View on Writer's Block

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

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Take a Creativity Break

It doesn't much show, but this is what I look like after losing almost 60 lbs. Those jeans are size four, I'll have you know! A friend was kind to take this shot of me in Felicitas Park, north of San Diego, where we'd run away to play for the afternoon.

We were hot from hiking around, up and down, along Felicitas Creek, looking for mortreros, grinding holes that the Ipai (Kumeyaay) Native American women used to make flour from acorns centuries ago. We wondered why they weren't situated closer to the water, which they needed to leach tannic acid out of the grindings.

Betsy spotted a lone mortrero apart from the others, behind a boulder, and speculated that one poor woman was relegated to the hidden position, ostracized from the ancient food prep and gab fest. And therein lies a story, part of me thought, unable to let go of writing for even a few hours!

I've missed my creativity breaks, usually taken on Tuesdays in Balboa Park at one of the many museums that bless San Diego. In the winter, it is often too cold for me to roam around much outside, and I've spent five days a week for the last year at the YMCA. But yesterday, the Santa Ana winds brought warmth from the desert to the coast, making it a delightful day just to run away.

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Tough Words for Tough Times

Smart, Intelligent, and Broke... and what to do about it is Paul Krupkin's concentrate of advice for surviving recessionary times.

I am receiving a lot of questions about jobs and work and business because of the economic downturn. I wrote up my lessons learned. It has particular relevance to copywriters, freelancers, technical writers and all sorts of professional service providers.

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Winter Reading -- Mini-Reviews

Last year J.M.G. Le Clezio won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Simon & Schuster has reissued the first novel he wrote, The Interrogation: A Novel, first published in 1963 when the author was only 23. It sounds like a first novel for that era, all deep, mysterious and philosophical. At least it's not a boring juvenile "my first sexual experiences" or "my horrible childhood". It is interesting just to examine the first product of an author who years later wins the most prestigious book prize. This version resembles a facsimile copy of a manuscript, but in English (Le Clezio is French). In the story, a young man tries to figure out what has happened to him recently, and we the readers are left with the same questions. An alternative title could have been One Summer in Nice. Very intriguing.

Just a quick note that James Murdoch's GRAY APOCALYPSE ships this week in a hard cover edition. I reviewed this rollicking sci-fi thriller here and at BlogCritics.

THE INDEPENDENCE OF MISS MARY BENNET by Colleen McCullough arrived unexpectedly just after I'd pretty much panned everything of hers I've read since THE THORN BIRDS. So, I gave it to a friend who agreed to take a look. Her reaction was underwhelming. "It's O.K." she conceded and gave me list of almost a dozen authors who've written similar followups for the characters in PRIDE AND PREDJUDICE. As if I cared.

I didn't think I liked historical fiction until I read Beverly Swerling's CITY OF GOD, fourth in a series about the Turner and Devrey families. It takes place in old New York City in the years right before the Civil War, providing fascinating peeks at Chinese customs, the struggles of Jewish families, medicine, religions and the shipping industry as steam was overtaking sailing vessels. What I liked most, however, was the major story line about a woman who found the strength to do as she wished with her life despite enormous oppression, even by other women. I'll be looking out for the earlier novels in this series and any to come. Even Swerling's acknowledgments were fascinating, especially her nod to research assistance from Google and (surprise!) Wikipedia.

Finally, because A Writer's Edge participated in Blog Action Day '08 (remember poverty? It's still around), I received a copy of Tom Watson's new CAUSEWIRED: PLUGGING IN, GETTING INVOLVED, CHANGING THE WORLD. I can see that I will be dipping into this one like a Whitman Sampler to discover more on how blogging, social media and "social entrepreneurship" are doing good to change the world. Stay tuned!

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Dumb and Dumber Writing

In an extended online forum rant/rave about Meyers' "Twilight" series, one decrier of poor contemporary writing wails, "I think they're responsible for dumbing down a generation!" In other threads, a supposedly successful author insists YOU WILL BE PUBLISHED, if you write very well. I can't reconcile this notion that only the best writing gets published with the reality of the poor writing we all see, especially in Y.A. novels, and many genre books.

In two books of the "Blue Bloods" series, I noticed an alarming tendency to use almost the correct word, sort of a hit and a miss. For example, in describing end of the season weather, de la Cruz writes of the "dredges" of winter when she means "dregs", I'm sure. Other annoyances are misplaced modifiers, which change the literal meaning of sentences. You know what's meant, but it doesn't sound quite right, like "only" or "already" in the wrong word order: it was only one of two in the world should be it was one of only two.

Not so many misspellings or other grammar mistakes appear, but these errors in word choice are becoming rife in current offerings. This lead me to the revelation: they aren't dumbing kids down, the generations younger than mine are already dumbed down. They can't recognize BAD writing...and then, of course, fledgling writers perpetuate the errors.

What about the editors, though, that allow crappy writing to pass muster and go to print? The bean counters and high muckety-muck publishers don't give a flying fish, but don't copy editors work on novels anymore? Do they know better? Do they care? Does anyone care besides us Baby Boomers who received excellent educations even in public schools?

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All About Me, Me, Me

Ahem. Missy Frye, over at The Incurable Disease of Writing, honored yours truly with an interview earlier this week. She called it "A Conversation with Georganna Hancock" and gave me such a flattering introduction. *blush*

When I asked the gang who hang around the "Writers' Block Party" (Writer's Digest forum) to comment on Missy's blog post, these were some of the responses:

Jeff Yeager of The Ultimate Cheapskate, author of The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches (Random House), seen on NBC TODAY Show's Ultimate Cheapskate; host of "$aving Green" by Living Green on PLANET GREEN TV (a cable show on the Discovery channel, I think); and blogging at: TheDailyGreen.com, WiseBread.com, PlanetGreen.com, AARP's LifeTuner.com [ed note: all this info is in his signature!] wrote:

... Favorite line: "That I’ve written for a variety of types of publications was just dumb luck or standing in the intersection of opportunity and preparation." Congrats!

Melissa Carrigee of Finding the Write Moment and Melissa's Manic Musings, author of Adventures in Home Building: Written From a Woman's Point of View (http://www.authortree.com/melissacarrigee) said:

I loved the interview. I almost stood up and shouted "Amen" at the end. I would have scared my cats though so I didn't.

and finally, Lisa Abeyta, another freelancer, wrote:

Nice interview, Georganna. Is E! following you around yet? If not, I'm sure that's not far behind.

Thanks guys! Uh, what's "E!"? *peers around nervously*

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Self Help for Self Publishers

Aaron Shepard of Aaron's Publishing Page and
Sales Rank Express is now offering free .PDF copies of two books "Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing" and "Perfect Pages: Self Publishing with Microsoft Word." Links for viewing or downloading the files are on these two pages:

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/books/AimingAmazon.html

http://www.newselfpublishing.com/books/PerfectPages.html

I remember when Aaron was beta testing his book on using MS Word to set up books for self-publishing. It has come along nicely.

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Blog Jam

Sounds yummy, no? Well, in a way it is delightful to have a crockful of draft posts. The problem is that most drafts are only URLs of other websites, places perhaps to suggest and ruminate about. Where do I continue to find the time to do the research, evaluate potential resources I've grabbed in passing, and then prepare a post?

Similarly, I also keep a file of additions to make to this blog--if I ever find time to get around to making them. For instance, the section called "Reciprocity" includes the following blogs:

http://myth-thehermit.blogspot.com/ The Hermit
http://www.gooblink.com Obstreperous Heart
http://writingonthewingsofdreams.blogspot.com/ Writing on the Wings of Dreams
http://writing4hire.blogspot.com/ Writing for Hire
http://travelkicks.wordpress.com/ The Way I See It

Unfortunately, useful, regular, frequent blogging takes time as well as some kind of talent--that's why good bloggers can get paid for their efforts. I could do that, but then I'd never have time for this one, my only child, my legacy (so far). The spirit flags, real life calls. Is A Writer's Edge nearing the end?

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Editing for Style

Getting your writing stylistically correct the first time around can save you time. When the work is done, a quick proofreading will be all that's needed before submitting. It is especially necessary for freelancers to have the right style guides at hand for each particular piece. Diana Hacker offers a good reference for the various different guides used in assorted disciplines in her List of Style Manuals at Research and Documentation Online.

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What to Write About

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

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Unfriending in a Web 2.0 World

Woke up this morning with a wretched sore throat. Scooted off to Starbucks for a free "London Fog" latte (Earl Grey tea--good for sore throats). No help. Crap! I wanted to write about "unfriending" on Web 2.0. That is dropping or deleting a name in your contacts list. On the most social of the social sites, they're called "friends" even though they may have been automatically listed because they are friends of friends or recommended by the software, or for many reasons that have nothing to do with them really being your friend.

Web 2.0 is engendering controversy with this "friending" feature. First came articles with titles like "What is a 'Friend' Anyway?" Then came "What's with all the friends?" and more on "How Many Friends Do You Need?" Of course some people turned it into a competition while others tried to stay conservative and focus on the quality of the feature.

Internet communication itself has altered the meaning of friendship. A friend, unless a "pen pal" used to be someone you knew in person, even if you now live far apart and see each other seldom. Even if you only communicated through notes on Christmas cards, you were still friends because at one time you were in physical proximity and shared other activities in real life.

Web 2.0 "friends" are often no different from the little graphics under your name or photo. They might mean anything from "she's a hottie" to "never met" to just cute stars. The younger the participants, the sillier and more meaningless the friend system can be. So now comes the culmination of questioning "friends" with articles on 'unfriending'. Dear Abby, what will happen if I 'unfriend' someone in my Facebook account? "Unfriended is unwanted?" "Revenge of the Unfriends".

It can feel like you've lost control of your life, if not at least your online identity! The notion to drop someone from one of my contact lists passed through my mind recently. I was trying to use LinkedIn to locate contacts that might be useful to my editing business, but I was invited into the program by someone who wanted me to be their useful contact. In the 60s that was known as "upwardly mobile" social climbing. AND I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT.

Eventually, and only to enhance the appearance of my connections list, I thought about dropping that first friend. I hadn't heard from her since I'd joined a few months ago. My hand hovered over the mouse to click her out of the fold. Please understand this was not a reflection on the value of the person. It was a business decision to affect the apparent quality of my profile. I still welcomed a friendship with her in real life, well, by email anyway, virtual life.

And speaking of email, just before I clicked her out, an email arrived from that very person, asking to interview me for her blog. Whew! Dodged another bullet. The image of a burning bridge flashed across my vision. Except, here I am, exposing my almost-folly that would have snatched a marketing opportunity from the jaws of success. See, I keep telling you that I am here to try to help you avoid the pitfalls on the road to writing success. They just keep on coming, too!

Isn't life funny? I just looked down to see that I made the whole trip to Starbucks with my pants unzipped.

*Blush*

I'm going back to bed.

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Caturday -- Silly Saturday Returns

Another inimitable catshot from I Can Haz Cheezburger and LOLcats on the Interweb.

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I Can Has Lafs?

Lolcats ‘n’ Funny Pictures of Cats - I Can Has Cheezburger? has been a favorite website of mine for a couple of years. I'm sure I've mentioned it, especially as an inexpensive antidepressant. The original was just "LOLcats", the LOL being text-speak for "laughing out loud" and cats--well, pretty self-explanatory. I'm not sure where the "I Can Has Cheezburger?" came from, featuring similar silly cat shots with captions, but apparently the two sites merged to the benefit and amusement of all.

Recently I explored ( or "splord" as LOLspeak would probably put it) the merged site and found an English language lover's delight, » Learn Lolspeak — teh furst language born of teh intertubes. It helps if you're a linguist with a good sense of humor, of course.

Ah, it's teh best of all worlds: cats, humor and English!

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Umberto Eco -- Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to Umberto Eco, who was born in 1932 in the Piedmont region of Italy. I love his mystery, The Name of the Rose, which sold two million copies, but found Foucault's Pendulum tedious going. He was only a prodigious scholarly nonfiction writer in the field of semiotics (pop culture) until a publisher asked him to contribute to a collection of detective stories written by academics. He used his knowledge of popular culture to create The Name of the Rose, a mystery set in a middle-ages monastery.

Eco once said, "I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth."

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Apology to RSS Readers

My apologies to those who read this blog via email or RSS readers. I've made a mess of what used to be simple in Blogger.

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Happy New Year 2009

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