Quotation Saturday

Through every cloud that shields the light, there is a brilliant ray of sunshine waiting to touch you. ~joni

***

All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.

~William Wordsworth

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.
~Novalis

There’s a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises, and you might not even be able to uncompromise yourself. If you write for life, you’ll work hard; you’ll do what’s honest, not what pays.
~Toni Morrison

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
~Ray Bradbury

"By far the greatest thing is to be a master of metaphor.It is the one thing that cannot be learned from others.It is a sign of genius, for a good metaphor implies an intuitive perception of similarity among dissimilars."
~Aristotle

What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.
~Logan Pearsall Smith, "All Trivia," Afterthoughts, 1931

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
~Mark Twain

Freaky Funny Friday

With Freaky Funny Friday I try to bring a smile to the board. Everyone needs a smile in their life otherwise life might look too serious. Keep smiling and enjoy your day! TGIF~ joni

A writer died and was given the option of going to heaven or hell.
She decided to check out each place first. As the writer descended into the fiery pits, she saw row upon row of writers chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they were repeatedly whipped with thorny lashes.
"Oh my," said the writer. "Let me see heaven now."
A few moments later, as she ascended into heaven, she saw rows of writers, chained to their desks in a steaming sweatshop. As they worked, they, too, were whipped with thorny lashes.
"Wait a minute," said the writer. "This is just as bad as hell!"
"Oh no, it's not," replied an unseen voice. "Here, your work gets published."

There was once a young man who, in his youth, professed his desire to become a great writer.
When asked to define great, he said, "I want to write stuff that the whole world will read, stuff that people will react to on a truly emotional level, stuff that will make them scream, cry, howl in pain and anger!"
He now works for Microsoft writing error messages.

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.


Ode to the Spell Check ~~author unknown

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It cam with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong oar write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect awl the weigh

My chequer tolled me sew!

Self Esteem of a Writer ~101st post!

Congrats to me on my 101st post!!! I AM a WRITER!

Self esteem is like a fragile flower, when not nurtured it will wither and die. Like any writer you have self esteem that is either confident or opportunistic, or faltering and down.

In the dictionary self-esteem is defined as a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself; self-respect. Did you read that? You need to have a favorable RESPECT for oneself. Sure there are people who will try to whittle away at your esteem by bringing in negative energy, but are you going to allow those negative thoughts to invade your life as a writer?

Sometimes as writers we need to re-affirm our self-esteem. How do you go about bringing in positive energy to affirm your esteem as a writer? Well you need to do a reaffirming self-examination. Look at your work. Read your work, LOVE your work. Don’t misjudge yourself by being too harsh.

Notice the different stages of your writing. When you began writing can you see a marked difference in the way you write now? Especially after getting tons of information (from my blog) and other places around the net, the library, writing workshop’s etcetera.

Now compare your work with the average Joe. Don’t try and emulate Tolkien, or Wordsworth, compare yourself to your fellow writer and see where you measure up. If you think you stink and other people do too, then work even harder at studying the craft.

Take an intimate look at where you’ve been, know where it is that you want to go and come alive with who you ARE as a writer. A good writer writes and he or she writes a lot to get to know their own style. Sure you can read a hundred King novels but you have to develop your OWN style and flair for the written word.

You need to surround yourself with positive people. There is a way to critique someone’s work, and there is a way to put down ones work. The critical masses who enjoy putting other people down and their work, are those who are not comfortable in their own skin. Do you really want that type of person reading your work?

Even parents and family members can be too harsh on you as a writer so it isn’t a good idea to say, "Hey mom, will you read this and tell me what you think?" She will either love it (even if it is terrible) or tell you it needs work because you’re not that good of a writer.

Take a look at your writing carefully. Tell yourself over and over, "I AM a writer!" Then tell yourself, "I am a GOOD writer!" Be honest with yourself without being self-critical. That will defeat the purpose of lifting you higher in the esteem category.

You can become the writer that you’ve always dreamed about as long as you remain high on the self-esteem! Drink it, gulp it down and feel esteem pumping into your veins. (Not to be confused with a big ego.) Then write your heart out! Why? Because YOU ARE A WRITER, My friend.

Lolly,Lolly,Lolly get your adverbs here....

Adverbs

As we learned in school or from Schoolhouse Rock, adverbs are a part of speech that modifies other parts of our language, like verbs and clauses. They tell us the where, when, and why things happen.

Do you remember the song from television? If you’re too young to remember maybe go to your local library and borrow the Schoolhouse Rock DVD. I did and my son loved it. He no longer wonders WHY I walk around singing these silly songs because they are now embedded in his mind too as he finds himself singing them.

Conjunction junction what’s your function…

Conjunctions are words that connect other groups of words. Words like AND, BUT, OR, FOR, YET, NOR and SO. Remember they all have fewer than four letters.

These cute little coordinating conjunctions need to be used with special care in your writing. Just like the adverb, overuse can kill your beautiful writing. I see so many of my fellow beginner writer’s (and some old shoes) still over-using the word AND and BUT. I myself tend to over-use the word ‘then’ and ‘so’ to the point I even annoy myself. I have since learned to keep my eye out on these mishaps, make myself aware and trying not to over-use them in my creative writing. (note: then and now are not coordinating conjunctions)

Run-on Sentences

These are annoying sentences to me also. Often after a re-read you’ll see that YOU too have some of these run-on sentences. There is a fix for the problem. Try and watch what you write to make sure that you’re not just letting off steam and allowing it to flow onto the keyboard blatantly displayed on your screen. Form a complete sentence. If you see two of them, then more than likely you have a run on sentence.

The links to the words, ADVERBS, CONJUNCTIONS and RUN-ON SENTENCES can more than explain all of the intricate details of the correct sentence structure. (The TITLE is a link to School House Rock!)I am no English major for sure and as I plug away at my writing I am finding a need to rediscover all the grammar that escaped me. This is why I am sharing it with you, my reader. You are on this journey with me and we can learn all the ins and outs together.

Now remember this, DON’T over-use adverbs, conjunctions or run-ons. Sure we need the adverb, we love the conjunction BUT refrain from over-using them to where the reader is not finding your work interesting or intriguing, BUT annoying.

As writers we want to reel the reader in with our craft and knowledge, our prose and style. Don’t let the reader get bored by saying, "There is just too much of this and that."

Find your niche, then decide in revision if it is over-done. Eliminate what doesn’t MOVE THE STORY ALONG!

Rock On on Writers!


FYI: The picture today is of the Baltimore Inner Harbor Skyline, taken from on top of Federal Hill.

Funday Monday!

Malapropisms abound -- Use and Misuse of the English Language

In writing, using the proper word from the English language is essential. (I’m assuming my readers are using the English version.) Understanding the meanings, pronunciations, and the proper spelling of words and phrases becomes a no-brainer to the avid writer.

awoken ~~~ wary ~~~ bored
awaken ~~~ weary ~~~ board
fined ~~~ who ~~~ decadence
find ~~~ whom ~~~ decadents
wander ~~~ soared ~~~ inane
wonder ~~~sword ~~~ insane
including words like, accept and except, allusion and illusion, council, counsel, affect, effect.

You get the picture? Words can be confusing not only to the eye but also to the ear AND on the Microsoft word page. You would think our spellcheckers pick up all of these little words we toss at it? Well it doesn’t. It is not THAT smart. It is not here to do our thinking, only to assist us along the way in getting our work correct.

There are many other words that I find my fellow writers seem to get confused with. It is my nature to be a spell freak. I mean it, if I spell a word wrong I am kicking myself in the butt then I sit with my dictionary and a cup of tea reviewing the English language yet again. (note: a typo is NOT a word spelled wrong!)

We can never fully comprehend all the meanings of every word in the English language but it is reasonable to understand and expect that writers will know of the words in which they write. So be insistent on learning new words. Be incessant, persistent, and exigent in learning and only then will your writing take off to new heights.

~~~Monday Funday Word Day~~~

malapropism ~ mal-a-prop-izm
1. Ludicrous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound.
2. An example of such misuse? "Lead the way and we'll precede."

verbiage ~
1. An excess of words for the purpose; wordiness.
2. The manner in which something is expressed in words: software verbiage.

altruistic ~ al-tru-is-tic
1. unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others.
2. Animal Behavior. of or pertaining to behavior by an animal that may be to its disadvantage but that benefits others of its kind, often its close relatives.

POETRY SUNDAY!

Destiny’s Call

Oh gentle flowing whispering stars,

guiding my shaking hand.

Echoing through my body and soul,

I fight to take a stand.

Angelic points of light behold

my eyes can see your glory.

Quaking in my tattered shell,

beseech me with thy fury.

I want forever more to taste,

thy golden drips of sight.

To bask amid your glorious rays,

so still throughout the night.

Carry me in thy humble embrace,

into the brilliant realm.

Where no man breathes a flux of air,

as destiny mans the helm.

copyright © Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday

Unwrap yourself from the cocoon of life. You'll find great beauty and soar as you were intended.
~joni Zipp, writer/poet

The distinction between historian and poet is not in the one writing prose and the other verse... the one describes the thing that has been, and the other a kind of thing that might be. Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are of the nature rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
~Aristotle, On Poetics

Poetry is that art which selects and arranges the symbols of thought in such a manner as to excite the imagination the most powerfully and delightfully.~William Cullen Bryant
Some people are making such thorough preparations for rainy days that they aren’t enjoying today’s sunshine.
~William Feather (1889-1981)Writer and publisher

The good writing of any age has always been the product of someone's neurosis, and we'd have a mighty dull literature if all the writers that came along were a bunch of happy chuckleheads.
~William Styron, interview, Writers at Work, 1958

"The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for 5 seconds and think for ten minutes."
~ William Davis

"Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it."
~ Bill Cosby

The most unfortunate thing that happens to a person who fears failure is that he limits himself by becoming afraid to try anything new.
~ Unknown (could’ve been me I say this so often)

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
~ Henry David Thoreau

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.
~ Ernest Hemingway

Fun with Funny Friday

Every family has a blacksheep!

Or white Sheep? Ummm... cow?

Some helpful rules for better writing:

1. Verbs HAS to agree with their subjects.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.
4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.
5. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat)
6. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
7. Also, always avoid annoying alliteration.
8. Be more or less specific.
9. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) unnecessary.
10. Also too, never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
11. No sentence fragments.
12. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; it's highly superfluous.
14. One should NEVER generalize.
15. Don't use no double negatives.
16. One-word sentences? Eliminate.
17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
18. The passive voice is to be ignored.
19. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.
20. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.
21. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."
22. If you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times: Resist hyperbole; not one writer in a million can use it correctly.

A visitor to a certain college paused to admire the new Hemingway Hall that had been built on campus."It's a pleasure to see a building named for Ernest Hemingway," he said.

"Actually," said his guide, "it's named for Joshua Hemingway. No relation."

The visitor was astonished. "Was Joshua Hemingway a writer, also?"

"Yes, indeed," said his guide. "He wrote a check."

Q. What's the difference between publishers and terrorists?

A. You can negotiate with terrorists.

"I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book."
Groucho Marx

One's POV

We’ve already blogged about the theme. That is what your story will be about when you write it. We’ve attempted the plot of your story now lets see what POV is all about.

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 Janes thoughts. The other characters 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 wrote 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 2nd 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 soar to new heights like the morning sunrise!

Word count? pshaw!

To you a word count is by the word right? Well to an editor it is the amount of space that the word takes up on a page.

"Take my wife, please," he said.

"Well of all the …" she replied.

Your processor will read the above as thirteen words. But in reality it is fifty-three characters with no spaces, and sixty-four characters with spaces.

I know a lot of wannabe writers who shrug off word count like an old rag. They treat it as if it is an unimportant part of the writing process. By no means is it the MOST important part of your writing. But it is better to get into the habit of it now while you’re still learning the ropes than to later realize the thing you tossed aside thinking there was no use for, was a much needed spark in the fire of writing RIGHT.

Writing right is essential. There is no laid back, enjoy sunbathing type of writing. Writing is a craft and knowing all of the ins and outs will ride you to the doorway of publication. Realizing that your machine/processor/computer is not going to do all the work for you, you need diligence to bring forth a story to its true beauty.

I could tell you to ignore word count all together but I’m sure that many publishers/editors would slap me upside the head.

"How dare you tell them it is not important!" says the editor.

"But the people in the workshops ignore me completely and do what they want." so says the mentor.

"Well then, they’re not serious writers, and certainly NOT seeking publication."

You see? It is important if you want to become a published writer. Sure, as you move along in the flow of your writing, you don’t need to stop and check word count continually. BUT if you have revised the piece ten times and are ready to submit, you better be prepared to give the publisher just what it asks for in the word count.

If they want 2500 words, don’t give them 2501.

Practice in your workshop. Be persistent in showing the word count to your peers. Let them know how serious of a writer you are. Bring forth your work into the beauty of the sun and AFTER you’re published, go bask in the sun.

The Dark Side

The Dark Side of Writing will grab hold of you on the night you sit alone contemplating all there is to feed off of as you wriggle in fear and write...the as the dark side of creativity comes alive.

It will happen writers. You’ll be sitting there tapping on the keys when a dark cloud passes over your window. Falling from the cloud are the spirits from the past, drifting through the air like sheets of silk.They come tiptoeing across the field to peek into your window and before you know it, you find, you’re writing turns dark.

Well it won’t exactly happen like that but you will be writing a story in happy mode, and suddenly feel the pull of the dark side wanting to come out. You may want to write about vulgar adultery, or bloody murder, or a bank-robbing bandit. All of which you’ve never experienced before, but are willing to compromise for your readers sake.

We as writers often find ourselves writing what we know and oftentimes we need to step out of the box and write about things we would never in a million years do or say or try. Through our writing we can become the hero and the antagonist, the child or the dog. We’re writers so we can truly go places we’ve never gone before.

Writing through pure eyes is good but what kind of antagonist will you have? Have you ever seen a good bad guy? Sometimes the bad guy turns out to be a good guy in the end but those stories usually wind up boring and on the back of bookshelves or in some attic or worse yet in the dank basement being used to sop up moisture.

Haven’t you ever wanted to climb into a schizophrenic’s head, or an unstable killer on the loose? Have you ever dreamed of the ghosts that haunt those old Victorian mansions, Irish Castles?
Whatever the case may be, don’t be afraid to write about the bad things, the dark abyss that lingers in this world. Being a writer gives you the free blank page to bring some of the scariest, creepiest and soulless vile beings into existence.

I know of many writers that are afraid of crossing those boundaries of the different realms. They feel that those dark forces will lay claim to their soul or something. Don’t be afraid. Fear is the dark force that wants to grip you. If you don’t fear, you’ll be surprised at what comes out of your non-wicked mind.

Don’t tell me as a kid that you didn’t fantasize about space aliens, ghosts, space travel, or haunted houses. The bogeyman was a part of every child’s growing up phase. But as adult writers we can bring the bogeyman back to life.

Were you afraid of the dark? Maybe you feared walking alone in a park past midnight. Did you ever think these could be the seeds of a story brewing? Make mincemeat of all your fears through writing. Make Stephen King shiver in his boots! Watch Dean Koontz sleep with his light on at night!

Give the horror genre something to be proud of. Turn all your white light romantic fan fiction into the DARK. Let your inner evil loose on the writing world, just to see what you come up with.

Little writing exercises can help in this area. Your antagonist will thank you for it. *wink*wink*

Monday Funday Word day!
obfuscation - ob·fus·cate --
–verb (used with object), -cat·ed, -cat·ing.

1.to confuse, bewilder or stupefy
2.to make obscure or unclear:
3.to darken

turpitude - tur·pi·tude

1.vile, shameful, or base character; depravity
2.a vile or depraved act

Poetry Sunday~ A River of Tears~

A River of Tears....
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp

I cry a river of tears'

swim in the empty abode set before me.

My silence is echoed by a resounding stillness

rippling downstream in caution,

as if someone were to hear my pleas.

He stoops at the river’s edge,

cupping hands...

to scoop my tears.

Cleansing His face with my pain.

Feeling my dormant presence,

He wishes to heal...

a river of tears

that is ceaseless in its journey,

streaming down my face.

He remains...to bathe in me...

to caress my glory and bring about a peace

to this ever flowing

river of tears.

I raise my head to see the sun

beginning to warm

my wrinkled body

as He wraps His love around me.

I become one with the glorious light,

enshrouding my being; I dry ~~~

no longer crying

a river of tears.
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday

Quotation Saturday is for you to sink your thoughts into, so you can find a quiet place to relax and meditate on the beauty surrounding you. ~joni

"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
~Edgar Allan Poe

Truly fine poetry must be read aloud. A good poem does not allow itself to be read in a low voice or silently. If we can read it silently, it is not a valid poem: a poem demands pronunciation. Poetry remembers that it was an oral art before it was a written art. It remembers that it was first song.
~Jorge Luis Borges

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
~Sylvia Plath

The maker of a sentence launches out into the infinite and builds a road into Chaos and old Night, and is followed by those who hear him with something of wild, creative delight.

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure.

~Henry David Thoreau

Publication - is the auction of the Mind of Man.

~Emily Dickinson

Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.

~Theodore Dreiser, 1900

The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my typewriter keys.

~C. Astrid Weber

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason. They made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

~Charles Caleb Colton

Back Up and Save

I thought I’d tell you something vital to the writing world and maybe you already know this and maybe you do it so much you’re tired of hearing the advice. (Whoever actually TAKES advice when it is given so freely?)

The first bite is: When you’re writing and it is really flowing, you’re so proud of your work that you just keep on meandering through and the lights go out due to a power failure. Uh oh. Did you click save? What, you didn’t? Shame on you.

One time (and I only allowed it to happen once) I lost three pages of writing because I had forgotten to click save. I know I tell you to let it flow, keep writing, turn that internal editor off, but clicking save will keep the mule from kicking you in the butt. You will feel like a total jackass when you lose all your work and then slap your forehead (after rubbing it profusely until it burns.) Then the agony of guilt will set in. All for what? Because you didn’t click save?

Does it take more than a second? Maybe, if your eyes are bad. Will it cost you your flow? I don’t think so. At least if you’re clicking save all the time, you will have something to come back to read. If not, it’s gone and gone for good into the deep dark abyss.

Now the second tidbit of info is this: Back up your files! We’re in an age of depending on machines. We depend on the microwave to cook our food super fast. We expect our clothes dryer to dry our clothes. We want our cars to get us home. And we also hope that our computers are going to last forever. Sorry Mr. Gates, you haven’t made a perfect machine that lasts forever.

Nope if our computer crashes, we lose vital information. Sure the Internet will still be moving full steam ahead without us, but when our little perky computer one day fizzles out, all our work goes with it. At least every three months I make a back up of my writing. Only because I write so much and there is new stuff that the old disc won’t have on it should my trusty handy dandy computer plop right out of existence.

So what are we going to do as soon as you finish reading this? Make a back up file! And what are we going to do as we write our beloved stories? Click SAVE! But my friend, clicking save won’t help you if you haven’t backed up your files. So get to it. Make this machine the best tool you’ve owned. Make it work for you. Carpe diem, Seize the day.
Or better yet, Carpe Momento (Seize the Moment)!!!You’ll be grateful you did.

Book Proposal vs. Manuscript

Before sending out that manuscript, stop and read!

What is a book proposal? It is where you gather all of the critical information you can on your novel and offer it on a silver platter to a publisher. It helps immensely in making your rejected manuscript become-- "What the publisher WANTS."

By submitting a book proposal you are cementing your chances of being accepted. Publishers aren’t looking for long manuscripts to arrive on their doorstep, what they want is to pay you to write the book. Sending a completed manuscript will more than likely get overlooked if you send it without a proposal first.

Imagine being a busy publisher, and in your already cluttered mailbox you find an eight-inch thick box of yet another manuscript. After he/she brushes the hair out of their eyes, they let out a deep sigh and think, "Another manuscript." What with meetings to attend, authors to entertain, editing, reading and writing, what will the big old manuscript look like to YOU?

Now imagine that same publisher being sent an envelope. In the envelope a writer has a book proposal and wants to know if they are interested in publishing the manuscript. They glance at the first page and it has your full name, approximate word count, estimated time of a finished manuscript (or if it is already finished) and the genre that your novel will fit into, ie: general fiction, thriller, fantasy, romance, western, historical.
Also make sure you are sending it to the proper editor. A romance editor won’t read a thriller’s proposal.

The second page you might provide info about you, the author. Things you’ve published thus far or maybe have never been published. Give them a few paragraphs to get to know you and let them know why you are right for the project you have in mind.

You’ll then provide a brief synopsis of the entire plot of your book. (Two pages maximum) Sell yourself, this might be what you’d read on a dust jacket that would have YOU interested in the book you’re about to buy.

Include 3 chapters of the book you have in mind. Your proposal should be no longer than 100 pages and no less than 50. If you want your work returned to you, be sure to include a SASE and make sure that they know that you want it returned in the cover letter. Always make sure to include the proper postage. A publisher is not going to go out and get the extra forty-cent stamp that YOU forgot.

So what are you going to do fellow writer? Are you going to fill the desk of a publisher with a 20 pound (or more) manuscript. Or give him/her something they can get through over coffee and a doughnut?

It is something to think about before you dive into the rejection pool. Ever wonder WHY you keep getting rejected? Maybe the publisher used your big thick manuscript along with someone else’s for some bookends. All the while reading a book proposal from some unknown.

Workshop for Writing?

"To workshop your writing is the building blocks to your future"~~joni

A lot of people tell me they’ve been writing for years. They also say they are ready to submit their work to a publisher/editor.

I say, "Did you workshop it?"

They say to me with jaw hanging open I’m sure, "Workshop it, what put it on the chopping block?"

"Well no, that is not what I meant. What I mean is, did you have a group of your peers look at it and let them give you their opinion?"

"Well no, my work is good, I don’t need anyone’s opinion. It is THAT good."

Let me tell you friends, that is a bad idea. That is your ego talking and it can get you into a lot of trouble. Remember my post on EGO? It’s down a few pages but I distinctly remember telling you to put it on the shelf for a rainy day and pull it out when you’re feeling down. When it comes to writing, there is no place for your ego!

I remember when I first started putting my poetry out there. I thought it was so good and didn’t need a word neither here nor there. My peers liked my work but saw in it great potential, not perfection. Well slap me upside the head and call me silly, why don’t you? That was the reality check that I needed to get this determined writer moving.

Once I saw where I needed work I went right to it reshaping, restructuring, molding it to make it shine like a bronze statue.(I’d say a Gold statue but then that would be my ego talking again.)

There are many workshops around the internet but the home I found was Writer’s Village University. This is the place where my work is safely displayed (without the eyes of millions) and other writers safely critique it. I say safely displayed because my home at WVU is password protected where only members have access.

My peers are either published author’s or new budding writers who want to learn the craft and aid another writer in their dream. It is like having a pack of rainbows tucked into one workshop with a bunch of little elves making my pot of gold dream come true.

It is important to see where you need assistance at in your work. Even published author’s like to have another eye looking over their work to see if they might have missed something or if there is something, when added to the story, will give it the extra punch it needs to get published.

Never fear having your work in a workshop. Even Santa needed a workshop! Why? So he could bring the best that he had to offer to the entire world. Now get to work on building a glorious story for your workshop. Make it the best tool that you use in your career.

A Determined Writer

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury

There comes a time in a writer’s life when you become determined to succeed. Success is never put into a measuring cup and told X amount of writing is just right. No, you need determination to keep on going even if the fruits of your labor are not paying off.

Writers need to read and they need to read a lot. I don’t just mean to read fiction from the classic genre to the contemporary authors of today but also they need to read about the craft of writing.

You might ask, "What can I learn from someone else who is already published?" Well for one you can learn style, rhythm, and all sorts of good things like suspense, how they built up a character, introduced a character and how they brought the character to life for you, the reader.

From your fellow author you can learn what it is in your writing that will carry a novel or short story. You might learn that your story is not going anywhere and by reading, you might see where you’ve gone wrong. "Did I give enough suspense?" " Did I build a conflict?" "Did I give a satisfactory ending?"

All of these questions can be asked if you read! Become a detective and dig up all of the clues that make this author so special. Reading is an essential part of becoming a writer. Why did you become a writer to begin with? Was it because you read a book and thought, "Hey, I can do that?" Or did a novel leave you unsatisfied and maybe you said, "I can do it better?"

Once you’ve mastered reading, you then become an analytical reader. You’ll find yourself liking and disliking certain things that a writer does with their writing. Find what his/her style, metaphors, too much imagery, not enough imagery is keeping you reading. Maybe take notes of what you liked and keep them handy for when you write on your own.

If you’re hitting stumbling blocks in your own writing, look to other writer’s to aid you in accomplishing this dream of yours. It is through the authors, published or not, that will move you toward your goal. And then it is time to really sink your teeth into writing and have the determination of an athlete. Imagine yourself going for the Gold in an Olympic dream.

Be determined to not only be a reader but to be a writer, a PUBLISHED writer. Homework people, it’s all about doing your homework. You can’t just write for a year and give up. You’re not showing determination in giving up. You need to daily, and I do mean daily, work at bringing this dream alive. I won’t allow weekly or monthly writing. A true writer KNOWS what he needs to do. So what do you say?

JUST DO IT!

Writer's Write Right

Vocabulary...an essential tool to writing right.

Vocabulary is the use of words in language. Not everyone masters language and vocabulary and often writers try to hard to make their writing sound better. A note of caution: Use words you know and understand before trying to pull off a philosophical sounding piece that you know nothing about it.

If you’re going to use words like affinity, assiduous, conferred, deferential, definitive, dissident, finesse, infinitesimal, insidious, insufferable, sedentary, vociferous, make sure you know what each and every one of these words mean.

I often read beginners work that sounds over-worded like a shadow covering. The grayness of the cloak hides what is really secretly within the writer. I have a book titled 1000 Most Important Words by Norman Schur. I flip through it daily and study some of the words. I try (notice I said TRY?) and retain the meaning of the word and sometimes knowing these words helps me in my writing.

There are times that words allude me. That is why I used the metaphor shadow because words can sometimes linger in the shadows or be right on the tip of your tongue and you try to spit it out (or type it) and the little speck of a word hides like a child playing a game. Did you ever have the word decide to pop in your head right before turning into bed?

Ha! A notepad beside the bed will help you there. Write the word down and in the morning look it up in the dictionary and see if it is the word that you were looking for. Don’t use words you have no idea what the meaning is.

The man was inoculated as he got behind the wheel to drive. (I think you meant INTOXICATED)

His behavior was vociferous and annoying. (Vociferous meaning: crying out noisily; clamorous)

Oh dear are you going to need to look up clamorous too?

Whatever the case may be, do your homework! What? We’re grown-ups? Who needs homework? All that I can say to that is, we ALL need to do our homework. Learning is a never-ending part of life. Once we stop learning, we stop growing. And when we stop growing, we might as well roll over and order the casket now!

We, in the 21st century, have too many tools within our grasp to NOT learn on a daily basis. So what are you going to do? Learn a NEW word or two a day and watch yourself bloom into the writer you always dreamed of becoming.

Proliferate:
1. to grow or produce by multiplication of parts or cell division, or by procreation.
2. to increase in number or spread rapidly and often excessively.

I’ve started you off with your first word…Now grow my friends!

Poetry Sunday ~ Sight of the Night Soul

Sight of the Night Soul
All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp

The stars have splashed my blinking eyes

blinding me with its disguise.

Now the light may crystallize

all that I have seen.



The tree bears fruit of every kind.

To thee I wish to be defined.

For all the light now has me blind.

Senses nearly keen.



Confused by sight and sordid sound;

truly lost what I have found.

Kneeling on the trodden ground

From thee I must be weaned



I hide behind the night lights shower

not to frail I will not cower.

Safely under the bridled bower,

the storm clouds thus convene



Lofty soul these things I seek.

Strengthen me when I am weak.

Of this earth among the meek.

Grasping sights unseen.




copyright © Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday!

Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words. ~~Edgar Allan Poe

A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.

~~W. H. Auden

Flannery O’Connor on symbols in fiction …
"Now the word symbol scares a good many people off, just as the word art does. They seem to feel that a symbol is some mysterious thing put in aribitrarily by the writer to frighten the common reader — sort of a literary Masonic grip that is only for the initiated …

"I think that for the fiction writer himself, symbols are something he uses simply as a matter of course. You might say that these are details that, while having their essential place in the literal level of the story, operate in depth as well as on the surface, increasing the story in every direction.

"I think that the way to read a book is always to see what happens, but in a good novel, more always happens than we are able to take in at once, more happens than meets the eye. The mind is led on by what it sees into the greater depths that the book’s symbols naturally suggest. This is what is meant when critics say that a novel operates on several levels. The truer the symbol, the deeper it leads you, the more meaning it opens up."
~~Flannery O’Connor in "The Nature and Aim of Fiction" in Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

If one keeps on loving faithfully what is really worth loving, and does not waste ones love on insignificant and unworthy and meaningless things, one will get more light by and by and grow stronger. Sometimes it is well to go into the world and converse with people, and at times one is obliged to do so, but he who would prefer to be quietly alone with his work, and who wants but very few friends, will go safest through the world and among people. And even in the most refined circles and with the best surroundings and circumstances, one must keep something of the original character of an anchorite, for otherwise one has no root in oneself; one must never let the fire go out in one’s soul, but keep it burning. And whoever chooses poverty for himself and loves it possesses a great treasure, and will always clearly hear the voice of his conscience; he who hears and obeys that voice, which is the best gift of God, finds at last a friend in it, and is never alone.

~~Vincent Van Gogh, from Dear Theo

May you find the light around ever cloud; may you hear music in every sound. For within a heartbeat, a story can be found. ~~ Joni Zipp