Justification

Ex. 23:7 Keep thee far from a false matter; and the innocent and righteous slay thou not: for I will not justify the wicked.

After reading yesterdays post, this one is going to be about justifying my actions. Just like when I drank and thought, ‘It’s okay, I don’t have a problem.’ I DID have a problem, one that needed nipping-in-the-bud. (pun intended here) After all, it made Bud wiser?

Well it made me wise enough to know that alcohol is poison that enters your system and your body fights to restore the normal flow, a defense mechanism, if you will, yes after one sip. No different than a bee sting, a mosquito bite, or snake bite. Your body goes right into fighting to get the poison out of your system. That is why after too many drinks, you throw up, your body knows poison when it enters its system.

Being of sober mind not only means, no alcohol; nowhere does it say, ‘one drink and you’re okay’, in my warped mind. Keep in mind, as a RECOVERED alcoholic, one drink is a fall, a fall I’m not willing to take because we live in a society where everything goes! Everything is justifiable!

I’ve come across a blog that shares what a sober mind is and it’s worth a read. Not about alcohol at all!

Home Living

This post isn’t about alcohol and its poison, it’s about justifying your actions. Yesterdays post about web addiction, and admitting it, was my first step of releasing the poison the web dishes out, and nipping the problem before it gets out of hand.

I DO mostly use the internet for writing and research but too often I find myself straying into social scenes like facebook, and giving too much playtime to my web interactions! Maybe you all are content with that, but I’m not. As I search within myself for a better day-to-day living, something needs to be trimmed so that I realize my full writing potential! I’m not bored with life; I’m in awe of it and think it needs some TLC! I don’t think I have enough friends to even care if I’m away awhile. So no, they WON’T miss me… Maybe two or three, but they’ll have others to cling to and stalk. I’m a mere afterthought; I guess that’s better than no thought at all right?

Social playtime has to be trimmed to posting my blog post, maybe a spirit-filled post, here and there, but just not a continuous flow of posts throughout the day. I think the twitterfeed is set, so that’s a good thing when posting my blog. The only tabs open will be my dictionary/thesaurus, RhymeZone, and MS Word, where I write!

I always seem to get in a reflective mode as the season changes. It’s like Fall is a call to put old baggage to rest; to prioritize; to let the leaves fall where they may, and pile them in a slush pile so winter can do the cleaning of my soul that is necessary.

We can all justify our actions as a means to feeling good about ourselves, but justification is just a warm blanket we carry around like Linus, it’s our safety net. We hide under the blanket masking our true identities. Something gets lost along the way, your vibrant soul! God is my only safety net and justifying my actions is in a sense a betrayal to His plan for my life.

In a world where tuning into the net is full of the news of the day; killing, fires, floods, tsunami’s, hurricanes, and then there’s the lovely political hate filled posts, it’s enough to make you shudder and want to retreat back to bed, there certainly is another way of facing the world’s tragedies and faults, and that is certainly not by justifying the pebbles you ripple across the lake. Those ripples affect EVERYTHING, so choose wisely.

I just want to write!

Commit to Writing

As we begin our writing journey, oftentimes we lose sight of our obligations and fall prey to the things that are important in our life. We find ourselves distracted and get carried away with everything else BUT writing. That is not a writer.

Writer’s need to learn commitment to the craft. So many times do I see writers, old and new, (admit it) lose interest in writing over and over again. Even I myself have lost interest a few times but when I commit to a course I see it through to the end, just to satisfy myself and no one else.

I recently signed up for a five-week course that I had wanted to take but fear of so many no-shows kept me away. This one showed promise as about six people all signed up for the course. Sure the first week people conversed, by the second week it had slowed and by the third week I was alone, losing interest myself from the inactivity.

Week four I went in and asked if everyone had bailed. I got a response a few days later. There you have it, I bailed on the course too. I see this all too often at the free seven-week writing course. People saying they have always wanted to write, can’t wait to get started, and soon afterwards, the site is left with a few determined hangers on.

So you want to be a writer, but you are not willing to commit to the craft? When you decide to become a writer, it is a relationship not much different from a committed relationship you’re in with a man/woman.

It takes dedication, commitment, sacrifice, and work, lots of hard work, if ever you expect the payoff in the end. This day and age people are so ready to just throw in the towel and give up. I think this generation has the highest divorce rate ever. Why? Because people think giving up is easier than hanging on and suffering a little to reap the rewards!

If you want to be a writer, fight for it! Commit to the craft, the lessons, the learning and the growth.

1. Walk the walk and talk the talk – When you say it out loud and to others that you want to be a writer, DO IT! Do everything in your power to BECOME a writer.
2. Stick it out – There will come times when you feel like bailing, but look at quitting as a non-option! There is no quitting. You either go full steam ahead or do nothing.
3. Commit – I know it is hard; I’ve been there! But commit to seeing it through.
4. Dedicate – Dedicate time out of your day to commit to the writing course you signed up for. If you’re going to be an absentee student, don’t sign up for the course.
5. Don’t give up – I know sickness happens but whatever you do, DON’T GIVE UP! People are depending on you, and YOU are counting on you to see this writing bug through!

This is the time to take the bull by the horns and stay in this relationship you’ve committed yourself to. This is not the time to give up and run away. This is the time to commit! Persistence pays off!

Now onto Editing...

"…your reader is at least as bright as you are." William Maxwell

We have written our work and are now ready to edit it. Editing is the stage of the writing process in which a writer or editor strives to improve a draft  (and sometimes prepare it for publication) by correcting errors and by making words and sentences clearer, more precise, and more effective.
 
The definition of editor is:
(1) An individual who oversees the preparation of text  in newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, and books; short stories, manuscripts, etc.
(2) An individual who assists an author in copyediting  a text.
 
Writers have internal editors that always sit checking, rethinking and wondering if what they just wrote sounds okay. They go back and keep fixing each sentence to make it the most perfect sentence but in the process they are losing time in their writing day. I already did the blog post about turning that internal editor off!
 
I remember telling my one friend, who asked me to look at her work, to eliminate the overuse of the word AND. Well she had an ‘editor’ friend who told her not to remove the ANDS. A matter of preference? Is one eye different than having four different eyes looking at your work? Yes, all four will say something remarkably different.
 
I remember one time, I wrote this story. I fixed and tweaked my heart out. I asked an editor friend to do a once over and see what she found. My biggest problems were with tense shift, so she fixed them, made the story look brilliant in my eyes, but when I posted it to the classroom, I got hit with all kids of opinions of you should change this or that, and this is wrong, try this, until I put the story in my filing closet, never to be seen again.
 
Not that I mind opinions, but I realized that too many opinions can be harmful to your writing instead of helping you along. All writers (most of them anyway) think they are editors because they got an A+ for twelve years of English class. A grammar pro does not make the perfect editor, nor does a writer make the perfect editor. An editor has to understand sentence structure as well as story line structure; they have to have in-depth knowledge of the writing craft. To me I want my editor educated in the field of writing for many many years before I place my work into her/his hand. Your editor is the next step in getting published.
 
What I want in an editor, and I’m sure editors look for it too, is a like minded individual. We can not expect an editor who has reviewed, written and enjoys the genre of evil, to appreciate a novel about spirituality and God. They will be very cynical and sometimes unable to give you a good edit. Same for a person of faith trying to edit a dark dark text. You might think you can cross the line and be very objective, but really you’re going to find that you’re more critical and putting in your opinion.
 
As you revise your work and make it shine, remember to think before you delete that imperfect word or rearrange the structure of the sentence. When you submit your work to an editor, make sure they are of a like mind because it is then that you won’t mind handing it over to them. And the editor I choose will be with the magazine, publisher of my choice. Right genre, write right!

"To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later." Brander Matthews

NaNo WriMo

Today starts the big NaNo WriMo.  Say that ten times why don’t ya. NaNo is the writers dream. It is where they hunker down and commit to writing 1670 words a day for thirty days (really it is 1666.6 but hey, I rounded it off for good reason). The point being that you will have a 45,000 word, rough draft of a novel and you as a writer can shout out a YEEHAAA!!!

NaNo is a no no for me. I don’t like to make plans and commit to something as big as a thirty day writing frenzy. I don’t like cliques and clubs, and I’m trying to free myself from some negative things right now, so nano would only bring me down and not UP. Just think, if I choose to write a novel, I can sit here and belt out 2000 words a day for two months and not feel one bit like a pressure cooker about to blow!

National Novel Writing Month is a well respected force of nature in the writing world. I’m just wondering if any well known artists will claim that their published novel was a product of NaNo? Come on Mr. King, you know you want to tell the world you’re a NaNo fan!

From wikipedia:

National Novel Writing Month - also known as NaNoWriMo is an annual internet-based creative writing  project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and November 30. Its sister event is a script-writing challenge taking place in April called Script Frenzy. The project started in July 1999 with just 21 participants, but by the 2010 event over 200,000 people took part - writing a total of over 2.8 billion words.

Writers wishing to participate first register on the project's website, where they can post profiles and information about their novels, including synopsis and excerpts. Word counts are validated on the site, with writers submitting a copy of their novel for automatic counting. Municipal leaders and regional forums help connect local writers with one another for holding writing events and to provide encouragement.
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Who would be crazy enough to sign up, commit to, and want to be a part of NANO? Well, writers of course, because as I’ve said in numerous previous posts, writers are a crazy bunch. And apparently over 200,000 people are plum crazy!

I mean that in the kindest way. A lot of my friends and some who are friends no more are registering and going into the battle with eyes wide open. They’ve got their outlines, character plots, their atmosphere and all the scents (not sense) about them. They will hurl words into space and come out the other end of November with a completed first draft.

So, as I sit in WVU alone, catering to the few that remain left behind. I will write close to a thousand words a day for my blog, under no pressure to achieve anything except a  good post, and I’ll be getting ready for Turkey Day, in Joni fashion, as I look forward to a Christmas day with sleigh bells and lights and music to string me along into the New Year.

Please don’t tell me I just mentioned Christmas. I holler at the TV for showing me Christmas commercials BEFORE Halloween and here I am mentioning it too? Ugh...

Let the writing frenzy begin. Good luck to you all!