some of a couple of other similar international auxiliary languages that never got the speaker base that Esperanto has these days. I could have incorporated this interest into my story by simply creating an idealized future society where all Earth people have agreed to speak Esperanto as a second language and thus done away with language problems--- at least until they meet their first aliens. But that kind of story isn't me. In Starship Destine there are no less than 3 international auxiliary languages in use--- the two major political factions each have their preferred IAL, and the Fleet uses a third to show its attempted neutrality.

I also have an interest in politics, as well as a dismay at the anger and hatred over political divisions today. Because I don't want to project contemporary politics into the future, I have replaced today's conservative/liberal dichotomy with a different one: we have the Omaynists, which include ALL of today's conservative/liberal/socialist/'reactionary' factions, who are characterized by the fact that they actually believe in things, and usually share the idea that at least sometimes it is good to tell the truth, and the Alliterists, who openly boast of telling lies and who admire the evil dictators of the past such as Caligula, Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong-il.

Now, as beneficial as special interests can be to your fiction, there is a downside. Aspies can run on and on about their special interests to the point that they bore people. Think of all the details about whaling in Moby Dick, written by probable aspie Herman Melville. By modern standards at least he should have cut some of that out. And if he was a typical aspie, he might easily have added two or three times as much of those whaling-details. It's kind of like the social skills we aspies have to learn, that we have to limit the amount of stuff we say about our special interests to others, just give them very brief highlights to avoid boring them.

Another trap is letting your special interests eat your writing time, if not your life. That's a constant temptation for me in this project. One of the languages I use in the story, Universalglot, is a very obscure one, and a language I don't know very well yet. I'm very tempted to spend my writing time studying Universalglot or working on my Universalglot Facebook page. The essential thing is to set a fixed rule--- your writing time is for your writing. Your special interests you work with at some other time--- usually after the day's writing work is over.

After all this, I bet some of the neurotypical writers out there are beginning to wish that they were lucky enough to have Asperger Syndrome and the attendant flock of special interests. Don't despair, your more ordinary interests can take the same role in your writing. And though you may not have the same level of passion for them that the aspie has with special interests, they are also less likely to take up too much of your time.

Question: what interests of yours, special or otherwise, have you incorporated into your current writing? Is it working out?
 
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Religious Orientation of Sci-Fi and Fantasy Authors

A few years back I was searching the internet at random and found a list which claimed to give the religions of science fiction and fantasy writers. I eagerly started to read--- and was disappointed to find out that instead of giving the author's current religious orientation, it simply listed their childhood faiths. As if that mattered in the least.

The nominal or former faith of a writer makes little difference to his current writing. Particularly if they came from families which rarely if ever attended religious services and didn't send their children to religious education classes. It's what they are currently that makes a difference, and is therefore of interest.

I suppose the list makers simply presumed that if you wrote science fiction and fantasy, your current religious orientation was some sort of secularism, perhaps atheism or agnosticism, or perhaps something even less defined than that.

Since I was a Norse Pagan at the time and was looking for writers that were some sort of Pagan, I was disappointed. Some of the writers that were rumored to be Pagan, in Pagan circles at least, were listed as Methodists and such based on what their parents were, at least in a nominal way. And at least one of the listed Pagans was buried as an Episcopalian.

Of course at that time, most Pagans who wrote didn't share that fact with the public. It was a time where the national media would refer to a Wiccan as a 'self-proclaimed witch' and presume that such a person was too loony and psychotic to be a juror or to have any other responsibility in society.

Even at the current time, there are writers one might suspect of hiding their religion, though these days Christianity is something likely to be hidden by writers who write for secular publishers. Just look at the outpouring of hate toward writer Orson Scott Card because of his continued loyalty to his Mormon faith, and you can see why some people feel the need to keep quiet.

But one's religious orientation profoundly affects the content of writing, most especially in science fiction and some fantasy. Because, let's face it, what 'religion' really amounts to is a shared opinion on the really important things, the cosmically important things. If any. And particularly in science fiction which often touches on the cosmically big things.

Let's take an example of a typical secular writer. All of his well-educated and knowledgeable characters are likely to have secular point-of-view, and any characters who are people of faith may be either insincere and villains, or they are uneducated people who don't matter to the story much. But that's not all. In a sweeping science fiction saga by such a writer, the turning point of the story might be something beloved of the secular-minded--- the evils of religions and their blind cult-like followers, or the adventure of pure-chance evolutionary changes (which often, in sci-fi, don't seem to help in the whole 'survival of the fittest' thing) or an alternate history in which Jesus Christ was a famous serial killer or a woman or where the early Christians believed in human sacrifice and cannibalism.

On the other hand, there are writers of the Christian faith. Contrary to popular belief, they don't reject 'science', or even, necessarily evolutionary theories. What is different is that the Christian believes that the universe as we know it is directed by an intelligent, purposeful power--- God. Though our understanding isn't always advanced enough to see that. There is also the firm belief is that God has powerful enemies--- the fallen angels, AKA demons--- and that these enemies are highly powerful in the human world while the friends of God are little respected. And a particularly important belief--- every human life--- and the life of a non-human intelligent alien--- has a high value, and so there are no casually expendable or unworthy grades of people whose lives don't matter.

These two viewpoints lead to different types of stories, and both kinds can be of interest to the reader, as can the many OTHER viewpoints that a writer might hold. And THAT is why I believe a list of the current religious orientation or belief systems of science fiction and fantasy authors would be of great interest. If only someone had the desire, and the access to information, to create it.

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IWSG: Fear of Detection

This is a post for the Insecure Writers Support Group . 

All of my story-creating/writing life, I have suffered from a fear of detection. It works like this: if other people detect that I am making up stories in my head, they will become hostile and harshly critical to me because of it. I am living in a fantasy world, they will say. Proof that I have serious mental problems, they will say. As a child I once even went to a therapist who promised to cure me of my pathological fantasy life.

Perhaps it's because I have Asperger Syndrome--- undiagnosed until much later in life--- that my childhood self learned to see other people as only a source of pain. While the other children divided the kids around them into groups 'my friends' and 'not my friends', I divided it into 'people who throw rocks at me' and 'people who only call me names'.

Instead of friends, I had fictional characters. I made up stories about the characters in favorite TV shows: Star Trek, Dark Shadows, Hogan's Heroes, Batman, Wild, Wild West.... I started making up original characters for these head-stories, and that was probably the reason I began thinking of myself as a future writer. That and the example of Jo from Little Women.

But I never dared share any detail of my head-stories with another living soul. That would just add more ammunition to the outer world's campaign to reject me as too weird and substandard to be anything but an outcast.

Even when I grew to maturity and began writing things down, my fear of detection continued. Most of what I wrote was never seen by another living soul. The one science fiction story I wrote got a personal rejection letter when I sent it to a sci-fi magazine, but even though I knew that was a good thing, I never sent it out again.

For a brief time I wrote a humor column for a local newspaper that specialized in humorous things, but that wasn't a form of writing that touched my heart. It didn't matter if people liked that or not, so it felt safe to share that with others.

Now, having arrived at an age that most young people think is too old to be of interest, I am finally beginning to be ready to deal with my fear of detection. The other day, I experimentally posted a scene from a novel on this blog. I directed the attention of a few of my write-y friends to it, and I also gave a printed-out copy to my therapist (who's a Protestant pastor and a Kung-fu Master on the side).

Doing this gave me loads of destructive, self-hating and fearful thoughts that made yesterday an interesting day. And now, I'm fighting my fears even more: I'm participating in the Insecure Writers Support Group, talking about it, and sharing a link to my story-scene here: http://linalamont.blogspot.com/2013/09/flight.html

This means that I will not only be detected, I may be detected by complete strangers who have no reason not to vent negativity at my efforts if that is what makes them feel good about themselves. That's even more scary. And I wonder if doing this sharing will have a negative effect on my level of commitment to the story. Since no matter what reaction I get--- critiques, silence or praise--- I will still be convinced in my heart that every other person alive, looking at my work, will declare it substandard and stupid--- even if it is objectively well written. Since, after all, it comes from the brain of an outcast.

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Flight

*** This is a temporary blog post ***

This is a  scene (VERY rough draft) from my WIP, Starship Destine: Wynter. I'm not posting it to seek out critique or praise. What I'm interested is this:

1. Reactions: are there bits of it you thought were interesting? Which bits?
2.  The cast of characters is multinational and includes Asian and Hungarian characters who write their names surname-first and other European cultures that go surname-last, and I want to write them the culturally appropriate way. For the major characters I want to introduce the names with the surname in all-caps--- usually read from an ID--- so that you get which bit is the surname without me having to explain it each time. I got the idea from the international convention of writing names with surnames in all-caps which is-or-was used on Esperanto-language correspondence lists. (Jes, mi parolas esperante.)

Scene begins on the planet Oldearth during the time of the Psion Riots. Fleet officer Jang has rescued a psionic Fleet cadet, Oblonsky, from the rioters and must flee both from the riots and from a cadre of Fleet officers who agree with them.

The place looked like a desert. More earth was bare than was covered with the spare, sickly-looking grass. The few trees were small, shrubby and twisted. But as the two figures on horseback rode through the valley, there were signs that this place was once not a deserted wasteland, that it was, in fact, once a lush agricultural valley that fed a large part of a nation, the America-that-was. 

There were bits of abandoned irrigation equipent, fragments of houses, places where the trail turned in to paved road for a pace or two. And, here, a piece of the modern world stuck out in this bleak place. A building—- a shack—- filled with modern equipment.

The lead rider, a young man with Asian features, directed his horse to the shack. He glanced slightly at his even-younger companion to ensure he had followed. "Boy!" he addressed him. "We're stopping here for a while. Dismount." And following his own advice, he dismounted and walked to the door of the shack. Pulling out his ID, which bore the words 'Lieutenant FIRST rank JANG Taemin' embossed into it, he waved it at the door sensor. Twice. Nothing happened. 

The boy walked up and pulled out his own ID awkwardly with his right hand. 'Cadet FIRST rank Maximin Raoul OBLONSKY' was what it said. He placed it carefully in his left hand, and pulled up his sleeve to reveal angry green letters fused into the flesh of his arm: PSION. He waved both the ID and his defaced forearm at the sensor. The door clicked open. 

Jang was surprised. "Why wouldn't mine…."

"Because this is my place—- my people's. Not a Fleet thing at all." He took Jang's ID and waved it around in front of the sensor. "There. Now it knows you are with me."

Jang took his ID back, entered the shack, and sat down before a standard communications array. Waving his card over the thing gave him access, but he paused. "Maximin—- I may call you Maximin?"

"No."

"Alright, Cadet…."

The boy wrinkled up his nose. "You don't have to call me that. Not after…. It's just that Maximin Oblonsky is my grandfather's name. Maximin Vladimir Oblonsky. All of the sons and grandsons also have Maximin as the first given name but none of them use it. I am called Raoul."

"OK," Jang turned back to the communication array. "I was just wondering—- what with the Anti-Psion Riots and all—- if it's even safe to contact normal Fleet channels. We need pickup, but if we contact someone who's been corrupted…."

The boy leaned over the array. "This can't contact the Fleet channels anyway—- not directly. We have to route it through my Family's system." He took a small keyboard from his pocket and slaved it to the array, and began to type, first a long code, and then words which appeared on the screen in front of Jang: 'House OBLONSKY, Colonel FIRST rank Nataliya Melody Victoire Alexandra Myeongwol OBLONSKAYA, Special Services'.

"Colonel Oblonskaya?" Jang asked.

"My mother," Raoul said. "Or at least, her comm system. I can crack her security—- at least enough to get the list of her Fleet contacts, to find someone trustworthy. Ideally, one who owes my mother a favor."

It seemed to take a great deal of time and several rather lengthy challenges and code responses before the boy got in. But from Colonel Oblonskaya's system it took a minimum number of keystrokes before the boy looked up at Jang. "OK, it's arranged," he said. "Pickup by a secure shuttle—- my family's, but with a Fleet crew—- and we'll be taken to an orbital station." He smiled, very slightly—- the first time Jang had seen the boy smile since the Riots began. "And we get to keep the horses."

The boy moved as if to leave immediately. "Wait," Jang said. "Your family—- don't you want to get word, to see if they are all safe? Your sister?"

"They are all safe, behind Family security," Raoul said. "Except my sister who was at the Fleet station in San Jose with me."

"Don't we need to find her?"

"She is fine," the boy said. "I'd know if she wasn't. Besides, she's not like me. She doesn't mind hurting people."

Jang pulled the co-ords for the rendezvous point—- a two-hour ride, could be much worse. He waved his ID over the array in a routine shut-down move—- wouldn't do to leave it unlocked—- and stopped, transfixed by what it now said.

The boy noticed. "I forgot to say. You got promoted. Commander Third rank."

"And you?"

"Lieutenant Third rank."

Jang grinned. "A damned kid officer." He mounted his horse and spurred it toward the rendezvous point, and the boy followed.

(c) Nissa Annakindt 2013, all rights reserved.

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