The WINDS of Change

“The trouble is not really in being alone, it's being lonely. One can be lonely in the midst of a crowd, don't you think?”
~ Christine Feehan

Waving Hi, from the windy state of Nebraska. Sure Chicago can claim “the Windy City” but I am here to unofficially lay claim to the name Windy State of Nebraska! As weather forecasters will lie to you and say, it’s going to be breezy, I’m here to say, 25mph sustained WINDS with gusts to 45mph does not make it ‘breezy’; where I come from (Baltimore, Md.) that is downright WINDY!

The winds have been sustained for more than a week now, I’m sure of that, which hinders any time in the garden even though I’m loving the cool temps. Last week we had record-breaking heat with temps reaching 97 and in some places 100-104! A few days before that we had SNOWFALL and today it is struggling to reach 60!

These crazy weather shifts gives rise to tornadoes and some storm-wreaking havoc. It’s made me think of the winds of change sweeping over my life as well as this lovely state of Nebraska. Living out here in isolation – yes, a closed down turkey ranch with one other house is sheer isolation for me. While I love the beauty, solitude and quietness of the place, it sure can elicit a solid empty feeling of loneliness.

An overly friendly person I am, who sees the outside physical world maybe once every two or three weeks (that being a trip to the food store or church, twenty miles away from my house) can sometimes feel the isolation as smothering. This is where my writing garden comes into play. And to think ten years ago I never TOUCHED a computer, I have now taken up one of my beau’s famed addictions and that is, life on the computer!

In this windowed world, there is no wind! There is a collage of friendships to be had and thus I find myself clinging to the writing world and the sites that have anything to do with writing, and the daily dose of facebook, mind you.

THIS is why I chose to dive headfirst into f2k again. Even IT has taken on the winds of change. Once a free writing course, now a FEE writing course, which will enable serious writer’s to take the plunge into the writing frenzy that they so desire. F2K is the birth of a silent muse. That’s right folks, as your muse lay dormant, f2k can fire up the silence with seven weeks of active writing.

Whether it is making new friends, feedbacking and critiquing others, f2k is the place to put your money where your words are. You’ll suddenly feel the winds of change in everything from writing, confidence, all the way through to a finished short story.

You too will see why I find inspiration in a fallen tree (due to winds), sprouting seeds, flowers bursting forth, the aroma of newly fallen rain (when we get it) and the humming of tractors to the hissing of pivots making their rounds.

Isolation can bring about the winds of change, as well as a lost feeling of loneliness but that is why my only ties to the enormous outside world lay right here…at my fingertips.

“Lingering is so very lonely when one lingers all alone.”
~ Mervyn Peake

The Writing Garden

It’s been a while since I’ve had a post on writing. It’s because I haven’t watered my garden lately and feel since it is spring/summer, it is high time I get to watering.

Have you ever hit a writing slump, where you want to be writing but then nothing happens? You sit day after day tapping on the keys, then you realize nothing really makes sense of what you wrote? That could be considered writer’s block, but wait, no it can’t because you did write it just didn’t sound right or make any sense.

Here in Nebraska we get very little rain. That depresses me because I love the rain and cool weather. My whole body responds and I get a lot more writing done that makes perfect logical sense. When it’s dry and you go from winter and jump right into summer with ninety-degree days, my body shuts down. The sun is scorching the land and my body responds with aches and pains I didn’t feel in the cool crisp weather.

Here’s what I noticed: We recently got out and planted our garden. Seeds sprinkled here, plants positioned there and the garden now needs tending. Miss one day of watering and a droop falls over the plants as if hanging their head low wanting to be refreshed.

Writing is a lot like that; you’ve planted the seeds whether in your heart and soul, or on the blank page. You’re all set to sit down and tap away. Blank, you draw a blank. Water, you need water, you’re in the drooping phase of your writing garden, and you need nurturing.

Slap me upside the head with a wet rag, I’ve decided to spark my muse with a little watering from an f2k session again. F2K WAS a free course, but now it is offered at a ten dollar fee, a sixty day membership with WVU, and a book Pumping Your Muse, by Donna Sunblad, author and member of WVU.

It is free to members, which I am a lifetime member so it is free to me. It looks like a promising session since a lot of the people who signed up for the FREE course, really just came to see what it was all about and soon would leave when they knew there was work involved in writing. Yes people, writing involves work, just as tending a garden.

Writer’s Village University, WVU, is a writing school that I began studying at many years ago. It has helped me tend my garden of writing. Sure I’ve had ups and downs throughout the course of my stay but really there has been more ups than downs.

I am no longer a mentor which gives me hope in a promising course after being told I would be allowed full access to all the classrooms, not just sitting in a lone room, where visitors would pop in, and classmates would dwindle. This session when the class gets low, I can actually roam the halls and visit other rooms and comment and help writer’s as I’ve been known to do in years past.

There is always hope in the Garden of Writing. I’m sure I’ll keep you abreast of what is happening and how it’s all going, so stay tuned…the garden will soon be in full bloom soon.

A New Beginning

EmBARKing on something new...

Well tomorrow starts a new leg of MY journey. It’s kind of ironic being on this side of the fence, a student? Wow, I forgot about all the excitement and anxiety I felt before the first day of class. This is a new beginning for me and I’m off to a good start.

I’m still on the assistance end of the fence too. One leg hanging over the assistants’ side, one leg dangling over the newcomers side as a student. Can one be split in two and carry both, walking the fine line of student, assistant? Can I straddle the fence for the duration of the course? I know me, all to well. I am a mentor at heart so will I cross the line and help when I’m supposed to be a student in the learning mode?

I’m looking forward to the class with new expectancy. I won’t be sidetracked with the others immature behavior, I’d like to stay on track and be the professional that I’ve become over the years. The NEW site actually has THREE tabs to click, HOME, WORK, PLAY. Just as the tabs say, one is HOME, where info, rules and guidelines are. WORK, is where the classrooms are, FAQ’s and a Café! And PLAY is where you can play on a facebook style social wall.

As with EVERY session, people enter the site, never read the FAQ’s, and ask, “Where is my classroom?” I do understand that newcomers are new to the site and many times new to the writing world, but it seems to me, you’d look around and read all the pertinent information FIRST. It is where you’d find out 1) classrooms are not open yet and will be assigned when the course begins. 2) Where the profile pages are and how to go about getting an avatar. (google images) 3) That just by registering for the site, registers you for the course!

F2k has two sites. The old ugly brown beige looking one (on my screen), and the NEW site which is a light gray, clean-shaven looking page! People are sent an invite weeks before hand with a link to the new course beginning, and still people enter the OLD site, asking where the classrooms are and when do they begin. On that social wall, there is the link, over and over, to register for the new site, and yes it automatically registers you for the class. But you still get, on the new site, “where are the classrooms.”

A funny lot, inquisitive writers are. It’s as if they jump, without looking to see if there is a safe landing spot beneath them first. Jump into the water, without the curiosity of possible sharks wandering around? Really? Jump in, I say, the water is nice and warm, read first all you can, THEN ask a question that might not have been covered.

As I embark on this new phase, I have harpooned the sharks. I have made new friends and have met up with some dear old ones, that are true. I’ve learned an awful lot this year that has flew by and one thing I will never forget is that, you can always begin again. It’s like Tolkien said, There and Back again. But you knew that, right? Because you read Lord of the Rings? READ before jumping. Begin a new phase, not with blinders on, but with WINGS wide open!!!

E.S.P of Writing: Part II

The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say. ~Anaïs Nin
***

Have you ever heard of E.S.P.? It is short for Extra Sensory Perception. That’s not telling us a whole lot now is it? To me, I perceive it as an Extra sense. What? we have an extra sense?

Have you ever heard your mother say, “Don’t you have the sense God gave you?” Well maybe your mother didn’t but I’ve heard it a few times in my lifetime, and I always looked back and whispered, “Yes, my sixth one,” and as she would turn her back I know I had a tongue sticking out at her. I was just an ornery child like that.

We at f2k (the FREE Creative Writing Course) have a lesson that deals with the senses. We have the normal five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, but we have also added three more to add to the effect of your writing; time, space, and the unknown.

Eerie isn’t it, the unknown? Not really: As the sky opens up and unleashes a torrential downpour this late afternoon, I wonder if the newly born kittens are dry. Look at that sentence! The sky would be SPACE, late afternoon would be TIME, and a moment of wonder would be the UNKNOWN. It is THAT simple.

And to top it off the sentence is showing not telling. You get the idea here, right? Now try this on for size.

As I walked down the street in the afternoon sun, I wondered where the aroma of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation of finding the noisy outdoor bistro on the corner.

As I walked down the street (space) in the afternoon (time) sun, I wondered (unknown) where the aroma(smell) of coffee was coming from. I grabbed the pole (touch) to catch my balance, as my mouth watered in anticipation (taste) of finding the noisy (sound)outdoor bistro on the corner. (sight)

Notice how those two sentences, a small paragraph, used all eight senses? In our f2k lesson we ask for you to write a paragraph (READ my words, a PARAGRAPH) using the eight senses. Would you believe, it could take four and five paragraphs to use eight senses?
Keep in mind, many in the class are novice writers, but seriously?

Over six hundred people signed up for this free course, and many quit after the first lesson because they found that either, there are too many restrictions (thanks, we don’t allow porn), there are too many guidelines, (yes, when we say 500 words, we don’t mean 648)and this is my favorite, “I am a stiff shirt.” *loud laughter here*

I like kidding around with the rest of them, but really, this is a business I take quite seriously and in all of my eight senses, it tells me that this “stiff shirt” is going places, while the rest of the people continue to try and balance a ball on their nose and ride a tricycle at the same time.

E.S.P of Writing

Hebews 5:14 says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
***

Are we being asked to exercise our senses? Darned tootin! For when our senses diminish, like the morning mist, we will also.

When we walk through the pages of life it is our senses that bring us from one place to the other. Without the senses, life would be an empty abyss shaped as a bowl full of nothing. A senseless bowl that sits there with nothing in it. Even if it was full of mashed potatoes and gravy smothered on top, if you didn’t have your senses, it would just be a bowl.

How would you know it was a bowl if you didn’t touch it to feel the shape? How would you know the bowl held mashed potatoes with gravy, nudging its way in a steamy mist toward you, without the aroma carrying the fragrance to your nostrils? 

Even without sight, you can tell that it is mashed potatoes. The texture, the taste, the scented aroma, even the sound of the plopping into the bowl would give you an idea that you are about to dive into a delicious something. Molecules of cooked potatoes are leaping at your nose!

You see what I’m getting at? Our senses will spell out a world of imagination and vibrant life. When one sense is lost, the others stand at attention waiting for direction, but really they need no direction because they are there just quietly activating without you even knowing it.

This is what we need to do when writing. We need to allow our senses to guide us through the words and world of imagery. Don’t think about what you’re going to write, allow your senses to lead the way into a tale of glory.

Your writing with the senses is a lot like faith. You either trust in it fully or you have doubts in your thoughts. There is no room for doubts where faith is concerned. Faith is diving off a bridge, arms flung wide open, and out of nowhere you are caught by a feather that places you in the water. A boat might come by to save you but faith is trusting that a boat will come by. Some might die, but faith will keep you alive.

You have senses to carry you through life. Taste, touch, sight, smell, sound, and in our f2k, we liberally added: the unknown, space and time. These are the senses that you will write with. These are the senses that will propel your writing to new heights.Be sure you have faith in your writing as the senses haul you from one place to the other and your reader will thank you for taking the extra time to touch them in ways no other has ever reached.

Come alive with your senses, they’re there for a reason, so use them to the very best of your writing ability. Our writing is a sixth sense of sorts. We need more than five senses if we’re going to carry our story to the heights that we see envision.

Write Right...

Build-a-Character

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. ~Oscar Wilde
***

Okay, we’re off to a great start at f2k. The students have all met one another, they have been rolling through the halls like snowplows on a blizzardy day. They’ve sat at the cafe, posted some work, talked a little about themselves and just basically did everything the orientation week calls for and that is “Get to know your peers.”

We have a lively bunch too, with a sense of humor, intelligence that would make Gates sit in awe, friendliness that Mother Teresa would be proud of, and then there is the camaraderie. It can  possibly be found nowhere else on the web except through writers.

We have a tendency to be accepting and friendly and it rubs off on even the most scared of the bunch, that would be the newbs. Newbies means new folk to the forum for those of you, not in the know.

We’re learning already about each others likes and dislikes, style and originality, we’re getting to know one person at a time and this is always a highlight of my year when I can share with others a part of myself, while growing and learning at the same time. 

Which reminds me this week we learn about our characters. Nice segue by the way, right? From living breathing characters to our fictional characters?  Yeah, that’s what we’re doing this week. We’re getting to know our characters intimately. I mean all the way down to a well produced pimple! If a character has one, write about it, we need to know our characters right down to the hairs spurting out on their heads.

Building a character is as much fun as the ‘Build-a-bear’ workshop. But as adults, we get more out of it than the eager child. We are like the eager child as we build our characters to form a part of a story that we writer’s are writing. It builds and builds until we have a an outline, a story, then either a novel or a short story.

This is the week our characters sit at the keyboard and talk about US! Kinda like Stephen Kings The Dark Half. We’re letting our characters have full reign of the keyboard for a change!

A lot of folks will pay no mind to the rules and guidelines, their characters will stay on the paper while they themselves talk about their characters. Gee, there’s a spin, do what you want! lol I’ll learn a whole lot about everyone’s characters and their character as a person as a matter of fact.

Don’t post your links, and they post them, don’t be in a hurry, and they rush and post the lesson, editing twenty times before weeks end. Yup...its a dog eat dog kinda world. We just gotta live with it. Now...
 
Go be an eager beaver today and start building a Character!

Write Right friends!

Flutter of Keys

Can you hear it? The sound of keys tapping crazily, people writing, posting, scrambling, (no pushing and shoving) all trying to get into the Free Writing course that I’ve decided to mentor once again this session. I had put it off last session to take a break from the insanity, but with it now in full swing since last Tuesday, I realized, the insanity has begun again.

I only say insanity, because have you ever seen over 500 writers all trying to get into one hallway, looking around for rooms, names and lessons all that will carry them on the journey of writing that they’ve decided to embark on?

They’ll come in, demanding to be given a lesson, tired of looking around at all the links, they’ll want to begin like yesterday on this writing journey. Some will not like the fact that they need to adhere to rules, post links of their websites and be out the door. We have over six hundred registered and I’m always amazed how so many people begin the journey but few stay the course to see the journey through.

As volunteer mentors, we take quite a battering. As students get frustrated, sling harsh brutal words at you, slit your throat while you’re off helping someone else, these people need to realize that we are humans behind the screen, who have taken many hours out of our lives to guide you, the new writer on a path that just may lead you to the published world.

Even if you don’t get published; as one person has asked us NOT to  publish his/her writing in our EZine. Can you imagine that? Someone hails your work as good enough to be publishable and because you’re not getting MONEY, you say you will decline having your work published? And I’m telling you, they put up a good argument as to why they DON’T want their work published. I just hope that seven years down the line as they are still struggling to get something published, has forced them into giving up writing entirely, that they remember that the one score on their resume where it says PUBLISHED, is missing.

You still are being taught the basics in writing. Some really good lessons on Dialogue, Characterization, and  quite a few other tricks of the trade. All of which you will carry with you on the leg of your writing journey, where you feel as if you’re in the least, a competent writer.

As you sail off on this writing journey, respect the ones who are there giving of their time to see you through this leg of your writing career. We’re here to assist, it is your job to learn, not butt heads with one another because guess what, every market that you submit to, will have guidelines and rules.

Enjoy the path that you’ve chosen. You’ve chosen wisely. Stay the course my new friends.

Dialogue ~ To say or Not to say

Numbers 16:31 And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:

***

“Excuse me, can you help me?”

No! I’m busy.

“But I need your help in understanding something.”

Okay, but make it quick, I have a lot of work to do here.

“What is dialog? And why can’t I use tags?”

Well, missy, you need to listen up. Dialog is a conversation between two people in a story. Like what we’re doing?

“Are we in a story?”

No, but your on my blog and I’m talking to you!

“Oh.”

Did you see that play on words up there? This weeks lesson at f2k is dialog. The word dialog can be spelled with the UE or without, just for those of you grammar checkers out there. I’ve looked  up the word and either spelling is acceptable.

Anyway, our lesson is for dialog with no tags. Tags are the cozy words at the end of who is speaking.

“Excuse me, can you help me?” she says in a timid way.

“No! I’m busy.” The lady behind the counter grumbles.

Practicing not using tags, really helps you see into the window of the characters. We have no backdrop, no setting up of the scene, we have words. Words that need to be read by the reader, and they need to follow who is speaking. If you can’t do a 500 word piece of dialog with no tags, then you need to strengthen the personality of your characters.

Something always stands out with your character, whether it is a strong accent, a southern belle type character, a farmer Bob type guy. In practicing no tags, we’re fleshing out our character and giving them personality and making them come alive.

Yes, in books we use tags. Novels are written with the dialog using tags, but take a look at those novels, any one of them. The dialog does not have a tag EVERY SINGLE sentence of a conversation. It doesn’t because once you’ve established who is speaking, you can really carry a conversation along a few pages with a tag here and there.

This is a tough lesson also. I never said that F2k was this easy, fly by night course on easy writing. No, it teaches important skills that are going to carry you through your writing and hopefully have you writing better with just one course. Maybe through all my blog posts on the matter of the free course, you can tell if it is something that you’d like to try when we offer it again in April.

Even if your not a writer, maybe this course will give you something to try for. Believe me, it will help when you’re jotting down a blog too. You’ll soon see that this course will have you using these skills without you realizing that you’ve drank from the knowledge pool and are now serving it to others.

F2K Begins

Quantity produces quality. If you only write a few things, you're doomed. ~Ray Bradbury
***

The exodus has begun. People flocking to the Social Scene, f2kers all lined up outside waiting for the classrooms to open so they can make their way in to begin the writing journey of a life time.

F2K is the free writing course that I’ve mentioned over and over throughout the years. Monday was the last day to register, so if you’ve missed registration, I’ll have to see you next time around. And since the course happens four times a year, the likelihood that I’ll get to read you and your writing is pretty good.

F2k Stands for Fiction 2000. It is a free course offered by R.J. Hembree and is a child of Writer’s Village University. Some are afraid to sign up because they think there is a hidden fee? There is no hidden fee. Free means just that, FREE! I had quite a few people from here (my blog), and Face book friends take the course, and they loved it.

Can you imagine a writing course making a writer out of you? I’ve seen people who have never written a thing in their life take the course, and come back time and time again because of what they learned the first time around. They were never writers before but they loved the course so much, that they came back to learn and seek out that writer hiding within.

The lessons never change so if you take it once, you’ll get to see the same lessons the second time around, but they are so flexible, you can have numerous characters and plenty of story options to work with, with each session. Don’t be afraid of opening a vein to a new character, or peeling back layers of yourself and finding that you’ve always wanted to be a writer. And most of all, never tremble at the sight of writers who’ve been here before you, plunging into the course right along with you.

Sometimes it can seem intimidating working with long time writers, but soon you find out, that we are learning and growing with you. We don’t know everything and there is always a portal of knowledge that we need to climb through to make us better writers.

You can join the F2K Social scene, free, but you won’t have access to the classrooms if you didn’t register. But you can hang out and learn, what with all the discussions on the board, blog entries, fun and camaraderie, you’ll be glad you did.

Newcomers

"And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men;
knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance; for ye
serve the Lord Christ." Colossians 3:23-24
***

I have to admit, watching new writers makes me smile. They are just like I was about eight or nine years ago when I began to take this journey seriously; alive with creativity bubbling over their cup. Oozing with frothiness, layers of imagination whipped up for the course.

Some newcomers I sit in awe of as they have a natural ability to putting pen to paper and creating a dashing piece of art, not just words in a novel. The most fun part of being a new writer is learning. Learning new words, new techniques, grabbing ideas, tapping at the keyboard into the wee hours of the night, and being one with a new character. But the most fulfilling, is completion, I have to say.

Although when you complete your novel, you’re sitting there scratching your head wondering what to do next. We can’t go back and do revisions, it is too fresh in our minds, we won’t see anything wrong at least until a week later. So what is a writer to do?

Start a new story, new style, learn new words, different techniques. There’s a world of knowledge to be gleaned from the writing pool. As I sit in the stages of revising my nearly sixty thousand word novel, which will more than likely be more after revision, I think of where all this writing began.

Like many before me, writing was and is a part of  every day living, always has been and always will be. It began at a young age when I first held a pencil, albeit a fat one, in my tiny hand and began doodling. Ahh, fresh untouched paper, like a newly fallen snow with not one footprint, a firm wooden pencil clutched in my hand like the baby-blankie I gripped in the other hand; scribbling thoughts that surfaced, images, words, the love of pencil and paper began. Those were the good old days.

As I grew, the words took on new meaning, they shaped either a poem or a story and all throughout school, before I ever typed on a computer and had the luxury of internet access, I was born to write. I didn’t stumble upon the written word and think, “Hey, this is cool.” No, I read, read and read some more. Wrote, wrote and continued studying the craft of writing, all throughout my childhood and early adult years.

After my hand developed callus's from writing, my hands ached from the old style typewriter, then out of nowhere a computer fell into my lap and changed my world forever. That was almost nine years ago, and I still persist in writing, whether pen or keyboard, I still write.

The best advice I can give newcomers to the field, is persist. Don’t write for a year or two and give up, that does not make you a writer, nor just because you pen words on occasion, does it make you a writer. A writer exemplifies, PERSISTENCE! We’re a tough breed and I’ve learned that the writing community is more than a community of artists, it is a home away from home.

Welcome to the writing world F2k alumni! You completed lesson six, in the shroud of NANO, and now move on, to PERSISTENCE!

F2K ~ FREE Writing Course

Writer’s Village University is offering once again the seven week, awe inspiring FREE writing course! Yes it is free! We have eight mentor’s on hand to assist you through the seven weeks. You can pay $25 for one-on-one mentor assistance if you want, but hundreds possibly thousands have sailed through this course without the one-on-one assistance.

There you will learn the basics of writing. Some people join to see if writing is for them. They’ve dabbled in writing all of their lives and just need something to jump start the writing bug once again. Some join to refresh their knowledge and to get their muses pumped in a way that no other course can offer.

We begin with orientation week where we all introduce ourselves and get acquainted with the boards. We click links, roam the halls, peek in on other rooms and get to know the folks you’ll be spending time with over the seven week period.

This isn’t the place to self-promote! We don’t allow the boards to become clogged with people posting their websites. We do have a profile page where we can list our website, our accomplishments and a word or two about you.

We start with character, move on to the senses, we’ll dapple in POV, then we plow ahead with plot/theme, then a finale short story!

We also have some new things for the writer this session. Every week, when you post your lesson before midnight Friday, your work will be read by a mentor and offered up for possible publication in the F2K Ezine! Mentors do not choose who or what work gets accepted, all rooms get an offering and the students will vote! So be sure to make friends and read others work!

Also we offer a Certificate of Completion! Upon completion and active participation, you will be able to download a Certificate for you to print out and frame and hang on your wall, this added bonus will encourage YOU, my writing friend, to keep on writing! You’ll see that yes, as a writer, YOU can accomplish great things.

Use the link if you’d like to join. Many who have visited my blog have joined and loved what they got out of the FREE course, so maybe this is the step you need too?

We begin October 6th. You’ll get an email with your password, so KEEP that in a safe place because you WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ENTER UNTIL OCT. 6TH!!!!

One lady who signed up was so mad she was ready to ‘join another course’ because it offered her more. The class doesn’t even begin until Oct. 6, so how would she know what this course offered? She was just upset because she couldn’t GET IN. There is nothing there. Nothing to miss. Nothing to make you mad!

Writer’s need patience! This woman obviously has a fuse as short as *KABOOM* upon the touching of a match to the fuse! ;)

Join us on OCTOBER 6TH, and judge for yourself what all the hoopla is about!

Hope to see you there!!!

F2K ~ FREE Writing Course

New and Improved F2K!

The art of writing is not a skill you just stumble upon. It takes awhile to master all the things that go into writing and sometimes we need a course to help move us into the next level of our journey.

Writer’s Village University offers a seven week FREE Writing Course, to refresh your muse, if you’re already a writer, or to dapple in the craft if you think it might be something you’re interested in; either way it is FREE and you have nothing to lose.

This session was the most exciting in all of my years mentoring. We have 8 classrooms, 8 volunteer mentors, and over 200 hundred students divided into those rooms. Now that may sound like a lot of people and a little intimidating, but believe me, after the first week, the students have either lost interest, life intervened, or find that this is just not for them. But this session, it was as if all the students stayed around to finish the course.

Our first week, the Master Administrator, Bob Hembree, switched the format of the board on us. The mentors were learning the boards as well as the students, but we adapt quickly. Why the switch? The old format was dated and Bob wanted to move us into the 21st century. Apparently these things take time to build and it wasn’t ready until we had all started in f2k. It went smoothly, like butter on bread.

New doorways were opened; we had a Social Scene, in a facebook like setting, where students came and introduced themselves, made friends, and uploaded avatars. Groups were formed, discussions were broached, music and photos were shared and we rode into the sunset of newness with a finesse that rattled the world of writing. The classrooms remain private and professional!

A bonus this session was that of a certificate of completion! If you posted your six lessons, gave ample feedback in these seven weeks, then you were rewarded with a Certificate of Completion. You could not just post the lessons and get a certificate. We are a peer to peer feedback course and if you don’t participate in giving feedback then you have not completed the requirements of the course.

We also produce people seeking publication and one woman had her lesson six accepted by an online magazine. Although we require your lesson six to be something NEW that you write FOR THIS COURSE, she had obviously written and submitted the story weeks prior to this course. Everyone was like, “I helped critique that!” But lo and behold, it had already been in the hands of the publisher before your crit.

That’s okay. We take pride in seeing one of our own publish ANY work! :) Congrats Kriti Bajaj on her work The Dream Catcher!  
 

We will have new doors opening again this session come October 6th. Possible publication in our new f2kzine? Bait bait bait... lol I don’t need to bait anyone, this course stands alone on its strength in producing writer’s. It sure doesn’t need me bragging about the course. 

Hope to see you then!

Important: Lessons and Classrooms will not be visible until course start date.

Another one bites the dust

Job 16:3 Shall vain words have an end? or what emboldeneth thee that thou answerest?
***

Well it has officially come to an end. Next Wednesday the boards will be swept clean like old cobwebs moved out of the attic. F2K ends another successful session, and October is when the next class will be available to anyone interested.

I’ll post more as we near the date, like the registration link to WVU’s (Writers Village University) F2K! It’s a free writing course and a successful FREE writing course for 15 years now and still going strong.

This session was a positive experience in that, at the close of the doors, we still had  well over fifty people active in their sixth lesson. Normally as we near the sixth week, the classrooms dwindle down to maybe four or five a room, and some rooms are left empty with one student and that student walks the halls looking for a person to critique his/her work.

Not this time, oh no. We’ve had a surge of students and they liked the new format so much, they stayed on so they didn’t miss anything exciting that was happening. Besides the drama of a bad apple who wanted to spoil everyone’s learning, we soared to new heights this session and I’m happy to report the bad apple went foul and was never seen/heard from again. So that’s why he waited until lesson six! Poor little man, had nothing better to do with his life so he attacked me. I pray for him and hope it made him feel like the BIG man on campus. (as little as he appeared)

I hold onto things in a big way. I’m always telling my son to ‘let things go’ and Steven is always telling me ‘just let it go’, but I have a tendency to hold onto things like gum on a shoe. It just sticks with me.

Words from my son:
Adam says, “I’m scarred, inside.”
Mom replies, “It’ll get better, you’ll heal.”
“No mom, scars don’t heal. They stay there, see?” he says pointing to a big scar on his leg. “They never go away, you just have to live with it.”

So this is why I hold onto things that have hurt me in the past? I’m scarred and the scar is never going away, I just have to deal with it? Hmm.. gives me something to think about.

But on a happier note, F2k and the new format (graciously bows to Bob Hembree), with all its groups, discussions along with the fun ability to post pictures, and the NEW certificate of completion, is a triumphant success.

“Writer’s write right, and leaders lead... creators create and artist succeed!” ~joni

Revamp Tuesday

Ecc. 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
***

Today I’m a busy gal. I’m revamping my tips for my class at f2k. F2K is a seven week, free writing course. Yes FREE! It starts tomorrow and I think there might still be time to sign up.

People have been knocking on the door for weeks. It’s almost funny to see the words “you will not be able to enter until July seventh,” then see so many people TRYING to enter before the seventh. I know they can read, they’re just eager and understandably so.

I’ve also got to go food shopping, go to the library, then come back here and hopefully work on my f2k lesson revamping again. I also want to mention AudioBookHeaven and the fine book reviews over there. This day in my blog history used to be Talk-o Tuesday and I would go on and on about audio books and anything that makes the blind world more easy and accessible. Audio books and Audio movies are essential.

Since I’m slowing up my writing, I had to give that one last push to Audio Book Heaven. Now let me get on with my busy day, and I’ll keep you posted on how the free f2k course is progressing.

I have a purpose. And each and every one of you do too, it’s just a matter of finding it within yourselves. 

Whacky Wednesday

1 Thes.1:3 Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;
***

Hello my friends in the blog world!

Is everyone doing okay? Well that’s great. I haven’t heard from a few of you in a while and I’m wondering if you’re still out there lingering in the background, just waiting for me to post something of some use to you.

Well I have to announce the beginning of F2K’s free writing course! That begins next Wednesday and it might just be a lot of fun for everyone. Yes I plan on being a mentor, but when you sign up, you don’t get to choose whose room you’re in, but if you join, feel free to visit me and let me know you’ve arrived.

I’ll visit you all too. :) You know, to keep an eye on you? And remember, signing up does not grant you access immediately. You have to wait like the rest of us for the seventh to arrive, to gain access. Sometimes folk think that by signing up that they’ll gain access to WVU and all it’s 250 courses. Sorry, but they are separate sites.

I’m feeling a little on the off kilter side today. Don’t know what has got a hold of me, but I’m sure it will pass, as all the other off kilter days. Been doing a lot of thinking about my future, where it is heading and where I want to go. Maybe that’s what has me down, I have no direction. I feel like I’m wandering aimlessly out in this world.

Oh well... I’ve had worse happen to me to knock me off my high horse. Maybe I need to go visit the horses up the road, and have a little talk with them. They always seem to understand. It is always a serene moment when even passing the horses. They nod their heads in recognition of me, a stranger passing by, and sometimes they come to the fence, you know, just to chat and whinny in my face. Beautiful creatures they are.

Now the cows aren’t as chatty, they like to graze and be left alone. They huddle together like ju-ju bees on a hot summer day. Sometimes they crowd around the trough, drinking water then go back to grazing. Yes, I find cows amazing. Gee, I’m a city gal placed out here in cow country and all the fields of glory before me, and what? Am I not supposed to sit in awe of the beauty?

I think I’ll drink from the trough of life and see what else the farmers place out here for me, to make me feel a little better.

As for you, you need to keep writing, keep the chin up and remember that God loves you, even on days you don’t feel very loved.

F2K ~ FREE Writing Course

Can you believe it, another (that makes two this year) F2K is winding down and a new one will begin. The new one begins on July 7th, 2010, so register now as the halls fill up.

Wait. What is f2k you ask? I thought you’d never ask.

F2k is a free (yes I said FREE) writing course offered by R.J. Hembree and Writers Village University. In this shrinking economy, pockets are emptying at a rapid pace and rarely do we get something for nothing. I’m here to assure you, that f2k is free, totally free.

No text books needed, but we suggest you order the Magic and the Mundane by P. June Diehl, but it is not a requirement and many students have completed the course without ever looking at a textbook.

The classrooms are made up of Mentors, who volunteer from WVU, and students, that would be you. It is a peer to peer feedback system which has been a tried and true method of success and this is the very reason that it remains free.

We have writers from all stages in their writing. Some are published hoping to hone in on a few skills to help them further their revisions. Some are beginners who want to learn the secret of writing a story. Then there are the hobbyist who love writing and join to refresh their memories of why they love writing in the first place.

The course is seven weeks long and many bail out due to extenuating circumstances, life is happening to them, or they just lose interest because they realize that writing is work!

The first week is Introduction week, where everyone meets everyone else. You have a week to get familiar with the site, roam the halls, and read ALL the guidelines. Then the following six weeks is work! Writing, sharing, giving and getting feedback.

The next six weeks are laid out as such: Character introduction, Activating the senses, POV, Conflict, and Characterization.

There is no hurry for you to get a lesson done. If you miss one, you post it anyway and hopefully your new friends will read and critique it for you. You have an entire week to post an assignment, give feedback to others and move all writers in the right direction.

A lot of people feel they have nothing to offer another writer, but believe me, even an, “I think this sentence is awkward,” is a step in the right direction of helping your fellow writers.

Now allow me to tell you this. This course is NOT set up for you to boast and brag about your website. In fact it is highly frowned upon and many have been let out of their commitment and removed for trying to self-promote their site. I hear/read people say, “But I just wanted to show the people what I’ve been writing.” Well good for you, tell them in your intro that you’ve written before, don’t promote your website to get a message across.

If you’re serious about learning. If you want to move forward with new skills. If you truly love writing and are looking for a totally free writing course, then f2k is the one for you.

p.s.
DO NOT TRY TO GAIN ENTRY UNTIL JULY 7!!!!!

Characterization

Ps 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. (NIV)
***

Wow, we’re on the fifth lesson at F2K (the free writing course at WVU.) These seven weeks go by so fast, we’re almost ready to start a new one. That’s a good thing because we get more and more people learning the craft of writing, whether for a living or for a hobby, writing and learning is what life is all about. Okay, not really but that’s what it seems like to me. :)

This week we’re hopping into Characterization and this is where we learn our characters minds. We dig deep within, pull out our best, and place it on the boards. Through dialog with someone, say a job interview, or doctor, or whoever you choose to interview your character, you will ask questions that will bring up emotions in your character, have it all bubble at the surface, and you will spray your reader with insight.

Now some people have many characters in their story, of course, and this is a good exercise to practice on all your characters. Take John and feed him to the psych ward, or maybe Jane, is trying out for the police Academy, or maybe, a mother is scolding her child and is questioning where the said child has been.

Through this dialog phase, our characters will take on new meaning for us. We’ll see them as living entity’s. These characters will then haunt our every step in our day until we write and get everything down on paper and we can see where they have come from and where they are going.

Sometimes, the interviewee becomes more a part of the story because he/she is more interesting. That is okay if this happens, we just just squeeze them in there but always remember the main character is going to need depth. With depth, you character will add living color to your palette of words.

While you’re molding and shaping your character, many different elements will surface and you’ll find yourself on a treadmill of writing. Words will come faster and faster, paragraphs will leap off the page and in the end you’ll have a story with a rainbow of colorful people on your page.

Through this lesson, you will surely have lightning flashing all over the place as you give your characters the sizzle that they need. What better way to get a story constructed than to have in depth, unique characters bouncing off your page?

The choice is yours. Cardboard cutouts of what other authors have already done, or a magical reprieve into the land of mystical destiny? I choose Mystical Destiny any old time. :)

Writer's on the run...

Ps. 45: 1 My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.

***

Look at them go. We’re off to a running start at f2k and the writers are eager as ever, some are running the halls, posting work in the cafe, commenting in other rooms; they’re just running rampant through the halls.

Lesson two was a tough one, had a lot of people confused and bewildered with the use of the senses, but from what I read, they seemed to nail the lesson and within word count, give or take a few from other countries who don’t quite understand our American terminology for things.

Yes we have wannabe writers from across the globe! Singapore, Australia, UK, Argentina, Finland, you name it and the writers are there. I think that is what I love most about the f2k course, I get to meet, or read, people from around the world! I feel like I travel there without leaving my home by hearing them tell their tales and talk about the cuisine, or culture.

A lot of times as the weeks progress, these writer’s lose interest because they realize something, writing is hard. They thought that just because they wrote a story in grade school they were destined to be a writer. Some are trying out to see if maybe this is what has been calling them all along. Doctors, lawyers, you’d be surprised who is taking the leap from their job and trying their hand at writing.

Along the way in our six-seven week program however, they realize that writing is work. Our next lesson being point of view, what we writers call POV, will be even more challenging as the lesson before. Some will grasp it, some will shrug and learn it, some will run like wind, in the other direction, back to their day jobs.

No one alluded to the fact that writing was this easy peasy chunky cheesy kind of work, I’ve always stated that it is hard work, not something you can just ‘do’. It takes time and learning new skills will at least send you in the right direction.

When someone says, “What is a paragraph?” I tend to wonder how they ever thought that becoming a writer meant writing words or a story without knowing the simple basic element of a paragraph. It is simple to me because I’m an American, educated in grammar where some countries have more important things to teach about, and English grammar is not one of them.

I want to see all the writers succeed and helping them get there I feel is my civic duty. Okay, so it’s not my civic duty, it is my duty as a writer, to help other writers along the way become all that they can be, even if it means to teach them what a paragraph is and the purpose in a paragraph.

Write right writer’s. Have fun and enjoy the view. Writing is hard work, but work that is well worth the journey taken. 

F2K Begins

Jer. 4: 19 My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war;
***

The doors have been opened, the students unleashed onto the halls where they will run and scurry about looking for their homeroom. We’ll aim them in the right direction, but within weeks they’ll want to change rooms, which isn’t allowed.

The people will learn some simple basics in writing, then they’ll carry this course with them in all of their writing and maybe even come back again just for more fun.

This is my favorite part of the year. I get to guide and teach people new things, inspire them to do their best, and make friendships along the way. Sometimes my life gets stirred into an upheaval where I need this f2k to keep me right here on the ground where I belong.

I’m referring to my daily routine and the people who come into my life for God knows what reason, they use, abuse, slaughter and beat me down until I no longer recognize the real me. Oh, not in the physical sense, mind you, in the psychological sense where they feel empowered and I’m left standing in the rain, with my hair stretched out along my face.

The one thing I do have, is the knowledge of being aware that the psychological warfare is happening. Maybe these folk think they have the upper hand in their deceptive ploys, but I’m aware, lucid, knowledgeable and I go on my days as if nothing different has happened to change my life or way of thinking. Hey, if they can fake it, so can I.

F2K will bring some kind of presence into my life, just like WVU does. It will carry me away to the land of imagination, fun and fancy free. I’ll toss off the walls I’ve built up, let my hair down, run through the fields barefoot and let loose on my writing. This is what keeps me sane in an insane society.

Don’t get me wrong here people. What I’m trying to say is that writing is a portal for me, a place of escape where the mundane becomes a playing field. Battles are fought and I can win. It makes me feel good that the Lord gave me the gift of writing to unleash my insanity and release it to the unknowing world.

If you see me saying WOOHOO, know there is a pained smile behind it. If I make you laugh, know that laughter is cold in my heart. If I inspire you and make you feel good, know when I look in the mirror, my reflection is gone. When I ramble on and on about who knows what,  please know...I’m writing on the white board of  my mind.

Always the first in line and the last to know.

Psalm 73:16 When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me;

A New Day

Deut. 26: 16 This day the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.

***

I’d like to thank all my friends and followers for putting up with me last week. Many may have stayed away because Joni went off topic, but it is okay. I only get like that about twice a year, Easter and Christmas, so you’re safe to come back and read about writing now. :)

Now if I have a major upheaval in my life, for certain I will blog about it because writing is my life, whether I, or anyone else for that matter, likes it or not. You’re definitely stuck with me and my ramblings. ha ha

Today I’m going to tell you about WVU, and in my terms, that’s Writers Village University, not West Virginia University. With all this talk about basketball I’ll be glad when football begins. Until then, I’m writing!

WVU is the best place on the net for writing courses. Bob Hembree has come up with some really tough courses that you pay for individually but WVU in and of itself offers over 200 courses for a one year membership fee. I think $99 for a life altering experience is well worth its weight in gold. The site won’t let you down.

Then we have F2K, the 7 week FREE writing course, that begins on April seventh. Oh dear, that's this Wednesday! We’ve had registration for a month now, and maybe it’s not too late for you to sign up. But please note, that when you do, you can not enter until the seventh. I don’t know why people have been trying to get in there for well over a month, they think the sign up, they get access to WVU, which they don’t.

F2K is a FREE course, WVU is a paid for site. Maybe Bob needs to change some of the offerings to show that more clearly in the sign up because people are complaining like there is no tomorrow! They want access to WVU now!

Hold on people! F2k is FREE, WVU is not. Bob and his assistants handle the demanding folks in an extremely cordial manner when they say, “You gain access on the 7th”, but these people are ruthless in their pursuit of writing.

“You said free! Why is it asking me to pay?”

Because clearly WVU is a paid for site, F2K is the FREE writing course offered. I see many come in from different countries, so maybe there is a language barrier somewhere, but even the English speaking folks, want in now. Patience my precious, patience.

We’ll begin with a week long orientation to get you familiar with the site, but will these people have the patience and perseverance to stay for seven weeks? We’ll see. It is always a fun experience. A learning experience for me and for them, the wannabe writers, or  the ones getting a refresher in the craft. 

Enjoy F2K for all it is worth. You’ll walk away a changed person, in your writing and in life for the new friends that enter your life.