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!!!

The Right to Write

“A strong positive attitude will create more miracles than any wonder drug.” 

~ Patricia Neal

I, like anyone else has every right to write. Although at times I don’t feel like writing, like this week with the two ten hour trips to Omaha. Yeah, there is an eye infection in the cornea transplant that needs close attention and as my days are consumed with spring, cleaning and driving, there is very little time to write.

As writer’s we must always find the time to sit down and spill out onto the page words that either make sense or words that make no sense at all, as long as you keep the pace with tapping the keys. I’ve been awake since 3:30 this morning and have struggled with staying awake, wanting to sleep,  but writing anything was just a big turn-off.

I sit here now typing, but my eyes are heavy as if I have window shades on them and a little gremlin hanging on the cord and keeps toying with the idea of UP and down. I say that because they’re not really blinks my eyes are doing, they are heavy laden shade pulls.

In the past few weeks, there have been a few who think that I have no right to write, and in their crippled world try to bring me to their level. They wake each and every day and anxiously run to the writing site just to click the SMITE button, as if to make me feel less? I don’t know what their point of spreading negativity is, I could really care less, because for every one I get knocked down, five more come in and raise me to heights they only dream of obtaining. I’m sorry that they have no life, but *I* do!! I’m sorry their life has been relinquished to the lower echelons of existence.

It is pretty sad when a person is so weak and lifeless, that they have nothing in life and are left to to feeling whole by bringing someone down? I pray for them as they walk (or don’t walk) in the shadows of darkness while I’m here surrounded by the joyous light of every day! Each and every second of my life is built on how to make it count in a positive fashion.

If you’re a writer, you normally stand by and support your fellow writer. That’s at least what I’ve learned over the years, but here lately, there are wanna-be writers that don’t really comprehend the etiquette and respect of a writer and truly don’t even belong IN the writing world. It’s writers like that, that have no right to write because I’m certain all that they spew will be of a negative nature and all that they try to lift up for themselves will be slaughtered and taken down.

Allow me to say, in my darkest of days, I walk in the LIGHT. When I am trampled down, I bounce right back up like one of those little punching bags that you try to knock to the floor but it keeps standing erect no matter how many or how hard the blows are.

I have a right to write as much as you. So allow me some peace in the JOY of my life. We’re writers, and as such we ALL have a right to write. Sometimes it’s a God-given talent, other times it’s a try-to-hard-to-people-please.

Write right and carry with you the power of positive thinking! Then and only then will something positive waltz into your life.

"Your attitude can take you forward or your attitude can take you down. The choice is always yours!" 

~ Catherine Pulsifer

POV~ Point of View ~ Take II

The act of writing is an act of optimism. You would not take the trouble to do it if you felt it didn't matter.
Edward Albee

*** 

We’ll try this form of POV. It is the writer’s tool that is going to make or break your story.

The point of view in a story is the narrator’s voice that is telling the story. It is whose eyes the reader will be seeing through. Like Alice looking through the looking glass? Mad Hatter couldn’t tell you what Alice saw now could he?

In first person POV we will see through Jane’s eyes. What Jane sees, smells, hears, and especially what Jane thinks. (I think of Shirley Jackson’s novel The Haunting of Hill house.) This is an excellent portrayal of first person POV. But with first person POV, you have limited yourself to only Jane's thoughts. The other character’s being introduced to the story will only be a mirror of what JANE portrays them to be. Again read the above novel by Shirley Jackson and you’ll get the idea of how paranoid her main character sounds.

Now trouble arrives when you try saying that John heard a noise that sounded like glass shattering. You have now shifted POV’s and this can be a dangerous line to cross when making it clear to the reader that this is Jane’s story and not John’s.

When you’re a beginning writer it is fundamentally important to learn the craft of POV.

  

Third person POV is the point of view that most authors use. It is much like the first person, except you’ll use he saw the road crack before them instead of I saw the road crack. It is essentially using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’.

Now the tricky third person pov is the ever-elusive third person omniscient. Though omniscient is on occasion used in the beginning of the story, the writer switches to third person to get a tight grip on the main characters view.

The pov is tricky in writing so if you plan on mastering the craft of writing this would be a helpful tool to practice, read others work, and implement into your own writing. By reading what others have written before you, you’ll get the idea of POV and you’ll also recognize WHEN the shifts occur and how to masterfully shift pov yourself.

The exercise I like to practice with most? Say we have a prompt of 500 words (excellent exercises from Pumping Your Muse.) Write the exercise in first person. Try the same story only switch to third person. Write it again in third person omniscient. 

(I NEVER tackle 2^nd person and that is why I won’t touch the subject!)

Show your writing group your different pov’s of your stories. You ARE in a workshop right? After all my blogging about how important it is to surround yourself with other writers? SHAME ON YOU!

Your writing group will be able to help you see the difference, feel the difference and master the different ways to serve the POV to your reader. There isn’t enough room in a 500-word-blog to give you ALL of the details of POV, but trust me on this one. This is one tricky part of the craft to master. But once you have it licked, your writing will shine like the morning sunrise!

You get what you pay for...

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.   

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Well I’ve just about seen it all. I’ll ask you a question. What would YOU, as a writer, expect from a FREE online writing course, that gives you 7 weeks of the basics in writing. Well I feel that some people join the free course to gain something from all the knowledgeable people there, but there is one problem. The majority of students are just that, student beginners who came to learn a few techniques to see if writing is for them.

Some people come expecting professional critique of their work. Or very high standard lessons where you might be able to nail this writing craft down, for free. Now you all know I am no longer a mentor with the course, but I have continued to be an assistant for Bob (the creator, owner, and administrator), sitting back and watching all the folks scramble from room to room, laugh and chat, make friends and enjoy the free-spirited, gung-ho atmosphere. But I scratch my head when someone comes in expecting more than what they paid for. Oh wait, they PAID nothing because it is a FREE course!

The lessons are basically character introduction, senses, point of view, dialogue, conflict and characterization, then a complete short story as your finale. It was bad enough when you have eager writers NOT wanting their work published. The site is pretty proud of the new writers and wants to highlight their lessons by publishing them in a smalltime ezine, but some students fought the powers that be on that one, not wanting to be highlighted. They’d rather turn their first lesson into a best seller and find a publisher who wants their lessons. ???

Then there are students who don’t want to dissect another authors writing, to see just where they might better themselves in their own writing skills.

Then there is the students who expect a professional critique, from a free online writing course for beginners. What I don’t understand is this. You join, its free, you gain knowledge of different writing techniques that you might not have known. You’re asked to READ, follow guidelines, use the tips that the mentors give, but you want more? Bullying is not what they sign up for, and if you’re not in the clique, bullying is what you get and soon, a great writer decides, writing isn’t for them.

In the long line of writing, you get what you paid for. You paid nothing and a you get nothing; you will only get out of the course what you, as a new writer, puts into the course. So why all the hullabaloo over whether you’re getting a professional critique, from beginning writers? I don’t get it. I’d be happy to get ANYone to read my work, good feedback, juicy tidbits and I’ll be on my way, thanks for your time.

Now the mother site has writers who can really kick some butt with all their knowledge. People from the beginning stages to the very advanced stages of writing. Not a baby site at all for the people of the playground mentality. To some it’s a serious, dig your heels in and write site, but...it is a paid for site.

One tip for you that covers many a ground: You get what you pay for! And while your at it, if the playground mentality isn’t for you, flee the site! All that was built up will come crashing down...eventually.