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June 18, 2013
by Laura
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What good writing can do FOR your business and what bad writing can do TO it

From Grammarly on Facebook

I really don’t mean to harp on what good writing can do for your business and what bad writing can do to it. But I can’t help it, really. I’ve just spent several hours over two days cleaning up a website for an artists’ boutique. (A disclaimer, my hooked rugs are in the shop; I bartered writing and editing services for space.)

The owner of the boutique wanted me to comb through her website looking for: 1) obvious errors both grammatical and substantive in nature and 2) anything that made her or the shop look stupid. And she put #2 to to me just like that. As a business owner, she knows that her website (and other social media outlets like the boutique’s Facebook page) is often the first thing a customer or, more importantly, a potential customer may see. It might even be the only thing the customer sees if he or she isn’t in Rhode Island (shop’s location) or intends to purchase online. If I see errors and sloppiness on a commercial website, I sure ain’t trusting my credit card to someone no matter what I’ve heard about their business or product!

And that can be a real shame. The boutique is beautiful, filled with colorful art and antiques and jewelry. Much of it is original; all of it is handmade and of a high quality. I’ve been in and heard customers wax poetic about the place and its eye candy. Then they bought stuff.

Here’s the thing, though: I found tons of grammatical errors on the website. Most, however, weren’t the owner’s fault, but that of the artists who had submitted brief artist’s statements. (Shame on them. Their art is their business!) Regardless, the owner is presenting these artist’s statements on her business’s website; she’s responsible for making that website as visually appealing as she’s made her shop. Sloppy writing – it’s not at all pretty. And it’s running rampant on the web, on signs, and in print. Maybe you’ve seen the funny bits passed around on Facebook by the likes of Grammarly and George Takei.

Examples of sloppy business writing I see:

Unfinished and partial sentences;
Subjects and verbs not matching;
Periods outside of quotation marks (as in a quote or in dialogue);
Commas separating subjects and verbs;
Lack of punctuation at the end of sentences and in other crucial locations for reader comprehension;
Misspellings;
Sentences that make no sense when read;
Mixing of past and present tenses, sometimes in the same sentence;
Really, really l-o-n-g, run-on sentences;
and so on.

This doesn’t have to happen. If you’re a business or an artist (or a kid in school or someone looking for a job), before you put something written out there, ask someone to take a look at it. Have them make sure it makes sense and that you’ve met the basic requirements of English grammar. Hire someone if you have to. It’s the difference between looking rather smart or rather…stupid.

How does writing quality matter to you? To your business?

June 13, 2013
by Laura
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Letting go and disturbing yourself. For better writing.

Photo by raulcano88 at sxc.hu

If you want to write, you have to be willing to be disturbed.
- Kate Green, author

I’m finishing up the first draft of a story. It’s not the nicest of stories, frankly. In fact, one might find it a tad depressing or at least disturbing especially given current events these days. It involves a kid with issues, a kid who’s quite apt to hurt someone, even someone he loves. That’s if he actually loves at all. Another story I wrote mines similar material – a teenager is killed by his friends; it’s told from his mom’s point of view. That one will be published later this year in Kansas City Voices. Clearly, readers aren’t always looking for cheery, happy stories. At least not all the time.

Life’s not always easy-breezy, and usually we write what we know or at least what’s on our minds. (I have a 16-year-old daughter.) The initial story mentioned above was sparked when I noticed a headless, naked Barbie in my yard. (Don’t even ask! I’ll take inspiration from wherever I can get it.) Maybe I could’ve written something about some little girl losing and then miraculously finding her favorite Barbie (and her head), but that’s not what my brain dictated to my fingers and the pen. Sure, it got a little dark as I was writing, but you have to be willing to follow the plot and the characters. Who knows what you’ll find out about them and…your own feelings and subconscious!

Yes, I’d forgotten that, too. That if you let go in your writing, you naturally go for the jugular over and over until you clean out unfinished business.
- Natalie Goldberg, author

We’ll concentrate on the therapeutic aspects of this another time. (Maybe.) What I’m really getting at is that letting go of yourself produces the best writing. Especially in fiction. And the best fiction isn’t ever happy- go-lucky, stay-on-the-surface crap. It’s topical; it digs in and under our skin and makes us question and cry and laugh. It pisses us off and helps us to empathize. It does all this. Damn, a great book can exhaust you emotionally! And that’s good. But the author had to be willing to explore the disturbing stuff in life, that darkness. As a reader and a writer, I hope that the road through that darkness ultimately leads to the light. Or at least that things work out somehow for the characters.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Go for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes. Be willing to be split open.
- prompt from Natalie Goldberg’s book, Wild Mind: Living the Writer’s Life

How willing are you to do the prompt, to disturb yourself in order to better your writing?

June 11, 2013
by Laura
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Writing is hard work!

Writing was hard work for novelist William Styron.

You know, in the past several weeks, I’ve made good on my promises: 1) to do my morning pages and 2) to make time to write fiction. And I’ve pretty much finished two stories. But the second one, it’s not quite finished. Last week, I was struggling to make the ending work, pull things together. Then things like my long-lasting sinus infection, a job interview, volunteering at the high school, gardening, laundry, etc., etc., all got in the way. Sure, I’m irritated about it, and I’m worried that I might lose the excitement, the momentum I’ve just regained. I’d work on it right now, but I’ve got to get this post out before I have to leave for writing group. We’ve got a meeting tonight.

Tomorrow, I tell myself. I will work out that ending tomorrow. And, most likely, I will. The story is to be submitted at my next group meeting, in fact. But earlier today I read the following quote by novelist William Styron (it’s his birthday), and I realized again what the biggest problem with writing really is. He was being interviewed by The Paris Review and was asked “Do you enjoy writing?”

I certainly don’t. I get a fine, warm feeling when I’m doing well, but that pleasure is pretty much negated by the pain of getting started each day. Let’s face it, writing is hell.

And that’s it in a nutshell. Writing is hard work, especially in the beginning, when you’re trying to come up with something to write or to make sense of what you wrote yesterday. Me, I don’t mind revising so much; it’s kind of like working a puzzle, trying to make what I’ve written clearer and just plain better. But sustaining a plot, trying to figure out what comes next. That can be really difficult. Laundry, it’s a cakewalk compared to writing. All you have to do is match the colors and do the delicates on the gentle cycle. Rug hooking is even better. I still get to feel creative. (And I can catch up on Mad Men at the same time!)

What about you? Do you feel that the best part of writing is when you’re done? –It feels so good when I stop! — Tell us, true or false , writing is hard work for you?

Writing for me is the hardest thing in the world, but also the thing which, once completed, is the most satisfying.
-William Styron

June 7, 2013
by Laura
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Childhood books – which ones hooked you on reading?

The Boston Globe ran an article by Kathy McCabe Sunday that took me back to my childhood books. The title: An enduring mystery – Nancy Drew fans gather in Mass. Apparently, there’d been a five-day convention of the Nancy Drew Sleuths, a fan club. It was their thirteenth annual gathering, in fact. People came from all over the US as well as Europe and Canada. Most were middle aged women; a few were young folk which goes to show that Nancy must be pretty popular even today, 73 years after the first book was published.

Like most of you, I’m a voracious reader. And I’ll venture to guess that most of you also got hooked on books when you were young. My mother introduced me to the Bobbsey Twins when I was about seven. Although they were just little kids, the four of them (two sets of twins) solved a series-full of mysteries. Nancy Drew showed up in my stocking one Christmas morning in the form of The Bunglaow Mystery. Oddly, that was the third book of the series. No problem; I quickly located # 1 and #2 at the library. After that, I began my first foray into book collection; I had to have the series.

From Nancy Drew, I moved to the Hardy Boys and Nurse Cherry Ames. The woman worked in exotic locales – like on a cruise ship! What 10-year old girl could resist that? Mysteries were a draw for a long time. Eventually, I transitioned to Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, and other adult books (some probably earlier than I should’ve). Biographies and other genres followed. But it’s Nancy Drew that I credit for putting me on the path to reading and eventually writing, a natural extension. According to the piece in the Globe, I’m clearly not the only one:

[Nancy] Lauzon [56, of Canada] said that her mother named her after Drew. Her beloved character inspired her to write a series of mystery e-books. “My heroines want to be like Nancy Drew, but they don’t quite make it. Their father is not rich. They don’t have a fancy car. …There is only one Nancy Drew.”

What childhood books made you the reader that you are today? Have you shared them with your kids?

June 4, 2013
by Laura
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Loss of manners going mainstream

Photo by lusi at rgbsock.com

This has been going up my ass sideways lately…

I’m not sure it’s a loss of manners or a tossing of manners. The other day, I finally got Elisabeth to write a couple – two, not a dozen – thank you notes for gifts she received last month. Of course, she didn’t want to do it. “Later.” I badgered her some more. “It’s too late.” It wasn’t. “No one does that any more, Mom.” Yes, we do. But she wasn’t far off the mark on that last excuse.

I don’t receive too many thank you notes, not even from my nieces and nephews any more. I totally get that it’s a hassle to get kids to write the things, but you know, it’s totally worthwhile to remind them that saying thank you is a basic human nicety. Even if it’s through email. Someone did something for you, and you need acknowledge that. You should’ve seen Elisabeth’s face when I told her how you have to write thank you notes for every single wedding present you receive.

Adults go on about how “these days” kids don’t have manners. This a surprise? Is anyone modeling manners for them?…

Okay, folks, it’s my day to blog at getborntribe.com (note the name/address change). Read the rest of the piece by clicking on the link HERE. Then let me know your opinion: Is the woman in the commercial multitasking or just plain rude?

May 31, 2013
by Laura
2 Comments

Creativity – sometimes it’s not about writing

Showing the wares.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him… a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create — so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating.
-Pearl S. Buck

Creativity in one person often takes more than one form. In my case, besides writing, I get off crafting less-than-traditional hooked rugs through my business High on Hooking. You can see part of one in the banner above. As I’ve said before, hooking does take time away from writing, but you know, I don’t think that writing could fulfill my sense of needing to make something as tangible as my mats. A part of me just has to see those big, brash colors, to touch the textures that the cottons and wools and ribbons carry beneath my fingers. And maybe I’ve caught some of my daughter’s ADD; I like to change things, mix up my day.

This weekend I have an art show to get ready for, so hooking beats out pretty much all writing, including this blog post. Enjoy your weekend. If you happen to be around Wrentham, Massachusetts, Saturday, stop by at Arts on the Common. There are exhibitors, of course, but also musical and other performances and plenty of things for the kids to do.

Fill in the blank: When I feel a need to create, I _______________________.

May 28, 2013
by Laura
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What makes for a good book?

“Book Eyes” by cjcj at sxc.hu

The Boston Globe ran its usual, daily book review this morning on Dan Brown‘s newest read, Inferno. Whether or not Inferno is a good book, the review by Chuck Leddy made for great reading. It was less about the book and more about Brown’s style of writing, how even such a successful author (Brown hasn’t needed a day job in quite sometime) can improve and has, apparently, done just that.

A note: I’ve only read Brown’s Da Vinci Code, and I did that back when it came out and made him famous. What did I think about it? The writing itself? Meh. The story? Frankly, it kept me up reading in bed. The guy’s a master at short chapters, page-turning, and making me think, “just one more.” In his Globe article, Chuck Leddy says much the same:

No matter what the critics might say about his over-writing, his overuse of cliches, his paper-thin characterizations, and his impenetrably murky plots, Brown sells tens of millions of copies of every historical thriller-mystery he writes… Plot predictability aside, Brown really does deliver the kind of exotically situated entertainment his fans expect. The formula has become a formula for a reason: It works in getting readers to turn the page.

Again, I haven’t read Inferno, but I think I can believe Leddy when he says that in this book, Brown shows growth as an author, i.e., he doesn’t rely on three weak adjectives when one really good one works. “In Inferno, he offers us strong dialogue, details, and back story… he’s starting to understand that ‘less is more’ in the realm of descriptive prose.”

Here’s the thing. When it comes to a good book, what’s most important to you or me as a reader? Sure, being the anal and grammatically-oriented person that I am, I like a well-written book, one that makes me swoon over the language. BUT, and it’s another big BUT, that book probably won’t keep me up at night. In fact, it’ll probably take a little work on my part to really appreciate that book. Da Vinci Code, not a great book, but it had a story that kept me hooked and had me turning pages till all hours of the morning. If you’re lucky, you find a book that has both terrific writing and an enthralling story. I’m glad that Dan Brown appears to be moving towards that beautiful middle ground, but I bet for most of us, it’s story that ‘ll win out if a reader has to make a choice.

Some of my favorites include: Barbara Kingsolver‘s Poisonwood Bible (especially the first two-thirds of so, while the missionary family is still young and fighting off poisonous snakes in their African outhouse), Andre Dubus III‘s The Garden of Last Days, and pretty much of anything by Junot Díaz.

Tell me now: What makes for a good book, one that you can’t put down?

May 24, 2013
by Laura
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Memorial Day: A Day to Remember

“Soldiers’ Return” (photo on sxc.hu by bwihelms)

Memorial Day, originally known as Decoration Day, is a special day during which we remember and honor all those who have died while serving in the U.S. Armed Forces. As a former Brownie and then a Girl Scout, I have memories of marching down my hometown’s Main Street in the Memorial Day parade. And then listening to long speeches and watching the wreaths being laid on the town monuments. Sure, some people fainted in the heat to avoid the speeches, but my grandfather would’ve killed me. He’d served in World War II.

This weekend also marks the beginning of the summer season (not that you’d know by the weather here in New England), and that’s fine, great even. My grandfather loved nothing more than the hot weather with its golf and family picnics and cold beers. How I wish that I’d developed my raw oyster habit before he died during my freshman year in college. He never would’ve had to hang out at the Norwalk Oyster Festival alone. And me being the apple of his eye (his first granddaughter), he definitely would’ve paid my way. The things we learn too late…

My wish for you this long weekend is that you go happily into the summer months. God knows we earned them after the fall and winter we went through. Say a prayer or at least a heartfelt THANK YOU to those who died in the service of this country that we share. But don’t stop there – remember all those who’ve gone on before you, who helped make you YOU. Maybe you’ll even think to write about them…

Write about what should not be forgotten.
- Isabel Allende

Happy Memorial Day! Happy summer!

May 21, 2013
by Laura
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Write every day

from shadowkill at sxc.hu

It is by sitting down to write every morning that one becomes a writer. Those who do not do this remain amateurs.
-Gerald Brenan

Congratulate me please. Just this morning I rededicated myself to doing morning pages in order to free up the dreams and stories that move through my brain throughout the night. (Like most people, the only dreams that I remember are the ones running just before waking.) We’ve talked about Julia Cameron’s morning pages before. They are “three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning…Morning Pages provoke, clarify, comfort, cajole, prioritize and synchronize the day at hand.”

Although I appreciate their usefulness, I fell out of doing the pages this winter. I was sick, I worked out, I read the morning paper… And you know what, other than writing posts for this blog, I didn’t write every day or, frankly, many days. I certainly wasn’t writing much fiction, and that was making me question my basic desire to be a writer. And then, last month, I saw a photo of a print; it was a woman with four arms. And just like THAT, it sparked a new short story. I wrote it in a week or two. And I liked it. Even my writing group liked it – mostly. (Such is the nature of a writing group.)

I felt like a writer again. I even posted a couple of entries in my journal. And I had another twinkle of an idea for a story. I tried writing it for two or three days. No real progress. Disappointment. Sudden idea! Last night I decided to get up this morning and do the morning pages to see if I might have a breakthrough. I scribbled word after word, not quite stream of consciousness, but close enough. When I was done, I looked back to see if I’d come up with anything of value. No. Sigh.

The the dog and I got in the car and headed out for our weekly gig at the nursing home. He’s a hit; the old ladies love him there. I’m driving, driving, driving and mulling on my would-be story. And just like THAT, a plot point came to me. One that I think I can use. Synchonicity? Oh, I think YES. Without the benefit of those morning pages, I doubt I would’ve gotten my brain to go where it needed to go.

Will I write morning pages every day now? Probably not each and every day, if I’m honest. But I bet most mornings will find me at my desk. For me, it’s clearly the most likely route to being able to write more fiction. Sure, it’s fun and ultimately pretty easy to write a blog article, but fiction is where it’s at for me. To create a world, characters, a plot and then make that story coherent and entertaining is the ultimate challenge. I love to read great fiction; I can only hope to write great fiction. But I have to show up each day ready to write that fiction. I have to make it a priority.

Do you write every day? Most days? What’s your secret for making sure that you write “enough”?

May 17, 2013
by Laura
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What I’m reading now

The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Today is the first day in five that I’ve felt anywhere near normal. But don’t even think of taking that box of tissues from me! In an effort to get some things done today – including this post – I decided to do something fun, to share what’s on the various “nightstands” around the house, i.e., the things I’m reading. I’m hoping that some of you will do the same.

On the actual nightstand: No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July
I’ve never read July before, but I’m enjoying her well written, albeit a bit weird stories about folks whose social interactions can be…awkward. I recommend it.

In the car: When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
I love most anything by Sedaris. He often makes me laugh out loud in whatever doctor’s office I happen to carry the book into. (And there were three this week.) My neurologist’s even threatened to take the book from me; he’s a fan too. “David Sedaris’s ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art” (The Christian Science Monitor) is an apt description. Pick it up if you haven’t already.

In the bathroom: The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis, a couple of old Calvin and Hobbes books by Bill Watterson
Unique, difficult to describe. A writing friend put me on to the book. Davis is a consummate short story writer. Hell, some of her stories are only a paragraph long; many don’t go past a page. (You can see why it works in the bathroom, which is usually reserved for poetry.) Try it; some won’t like the experience, but it’ll definitely be a new one. And you can never go wrong with Calvin and Hobbes.

Out on the sun porch: Poets & Writers magazine, The Writer magazine, and Fiber Art now magazine
Let’s just get it out of the way right now. I love magazines. On lots of subjects. They aren’t just on the porch. There are a couple upstairs. Near my chair in the family room, where I hook and watch TV each night, is the mother lode. Cooking, fitness, house stuff, health, I’ve got them all! I even skim through (for purposes of better understanding today’s pop society, of course) a Teen Vogue that somehow started coming to the house. At least my teenager won’t touch it. (Hurray for her! I’ve seen the shit they have in those pages.)

In my office: Fifth Wednesday Journal
Alright, back to my more “respectable” reading. The spring 2013 issue just arrived in the mail last week. I love reading through to see if any of the stories that I read and sent ahead in the submission process made it into the magazine. With hundreds of submissions to the slush pile each reading cycle, it doesn’t happen too often. I recommend FWJ if you’re into good fiction, poetry, and art.

That’s enough, I think. And I hear the kid’s school bus out front. She’s been waiting for me to get better so we can head to Target to re-supply. I definitely won’t show her the Teen Vogue that came in the mail this afternoon…

Tell me what you’re reading this weekend. Or just share your dirty secret like I shared mine. Make my day.