Quotidiana on Writing Essays

Last week or so, I wrote about the personal essay. Take a look at Quotidiana, Patrick Madden's website on classical essays and writing essays. He teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University and is no slouch in the department of published essays. The site opens on a page of classical essays with a search engine and listings by last name, period in which an essay was written by name, and strangest of all, women.

You can also listen to interviews performed by Madden's students with published writers and read contemporary essays. From those essays the viewer could assemble a list of publications that accept essays. Many of them have links to the publications. The site contains lots of useful links for someone interested in this kind of writing and pursuing self education.

Quotidiana is a quirky website, definitely in need of an introduction and explanation of what's there, maybe why, and how it works. For example, cryptic navigation links labeled "EAE" and "BEC" provide no clue about their destinations. Behind one of them is an apparently private forum at a different website. Granted, if you dig deep enough, you'll find that the website was developed as a teaching aid for BYU students, but because Madden has made it publicly available on the Internet, other viewers could benefit from a little more direction.

Free Writing Mentors

This is for future or recent (last two years) undergrad or graduate students who want to freelance or work on publication staffs. How would you like to spend an hour talking with a mentor in the field you want to enter? How would you like it if the expenses were underwritten? Well, Ed2010, the website of seemingly infinite resources for budding journalists, offers such a service. If you're located in New York City, you might meet one-on-one. If you're outside the city, the communication would be via email or phone. To apply, copy the questions on the referenced page, answer them, and email them to ed@ed1020.com. Good luck!

Writing Personal Essays

Writers often ask where they can try to sell short nonfiction opinion pieces. These fit into the category of "personal essays"-- easiest to write, hardest to sell. The usual advice is to query or submit them to general interest and literary publications, but those take precious few such works. Even fewer pay for them.

Think analytically about the subject of your essays. Match them with more specific markets. So-called "niche" magazines and websites provide ready-made homes for such tailored pieces of writing. Sometimes these are called 'front of the magazine' or 'back of the magazine' articles, as well as 'opinion pieces' and 'personal essays'. Sometimes they are simply called 'shorts'.

Incidentally, if you tend to write this kind of work, especially if you want to express your opinions on a specific topic, you're a good candidate for blogging. Blogging isn't just for rants and digital diaries any more. People are blogging for pay, and some say they are making a living at it.

If I were to essay an essay on this post's beginning image, it would be an article to persuade people that it is better for all of us to wear clothing constructed of renewable natural fibers rather than creating synthetics from our finite oil supply and to eat food, rather than convert it to fuel. This addresses several issues: world hunger, the rising cost of food, rising gas prices (and all items associated with petroleum, which is just about everything), global warming, ecology, the "green" movement, even economics and business. It is within those topics that I would look for publications that accept such shorts.

Writer's Block Book

A swift or slow perusal of past posts reveals the most popular and passionate ones, as measured by comments, are about Writer's Block. I'm thinking it's about time to gather these and tie them together into a coherent bundle. This will most likely take the form of another e-Book, easy to download.

Although logic and logistics can cause Writer's Block, the most common sources are psychological. And there I'm more than qualified to comment, to offer explanations and advice. I don't mean to lean on my two degrees in psychology, either, but also on my intimate understanding of fighting fears. Yes, I have generalized anxiety, a fear of everything, even of being afraid. I suspect many writers suffer this in one form or another or from agoraphobia or social anxiety. I know the paralysis of analysis and the funk of fear.

The confusing aspect of fear and Writer's Block comes about because fears are multiple and can be expressed in so many different forms. If you don't believe that, just consider how many types of phobias exist. The referenced list includes "graphophobia" (writing) and "scriptophobia" (writing in public) Seriously, I don't think that those contribute to Writer's Block.

When fears aren't attached to a particular object or situation as with phobias, they are called "anxiety". For writers, it is easy for anxiety to focus on the instruments, location, or the action of trying to create writing. The specific fear can involve criticism, disapproval, rejection, or the opposite, success, which would thrust the writer into a spotlight, attract attention, require a performance before others.

For some, the causes are deeper and more complex. I don't want to go all psychoanalytic on you here but if the ending of the unconscious script of your life reads "failure", then your unconscious will force you to make decisions and to act in ways that sabotage success. O.K., Dr. Freud will leave the room now.

Having written this post and released it to the universe, I have taken the scary step of committing myself to this project. It could fail. Correction, I could fail. What's the worst that could happen if I fail? I will have spent time in a labor of love that is reward enough in itself.

Freelance Writing Markets

Websites with databases (some require a subscription, some are free to use) for nonfiction freelance writers to find markets for their works:

http://www.writersweekly.com/markets_and_jobs.php
http://www.worldwidefreelance.com/markets.htm
http://www.writingfordollars.com/GuidelinesDB.cfm
http://www.writerswrite.com/writersguidelines/
http://www.freelancewriting.com/guidelines/pages/
http://www.absolutewrite.com/Markets.htm
http://www.woodenhorsepub.com/
http://www.50states.com/news/
http://www.writersmarket.com
http://www.firstwriter.com
http://www.fundsforwriters.com
http://www.woodenhorsepub.com
http://www.freelancewriting.com/freelancejobs/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freelancewritingjobs/

And be quick now, subscribe to the free Worldwide Freelance Writer newletter, and editor Gary McLaren will send you a free report listing 25 markets that pay "up to or around 20 cents per word."

Get Business Writing Jobs

When the email arrived with the image and message below, I should have checked the calendar. It was March 31. Oblivious to the impending day for jokes, I read as serious:

LOS ANGELES - Apr. 1, 2008 - In an attempt to spark the economy through entrepreneurship and quell people's fears of unemployment, PerfectBusiness.com-a networking and resource Web site for entrepreneurs based in Los Angeles-is proposing an ordinance that will replace the numbers 9 and 5 with exclamation points.

Joking aside, I found the PerfectBusiness - The Entrepreneur Network Events page dovetailing nicely with some notions about how to use these gatherings to further a freelance business writing career. Look up all the events you can attend. Think of them as more than networking, as mass marketing opportunities for your writing/editing services. Here are some tips for success--suit up and show up with material that demonstrates your abilities:

• samples or copies of clips
• copies of your resume
• an ample supply of business cards
• specific practiced pitches
• comfortable shoes
• high energy

Many such gatherings publish maps and lists of participants in advance, so have targets selected and a strategy to maximize your time and energy. Go!

Editing Style for Cookbooks

A question often posed by both male and female beginning writers: how do you format a cookbook manuscript? How are recipes presented? In the many decades that I've been writing and cooking, I never gave this a thought, and I have an extensive collection of cookbooks and recipes. Indeed, after inheriting many from my mother and grandmother, I have an embarrassment of cooking literature. Most of it is easy to follow because it is fairly uniform in presentation. Difficulties show up most often in the home brew versions--collections put out by clubs as fundraisers, one of the original true self-publishing efforts.

One source of advice for cookbook authors comes from Ten Speed Press' Editorial Director, Lorena Jones. The "Ten Speed Press Cookbook Style Sheet" even offers tips on preparing an electronic file for submission to a publisher. The advice is based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed; Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed; Recipes into Type, Whitman & Simon, and The New Food Lover's Companion, 3rd ed, Herbst, if you want to go to the sources for more details.

Copy Editing Rules

I wish I had seen the original when it first ran on the Des Moines Register website:

An article in the Des Moines Register by one Larry Ballard announced the other day that legislators were pondering a tax to be levied on lapses in grammar: "The tax would be levied on bad grammar in signs, advertisements, etc. It would target typos, misspellings, strange punctuation and dangling participles (they are nowhere near as painful as they sound) and would be enforced anywhere English is used."

That's the lede into The Baltimore Sun John McIntyre's take on editors as grammar cops. Seems to me that he is well-suited to lead raids, being the Sun's assistant managing editor for the copy desk, a past president of the American Copy Editors Society, and an adjunct instructor in journalism at Loyola College in Maryland.

A few years ago, I'll admit that I tried to cast myself in a policing role. Ever vigilant (or was that vigilante?) I spotted mistakes and pithily pointed them out to their owners. Nit-picking run amok. Eventually I realized that I really could not see the forest for the trees. The cliche; is true. I'd lost the meaning of messages by putting the focus on individual words and punctuation. This does not make for a good fiction editor at all.

Since that time, common sense finally knocked into my mind, I've relented and try to ignore the chatter of the interior editor and read for enjoyment and understanding. That is, unless I'm editing nonfiction, where grammar and syntax matter most.

Fiction + Fact = Faction

Self-designated struggling writer, R.J. Mangahas has a nice round-up of the latest scandals in fake books in Out in WriteField. I'm not referring to the fake books that singers use (lyrics-only song sheets). I mean the James Frey type of a million little lies presented as the truth. Like the also pseudo-memoirs by Misha Defonseca and Margaret Seltzer, that's what I'm talkin' about.

I would disagree with Mangahas' statement that, "In a lot of people's eyes, there is an unwritten understanding between them and the author of the memoir that the events are true and accurate as possible." That may be a misconception many writers and readers used to have about memoir writing. I doubt the reading public is that naive any longer.

I submit that writers like Frey, Defonseca and Seltzer are perpetuating a genre that perhaps began with Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I call that confounding of fiction and facts "faction". Perhaps bookstores, publishers and critics should establish this as a legitimate literary form. After all, memoir is really elaboration of biography. Faction is more elaboration of memoir.

Writers Tackle TMIS

Right now my "To Do" list reads:

Write a memoir
Resume watercolor painting
Redesign A Writer's Edge website
Start a book on cooking
Secure a paid blogging gig
Sell excess junk in house
Advertise for more editing jobs
Edit or create a new blog on cooking

Abmitious? Yes. Ridiculous? Yes! I printed the list in large text and taped it to the front of my printer where it is in view every time I sit to compute. Result: I futz around going from one project to another, accomplishing little. It's too much to do to reach ta daa!

That's why I was delighted to find Leigh Anne Jasheway-Bryant's article on Creativity: Overcoming Too Many Ideas Syndrome. Skip the lengthy introduction and ignore the cutsy subtitles and you'll find nine suggestions for coping with TMIS, including to talk about the ideas with other writers, use mental imagery to manage the mess and evaluate all the ideas to find the best one on which to focus. Some of the notions she recommends are conflicting, so it's up to you to find what works best in your situation. This could be a goal for your new year: get your ideas organized.

Holiday Gifts for Writers

If you have writers on your holiday gift list (or want to drop hints to others)-- how about a present that will further careers? Be a Successful Writer and the two volumes on Effective Websites for Writers will provide useful information and show how much you care!

Fair Use and Copyright Infringement

Sarah Bird claims to be an attorney (I think--if that's what being a "former litigator" means). At the SEOmoz.org website, she offers a lengthy article on What's Fair About Fair Use? Defending a Copyright Infringement Claim. Fair use, of course, is kind of the flip side of copyright protection, and it's a most controversial part of the law. This is mainly because the law is vague (in my opinion) concerning what constitutes an allowable reproduction of copyrighted materials. Instead of citing a specific amount of material that can be used, the law requires certain conditions be met. Again, they are open to interpretation, usually by lawyers:

⇒ There are four factors to consider when determining whether you are illegally infringing someone’s copyright or merely employing fair use of the material:
→ The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is nor nonprofit educational purposes;
→ The nature of the copyrighted work.
→ The amount and substantially of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
→ The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The purpose of Bird's article, however, is not to help you protect your writing, but rather to help you with the "fair use" defense. If you recycle someone else's work, as we bloggers often do, and the author feels you've infringed on the copyright, understanding the fair use section of the Copyright Act may help you. Seems to me that a comprehensive understanding would benefit all writers, no matter on which side of the fence of fair use they sit.

Writing Memoirs and First Novels

Lives I didn't live have been on my mind for the last year. This is also a dilemma for writers trying to create a memoir. The temptation is to follow the "what ifs" and become entangled in resentments. In his excellent THE MEMOIR AND THE MEMOIRIST, Thomas Larson suggests that this is fallacious reasoning, because it doesn't consider the value of the life you did live, and that the one you didn't, the road not taken, might have lead to different disasters.

A similar pitfall awaits young writers in attempting first novels, books best left unread. Knowing nothing of life but the brief one they have recently lived, their novels become thinly disguised memoirs. Perhaps reaching for drama, they air injustices, real or imagined, unaware that we all had similar angst-filled childhoods. Better to wait to use this material when you are much older and able to distinguish true tragedies.

If only I'd resisted that cute sailor and fulfilled my plan to attend Standford and become a clinical psychologist, wouldn't my life have been so much better, more fulfilling? Or I might have been lured by the flower children in San Francisco and languished as a hippie poet and a Lawrence Ferlinghetti groupie.

Editor's Bugaboos in Writing

When clients send me documents for editing, I always warn them that not all editors are created equal. We don't agree on every element. We have individual quirks, mainly in our notions of what constitutes good/bad creative writing. If the writing must follow a particular style guide, then that is the reference I'll use in editing. However, left to my own preferences and in ambiguous situations where style guides conflict, these elements I will usually flag as needing elimination or rewriting:

* the verb to be
* sentences beginning with "there [to be]"
* passive construction
* avoidable ellipses and dashes

"Why?" braver clients whine. Depending on what kind of a day the editor is having, the response may range from "because I say so" to an explanation that using strong, action verbs and sentences causes clearer, more colorful, exciting or readable writing. If the document under scrutiny is for business, ellipses and dashes have no business in the text, anyway. Academic writing is another animal entirely with its own restrictions and formats. My thesis chair described that form of writing as "constipated".

Books for Writers

One of the most spot-on listing of resource books for both fiction and nonfiction writers is Lisa Gates' Top Ten Books for Writers from her blog, "design your writing life". Indeed, many of her selections appear on my Amazon Wish List and my Listmania, which you can see in my Amazon Profile . Hmm. It appears that I should update some of the selections. The 2008 editions are probably becoming available.

Writing About Wildfire

For my birthday yesterday, I got great fires! It's almost the fourth anniversary of the terrible Cedar fire that killed several people and destroyed much property, including 10 homes in my community. The fire burned within two blocks of my house that year.

I've been sneezing for 14 hours. Last night, Ramona, a quaint town of 36,000 people, was evacuated. This Witch fire (named for a creek) started in the same region as the Cedar fire, split into two parts around Ramona again, and one of them is headed for my community, just like four years ago. Only the timing differs. I was up all night with maps and TV, trying to gauge the course and speed of the flame wall and whipping embers. Hurricane-force (75 mph) Santa Ana winds are pushing the burns quickly from the mountains to the coast (west). It jumps highways, sometimes sparking again a mile away. I saw 200-foot high flames jumping up and licking at the stars.

When live coverage began again at 4 a.m., we learned we have eight fires burning San Diego County from the north boundary with Riverside across the border into Mexico. It's as if a god dropped a handful of burning matchsticks on this county which is the size of the state of Connecticut. The winds didn't calm down over night as they usually do. By now my throat hurts, my eyes burn -- and my windows are closed! The temperature is expected to hit 94 degrees here near the coast. Humidity is 12% and less. All night I debated evacuating myself to a motel with air conditioning to relieve my allergies as well as the anxieties. The fire moves so fast, authorities sometimes can't get the word out to evacuate fast enough ... and one admitted they didn't want everyone to leave at once. Where would we go, anyway?

In addition to the smaller evacuations near the border, fire officials just called for everyone between I-5 and I-15 north of SR 56 and south of Lake Hodges/Del Dios Road to get out, run for your lives. That's a huge amount of people and some of the most expensive homes in the area -- Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Santa Fe, Olivenhain and Fairbanks Ranch. That means the roads are gridlocked, so when/if they call for Tierrasanta to evacuate, we won't be able to get out. The community is a cul-de-sac anyway, but fire can come at us easily from three sides. Stay tuned.

Fern Reiss

Fern Reiss, CEO of PublishingGame.com and Expertizing.com, is the author of The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days ( about book promotion), The Publishing Game: Find an Agent in 30 Days (two versions: traditional and self-publishing). She offers a free Expertizing email newsletter on one of her websites. In a newsletter from publishingbasics.com she revealed Five Things Your Publisher Won't Tell You (about traditional book publishing). In essence, the tips are:

* publishers do little publicity
* a book must sell in four months
* only 5% of books earn their advances
* traditional publishing is sloooooow
* first book flops--you're dead

I think these characteristics are more the novelists' experiences than those of the authors of nonfiction books. Selling a novel, to agents and publishers and at retail, is so very difficult, you might have better luck launching your writing career by starting with a nonfiction endeavor. It has a much better chance of selling (you might be able to skip the agency part), would establish a publishing platform for you, and the experiences you'd gain would be priceless.

Writing Op-eds & Letters to the Editor

The media center at the Communications Consortium website has a hot page on Op-eds & Letters to the Editor. This is a popular area with which to begin a nonfiction and freelance writing career. To define:

Letters to the editor allow you to offer a short rebuttal to an article or commentary, or add a crucial missing perspective. Most letters should be 150-250 words. ...
An op-ed is a column or guest essay published in the opinion section of a newspaper (Opposite the Editorial page). Most are between 500-750 words, and most outlets will take submissions by fax, e-mail or mail.

Although the piece is geared toward organizations, the tips about keeping your writing short, factual, and on-topic apply to anyone submitting such works.

Best of all, perhaps, is a chart of details on how to submit an op-ed or letter to the editor in more than a hundred of the largest circulation papers in the U.S. In the chart are addresses; fax/phone numbers; and hot links to email addresses, editors and the papers' websites. Need I point out that many of these publications will have book review sections and accept news releases on other writing-related topics?

Find Article Ideas Easily

Working on a new website for an up and coming author has kept me busy the last couple of weeks. Rather than continue to neglect the Writing Help page here, I persuaded Bonnie Boots to let me swipe one of her great articles from The Internet Wizards Magazine site. Bonnie gave the piece a title too long to fit in the space where I list the free articles, so I've called the subject "Article Ideas". Bonnie describes her system for freelancers to come up with great article ideas all year long. You could also use the system to overcome a writer's block on what to write about. Here are quick links to the other free articles now available:

Book Signing Tips
Give and Take Critiques
Write for the Web
About Agents
Copyrights

Writing Dangerously

On August 2, 2007, veteran newsman Chauncey Bailey was shot dead as he walked to work Thursday in Oakland, CA. He was reporter for the Oakland Tribune until recently named editor of the Oakland Post, the largest black newspaper in Northern California. The shooting seemed to be a contract killing, although there is no obvious motive, the Los Angeles Times reported. Some reports called Bailey's writing "controversial" and that he used "aggressive questioning" when interviewing politicians.

Reporting news is known for it's element of risk. I was a child of the civil rights movement and the championing attitude carried over into my career. This showed in my selection of stories to cover (when on my own) and the people I interviewed and photographed. It was no surprise when opposition appeared in the community, but I didn't expect the newsroom to prove a dangerous place. An editor challenged my coverage selection by saying, "Well, I guess that makes you a goddamn nigger-lover!" A few years later another editor was severely beaten, again in the newsroom, after exposing underworld ties to local business and politics.

Electronic Writers

In the past year, F+W Publications, the parent company of Writer's Digest and Writer's Market Place, exploded in a frenzy of electronic presences. Adapted from a recent newsletter:

WRITER'S DIGEST BLOGS

Poetic Asides by Nancy Breen and Robert Lee Brewer blog on poetry

The Writer's Perspective, by Maria Schneider, is dedicated to the publishing industry and other writing-related news. She'll keep you up-to-date on the writing essentials, all while providing links that might interest you and commentaries on the industry's hottest topics.

Questions and Quandaries, by Brian A. Klems, answers some of the most pressing grammatical, ethical, business and writing-related questions. This is an extension of his popular column in Writer's Digest magazine.

This Writer's Life, by Kevin Alexander, gives his witty take on starting a writing career. Join in his often amusing, occasionally heartfelt experiences trying to get a leg up in this challenging field.

Guide to Literary Agents by editor Chuck Sambuchino for all the latest news and views on literary agents.

The company is also active at MySpace with the following profiles:

* Writer's Digest Books http://www.myspace.com/wdbooks

* Writer's Market http://www.myspace.com/writersmarket

* Writer's Digest http://www.myspace.com/writersdigest

* CWIM's Alice Pope http://www.myspace.com/alice_cwim

The Market Books now have mini-sites with information about each book and a place to sign up for a free newsletter. To check these mini-sites out and sign up for the free newsletters, go to:

* Novel & Short Story Writer's Market www.novelandshortstory.com

* Children's Writer's & Illustrator's Market www.cwim.com

* Poet's Market www.poetsmarket.com

* Guide to Literary Agents www.guidetoliteraryagents.com

* Photographer's Market www.photographersmarket.com

* Artist's & Graphic Designer's Market www.artists-market.com

* Songwriter's Market www.songwritersmarket.com

This is all in addition to the U.S. www.writersmarket.com and www.writersdigest.com, and if you're interested in markets in the United Kingdom and Ireland there's Writer's Market UK at: http://www.writersmarket.co.uk.

Write an Agent Query

Yes, expanding the free articles list on the Writing Help page is going slowly, but I have good news. Yesterday I added both versions of About Agents. This piece answers some of those nagging questions like: "Who needs an agent?" and "How can I get one?" On the latter, I ran across a gem of a find in active agent Nathan Bransford's blog, Anatomy of a Good Query Letter. Bransford, who works for the Curtis Brown agency in San Francisco, appears to like a very personalized query letter which reveals the writer has researched the agent. If I were to design a Do and Don't list for querying agents, one item would certainly be: Don't create a generic letter and try to make it fit all the agents you query. The same applies to addressing editors at publishers if you are skipping the agent process.

Find Writing Jobs

Freelance nonfiction writers can find opportunities listed in the Craigs List online publication. You can search Writing/Editing jobs in general or by specific major city. Deborah Ng also specializes in freelance job listings, and David Eide does the same at Sunoasis Jobs. PoeWar and Writers Weekly are two other general sites where you can search.

Other smaller sites will have overlap with those above, often dipping their buckets in the same well, especially Craigs List. Nonetheless, it's worth a look at:

http://www.online-writing-jobs.com/jobbank/jobbank1.htm
http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=24
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/jobs/index.php?cat=free&submit=Go
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/jobs/jobs_media/index.html
http://spj.org/blog/blogs/freelance/
http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings/
http://www.journalismjobs.com/Search_Jobs_all.cfm
http://www.simplyhired.com/
http://www.indeed.com/
http://www.writerfind.com/freelance_jobs/

Some of these websites allow you to post a listing of your services (most notably Craigs List, which is free). Some contain useful job search information. Some clues for success that I can provide: limit your search to the most recently posted items because employers tend to post in multiple venues and jobs go fast; respond right away. Beware of scams--potential employers should give you a way to contact them other than email; most companies have a website; avoid jobs from abroad where collecting payment may be impossible.