Get Ready for When the Dream Comes True or Have Faith!

Probably these were your Top 10 Resolutions for 2008, 2007, ...2000, 1991....

Top 10 New Year's Resolutions for Writers:

•Make time to write.

•Overcome writer's block.

•Complete an unfinished work.

•Read more.

•Keep a journal.

•Work on writing space.

•Write a novel.

•Submit work.

•Try a new genre or art form.

•Be easier on yourself.
 
Get out of the rut. Fantacize more. That should be your resolution!!!  Your only resolution. (Note photo of Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend in a movie based on a Collette short story.)
 
See yourself. Visualize yourself as this successful writer. The one you WANT TO BE! Then take three steps that brings you closer to that fantasy becoming a reality.
 
You know -- once upon a time I lived in an old falling down house that was a money pit and constantly needed fixing up. We worked on it, threw money into it, and dreamed of a new house with a pond and and all of the trimmings. The day came when we took the step and turned out dream house into a reality. We sold the money pit, hired a builder, settled on a plan, a budget, a pedestal sink, and a two-acre pond. The house went from fantasy to reality.
 
Why not with a writing career?
 

I had a dream the other day that I was traveling to book signings, tracking down research, calling my assistant to deliver more books to my signing, and was writing, really writing something I was proud of and a bit surprised that it came from my brain! My name was entering conversations of people I had never met but who felt they knew me from my writings. And our financial woes had come to an end. I even hired someone to repaint the house and get rid of that sickly green that covers every wall.
 
The morning I awoke from that dream I had to check the walls -- just to make sure it was a dream. Yep, still green. But the dream was that real.
 
At that point I realized that I had actually already begun taking steps toward making the dream come true. I've been pursuing my interest in fabric art by growing a blog. I named it after what I hope will be a title of one of my books. I'm actually putting together a platform for that first book. While I was enjoying the journey -- enjoying finding beautiful fabric art and talented artists to share with like minded fabric lovers -- I had found people who just might also promote my book or at least read it.
 
Look at what you did this year and see how it is going to help you reach your goal. And then put together that list of New Year's Resolutions with an eye to actually making something specific happen.
 
If your goal is to write for the New Yorker then submit something to them again, and again and again. Read the New Yorker or Ploughshares or Glimmer Train or Newsweek -- whatever is your target market. See what they publish and then give them something that you know they'll like. You know because you have read the market and know the market.
 
Take a class. If nothing else you'll know that you're better at this writing business than you thought you were!
 
Even if you are not setting words on a page, find a way to grow your dream. A blog that helps you build a platform. A group of essays that you can self publish if necessary that your family will love. It will teach you to complete a longer project.
 
Give yourself permission to fail. Seek failure. Try something so outrageous that you know you will never be able to pull it off. Then give it all you have. Play with it. You expect to fail so don't worry.
 
Learn a new language. It might open new doors, give you a different perspective, or help you broaden your horizons -- maybe if you learn French, you'll actually take that trip to Paris you've been dreaming about.
 
Read more nonfiction. Watch more movies. Netflix movies on demand and instant downloads. It may seem like escapism but it is also your chance to indulge your fantasies at the same time.
 
Play! Make time for play!
 

Change your name. Your writing name. Write under an alias and then fit your writer to that name. Dawn Goldsmith becomes Don Carlos or Emily Dickinson or Jane Austen or Anna Quinlan or Collette! (See photo of Collette)
 
Don't think of yourself as a 'writer' but as a WRITER or better yet -- an ARTIST!
 
Just give yourself permission to be that person that frequents your dreams. Well, unless it is a Jack the Ripper kind of guy -- then add "See psychiatrist" to your DO IMMEDIATELY list. But even then, take notes.
 
 
 
 
 
 

This, I believe, is the great Western truth: that each of us is a completely unique creature and that, if we are ever to give any gift to the world, it will have to come out of our own experience and fulfillment of our own potentialities, not someone else's." -- Joseph Campbell

If this isn't a call for memoir, I don't know what is. Recently I started a job writing for WoodenHorse Publishing which maintains a magazine database. I'm paying more attention to the magazine industry and watching them fold, fold, fold. Self destruct might be a better description. They say the reason for their demise is dwindling advertising revenue or Internet competition or FREE information via Internet. But I think it is plain old inertia.

Anais Nin puts it this way: "Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."

And dying they are -- age old publications like I.D (International Design) magazine have been around since the 1950s -- but are closing. Of course there is Kirkus and Editor and Publisher and National Geographic Adventure Magazine and on the list goes.

The editors at I.D. contest that they could have survived. They could have embraced the Internet just as their competitors had done and with their respected brand, could have made a go of it. The magazine hosts an annual design event that brings in quite a hefty income, so their foundation in the design industry is stable. Sadly F&W Media who own I.D. Magazine do not invest any of the funds from the annual event directly back into the magazine. And the editors readily admit that they have not acknowledged the needs of their audience, advertisers nor changed with the times.

I also think the readership has changed and is demanding more. Magazines, particularly women's magazines, seem to think we are a superficial lot and if they just give us the same hash rehashed each season, it will keep readers happy. Lipstick, shoes, hairdos and makeup seem to be bread and butter for women's magazines. Would I read an article about what color of lipstick is in for the coming season? Not if it is longer than a paragraph or two. Would I read an article about the history of lipstick? About the inventor of the corset and its dynamic in the gender wars? You bet! Is it offered in any of the seven sister magazines? Nope.

As writers maybe we are not offering the magazines an opportunity to change and grow. I see that list articles are popular. Every magazine has a front cover sporting the term 'the top 5, 10, 50 ways to leave your lover or some kind of list that lures people inside. What about the top five most deadly professions or businesses or the top 10 ways to teach your child responsibility? Or maybe the five reasons prostitution is on the rise. Maybe the 5 things your mother never told you about marriage....

Maybe there's something you want to write about but don't think anyone would read it? If you don't put it out there, it won't get read, for sure! Maybe it is time that writers stop trying to figure out what editors want and give them what they need. They all live in their little ivory towers working 24-7 to put out a magazine and they don't get out in the real world and see what their readerships sees. Perhaps check out your favorite magazine and see what it is failing to provide for your needs and then write it.

If you look at the list of successful writers, they did not write evergreen pieces that were merely a rehash of last year's evergreen story. They introduced something new. Erma Bombeck and Elizabeth Berg offered magazines a new voice. It is time for a new generation of writers to step forward and add their voices to the printed page.

Redbook recently added six new columnists to their stable of writers. All but one were popular bloggers. One wrote edgy pieces for Salon. But all have their own voice. Their own approach to a topic that they now own. Most have written at least one book. All have reinforced Campbell's words: these bloggers/writers/columnists are all unique and are giving to the world based upon their experience and unique perspective. We need more writers who will be true to themselves and write what they NEED to write and not just try to give an editor what he or she thinks she needs. Most of the time editors don't know what they need until they see it.... Put more of yourself into your articles -- not I or me -- but your experiences, your needs, your perception, your knowledge, your spin.

Tropes, symbols, and scenes written in three little words

A recent discussion about visual illusion and symbolism made me think, of course, about the writing equivalent. (Love this illusion -- face or hands?

After watching a video at Polywog Fiberart about what we see is not actually what is there, I began to believe that the Matrix might be based upon a true story. And that there is more to my senses than ummm meets the eye. 

I take alot for granted in this world. Which makes me a very lazy writer. I should strive to understand the why and wherefore of everything! I look at a picture of a train track disappearing into the horizon and get a sense of depth. I see a painting of a craggy mountain pass and see dimensions. I see a landscape and feel certain that some images are closer than others. But I also know that all of these images are on a flat surface. 

Isaac Newton with his prism showed that various colors bend at prescribed angles. He was able to bend the light into its various colors. And recently while surfing around, I found a website that declared: "Where distance angles focus nature to  advance and recede visually, color angles make picture planes appear to advance and recede visually,... because, in the eye and  brain, color angles mimic distance angles, and distance angles are three-dimensional!"

Color can produce depth and distance. We have been taught that some colors recede and others step forward. But I didn't fully grasp how useful this could be. 'Color' in a novel or in our writing can create illusions, too. Descriptions using words that convey more than the sky is up, the ground is down, can give a sense of emotion and depth to the scene. The 'stormy sky' the blood red sun, the shimmer on the horizon, the ozone in the air, all convey more than simple weather descriptions, they allude to something happening or expected to happen in the story. If it is spring -- then we can anticipate a new beginning. Winter and perhaps an end is in sight. A death. A suspension of life as in hibernation?

Introduced into the discussion was 'symbolism' that becomes cliched. A butterfly signifying new life perhaps or a ladybug representing latchkey kids? (Ladybug, ladybug fly away home, your house is on fire and your children, they will burn....) Or you watch the horror movie and the camera moves to the basement door and you want to stand up and yell, "Don't go down there!" 

Tropes. Visual symbols that tell a whole story. They work well in writing. An example that Elizabeth Strout taught in a class I took with her back in Iowa involved a white kitchen stove. The character sees a stove and she flashes back to the kitchen of her childhood home where she watched her father press her mother's hand or cheek or some part of her anatomy to the red hot electric burner on the white kitchen stove. The author needs to introduce this relationship between symbol and story once, just once. And ever after whenever the white stove is introduced into the story, it represents domestic abuse. It is a form of shorthand. Very effective. 

But when used, like the basement door, or the butterfly, it gets a bit cliched. So as with other cliches, it must be changed, stood on its ear. A trip down the basement stairs means freedom. It worked in the movie Patriot Games, based on a Tom Clancy novel. The characters waited in the dark of the basement to make their escape while the bad guys entered the upstairs and searched for them. But the understanding of basement and danger added an element of suspense to their sanctuary. 

Or, in the case of the Harry Potter movie where the bluebird, representing spring and good things and hope and second chances, lands in the whomping willow. The willow draws a branch back like a baseball bat and smacks the bird out of the picture. Feathers fly as the bird splatters. There's a moment when you first see this that your brain has to reorganize its preconception. Utter silence in the theater and then laughter and cringing and us Bambi lovers are aghast even as we laugh. My brain did such a great job of reorganizing this visual clue that I wince whenever I see a bluebird or any bird land in a tree during a movie.

The right word in the right place takes on new meaning when you think about all that stands hidden in a word. When my mother (born in 1912) was a girl 'gay' meant happy and cheerful and fun to be around. 'Queer' meant different or in some instances a change in health. She was 'taken queer.' Now the word holds a whole segment of the population in its verbs and consonants. 

Writing an entire scene in three words. "The white stove." 

You see it don't you?