Listen to The Writing Life with Ann Kroeker

Episode 2: Rescue Lost Time

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Listen to The Writing Life with Ann Kroeker

Episode 1: Just Get Started

What have you been putting off because you’re afraid, uncertain, or intimidated by everything involved?

What project could you start today?

 * * *

On Being a Writer

“This brand-new book is a must-have for career writers, whether seasoned or just starting out.”

— from “10 Great Books for a Writer’s Wish List” on Huffington Post

NOW AVAILABLE

“A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner.”

—Philip Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales

The post The Writing Life – Episode 1: Just Get Started appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I rolled into my driveway around 9:00 at night, greeted my family, and heated up some soup.

Then I pulled out my phone:

Texts from Charity Singleton Craig, my friend and coauthor. A phone call from her, too. A stream of emails, and on Facebook, an explosion of notifications. What happened?

SURPRISE! A virtual book release party!

Our mischievous, creative, unconventional publisher T. S. Poetry Press decided to try a mischievous, creative, unconventional approach to our book launch. Instead of sending books to the authors first and building anticipation leading up to the scheduled release date of December 1st, they quietly, secretly prepped it and made it available for purchase … without saying a word to us.

Meanwhile, as Charity and I busily moved ahead with plans for a December release, T. S. Poetry Press rounded up our friends online and invited them to a secret launch page on Facebook. I think they were waiting for a few days until either Charity or I figured out the book was available. As expected, at some point on Monday Charity found a link associated with our book and clicked through to Amazon.

There it was. Live. Available to purchase. “Our book is available right now!” Charity texted me while my phone was on mute.

Her inquiry to the publisher served as the mechanism to launch the surprise party—friends across the country and a few in other countries began congratulating us and celebrating with posts and photos that showed cupcakes and balloons! All day long, they inundated our Facebook stream with joy and affection.

“…lots of people are celebrating with us!” Charity texted.

All day long, this unfolded without my knowing it!

I almost missed my own surprise party! Thankfully, Charity kept up with all the notes on Twitter and Facebook and Google+.

Monday evening, after that long day of appointments, I opened my laptop and worked my way through the alerts, retweeting delightful tweets, clicking “like” on Facebook and thanking people and answering questions, laughing and feeling loved and celebrated in the swirl of surprise.

You got me, T. S. Poetry Press.

Thank you for the surprise. Thank you for the celebration. Thank you for making this book a reality. And thank you, Charity Singleton Craig, for sharing the pages of On Being a Writer.

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.” (Sydney Smith, English clergyman from the 1800s)

Thank you everyone for fortifying my life and bringing me great “happiness of existence”!

The post On Being a Writer – Surprise! appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

My junior year in college, I started scribbling each day’s to-do list the night before. I’d always include “wake up” so I would have the pleasure of marking off one item first thing in the morning: a visual sign of accomplishment.

I’ve always joked about how pathetic it was to include “wake up,” but I needed to see that I made progress.

Decades later, I want to establish some habits, to have a rut to run in, but I’m still the same at my core: I need to see that I’ve made progress.  Over the years I’ve continued using to-do lists to keep track of tasks, and you’d think that adding daily habits to the to-do list (so I can cross them off each day) would lock them in, but for some reason it doesn’t work.

Since January, I’ve been testing a habit-forming concept that marks progress visually: Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret, also known as “Don’t Break the Chain.” Before recommending it to my blog friends or writing coach clients, I’ve been waiting to see how it works for me, given that forming habits is such a personal struggle.

Guess what? It works.

At least, it works for me. And I heartily recommend it to anyone who struggles with how to form a daily habit.

In a complex, high-tech world, the simplicity of Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain” approach offers a refreshing alternative to buzzers and gadgets (though supporting apps are available). With this concept in place, I wake up motivated to follow through with the habit and feel pleasantly affirmed once I do.

What’s Seinfeld’s Secret?

Software developer Brad Isaac explains via Lifehacker that Seinfeld shared the idea of “Don’t Break the Chain” with him years ago when they met briefly at a comedy club. Brad asked for some tips, and Seinfield told him his system for ensuring he writes new material every day. A second, more in-depth article offers an explanation for how it’s done. Here’s how I understand it:

1. Pick a Habit: Decide on a habit you’d like to establish. Something simple. Something you want to do daily. Something you can actually accomplish every day. I recommend absolutely no more than two habits when starting out. Better to attend to one or two and really lock those in than to try four, feel overwhelmed, and give up. Let’s say you want to write 500 words every day. That’s doable.
2. Calendar: Purchase or print off a one-year calendar for that habit (or download a supporting app, though visual people will benefit from having the calendar posted where they can see it as a reminder). One calendar per habit. Print one for your 500 words and write that at the top.
3. Post the Calendar: Hang up your calendar where you see it, as a reminder to follow through with the habit by end of day. You can see why the app may not work as well—out of sight, out of mind.
4. Marker: Buy a big marker in a color of your choice (Seinfeld recommended red, but anything bold would work). If you’re using an app, you won’t need the marker. Also, the app may come in handy if you travel a lot.
5. Daily X: When you complete the habit, mark a big X on that day. The next day, be sure the tips of the X touch the previous day’s X. After two days—certainly by day four or five—you’ll start to create a satisfying chain effect.
6. Don’t Break the Chain: Now your goal is to mark an X every single day, so you don’t break the chain of X’s. Something about seeing that continuous chain offers visual and internal satisfaction, reinforcing the habit.

“Don’t Break the Chain” Resources

• A young man named Charlie McDonnell created a short video in 2012 explaining how he stays motivated to create a video every day using Seinfeld’s “Don’t Break the Chain” technique.
• Karen Kavett has designed some nice “Don’t Break the Chain” calendars (here’s a set for 2014, with color options so each habit can have its own color per your whim). I wish hers had squares, though, as it’s easier to make an X in a box.
• At CalendarLabs.com, you can pick your favorite calendar to download and print. Scroll down to find some full-year calendars (and some have the days in boxes).
• Download the extremely simple Android “Seinfeld Calendar” app or iPhone equivalent (such as the Don’t Break the Chain app).
• Chain Calendar and Don’t Break the Chain require signup to track your habits online.

Consider developing a system for marking sick days or vacations when a habit like “Wipe kitchen counters” will not be performed. Perhaps you’ll draw an outline around the calendar’s box so that you still create connections to the X. Or you could draw an “A” for “absent” and let the bottom of the A touch the bottom of the X. In any case, it’s smart to build in a plan that accommodates real life.

Someday you won’t be sick or on vacation…someday you’ll feel ornery or overwhelmed and fail to do the thing you set out to do. Someday you’ll get busy and just plain forget about it. On that day, you won’t outline the box or draw an A for “absent.” On that day, you’ll leave that square blank and the chain will show a gap.

On that day, you’ll break the chain.

But you know, it’s human to feel ornery, overwhelmed, busy and forgetful. And it’ll be a break, but it’s not the end. Don’t stare at that broken chain and feel like you’ve failed. Don’t rip down the calendar and give up.

Instead, pick up the habit again the next day and start a new chain. See if you can create a longer streak than before. You can see from my calendars that I’ve done that. A new day can be the start of a new chain, and I still find satisfaction looking back at those long stretches before I missed a day.

If habits are hard for you to form, give the Seinfeld Secret a try. Pick a habit, maybe two (but no more than two until you establish a solid month of X’s) and then Don’t Break the Chain.

The post How to Form a Daily Habit: Don’t Break the Chain appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

On Wednesday my phone alerted me to an appointment. I glanced at the time: 2:00 p.m. What did I schedule at two o’clock on the day before Thanksgiving?

I swiped the screen to check my calendar.

Ah. It thought I was supposed to be sitting at my computer for what had been known for the past 12 weeks as “office hours.” I forgot to tell my phone that “office hours” are over.

For these past three months, I’ve facilitated (along with Charity Singleton Craig) a Tweetspeak online workshop comprised of a vibrant group of writers who, in community, explored 12 essential elements of their writing lives.

Over the weeks, we read and responded to writing submissions, developing deep respect and affection for every person in the group as creatives, writers, and friends. Each Wednesday afternoon at two o’clock Eastern Time, those of us who were available would gather online in our private workshop space to interact (via message threads), about writing, about life, about struggles and questions or ideas and solutions, or about all of the above.

People would come and go as their schedules allowed. Some members couldn’t break away to join that discussion time due to work or obligations, so they dropped in later at their convenience to continue the conversation with more questions, more ideas.

We’ve drawn inspiration and energy from each other. We’ve experimented and made discoveries. We’ve dreamed big and taken risks. We’ve built trust.

After enjoying each other so much for so long, it’s hard to step away from the online space where we developed these relationships, but I look forward to what’s next for each person. After all, the end of one thing is the beginning of another. In the blocks of time that have opened up now that the workshop has ended, we can begin projects that we’d been toying with but didn’t have time for. We can actively pursue goals and finish manuscripts. We can start living the writing life not just hypothetically in workshop discussions, but in earnest.

As we begin new things, we’ll keep tabs on each other, celebrating someone’s byline and waving at each other through social media.

I’m delighted to have helped facilitate this rich, playful, productive time together.

I’m honored to have traveled alongside these writers on this leg of their journey.

And I’m thankful, so thankful, for each one of them.

_______________________

The Writing Life workshop was made possible through Tweetspeak Poetry. Though this workshop has ended, Tweetspeak offers a variety of workshops throughout the year, so check in from time to time or follow them on Facebook to see what’s planned. And Tweetspeak is committed to helping writers become who they really are by creating ongoing opportunities for writers to learn, play, and grow. so jump in and try a writing prompt or take a virtual literary tour. Explore this literary community for inspiration to start living your own writing life right now. 

The post The 2013 Writing Life Workshop appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Writing and Editing Workshops

We’d turn in a poem to the teacher, who collected them all and passed out copies for us to read and annotate so we could offer our peers helpful input. On the day of the workshop, we critiqued the poems out loud, pointing out what worked (and what didn’t), trying to explain why it worked (or didn’t).

In a poorly managed class where the professor allowed negative, disrespectful remarks to dominate, the workshop process disheartened many young, inexperienced writers. Too much negativity discourages a person taking creative risks—all too often that new author will conclude she must not have what it takes and years may pass before she picks up a pen or sits at the keyboard to try writing again.

If handled well by the instructor, however, the workshop offered invaluable input, making us (and our work) stronger, helping students identify their strengths while pointing to areas in need of tweaking.

A few years ago, Professor J.C. Schaap announced to his creative writing students that their stories would undergo a writing workshop. As their work rolled in, several students included e-mails telling him that they were scared, witless. To prepare them, he set up a trial run using an anonymous piece from his files. At first, the students were reluctant to say anything negative. But someone spotted a scene in the story that seemed unrealistic and hesitantly pointed it out. That first comment opened up the rest of the class, and Schaap reported that “condemnation starting rolling down like justice is supposed to. Right before my eyes, a bandwagon appeared.” He continued:

There was a hangin’ coming, I knew, so I told the madding crowd that next week—when their own workshopping begins—the same darn thing is likely to happen, only they’ll be looking at the actual writer, not thinking of her in the abstract, because next week the writers R US or whatever.

That quieted the mob into stony silence.

Teaching can be fun. If it wasn’t, I’d quit in a minute.

“So,” one of them says, meekly, “when we’re done, can we have a hug line?”

Positive, Constructive Critique

Anyone involved in writing and editing should remember we’re helping people become stronger writers. Our critique should be constructive, followed up by specific encouragement…and perhaps, when appropriate, a hug.

When evaluating and editing someone’s work, I focus on the positive as much as possible. Staying upbeat and honest throughout the process, I hope to earn the writer’s trust. Then, when I find spots where writers can tighten their work, they will take the risk to strip away excess, like sections that slow the pace so much that the reader’s eyes glaze over. When the excess disappears, the heart of the story, essay or poem emerges. Isn’t that what we’re all looking for? The heart? The life? The pulse of a piece?

Welcome Editorial Input

I’m not just an editor handing out suggestions to artists; I’m also a writer. I’ve held red pens in my hand to mark papers and I’ve stared at the red marks of others covering my own submissions, so I know both sides. I try to receive input with grace and humility from the editor evaluating my work, just as I try to offer it with kindness and respect when editing others. Sometimes the input hits hard; sometimes it hurts. I prefer a gentler approach, but I need the input any way it comes, so I’ve developed a thick skin and dig in to improve the work.

Though we may cringe in fear during the editorial or workshop process, deep down I think we welcome critique—especially specific, insightful, kind suggestions—because we yearn to improve. We hold out our ideas, stories, poetry—our very heart—to peers or editors to find out what they think. We do so trembling sometimes, scared witless. But we do it so that our writing comes to life, accepting the critique in order to grow.

Handle Writers with Respect

Teachers, editors, and peers will do well to remember that this feels risky to every writer, but they have the honor of participating in another person’s growth as that writer reaches out with his art to readers…to the world.

I’m reminded of an Emily Dickinson poem:

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,
–The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Writers have to develop a thick skin and deal with critique, even criticism. But when handling the words of others, whether in the form of a poem, post or story, we would do well to assume that they would like our input followed up by a “hug line” and that their heart’s cry is: “Judge tenderly of me!”

Only a few spots left for The Writing Life, an online writing workshop led by Charity Singleton Craig and me. Starts the first week in September—sign up now. 

Modified post from the archives.

The post Writing and Editing: Handle Words with Respect appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Back in the early 1990s, I did manage to explore writing as my work, as a way of life. I wrote and submitted a few magazine articles and met with businesses to launch a career in corporate freelance writing. Then we started our family.

Our first three children were born within four years of each other (the fourth came along a few years later). Consumed by the demands and intensity of young motherhood, I could have shoved my computer screen, pen and notebook into a closet for about twelve years and waited until the conditions were right. I could have waited until my oldest two girls were old enough to babysit the younger two. I could have waited until I had a little office or study or library or nook to call my own. I could have waited until I had long chunks of uninterrupted time.

Instead, I wrote.

I wrote when the kids were napping. I wrote late at night. I wrote in my head when I took them for a walk to the park and scribbled down my ideas when they were eating a snack.

I stole time.

Sometimes I wrote well and submitted pieces to magazines or posted them at my blog; much of what I wrote, however, merely served as compost, breaking down in my mind, heart, and spirit to feed new and potentially better ideas. Regardless of the quality of what I produced, I wrote; I practiced; I learned. And I read. With a book tucked in my diaper bag or purse, I could steal a moment now and then to consume some new thought written by authors I respected, whose information I craved, whose ideas would feed the glowing coals of creativity that glimmered softly inside of me as I changed diapers, swept Cheerios and scraped hunks of banana from the high chair tray. I kept the energy of writing alive during those hectic years, and when the flame flashed, I’d try to grab something on which to write, even if it meant borrowing a crayon and scribble pad that the kids were using for stick-people adventure stories.

This made for a spontaneous, messy writing life. Scraps of paper strewn on the kitchen table or nightstand represented that flash of insight I managed to scratch onto the back of an envelope. Life with newborns and toddlers required tremendous focus and energy, leaving little chance for a regular schedule. I grabbed opportunities when I could, leaving a trail of pens and paper throughout the house and shoved into cup holders in the car.

I identified with other writer-moms, such as Barbara Kingsolver. She would read about rituals of other authors who had seemingly endless time to create the writing mood—hours of photography or flower arranging before sitting at the desk to compose one word. She quoted one author who described his muse at length. Kingsolver, a busy mom with no time for flower-arranging, had to write with the time she was given. She described her own muse:

My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write,now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver understands the limitations of motherhood and the challenge of writing in the midst of it. She quotes Lucille Clifton responding to the question “Why are your poems always short?” Ms. Clifton replied, “I have six children, and a memory that can hold about twenty lines until the end of the day.” Clifton encouraged me to plan out my work mentally while I’m on-the-go, storing up thoughts until the end of the day, when the kids were in bed and the words could spill out.

My kids are much older now; my conditions remain imperfect but are much more conducive to writing. My children are more independent—my oldest is heading off to college, after all. But with three still at home, it seems I still have to steal time. Apparently the conditions for writing will never be perfect.

I need to be reminded of this again and again. Julia Cameron, in The Right to Write says:

The “if-I-had-time” lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born–without the luxury of time…Yes, it is daunting to think of finding time to write an entire novel, but it is not so daunting to think of finding time to write a paragraph, even a sentence. And paragraphs, made of sentences, are what novels are really made of. (p. 14, 15, The Right to Write, Julia Cameron)

This reminds me of a quote I heard at the Festival of Faith & Writing. Parker Palmer said:

If you can’t write a book, write a bunch of essays. If you can’t write a bunch of essays, write a bunch of paragraphs. If you can’t write a bunch of paragraphs, write lines. If you can’t write lines, write some words. And if you can’t write some words, write your truth with your own life, which is far more important than any book. (Parker Palmer at the Festival of Faith & Writing 2010)

Write a book, essays, paragraphs, lines, or just write a few words; but for heaven’s sake, be sure to write with your life. Poets, bloggers, novelists, creative nonfiction writers, essayists, letter writers, journalists, composers; we must all get to work.

And it’s true no matter what complicates schedules—whether you have a full-time job or you’re a full-time caregiver: Write what you can, when you can. Because the conditions are never perfect.

Modified reprint from the archives.

______________________________

Is your writing life all it can be?

Let this book act as your personal coach, to explore the writing life you already have and the writing life you wish for, and close the gap between the two.

“A genial marriage of practice and theory. For writers new and seasoned. This book is a winner.”

—Phil Gulley, author of Front Porch Tales

The post Writing Conditions are Never Perfect appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I typed up the quotation, included the name that Hipps claimed was the source, and popped it up on Twitter and Facebook
like this [see actual citation below]:

"We become what we behold." –Marshall McLuhan

— annkroeker (@annkroeker) July 21, 2012

People do that all the time, you know. They stick up a quotation they see somewhere without citing the source.

Those people however, may not have as many English majors and other literary types in their list of friends and followers as I. As soon as that update went live on Facebook, a few word-loving women engaged in the comments. One friend was using that quote in a project of her own, but hadn’t heard that it was connected to McLuhan. She asked where I found it.

Before I had a chance to type up the Relevant Magazine info, another friend responded that some people claim William Blake said it, providing this link from EnglishClub.com.

I tapped out my source: Sept-Oct 2010 Relevant Magazine, “What’s Actually on Your Mind?” By Shane Hipps. Page 74. Here is the actual sentence from the article, with proper in-text credit, as I should have presented it:

“In the simplest terms, to quote Marshall McLuhan, we become what we behold.” (Hipps 74)

Out of respect, gratitude, and a desire to do the right and legal thing, it’s essential to cite the source, to point to the origin, to give credit where credit is due.

Give Credit Where Credit is Due

I blush to realize I hadn’t clearly done so myself that day.

School is about to start, so I’m busily preparing documents for the writing class I’ll be teaching. One of the first things we cover is plagiarism. I use explanations and definitions from Plagiarism.org in my presentation (I recommend reading their FAQ page for an overview). As we discuss plagiarism and its consequences, many of these students learn for the first time in their lives that plagiarism is a kind of theft (Starr).

I tell students that they need to cite the source not only for every direct quotation but also for every piece of information they use in a paper.

“Even if I put it in my own words?” they ask.

“Even if you put it in your own words,” I answer. “That’s a paraphrase, but it’s based on another person’s idea and you have to say so. Same if you summarize. It’s still someone else’s idea and you need to cite the source to give them credit.”

“What if we don’t by accident?” a student invariably asks. “What if we accidentally leave it out but don’t mean to?”

I give them the hard news: even if they unintentionally plagiarize, they’re still held responsible.

My students are quality kids who want to do the right thing. At this point in the discussion, they’re scared. “What can we do?” they ask.

“Cite your sources,” I say, urging them to keep track of every book, article, television show, website, or email as they watch, listen, read and research. As they’re working, they should collect all of the information they need for MLA format, which is the formatting and style I require. “I’d rather see a paper peppered with in-text citations and a long list of sources on the Works Cited page than to have you leave something off. When in doubt, cite.

Test your understanding of plagiarism via this Information Literacy project or this quiz from Empire State College.

Citation Online: Blogs

Since I began blogging, I’ve tried to include names and hyperlinks that help readers track back to the source I’m citing, but are links enough? Do readers realize that I’ve used technology to “credit” the source when they see words highlighted in blue?From this point forward, I want to offer more.

Attribution Policy Statement

Adrienne L. Massanari and Meghan Dougherty of The Center for Digital Ethics and Policy wrote “Best Practices for Bloggers: Dimensions for Consideration.” They recommend bloggers create an attribution policy statement:

Include a standard for how you will indicate attributions in your posts and how you expect readers to indicate attribution of cited material in comments. Also include a policy on reuse of your original content. (digitalethics.org)

An attribution policy statement seems like an important step. Stay tuned. I’ll be working on that.

MLA Format for Citations on Blogs

On my blog, is it enough to hyperlink to the source, or should I be using MLA?My work is my intellectual property, just as the work of other writers, poets, photographers, bloggers and journalists is theirs. I expect people to honor my rights; I would be a hypocrite if I failed to respect the intellectual copyright of others. It shouldn’t matter if it takes more time; I shouldn’t be lazy. I should give credit where credit is due.

I am more convinced than ever that I should cite as thoroughly as possible using a clear, standardized format for doing so. Rather than reinvent the wheel or come up with my own special method, I am going to use MLA format.{resisting urge to sigh}I want to do this and I’m going to commit. It means I have to pay more attention to my sources, coming up with a meticulous note-taking system. When I use a quote, paraphrase or summary, I’ll have to connect it with the correct source, insert the in-text citation, create the works cited section, double-check that any automated citations are in their correct form…It means I have to do what I expect of my students.

And much as I hate to admit it, that’s a very good thing.

Out of habit, I’ll hyperlink, but I’ll try to add sources at the bottom of each page.

Simplifying the Work of Citation

PlagiarismToday.com offers many thoughts on plagiarism and citation. They even hunted down a WordPress plugin, netblog, though I can’t figure it out.

An alternative: Use easybib.com or create the “works cited” info and format by hand.

For the classic approach, turn to the OWL at Purdue University. They have plenty of examples to help a blogger put together a proper works cited page or section. You refer to their samples and type them up yourself. Sometimes, believe it or not, I have found it faster to create a citation myself than to rely on automation via easybib.

Whatever method I end up using, I intend to have a works cited info follow each post. For today’s post, I used easybib.com and pasted in the results below. Here’s the public link, created by EasyBib (although one source that I manually inputted was left out).

Citing on my blog seems doable; a trickier challenge is to cite on social media.

Citation Online: Social Media

Social media is what started this whole citation journey for me: my lack of citation in a Facebook update. How do I manage citations on Facebook? How do I give full credit on Twitter when so few characters are available?

Create a Satellite Citation Site

Here’s my only idea so far.

For Twitter, I’m thinking of creating a satellite website that can house citations. In fact, I don’t even have to create one, as I have an underused Tumblr account where I could publish information that doesn’t fit in a tweet or a Facebook update. The tweet, therefore, would have the quote and then a link, directing followers and friends to a more thorough explanation with citation info included.

What do you think? Is that enough?

I could do the same with Facebook, or perhaps I could use the Notes section as the location of longer citations?

More experimentation needed in this area.

Summary

I will continue to create hyperlinks within my posts, but to practice what I preach in the areas of plagiarism and citation, I will try to do more in-text citation, as well. I also intend to include a Works Cited page at the bottom of each blog post, adding any extra copyright information in brackets after the citation (such as Creative Commons licensing or other permissions).

Until I come up with a better plan for social media, I will create a Works Cited page at my Tumblr blog or in the Notes section of my Facebook page.

In today’s post, I will create hanging indents, but I might not do it every time (requires minor html coding).

Finally, anyone who has opinions, ideas, solutions, or recommendations, by all means chime in.

Works Cited

Bailey, Jonathan. “Using MLA and APA Citations On Your Blog.” Plagiarism Today. N.p., 18 Jan. 2011. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2011/01/18/using-mla-and-apa-citations-on-your-blog/>.

Blake, William. “We Become What We Behold.” We Become What We Behold. EnglishClub.com, n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://www.englishclub.com/ref/esl/Quotes/Life/We_become_what_we_behold._2554.htm>.

Credit Is Due (The Attribution Song). Dir. Nina Paley. Perf. Bliss Blood. QuestionCopyright.org, n.d. YouTube.com. YouTube. QuestionCopyright.org, 27 June 2011. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPtH2KPuQbs>. [Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)]

Hipps, Shane. “What’s [Actually] on Your Mind?”. Relevant Magazine. Sept.-Oct. 2010: 73-77. Print.

Massanari, Adrienne L. “Best Practices for Bloggers: Dimensions for Consideration.” Center for Digital Ethics and Policy. Loyola University, 2 Aug. 2012. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://digitalethics.org/resources/best-practices-for-bloggers-dimensions-for-consideration/>.

“Plagiarism FAQs.” Plagiarism.org. IParadigms LLC, n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2012.

Starr, Karen. “Plagiarism: What It Is.” Plagiarism 101: How to Write Term Papers Without Being Sucked into the Black Hole. Library at the University at Albany, 2002. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://library.albany.edu/usered/plagiarism/>.

Stolley, Karl, and Joshua M. Paiz. “Is It Plagiarism Yet?” Purdue OWL: Avoiding Plagiarism. Purdue University, 4 Apr. 2010. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/2/>.

“What is Plagiarism?” Plagiarism.org, n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2012. <http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_plagiarism.html> [From Plagiarism.org: REPRINT & USAGE RIGHTS: In the interest of disseminating this information as widely as possible, plagiarism.org grants all reprint and usage requests without the need to obtain any further permission as long as the URL of the original article/information is cited.]

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Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

Well, I started reading What Does It All Mean?: A Very Short Introduction to Philosophy, and even though it is very short and relatively simple, I’m not at all sure what any of it means. Why is my mind unable to wrap itself around philosophy?

David Dark’s The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, which I mentioned last week, came in the mail.

Still reading and enjoying Anna and the King with the kids.

Playing

Our homeschool cross country team competed in its first middle school meet on Saturday morning, running against several Catholic teams.

Standing alongside the course, I like to encourage runners from other teams as well as our own, so I glance at the shirts and call out the name of the school. If an athlete racing toward me wears a jersey printed with, say, Wheaton Middle School, I would shout, “Good job, Wheaton! Keep up the pace! You look strong!” If the runner is from Bloomington North, I might say, “You look great, Bloomington!”

As the Catholic runners tore around a corner on the home stretch, I got to shout things like, “Good job, Christ the King!”, “You look strong, Joan of Arc!”, “Keep it up, Saint Mark,” and “Way to go, Holy Spirit!”

This pleased me to no end. I mentioned it to another coach. “It’s so fun,” I said, “to be shouting, ‘Way to go, Christ the King!'”

She laughed and nodded. “I never thought of that, but it’s like we’re proclaiming truth all along the course.”

Keep it up, Holy Spirit!

Reacting

In the 1950s, my mother-in-law worked for a summer at HoneyRock Camp in northern Wisconsin. After hiking to the bath house one night, she stepped out and stared in wonder at the sky—ablaze! Unlike a sunset, this luminous color shifted and shimmered mysteriously across the night sky. She hesitated only a second before racing back toward the cabins, sounding the alarm.

“It’s Jesus!” she cried out. “Everyone, come quick! The Lord is coming back! It’s the Lord! He’s returning!“

People scrambled from their beds as she continued shrieking with joy at His return.

They staggered out, rubbing their groggy eyes, and stared where she was pointing.

“It’s not Jesus,” they informed her. “It’s the Northern Lights.”

What a disappointment! To think you were witnessing the Second Coming of Christ only to be told it was just an aurora?

Ah, but those auroras…Though I’ve only seen them through someone else’s lens, I’m mesmerized by the fluid motion of those wafting, swirling green lights.

And, moved core-deep by my mother-in-law’s youthful thrill, joy, and delight in the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, I long to watch for Him with the same anticipation and readiness.

Writing

Monday’s post compels me to write raw.

How much will I manage to share on the screen, though?

:::

Credits:

Question mark photo copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.

Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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The post Curiosity Journal: September 14, 2011 appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

By the time I was 13 or 14 years old, I realized the children’s department couldn’t provide the depth of information I craved. Shyly, I began browsing the adult nonfiction shelves for exercise books, vegetarian cookbooks, step-by-step drawing tutorials, and a series that taught survival skills, in case I ever acted on my dream of living by myself in the woods, like the kid in My Side of the Mountain.

One afternoon I glanced through books on writing. A title caught my eye: Write to Discover Yourself.

I looked both ways and plucked it from the shelf, running my fingers over the green cover with the fuchsia gerbera daisy poking out of a cup of pencils. It was a little cheesy, but…

Write. Discover.

I desperately wanted to understand myself and unearth who I was meant to become. And deep down, I wanted to write.

Cheeks flushed, heart thumping, I tucked the book under my arm to hide the title from anyone who might question my right to write or ridicule my search for self.I feared my family’s response most of all. In a household of word-people—both parents were journalists and my brother would eventually become an advertising executive—I was the vegetarian runner who asked for art supplies at Christmas. Compared with my family, I had never demonstrated noteworthy writing talent. I lost every game of Scrabble, and at that point, my latest story was about a ladybug in search of a home.

Me? Write?

Yes, I resolved. I would quietly write to “discover myself.”

This became my secret. I retreated to my room, scribbling responses to the author’s writing exercises in spiral-bound notebooks that I would stuff deep into my closet so that no one would peek.

I kept a journal and followed instructions to “portrait” the important people in my life, exploring memories, capturing life.

I sat on the wooden floor of my upstairs bedroom scratching out a word-portrait of my father, struggling to express the way his resonant voice, rising from deep within his barrel chest, could build and fill—even shake—the entire house. Or was it just me, shaking? On page after page of the book, the author encouraged me to continue being specific, to use concrete details and metaphor. On page after page of my notebooks, I poured out stories from my little world.

Digging into yourself requires a depth of honesty that is painful, she said, but imperative (Vaughn 25). She quoted a professor who said that a writer “is the person with his skin off” (24). This is how I began to decipher my life—on the pages of a journal, I wrote with my skin off: bare, raw, vulnerable.

My journalist-parents didn’t write like that, nor did my quick-witted brother. At least, I was pretty sure they didn’t.

Of my family, I alone seemed to practice this private outpouring of words and deeply personal stories that would form a base for future work. With the help of a stumbled-upon writing book, I privately peeled back layers to stare at my heart, my soul. And I began, through practice, through pain, through prayer, the lifelong process of finding myself.

:::

Work Cited

Vaughn, Ruth. Write to Discover Yourself. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1980. Print. (currently out of print)

Note: this post contains affiliate links.

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Each Wednesday I’m recording a Curiosity Journal to recap the past week. Tag words are: reading, playing, learning, reacting and writing.

:::

Some of you have mentioned that you’re keeping a Curiosity Journal, as well. Leave your link in the comments so that we can visit and enjoy your weekly review.

Reading

A few months ago I saw a book titled The Sacredness of Questioning Everything. Intrigued, I thought I should order it—after all, a book about questioning seems appropriate for a person who keeps a Curiosity Journal. But the thought skipped past, and I failed to act on it.Some time later I learned that an author named David Dark was leading a session at the Laity Lodge Writers’ Retreat. I had never heard of David Dark, but, boy, did I love his name! Sounds like the alter ego of some comic book hero who transforms from local television news reporter to powerful, shadowy superhero that swooshes in unnoticed to confound a villain and foil his dastardly plans.Turns out David Dark is a writer of Christian nonfiction.Of course, that might just be his cover: nonfiction author by day, unstoppable superhero by night.Anyway, I finally put it together that David Dark authored The Sacredness of Questioning Everything, which I did, at last, order.Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, while leafing through my daughter’s college reading material, I spotted a quote from that very book, where Dark claims, “Show me a transcript of the words you’ve spoken, typed or texted in the course of a day, an account of your doing, and a record of your transactions, and I’ll show you your religion” (David Dark, as quoted by Jeff Cramer).David Dark, who was completely unknown to me a month or so ago, has practically become a household name.

Playing

I forgot to post pictures from the birthday boy’s gathering a couple of weekends ago. Our friends bought him Blokus.A game suitable for a wide range of ages.While four people played Blokus, our youngest guest unearthed some toy handcuffs and latched one cuff around his mom’s wrist. Click. He attached the other to the chair. Click.Ha-ha-ha. His mom was momentarily handcuffed to a spindle of the chair, until, at her request, he released the cuff attached to the chair with the click of a button. The other cuff, however, remained snug against her wrist.Ha-ha…uh-oh.The click-of-a-button didn’t release the second cuff. It was stuck. She said she wasn’t nervous, but after her husband, a scientist, and the Belgian Wonder, an all-around problem-solver, fiddled with it for twenty-five minutes without success, I felt nervous.The two men worked together, offering theories as to why it happened and suggestions for how to jigger it loose. Eventually, they figured out its mechanism, so the Belgian Wonder used pliers to turn a lever while the scientist poked a skinny, sharp tool into a tiny hole to trigger a broken release button.The cuff popped open.But not before leaving its mark.

Learning

I’m learning never to leave broken toy handcuffs out where a six-year-old boy can get his hands on them—his first thought, of course, is to snap them around someone’s hands, which will immediately alter the mood of any gathering.Also—and this is an aside, but—never ever brag about what a good dog you own. That day or the next will be the day he does something very naughty, or very gross.And that’s all I have to say about that.

Reacting

My first progressive lenses are leaving me feeling a little dizzy…and a little old.

Writing

Charity’s call to become masterful intrigues me. Unsure how to proceed, but considering ideas.Come to think of it, I’m invited to submit 1000-2000 words of a complete essay or a work in progress to my Writer’s Retreat workshop leader, so I suppose I should start there. The session is on memoir and the deadline looms.Yes, I should begin immediately.

:::

Credits:Cramer, Jeff. “Keeping Technology in Context.” Computing & Culture-Applications & Context. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2011. Print.All photos copyright 2011 by Ann Kroeker.Note: This post contains Amazon affiliate links.

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The post Curiosity Journal: Sept. 7, 2011 (David Dark, Blokus, handcuffs, aging, masterful memoir) appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

He could talk that much because my friend and her mom listened and listened and listened and listened.

We finished the job and ate lunch together, continuing the conversation. After we cleared the dishes, my friend and her mom packed up to leave. They thanked us for our help. My son looked at them and then up at me. “I’m just glad they came here to do the invitations,” he said. “I love having people over who listen to me.”

I remember feeling that way. I suppose I still do.

In this week’s book club post at HighCallingBlogs.com, Laura Boggess quoted from Julia Cameron’s The Right to Write:

…I believe that each of us already has a unique voice. We do not need to “develop” it; rather, we need to discover or, perhaps better, uncover it.

In the comments, I responded:

On page 159, Cameron writes, “Sometimes we do not know we have a writing voice because there has never been anyone to listen.”At a recent gathering that included some members of my family of origin, I began at least three sentences only to be cut off a few words into them. I spent my formative years being shut down like that; just when I would put words to an idea, opinion, or thought, the door was slammed shut. I ended up saying very little during our recent visit, just as I struggled to express myself as a child.As a result of this upbringing, many years passed before I found my voice. I discovered it through writing, both private (journals) and public (creative writing classes).When I won a poetry contest in college, I was asked to write a little bio to go in the publication. I included this thought: “I write … because no one listens to me.”Over the years, I learned to do what Cameron recommended–to listen to myself: “When we begin to listen ourselves, the inner voice grows stronger.”

I know what it feels like to be shut down and cut off. I need to be sure that my son has opportunities to develop ideas and share his thoughts. I want to listen and listen and listen and listen.

So he can tell his stories.

So he can be heard.

So he can find his voice.

In the meantime, I still have a few things to say, too. So I tell my own stories in various ways and forms, including books and blogs. And in community, I have found listening ears.

Here are some of the responses flowing through the comments following mine about being cut off and shut down as a child:

Sam Van Eman June 22, 2010 at 7:27 amThanks for sharing this, Ann. Takes so long to overcome some of these childhood wounds, doesn’t it? Praise God for the grace you’re finding to do this very thing.

L.L. Barkat June 22, 2010 at 12:58 pmThis just made my breath catch. The reason you began writing. Today, I fancy that you write because someone does listen. We listen. And you make us smile.

Marilyn Yocum June 22, 2010 at 1:04 pmI connected with that comment by Cameron, too, Ann. My growing-up home was noisy, with very little listening and it was in my nature to withdraw rather than join the fray. I became an avid letter writer – cousins, pen pals, etc. First signs, I think. After a spiritual awakening in my teens, my voice began to come out, both on the page and with people. God has ways of drawing out what He has put into a person, often despite upbringing.

Jessica McGuire June 22, 2010 at 1:52 pmI can relate so well to this Ann…my first journeys into creative writing as a child and young student were actually laughed at by others. To not have the voice to speak…to have no one who really hears.I love this article that Laura recommended. It speaks right into my life at this moment. Where I sit on the edge of guilt and frustration: guilt when I am writing, frustration when I am not. Finding that space in between.Great discussion everyone…I am learning so much.Thank you.

Yes, thank you to everyone.Thank you for listening.

Photo by Ann Kroeker © 2010

The post People Who Listen appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Luci sitting between Robert Siegel (L) and Eugene Peterson (R)

Robert Siegel explained that when doing research on a topic you know little about, start by reading children’s books, because children’s books zero in on what’s most important (and they’re more interesting to read). Later, you can move up to the more dull books for adults to get more detail.Luci said that she takes pictures in order to have a digital memory … to remind her to do something with it later. She always carries a journal and writes everything in it—all her notes and thoughts. Tip: Be sure to write your name and address inside the cover of your journal. If you ever lose it (she lost hers once), it can find its way home (hers did).

Left to right (or maybe it’s more circular, starting bottom left curving up and around to the right): Part of Scott Cairns’ face, Robert Siegel, Luci Shaw, Eugene Peterson, and James Schaap. Scott Cairns and Eugene Peterson joined the others following the panel discussion.

James Schaap quoted Annie Dillard when she spoke at a previous Festival, saying, “You’ll never run out of ideas.” He wondered if that was true. “Really? ‘You’ll never run out of ideas’?” But as he has committed to the discipline of composing a daily blog post, he has come to see that Annie Dillard was right. He has not run out of ideas.He also paraphrased something Flannery O’Connor said: “I have to write to discover what I am doing … I don’t know so well what I think until I see what I say.” Robert Siegel said that he spends about nine hours of revision for every one hour draft of a poem or novel. “A writer has to love the process,” he said.Schaap, a photographer as well as an author and teacher, said, “One needs to look for beauty. I find that as I get older, that’s more true. Photography has been a means to purposefully look for beauty. I have to look.”Luci Shaw offered a different perspective; after practicing poetry all these years, “Paying attention and being aware are automatic for me.”Robert Siegel quoted Theodore Roethke, “A mind too active is no mind at all.” Siegel said that his mind sometimes goes off in all directions; he needs to slow it down and meditate in order to focus.Luci said, “I’m not a very disciplined writer … so having deadlines helps me get to work.”

Left to right: Luci Shaw, Eugene Peterson, James Schaap.

These photos were taken about twenty minutes later at another location, where the three panelists were joined by Eugene Peterson and Scott Cairns for a “Chrysostom Society” book signing.Not realizing a book signing was scheduled, I arrived unprepared. Book-less.So I thought through the contents of my backpack and came up with what seemed at the moment to be a clever solution.I pulled out my business cards, and when it was my turn, dealt them out like playing cards at a poker table—swish, swish, swish, swish, swish! As the cards zoomed across the table directly in front of each author, I explained that I came without books but wanted to meet them, say hello, and have them sign something. “For years and years, I’ve wanted to meet members of the Chrysostom Society,” I said, “so when they announced you were going to be here, I realized this was my chance. But I’m so sorry—I don’t have any books. So I wondered if you would sign the front of my business card, because, as you can see, my name is printed on the front with the word ‘writer,’ and then your name would be there, too, and it’s like in some small way we’re sharing the space. Your name. My name…”The more I talked, the more stupid the idea sounded. And the more I must have seemed like a crazed fan. But did I stop? “Years ago I heard Madeleine L’Engle speak,” I continued when none of them responded. “She mentioned the ‘Chrysostom Society,’ and I thought if someday I could just meet some of you … and now, here you are, and here I am … and…”Thankfully and mercifully, at this point I managed to stop, trailing off mid-sentence.They signed the cards and slid them back across the table to me without comment. Were they annoyed? Bemused? Tired?I’m not sure, but I got the impression they were done with me.Unfortunately, their pens didn’t soak into the glossy card stock. Scott Cairns took a few extra seconds to blow on the ink and speed the drying, but as I gathered up the cards, stacking one on top of the other, most of their names smeared a little:Luci Shaw,Robert Siegel,Scott Cairns,James Schaap,and Eugene Peterson.Will they remember the chatty fan with the paper wad business cards?Let’s hope not.(Anyone want to quickly design a new logo for me?)

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The post Festival of Faith & Writing 2010: Writing Advice and Making an Impression appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

My mom worked as the editor of our local newspaper, covering news all over the county. If a reporter couldn’t make it to an event, Mom would grab her camera, reporter’s pad, and pen—and quite often her daughter—to capture the news herself.

This meant that whether I wanted to or not, I visited sporting events, live nativity scenes, church bazaars, festivals, fairs, horse pulls, pie-eating contests, and a lot of parades. Most kids would relish frequent outings to festivals and fairs, but apparently I grew tired of being dragged from town to town. Even though it was an era when the Girl Scouts and local celebrities riding in Model T cars or standing on floats would heave generous gobs of candy to the spectators, apparently I moaned one time, “Not another parade!” Ah, what a cross I had to bear!

All because my mother was a professional writer and editor; a committed, working journalist.

When she was a child, her dream never wavered: she wanted to write. Mom majored in journalism at university and worked for years at our metropolitan newspaper, The Indianapolis Star, as a writer, editor and columnist. Her work in the lifestyle department allowed her to meet and interview movie stars as they came through town for a show or event. I always enjoyed telling my friends, “My mom met the woman who plays Ethel on ‘I Love Lucy.'” Mom said Vivian Vance was gracious and charming—one of her favorite interviews. And one of the most challenging? Jack Palance.

But continuing to work full-time at the Star became a challenge when my brother was born. When I came along four years later, Mom adjusted her writing life to accommodate motherhood … to accommodate me.

She gave up her work at the Star to take that position at the county newspaper in order to be available to her children; she gave up being the journalist she wanted to be, in order to be the mom she wanted to be. She could have been interviewing movie stars. Instead, Mom stood all day on Mondays, scrambling to get the paper ready, making editorial decisions about which photo of the county fair queen should make the front page, trimming school lunch schedules with scissors and pasting down stories of council meetings and road construction. But because Mom didn’t drive downtown to Indianapolis—because she was willing to work hard at a less prestigious job that was flexible and kept her close by—she was there to cheer me on at softball games and track meets. She could see my plays and band concerts.

She was around for school award ceremonies where I received some minor recognition—nothing newsworthy that would draw a reporter, but Mom would come … as a mom.

And I didn’t appreciate her sacrifice one bit when I was young.

When I was little, I woke up early to watch morning kids’ shows, which would have been limited to Captain Kangaroo, Sesame Street, and a few cartoons. Mom says one morning I slipped into her bedroom in my jammies and asked, “Mommy, can you watch car-coons with me?”

Touched that I requested her presence, she dragged herself out of bed, pulled on a robe, shuffled into the living room, and eased herself onto the green vinyl chair as I snuggled down on her lap.

After a few minutes, I chirped, “That’s good, Mommy. You can go back to bed. The chair’s all warmed up now.”

For a lot of women, it takes becoming a mother to appreciate their mothers. It takes a humbling vinyl chair moment to realize everything our moms put up with.

For me, I think that the tension and pull between motherhood and writing has opened my eyes to my mom’s sacrifices. Mom sought to balance work and motherhood, respecting and honoring both.

Now I’m attempting the same thing.

I’ve grown to appreciate the challenges she faced to make her life work. Mom knows all about “imperfect conditions.” I think I finally feel the pang of those compromises she made, of her grief at the loss of a position that really fit who she was as a writer in order to choose a life that allowed her to be there.

For me.

And my writer-mom has celebrated the life I’ve chosen, as well; also the life of a writer-mom, seeking a both/and instead of an either/or life.

Thanks for modeling how to write in the midst of motherhood, Mom. Thanks for being there.

Thanks for supporting and celebrating my work while carrying on your own. And thanks for loving my biological babies … and appreciating my word-babies.

Happy (early) Mother’s Day!

Visit HighCallingBlogs today for an early Mother’s Day celebration, where you can read a collection of mom-themed vignettes and poems.

The post Celebrating My Writer-Mom appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

If I waited for the perfect conditions to develop my writing life, I’d still be waiting.

Back in the early 1990s, I did manage to explore writing as my work, as a way of life. I wrote and submitted a few magazine articles and met with businesses to launch a career in corporate freelance writing. Then we started our family. Our first three children were born within four years of each other (the fourth came along a few years later).

Consumed by the demands and intensity of young motherhood, I could have shoved my computer screen, pen and notebook into a closet for about twelve years and waited until the conditions were right. I could have waited until my oldest two girls were old enough to babysit the younger two. I could have waited until I had a little office or study or library or nook to call my own. I could have waited until I had long chunks of uninterrupted time.

Instead, I wrote.

I wrote when the kids were napping. I wrote late at night. I wrote in my head when I took them for a walk to the park and scribbled down my ideas when they were eating a snack.

I stole time.

Sometimes I wrote well, but most of what I wrote served as compost, breaking down in my mind, heart, and spirit to feed new and potentially better ideas. Regardless of the quality of what I produced, I wrote. I practiced. I learned.

And I read. With a book tucked in my diaper bag or purse, I could steal a moment now and then to consume some new thought written by authors I respected, whose information I craved, whose ideas would feed the glowing coals of creativity that glimmered softly inside of me as I changed diapers, swept Cheerios and scraped hunks of banana from the high chair tray.

I kept the energy of writing alive during those hectic years, and when the flame flashed, I’d try to grab something on which to write, even if it meant borrowing a crayon and scribble pad that the kids were using for stick-people adventure stories.

This made for a spontaneous, messy writing life. Scraps of paper strewn on the kitchen table or nightstand represented that flash of insight I managed to scratch onto the back of an envelope. Life with newborns and toddlers required tremendous focus and energy, leaving little chance for a regular schedule. I grabbed opportunities when I could, leaving a trail of pens and paper throughout the house and shoved into cup holders in the car.

I identified with other writer-moms, such as Barbara Kingsolver. She would read about rituals of other authors who had seemingly endless time to create the writing mood—hours of photography or flower arranging before sitting at the desk to compose one word. She quoted one author who described his muse at length. Kingsolver, a busy mom with no time for flower-arranging, had to write with the time she was given. She described her own muse:

My muse wears a baseball cap, backward. The minute my daughter is on the school bus, he saunters up behind me with a bat slung over his shoulder and says oh so directly, “Okay, author lady, you’ve got six hours till that bus rolls back up the drive. You can sit down and write, now, or you can think about looking for a day job.” (p. 96, High Tide in Tucson, Barbara Kingsolver)

Kingsolver understands the limitations of motherhood and the challenge of writing in the midst of it. She quotes Lucille Clifton responding to the question “Why are your poems always short?” Ms. Clifton replied, “I have six children, and a memory that can hold about twenty lines until the end of the day.”

Clifton encouraged me to plan out my work mentally while I’m on-the-go, storing up thoughts until the end of the day, when the kids were in bed and the words could spill out.

My kids are much older now; my conditions remain imperfect but are much more conducive to writing. My children are more independent—my oldest has her driver’s permit. But it seems I still have to steal time.

Apparently the conditions for writing will never be perfect.

I need to be reminded of this again and again. Julia Cameron, in The Right to Write says:

The ‘if-I-had-time’ lie is a convenient way to ignore the fact that novels require being written and that writing happens a sentence at a time. Sentences can happen in a moment. Enough stolen moments, enough stolen sentences, and a novel is born–without the luxury of time…

Yes, it is daunting to think of finding time to write an entire novel, but it is not so daunting to think of finding time to write a paragraph, even a sentence. And paragraphs, made of sentences, are what novels are really made of. (p. 14, 15, The Right to Write, Julia Cameron)

This reminds me of a quote I heard at the Festival of Faith & Writing in 2010. Author Parker Palmer said:

If you can’t write a book, write a bunch of essays. If you can’t write a bunch of essays, write a bunch of paragraphs. If you can’t write a bunch of paragraphs, write lines. If you can’t write lines, write some words. And if you can’t write some words, write your truth with your own life, which is far more important than any book. (Parker Palmer at the Festival of Faith & Writing 2010)

Poets, bloggers, novelists, creative nonfiction writers, essayists, letter writers, journalists, composers; we must all get to work. Write a book, essays, paragraphs, lines, or just write a few words, but for heaven’s sake—be sure to write with your life.

No matter what complicates schedules—whether you have a full-time job or you’re a full-time caregiver—write what you can, when you can. Because the conditions are never perfect. 

___________________________________

52 Creative Writing Prompts: A Year of Weekly Prompts and Exercises to Boost Your Creativity

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The post Imperfect Conditions appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—it doesn’t have to be a recipe.

Food on Fridays Participants

Food on Fridays with Ann

Late Sunday night I returned home from Grand Rapids, where I attended the biennial Festival of Faith & Writing held at Calvin College. The past few days, I’ve tried to share some of my encounters and interactions with you. The following is a scene from last Saturday (root beer falls loosely into the category of food, doesn’t it?).

My editor and I arranged to meet for lunch on Saturday along with another David C. Cook colleague to discuss potential projects.

Ideally, I’d handle myself in a professional and poised manner. I dressed for it, wearing black slacks, a suit jacket and black pumps.

We couldn’t find a place on campus to eat, so we jumped in my car and drove to the first quick restaurant we spotted: Culver’s.

I placed my order and filled my large cup with root beer. I glanced at the lids and straws, but my hands were full. I decided that trying to secure the lid would be too awkward. I carried the open cup carefully to a small table that was the only one available at the time.

We sipped our drinks for a couple of minutes, chatting, waiting for our food to arrive. Finally I offered to launch into my ideas. I slipped some papers from a Kinko’s bag to hand to both of them as I pitched the first concept.

At that moment, our trays of food arrived. I set my papers down and reached for the tray.

As I brought it toward me, the tray blocked my view of the cup, and—thunk!

The entire cup of root beer tipped over, cold drink pouring onto my lap and down my pant leg. I was saturated. Sopping. The liquid soaked my pants and continued to flow all the way down to my shoe—into my shoe.

“Save the papers!” I exclaimed. My editor whipped up the stack of papers while the other lady rushed over to grab a wad of napkins. I blotted my pants a little, but it was too far along to make much of a difference. I resigned myself to sit in root beer pants.

Someone watched the spill from a big table in the corner. She came over. “I’m just one person at a big table, and you’re three at this small one. Why don’t we trade? You [she glanced at me compassionately] look like you could use the space.”

I thanked her with a sheepish grin. We gathered our trays and bags to walk the few steps to the bigger table.

Squish-squish-squish.

The root beer had filled my right shoe.

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Not long ago I wrote about Destructive Criticism vs. Healthy Critique when working with writers. The post generated a variety of responses as the conversation continued in the comments.

Shepherdsgrace, for example, had a terrific experience in a writing workshop that included input from the professor and classmates. She explained:

when I was in college I had the audacity, I was a chemistry major through and through, to take a creative writing class…and although an instructor was a fellow student and they all “lived” writing, reading…and were steeped in all things literature…they were very welcoming and friendly to me…I think it was because I was from “outside” their hallowed building, just a curious interloper…they were helpful and gentle at the same time…a little healthy criticism that isn’t couched in petty meanness and caustic barbs will go very far with me…that was one of the funnest classes I ever took…ever…for curious minds, it was a short fiction writing course.

Joyce’s writing workshop experience, however, was quite different from that of shepherdsgrace:

Several years ago I took a university course in creative writing. How I wish that the professor had understood the difference between [Destructive Criticism] and [Healthy Critique]. Not only was he merciless in his comments—written, of course, in red ink on our papers—but he encouraged the class to “critique” each other’s work in the same vein. One student obviously enjoyed this activity and was permitted by the instructor to savage his classmates’ efforts. As a result, many students dropped the class. I continued to the end, but didn’t write another thing for over a year until I had gotten over the experience and realized that the opinions of mean-spirited people really shouldn’t count. That professor has been invited to be the keynote speaker at the awards ceremony for a poetry competition I entered recently. I don’t think I will attend.

LL Barkat described her positive approach when working with writers and other creative types (emphasis mine):

Okay, honestly I don’t believe in critique. I believe in saying what works. Again and again and again. This gets tricky if I’m editing a piece, but even then I want to communicate the idea… hey, if I pulled something out it was only to make sure the good stuff shined the way I knew it could if it was left to itself.

Finally, I’d like to highlight what Gretchen wrote after exploring this topic with others. I’m so grateful she took time to share her findings (I’ve taken the liberty of emphasizing some statements):

I have discussed your post over the last several weeks with colleagues, co-workers, family, and friends.  Many points for discussion—including the definition of criticism vs. critique, sensitivity of an aspect of our lives to the perception of others, and the value of what we hold to be dear.There has been varying degrees of agreement and disagreement with the interpretation of criticism as outlined in your reference of Scribes Alley but all generally agreed that it is how one conveys the tone and character of that analysis which is important and what profoundly affects that memorable experience.I think that it can be argued in evaluating  the merit of a piece or performance, one should not omit the deficits as it can lead to continued weakness with lack of correction concluding with underperformance or the loss of potential of what could be.  In an effort to be “kind” it is really doing no favors.What is true is that no one person wants the “mean girls” to come “knock’n” on your doors of creativity or the things we hold dear.As for the comment that was essentially tasteless ridicule (and lacking in substantial value), I say kick it to the curb and leave it there as I suspect you already have.

Yes, Gretchen, I have indeed kicked to the curb that comment about my poetry—and I appreciate the time you took to explore this topic thoroughly.

All of the comments gave me much to consider, especially as I evaluate the papers of enthusiastic students who are emerging or developing writers. It’s tempting to focus on the mistakes—on what needs to be fixed—and ignore what’s working. I want to applaud what students are doing well so that they can recognize the places where they expressed themselves effectively; yet, I also want to mark errors in hopes of training students to develop good writing habits early on in the same way a piano teacher might correct posture or hand positions.

As Gretchen said, if I omit deficits, students may take much longer to reach their potential. That said, I have been curious to attempt an all-positive approach; or, as LL Barkat described it, “saying what works. Again and again and again.”

Back in 2006 I read an article in The New York Times called “What Shamu Taught Me About Marriage,” by Amy Sutherland. Tired of nagging her husband to change minor habits such as habitually misplacing his keys or leaving used tissues in his wake, Sutherland switched to positive reinforcement. The idea came to her while researching exotic animal trainers and how they could get “hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.” Sutherland wrote:

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don’t. After all, you don’t get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

She began to thank her husband when he placed just one dirty shirt in the hamper. Meanwhile, she would step over soiled clothes that remained on the floor without saying a word about it—thus rewarding desired behavior and ignoring the rest. As he basked in her gratitude, the piles of soiled clothes shrank. Success came from pointing out what worked and ignoring what didn’t.

Sutherland did, by the way, confess her techniques to her husband. He was not only amused; he learned how they worked and tried them out on her, as well.

Another place I’ve seen the rewards-only technique is online with “TAGteach,” where clickers (yes, the same clickers used by dolphin and dog trainers) are used for training people to learn new skills. In the following video, kids learn basic high jump techniques:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH63lywm_Sc]

The TAGteach blog explains a few key points:

Note the self assessment and absence of frustration when they miss the tag point. This video shows rapid learning of a complex skill without ever pointing out mistakes. It also provides a good example of backchaining… starting with the last part of the skill and gradually adding pieces to move toward the completed skill.

The positive is reinforced with a reward—a “Click”—while the undesirable is ignored. Here’s another example in which a young boy learns to tie shoes from a teacher who uses only positive reinforcement (and a clicker…and apparently a few beans).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlA8lK1_lII]

What do you think?

Could this work with writers, focusing on one skill at a time and rewarding them with the equivalent of a “click” when I spot it effectively woven into their assignment? Perhaps writing a simple “Yes!” next to the skill performed well (attempting simile or alliteration, for example), while ignoring all other problems?

It must require tremendous restraint. But what a great atmosphere the positive approach could create. As people discover what works, they can duplicate results, perfect that skill and move to the next level.

It builds confidence that’s based on substance. Positive reinforcement recently worked with me. I wish I could say it was in the area of professional development, but the reality is that it’s a bit more vain. This week I wore a new (well, new-to-me) striped blouse with a vest and nice-fitting jeans. I’m never confident putting together outfits, and my friends were seeing this combination on me for the first time. I worried a little. Did it work? Or did I look like a Goodwill goofball? Two people went out of their way to tell me, “You look cute!”

“Click.”

“Click.”

Guess what I’m wearing today?

Please leave a comment if you’ve applied an all-positive technique to a unique area (such as writing or skill-building with humans), rewarding the good behavior and ignoring the bad—I’m curious to hear real-life stories and results.

Flickr photo “Writing” by Jonathan Kim. Available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license.

Flickr photo “little boy thumbs up” by Michele Truex. Available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license.

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Writers write to be heard, which means writers must brace themselves for input, whether it ends up being destructive criticism or health critique. J.C. Schaap describes this kind of input among students in his blog post “Witless Fear and Hug Lines.”

In it, he tells how scary it is for a student to lay out something he or she has written in front of her peers and “let them go at it.” I remember classes like that. They were painful.

We turned in a poem or story to the teacher, who made copies to pass out in class. He would hand us a packet with a submission from every student. One by one we critiqued each piece, pointing out what worked (and what didn’t), trying to explain why it worked (or didn’t). For the young and/or insecure writer, this process can be discouraging and at worst, destructive, demeaning the person for taking creative risks and trying something new. If handled well by the instructor, however, the input can be invaluable, making us (and our work) stronger, pointing out weak spots that need editing.

Some of Schaap’s students sent e-mails telling him that they were scared, witless. So he gave them a trial run with an anonymous piece he found in his files. At first, they were reluctant to say anything negative. But someone spotted a scene in the story that seemed unrealistic and hesitantly pointed it out. That first comment opened up the rest of the class, and Schaap reported that “condemnation starting rolling down like justice is supposed to. Right before my eyes, a bandwagon appeared.” He continued:

There was a hangin’ coming, I knew, so I told the madding crowd that next week—when their own workshopping begins—the same darn thing is likely to happen, only they’ll be looking at the actual writer, not thinking of her in the abstract, because next week the writers R US or whatever.

That quieted the mob into stony silence.

Teaching can be fun. If it wasn’t, I’d quit in a minute.

“So,” one of them says, meekly, “when we’re done, can we have a hug line?”

If we know we’re helping people become stronger writers, our critique can be constructive; especially when followed up by specific encouragement … and a hug.

This weekend I received a comment at an abandoned blog associated with a long-ignored website I created in 2001. On that website, I published some poetry. Someone apparently visited the poetry page.

This person saw that there was no convenient way to leave a comment (that website is static, without a familiar blog-platform), yet he or she was motivated enough to find the old blog (which would have required a click or two) and leave an anonymous comment. Anonymous went to all that trouble to tell me this:

“Your poetry—it sucks. I mean, it really sucks. Really.”

Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion.

But if someone studied my poetry closely enough to form that strong opinion, I wouldn’t mind finding out what he or she thought made the poems “suck” so badly.

In her opinion, how could I improve these poems? What should I practice? Is there something this person would recommend that I could try in the future? This one comment has reminded me that when I review and critique someone’s work—especially something as personal as poetry—I need to be constructive.

For those who may be involved in a writing group or workshop, check out “The Difference between Critique and Criticism,” from Scribe’s Alley:

• Criticism finds fault/Critique looks at structure
• Criticism looks for what’s lacking/Critique finds what’s working
• Criticism condemns what it doesn’t understand/Critique asks for clarification
• Criticism is spoken with a cruel wit and sarcastic tongue/Critique’s voice is kind, honest, and objective
• Criticism is negative/Critique is positive (even about what isn’t working)
• Criticism is vague and general/Critique is concrete and specific
• Criticism has no sense of humor/Critique insists on laughter, too
• Criticism looks for flaws in the writer as well as the writing/Critique addresses only what is on the page

Taken from Writing Alone, Writing Together; A Guide for Writers and Writing Groups by Judy Reeves

Specific, insightful, kind critique is welcomed. This can be gleaned from a healthy writing group (learn more about forming writing groups in Charity Singleton Craig’s article at Tweetspeak), a trusted writing partner or colleague, a writing coach (as a coach, I offer clients ongoing constructive, encouraging input), or a gentle editor.

The cry for gentle, kind, constructive input comes from so many of us. Even Emily Dickinson:

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,
—The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!

Writers have to develop a thick skin and deal with criticism, even that which is destructive. But when we are dealing with someone else’s words, whether in the form of a poem, post or story, we would do well to assume that they would like our input followed up by a “hug line” and that their heart’s cry is: “Judge tenderly of me!”

* * *

Flickr photo “Making Poetry” by Aurelio Asiain available under a Creative Commons license for noncommercial use, requiring attribution and no derivative work. Post originally published in 2010; updated with minor edits and updated links August 2015.

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Here at the Food on Fridays carnival, any post remotely related to food is welcome—your link could be a recipe like your favorite Colts blue Superbowl party dip, but it does not have to be a recipe. If it’s about shopping at Trader Joe’s or your review of “Julie & Julia,” go ahead and link up! Think of it as a virtual pitch-in where you can sample what everyone brings and have a great time.When your Food on Fridays contribution is ready, just grab the broccoli button (the big one above or smaller option at the bottom) to paste at the top of your post and join us through Mr. Linky.Here’s a Mr. Linky tutorial:

Write up a post, publish, then return here and click on Mr. Linky below. A screen will pop up where you can type in your blog name and paste in the url to your own Food on Fridays post (give us the exact link to your Food on Fridays page, not just the link to your blog).You can also visit other people’s posts by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking participants’ names–you should be taken straight to their posts.Please note: I return when possible during the day and update this post by hand to include a list of the links provided via Mr. Linky. If I can’t get to the computer to do so, you may access them all by clicking on the Mister Linky logo.

Food on Fridays Participants

Food on Fridays with Ann

Today I want to introduce you to my friend L.L. Barkat. We met at the 2008 Festival of Faith & Writing, where we sat in the spring sunshine munching our pre-ordered box lunches and talked about writing, publishing, editors and agents. Little did I know that a year or so later, she would contact me in her role as Managing Editor at HighCallingBlogs (HCB) to ask me to serve as a volunteer contributor and later as a Content Editor. It’s been a privilege and pleasure following her work online, reading her published works, and now working with her through HCB.Ann: L.L., first off, what’s your all-time favorite recipe? Will you share it with Food on Fridays readers?LL Barkat: I have so many favorites! Here’s a Greek recipe I love. If you prefer to make it with beef, that can work too. But I’m a veggie girl, so…Greek Roasted Vegetables and ChickpeasAdd all to a large rectangular casserole dish and cover with aluminum foil. Roast at 400 degrees for about 2 hours or until very tender. Remove foil, lower heat to 350 and roast for another 15 minutes or until nicely browned…• assorted vegetables chopped chunky, such as turnip, carrot, potato, celery, red onion• 1 can or 1 1/2 cups dry and pre-cooked chickpeas (or 1 lb. beef if you prefer, sautéed first until brown)• 1 TB balsamic vinegar• 1 TB worcestershire sauce• 4 large garlic, minced• 1/2 jar Muir Glen Sauce• 1 TB Muir Glen tomato paste• 1 tsp. cinnamon• 1/2 tsp. nutmeg• 1/2 tsp. allspice• 1/2 tsp. ground clove• 1/4 cup red wine• a few pours olive oil• 2 cups water (add more as needed throughout, for desired sauce consistency)Finish…Add salt and pepper to taste and a few pours of olive oil. Mix in a handful or two of raisins.Serve over any kind of flat noodle, with salad or other green vegetable. The rich spices are an excellent complement to the mild flavor of chickpeas.Ann: Mmmm….I’ll bet the kitchen smells great while it’s roasting. Well, now that we’re off to a delicious start, let’s talk a little about HCB and your role as Managing Editor. Your Post “5 Things a Blog Network Can Do for You”  is a great overview of HCB. How would you describe your Managing Editor role?LL Barkat: It is my absolute dream job. I get to be social, strategize, write, host Twitter parties, go to conferences, work with Editors. Wow! I love it.The cool thing is that it happened because I started by volunteering, and then HCB entered a time of expansion and new funding (which, btw, should still be a trend going into next year, so HCB is a good place to watch for opportunities).Ann: How you do all that you do is beyond me—Managing Editor at HCB, keeping up three blogs, raising and educating two beautiful daughters, learning all about social networking trends, writing books and generating poetry—even hosting poetry parties! You lead Random Acts of Poetry at HCB and host poetry jam sessions through @tspoetry. How do you do it all?LL Barkat: Synergy. Everything I do works together. The Twitter parties, for instance, are also something I use to feed Random Acts of Poetry at HCB. And some of my best poems in InsideOut came from material I wrote during the parties. At my Green Inventions blog I process thoughts about education and technology. At Love Notes to Yahweh I think out loud about chapters I’m writing or material that I need to reflect on for talks.After blogging for more than 3 years, I found I had to approach on-line life this way or I’d burn out.Ann: Synergy. I like that. Now, I have to be honest with you, L.L. @tspoetry still  intimidates me a little. I don’t completely understand how it works. Can you explain it to us? And did your Lazy Blogger’s Tuna Casserole post flow from a @tspoetry party?LL Barkat: Oh, the Twitter parties are so much fun. @tspoetry announces the time (which is usually 9:30-10:30 pm EST every other Tuesday night), then we all get on Twitter and write poetry together. @tspoetry gives prompts, which we respond to. But we also lift and turn each other’s words. It’s challenging, hilarious, sometimes poignant. Check out http://tweetspeakpoetry.com/blog for more info on how to come to a party.Casseroles on Twitter! That post you’re referring to was just me keeping myself company on New Year’s Eve. I was cooking and tweeting and suddenly… The Lazy Blogger’s Tuna Casserole.Ann: I think the foodies here at Food on Fridays might be particularly interested in the food posts at Green Inventions, like your vegetarian dishes and The 30-Day Recipes. Any advice on what they should explore?LL Barkat: I’d probably start in the sidebar, at the recipe list. Or… I don’t know. Maybe begin with your favorite bean? Ann: You’re a woman of great spiritual depth and intellectual curiosity. You explore and express ideas, prayer, creativity and faith through words and art (and food!). One avenue is through blogging at Seedlings in Stone and, as you already mentioned, Love Notes to Yahweh and Green Inventions Central. How do each of these blogs capture/reflect some aspect of who you are?LL Barkat: Sometimes people ask me why I have three separate blogs (it’s not very effective for getting the most Google juice ). But the fun is I can be different things to different audiences; yet it’s the same old me. Writing about all the stuff I love: art, food, spiritual practice, writing, technology, education.Ann: Your book Stone Crossings was recently released when we met at that Festival. You’ve also recently released a book of poetry with International Arts Movement, Inside Out. In keeping with the food theme, would you share “Page 5,” the poem on p. 100-101? I’ll leave my readers with your words.LL Barkat: How delightful. Sure, here it is…Page 5The menusays strawberryshortcakewith whipped creambut here’s the deal:I remember what’s real,my mother’s child-smallhands turning floursugar, shorteningthe “size of a big egg”so the old recipeinstructed. I remembersun-kissed fields offurrows, hills mygrandmother’s roughpatched yet paintedhands turned and raisedto grow strawberries blushedand bleeding real juice,not perfumed waterthat pretends ripenesscut and strewn over too-sweet cake. I remembercream, real, whipped.

“Greek Roasted Vegetables” photo © 2007 by LL Barkat. Used with permission.

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LL: I remember meeting you at the Calvin festival. I was walking through the breezeway, and from a distance, I saw this cool looking person peering at me inquisitively. It was you! We officially met moments later, then spent a lunchtime together chatting forever. Remember?Ann: How could I forget how gracious you were after I practically stalked you! I knew you through blogging communities and writing networks online, but we’d never officially interacted. So when I saw your book, Stone Crossings, for sale at the InterVarsity Press table at the Calvin festival, I asked the staff if you were attending. They said you were, and I thought, “Hey, here’s a chance to meet that smart LL Barkat.” Yes, I really thought that, because I admired your clever, intelligent comments and your beautiful yet accessible poetry.I asked what you looked like, since I’d never seen a photo of you. They described you, so I spent the rest of the day looking for someone who fit that description. When I spotted you down that breezeway, you looked like a promising candidate. I was staring at you, waiting until you got close enough so that I could read your name tag. You must have been thinking, “Am I about to be accosted?”Instead of running or calling security, you were poised and gracious; and when I explained myself, you invited me to join you for lunch! We packed a lot into that lunch break. I think we talked about books we were reading, books we were writing, publishing, agents, bloggers and blogging. And shoes. We discussed our shoes…

Speaking of shoes, here they are:

I’d love to share this interview with you in its entirety. Would you mind popping over to L.L.’s Green Inventions blog to read it?

Click HERE.

Photo of L.L. Barkat’s and my shoes by L.L. Barkat. Used with permission.

Mega Memory Month January 2010 has returned!

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Someone published the dialogue from that scene in an essay both here and here, so I pulled from that source to post it. The interaction originated from the film:

Adams: In the courtroom, whoever tells the best story, wins. What is their story, by the way?

Jodson: Sir?

Adams: What is their story?

Jodson:  They’re from West Africa.

Adams: No, what is their story?

(Jodson remains silent, looking puzzled.)

Adams: Mr. Jodson, where are you from originally?

Jodson: Georgia.

Adams: Is that who you are, a Georgian? Is that your story? No, you’re an ex-slave who’s devoted his life to the abolition of slavery and overcome great obstacles and hardships along the way, I should imagine. That’s your story, isn’t it?

(Jodson nods, slowly, with a slight smile.)

Adams: You have proven you know what they are. They’re Africans. Congratulations. What you don’t know—and as far as I can tell haven’t bothered in the least to discover—is who they are. (Cunningham 1151)

I can fairly easily answer the question What am I?

I’m a wife, mom, writer, coach.

But the more compelling question is Who am I … What’s my story?

And what’s next? What’s the next line of my story? The next scene? The next page? The next chapter?

As we try to discover the story that’s been written thus far, we have an opportunity to find themes in the unfolding of the years and purpose in the unfolding of our days.

When we get an idea of our story, we can understand better who we are—and who we want to be.

* * *

Works Cited:
Amistad. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Morgan Freeman, Nigel Hawthorne, Anthony Hopkins, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew McConaughey, David Paymer, Pete Postlethwaite, and Stellan Skarsgard. DreamWorks, 1997. DVD.
Cunningham, Clark D.  “But What Is Their Story?” Emory Law Journal. Vol . 52 Special Edition (2003): 1151. Web. 15 Nov. 2009. <http://law.gsu.edu/Communication/Emory.pdf>.

Image by: Ivan Prole. “Notebook with spiral and red cover.” 2009. stock.xchng. Web. 15 Nov. 2009.

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“Copyright Infringement” by Terry Hart

I was asked to talk with the literature students about plagiarism.

After introducing the topic and explaining a little about it, I summarized with the following statements:

1. Don’t present someone else’s ideas as your own—if you do, you’re stealing his or her intellectual property.

2. You are welcome to share other people’s insights, ideas and wording, if you give credit where credit is due.

(These ideas are presented in similar form at this Indiana University site.)

After class, I felt that they needed more information. So when I got home, I found some plagiarism tutorials. Going through the tutorials served as a good refresher for me not only as an instructor/facilitator of this literature class but also as a blogger.

We all hate it when we see one our own blog posts picked up and presented on another site as if it is original material.

But we need to be careful, too, when we are inspired by someone else, to give credit where credit is due.

Because I read so many tips, ideas, solutions and stories on blogs, websites and tweets, sometimes I’m not sure how something comes together in my brain. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that I need to be as careful and honoring as possible to those who have created original content that worked its way into my world. I have always tried to link you to the original article(s) from which I found inspiration and provide appropriate references.

After researching this topic, I resolve not only to continue my efforts but also to improve my practices.

As bloggers, we need to be careful to give credit where credit is due.

If you want to learn more about plagiarism and how to avoid it in your writing, here is a cute tutorial found at the Vaughan Memorial Library (Acadia University) website. It gives a good overview. I suggested that the students pick “Dylan” when they get to that step in the tutorial, as he fits our class. I think he would be the best “blogger” student, as well, so I suggest you pick him to walk you through.

If you want a more thorough tutorial, try this one from Indiana University (see the following links). The sample readings are a bit dry, but this tutorial illustrates very well how to spot plagiarism in your work (and how to fix it):

1. How to Recognize Plagiarism
2. Five Examples of Word for Word Plagiarism (go through these to prepare for the practice quiz)
3. Five Examples of Paraphrasing Plagiarism (go through these, too, to prepare for the practice quiz)
4. Practice: How to Recognize Plagiarism (this is the quiz—read each example and select the entry [click choice A or B] that you think has not been plagiarized to test your understanding. Immediate feedback provided.)

With ideas zipping and zapping across the World Wide Web in the form of tweets, posts and articles, it’s hard to remember precisely what impacted or inspired us to write something. And it’s a huge challenge to track every slightly interesting stop as we surf and explore content.

Yet, this is one of the recommendations provided in the tutorials—students doing research are urged to record every resource from which they might cite something either paraphrased or as a direct quote.

How do you track potential resources for your blog posts?

What are your plagiarism-avoidance techniques?

“Copyright Infringement” comic by “hartboy/Terry Hart” available at Flickr for download under a Creative Commons license for non-commercial use.

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(photo credit: Queen of the Castle Recipes)

At Queen of the Castle Recipes, Lynn has graciously allowed me to share a few thoughts on food and slowing down. I included two European recipes, because from my visits to Belgium and France, I get the idea that they know how to slow down. About Belgium, I wrote:

[E]veryone in the country knows how to stop mid-morning and enjoy a leisurely coffee break. In fact, this might come as a shock, but vehicles in Belgium don’t come with standard cupholders … maybe Belgians would rather wait until they can sit down at home or a café and truly enjoy sipping it while nibbling a Speculoo cookie. I suppose we could argue that the caffeine from all that coffee negates their slow-down tendencies, but in general, Belgians seem to know how to hit the pause button.

2. High Calling Blogs

(photo credit: me)

If you’ve never been to HighCallingBlogs.com, you’re in for a treat. Not because of what I’ve written, though I did just publish an article for their “family” category, but because the bloggers in this online community are posting wonderful material covering a wide range of topics, including work, faith, and culture, as well as family. There are featured blogs and then you could spend weeks visiting those in the broader network.3. The Harvest ShowAt 9:00 a.m. today (9:00 on 9-9-09), I was interviewed live on “The Harvest Show.” You can watch online HERE (select the Wednesday, September 9 show).

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Visit NotSoFastBook.com to learn more about Ann’s new book.

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I was interviewed by phone about Not So Fast on a station in Minneapolis, MN, for the “Live! with Jeff & Lee” show.(Wait, let’s pause for a second to count how many prepositional phrases I packed into that first sentence. What’s your count? I think it’s six if you count the one that squeezes in with the name of the show. And the sentence isn’t even that long. Okay, well, I’m leaving it that way. Moving on…)It’s hard to know what to cover during these interactions. The book tackles a wide range of topics, but we only have time to talk about a few things on the air.If you’re curious, you can listen to the MP3 archive HERE.

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Vote in the “Name That Boy” contest until 9:00 EDT Saturday a.m.!

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People frequently ask me if that boy is “The Boy”; that is, my son.I’d like to clear things up here and now:Nope. He’s not my son. He’s not “The Boy.”The Not So Fast boy is, however, going to be a big part of my life. He’ll travel with me to various speaking events. He’ll grace the blog and might be projected onto screens during PowerPoint presentations. His face will be associated with my name for some time.I feel that I should get to know the little guy. We need to bond.So I decided to name him.Here’s where you come in!Enter the “Name That Boy!” contest: Win a copy of Not So Fast!UPDATED: Time’s up for entering the contest. The winner of the random drawing will be announced soon!Yes, that’s right … Help name the Not So Fast boy and win a book (maybe two!).Two ways to win:

1. Suggest a name in the comments to be entered in a drawing—you can suggest more than one name in your comment, but one person is one entry whether you suggest one name for the boy or five (multiple comments by the same person will be considered one). Submit your suggested name until 9:00 Monday morning, August 3.Winner #1 will be selected randomly from those who submitted names.
2. Another way to win a copy of Not So Fast:  I’ll narrow down name suggestions and set up a vote. Vote for the name you think best fits the Not So Fast boy. The person who contributed the winning name will also receive a book!

That’s it.Now, take a long look at the boy.What do you think? What should we name him?

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July 2009 MMM is almost over:Watch for Final Mega Memory Month Projects on July 31.

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At Make-Do Mondays, we discuss how we’re simplifying, downsizing, repurposing, buying used, and using what we’ve got.It’s a carnival celebrating creative problem-solving, contentment, patience and ingenuity. To participate, share your own make-do solution in the comments or write up a Make-Do Mondays post at your blog, then return here to link via Mr. Linky. Enjoy others’ ideas by clicking on Mr. Linky and then clicking on people’s names.Here’s a mini-tutorial on Mr. Linky:

Click on the icon and a separate page will pop up. Type in your blog name and paste in the url of your new Make-Do Mondays post. Click enter and it should be live. If it doesn’t work, just include the link in the comments.

To visit people’s posts or check that yours worked, click on Mr. Linky and when the page comes up, click on a name. You should be taken right to the page provided.

Make-Do Mondays Participants

1. Gravity of Motion (My Time)
2. My Practically Perfect Life (Impromptu Cake Plans)
3. Sunnydaytodaymama (More toy storage in a small space)
4. Feels Like Home (kid sushi)
5. Rancho Ruperto (Squash Plea)

Make-Do Mondays with Ann

This is a big week. Saturday marks the official release date of my book, Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families.

August 1, 2009.

It’s a date I’ve looked forward to for two years.

So where will I be on this momentous occasion?

Finishing up family camp.

We’re at a simple, low-tech, minimally programmed (no speakers, no big events, no concerts) family camp that is the epitome of relaxation. We are in the slowest of slow zones here.

This includes Internet access. Slow, slow, slow.

What the camp provides are things like canoes, kayaks, and small sailboats. We can hike through the woods. We can sit on Adirondack chairs in front of the lodge and stare at Lake Huron. We can read, pray, write, think, reflect, chat, or play cards or Scrabble. There’s a beach for sand castles and a game room with ping-pong, carpet ball, Foosball and pool.

The kitchen staff makes our meals. I’m turning into Pavlov’s dog: when the bell rings, I start to salivate and walk briskly to the dining hall.

This is a place where families know how to slow down. They are, in fact, encouraged to slow down in a space and environment where unplugging and slowing down is possible.

And this is where I am for the release of my book.

With the beauty of technology, slow as it is, I can be with you, too, wherever you are on the world.

And I want to say thanks for sharing this journey with me.

Thank you for listening, reading, thinking, and wondering with me, as I ponder, research, pose questions, seek solutions and commit to my own slower lifestyle.

Today I want to share with you several endorsements for the book. What an honor to have positive words from Lee Strobel, Steve and Misty Arterburn (Misty wrote the foreword, too!), and Mary DeMuth:

Jill Savage, Phyllis Tickle, Mary Farrar, Holly Miller, Susan Alexander Yates…

And Michelle Cox.

Also, I’m delighted to organize a giveaway:  you could be the winner of two copies of Not So Fast. I’ll explain how I’ll be giving them away later this week.

Keep an eye open to join the fun!

As I make-do with incredibly slow Internet access, I wonder…

How do you make do?

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Mega Memory Month July 2009 is almost over:Check in tomorrow for Progress Reports.

The post Make-Do Mondays: Slow Setting for a Slow-Down Book appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

David C. Cook Publishing made sure I received a copy of Not So Fast to have, hold, hug, smell, flip through, gape at, and blog about.

The official release date is just a few days away: August 1st.

Ask your local bookstore to order it for you!

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Join Mega Memory Month for the month of July!

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 I’ve been working on my forthcoming book, Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families, for years. Much of that time, I wasn’t sure what I could say about it here on the blog.In fact, for quite some time, I was evasive. I didn’t know how long it would be before the book’s release, so I didn’t want to post searchable text that described what it was about.As we drew nearer to the release date, I thought I could tell you all about it. Just when I was about to make an announcement, I got the impression from the marketing folks that I should hold off even longer. So I kept quiet. Finally, though, after all those false alarms, I can speak freely.If you’ve been frustrated with me, I want to apologize. I’m very sorry. The problem is due to my uncertainty about the process.However, now that everything’s out in the open, I’m preparing for the August 1st release of Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families (available for pre-order! Click on the book cover at the left for the Amazon.com link).You can visit the simple WordPress blog I’ve created to serve as a companion site.There, you’ll find Speed Bumps.These are pages with lists of basic ways you can start slowing down in real-life, everyday ways. I grouped them into Mini, Medium, and Mega categories. Some speed bumps are simple as eating with a smaller fork to slow down meals; others are as demanding as planning and planting a garden.You’ll also find links to all kinds of slow-down resources I’ve found online.It’s a place where I’m putting all kinds of links and information about slowing down, simplifying, the “Slow Movement,” downsizing, “Slow Food,” and related topics. If you know of an article, blog, or website that fits in some way, be sure to let me know.There’s also a section called “Supplemental,” where I’m including material and ideas that might have been nice to include in the book, but didn’t fit. Another fun feature is that you can get a sneak peek, a preview of the book, by reading an excerpt that my publisher uploaded to a website called “Scribd.” There, you can read a draft of the Table of Contents, Introduction, and Chapter One (the Foreword wasn’t finished at the time it was loaded).If you’re interested, you can visit NotSoFastBook.com and click on “Sample,” which provides you with the Scribd link. Eagle-eye editors may spot some errors (they’re being fixed before it goes to press), but it’s a way to get a little taste.(If you don’t want to poke around the website, you can save a step and go straight to the sample by clicking here.)Every chapter closes with a story from someone I’ve interviewed or a post from a blogger who composed something that I thought fit well with the subject matter. I call these sections “Live from the Slow Zone.” The story uploaded in the sample is from Ann Voskamp’s Holy Experience. It’s an honor to have her words grace the pages of my book; and pretty humbling, too, as hers flow like poetry, making mine seem clunky and awkward.Some of the other “Live from the Slow Zone” contributors are bloggers like Sara at Walk Slowly, Live Wildly, Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary, Andrea at Flourishing Mother, and Aimee at Living, Learning and Loving Simply.In addition to the “Live from the Slow Zone” stories and interviews, I’ve also included some practical ideas geared toward families that are in a state of frenzy, rushing around, wondering if the high-speed lifestyle is wise, or worried that it’s impossible to sustain. That section is called “Slow Notes.”If your family is already living more slowly than the rest of the world around you, some of the Slow Notes suggestions may be old news. But for those just starting to experiment with some changes, the ideas are meant to be encouraging and do-able, hopefully with immediate slow-down results.So that’s an overview and sneak peek of Not So Fast!It’s fun to finally be able to share this leg of the journey with you.I’d like to savor it . . . and share it with friends.

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Frenzied families find themselves fragmented in this high-speed, fast-paced, goal-oriented society. Even while racing to second jobs, appointments, lessons, practices, games and clubs, we crave an antidote. How do we counteract the effects of our over-committed culture? Replenish our depleted selves? Restore our rushed relationships?Not So Fast: Slow-Down Solutions for Frenzied Families offers hope to families struggling with hurried hearts and frantic souls. Through stories, practical ideas, insight and research, readers will discover the rejuvenating power of an unrushed life.

I’m imagining the day the book is available to future readers—it still seems kind of far away, but it’ll be here soon enough:The release date is August 1st.We still have to wait a while, but as the author of a book on slowing down, I don’t feel free to complain when things take time.I’m telling you kind of early. In fact, now you’ll have to wait, too.But I wanted you to be among the first to know.

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(CC) Gaetan Lee, www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/

In Write to Discover Yourself, Ruth Vaughn tells about a character named Julia Redfern in a children’s book called A Room Made of Windows. Julia keeps a “Book of Strangenesses” in which she makes lists. Her lists include Beautiful Words (Mediterranean, quiver, undulating, lapis lazuli, Empyrean) and Most Detestable Words (rutabaga, larva, mucus, okra).Ruth Vaughn recommends list-keeping as an excellent exercise (and resource) for writers. A list of Strong Verbs, for example, is handy. To illustrate, she picked up a short-story at random and recorded verbs (echoed, trembled, slammed, hesitated, smashed, roared, reverberated, boomed, and twisted).She suggested taking it another step and recording phrases that inspire. From that same short story, she found, “It brought the silent, motionless silhouettes to life” and “Here and there through the smoke, creeping warily under the shadows of tottering walls, emerged occasional men and women.”In the spirit of Ruth’s recommended list-making and writers loving words, I had a lot of fun assembling a master list of the words you proposed after I posted the Logophile List(s).Words were suggested in the comments, e-mailed to me and a few came through Facebook when I linked to the original logophiles post. Several more come from the text and comments of Musings of a Mommy Bee’s “Word Fun” post. Apparently great minds post alike.Here, my friends, are the results:Words that are fun to say(be sure to read out loud)

• discombobulate
• garbanzo beans
• guacamole
• gregarious
• genuflexing/genuflecting
• asinine
• sequoia
• Iroquois
• yurt
• pip
• hypothalamus
• snaffle
• awkward (because it actually is awkward to say and type)
• pollywog
• sunset
• buff
• squelch
• click
• clack
• zip
• hiss
• toot
• slither
• puff
• blip
• moosh
• splat
• buzz
• woosh
• plop
• fizzle
• zing
• sniff
• slurp
• patter
• splash
• thick
• moist
• cushion
• lackadaisical
• periwinkle
• bulbous
• grunt
• percolate
• dread
• infuriate
• ingratiate
• bouffant
• gallant
• bemoaned
• personage
• flip
• bubble
• mukluk
• blubber
• waffle
• akimbo
• macadamia
• giggle
• beluga
• aspic
• filch
• gazebo
• vivid
• meticulous
• colloquial
• insipid

Words fun when said with a British accent

• bugger
• gutted
• proper

Words that are beautiful to say

• diaphanous
• effervescent/effervescence
• gossamer
• mellifluous
• scintillate
• feathery
• exquisite
• miraculous
• magnificent
• reflective

Words that carry rich meaning

• hallelujah
• prudent

Words that some of us are never quite sure we use correctly

• effect and affect
• inclement and clement
• facetious
• enormity and magnitude

Favorite French Words for English-Speakers

• pamplemousse
• probablement
• pantoufles
• éblouissant
• nuages
• brouillard

Favorite English Words for French-Speakers

• cantaloupe
• jeopardy
• momentum

Words that are Gross to Say (even if they aren’t gross in meaning)

• amoebic ooze
• pus

Words with distinct regional pronunciations

• sore (so-uhr)
• park (pahk–in Boston)
• about (a-boot–in Canada)
• “I love it” (“Ah luuuuuv eee-ut”)

Be inspired—love your language!And if you add words in the comments, I’ll update the lists.My sister-in-law reminded me of the silly song from Flight of the Conchords, “Foux De Fa Fa,” that has a little fun with the vocabulary, phrases and interactions one finds on a typical French language learning CD. Listen for “pamplemousse.”[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUVagbFcSUU]This is a six-minute video of French singer Francis Cabrel performing “C’est écrit” live in concert back in the ’80s. My sister-in-law gave me a copy of his CD. This song may be the reason I love the words “brouillard” and “nuages.”[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otqFvrGXP7g]And finally, because I’ve gotten a little carried away on YouTube, here’s a logophile muppet video for your kids titled appropriately, “I Love Words.” Abby Cadabby never met a word she didn’t like and tries out a new word every day. A pretty good message for our young ‘uns, setting them up for a lifetime of loving words (brace yourself, moms–her voice is similar to Elmo’s):p.s. She, too, throws a couple of favorite French words into the mix.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxxJU1y3QGA]Speaking of words. . .visit again tomorrow for an update on the status of my book.

The post Long-Awaited Logophile Lists appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

An entry in the classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest offers a writerly application.

From My Utmost for His Highest (December 15)

If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through God’s winepress where the grapes are crushed. You must struggle, experiment, and rehearse your words to express God’s truth clearly. Then the time will come when that very expression will become God’s wine of strength to someone else. But if you are not diligent and say, “I’m not going to study and struggle to express this truth in my own words; I’ll just borrow my words from someone else,” then the words will be of no value to you or to others. Try to state to yourself what you believe to be the absolute truth of God, and you will be allowing God the opportunity to pass it on through you to someone else.

Always make it a practice to stir your own mind thoroughly to think through what you have easily believed. Your position is not really yours until you make it yours through suffering and study. The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is not the one who teaches you something you didn’t know before, but the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.

It’s what we can do in journals, letters, blogs, articles and books. We can “[a]lways make it a practice to stir” our minds thoroughly to think through what we’ve easily believed, so that through study and suffering, we can “own” our position.

As Chambers recommends, we can strive to “re-express a truth of God” to ourselves clearly and understandably in these places — the journals, letters and blogs where we wrestle to understand truth at a personal level and put words to it — and it’s possible that God can later use that same explanation when we share it with someone else.

I underlined and asterisked that final section:

The author or speaker from whom you learn the most is…the one who helps you take a truth with which you have quietly struggled, give it expression, and speak it clearly and boldly.

This is what I hope to offer as a writer, friend, speaker or mentor:  Through my own willingness to struggle with a truth, I hope to give it expression and speak it clearly and boldly for the benefit of others.

And thanks to others who have struggled with truth and given it expression, this has happened to me — quite often I’ll read something and almost gasp at how perfectly someone captured what I had struggled so long to understand, grasp, or express. “Yes!” I’ll exclaim. “That’s exactly what it’s like!”

It might be in a song.

A book.

A blog post.

Or a personal e-mail or conversation.

Beauty.

Truth.

Let’s stir our minds thoroughly and see what falls into place when it settles.

The post Stir Our Minds Thoroughly appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Jennifer at Scraps and Snippets posted about Lifelong Learning at her blog, citing a 2006 article by Harvey Mackay packed with statistics to make an autodidact sprint to her bookcase and grab anything within reach:

• Only 14 percent of adults with a grade-school education read literature in 2002.
• 51 percent of the American population never reads a book more than 400 pages after they complete their formal education.
• 73 percent of all books in libraries are never checked out.
• The average American watches 32 hours of TV every week.
• The average American reads only eight hours (books, newspapers, magazines, Yellow Pages, etc.) every week.
• The average American annually spends 10 times more on what he puts on his head than what he puts into his head.

Consider the following:

• If you read just one book per month for 12 straight months, you will be in the top 25 percentile of all intellectuals in the world!
• If you read five books on one subject, you are one of the world’s foremost leading authorities on that subject!
• If you read just 15 minutes a day — every day, for one year — you can complete 20 books!

The idea of becoming an expert by focusing one’s reading on a single subject reminds me of a post I wrote about lifelong learning and Five Fat Files. In it, I referenced an online article on brain research that included a statement attributed to Albert Einstein:

Einstein said that if a person studies a subject for just 15 minutes a day in a year he will be an expert, and in five years he may be a national expert.

Literary agent Terry Whalin used those same statistics from the Mackay article to encourage writers to read regularly.

With these statistics, it is little wonder that parts of the publishing business are struggling (and even predicting the struggle will continue for some.)If you want to be involved in some aspect of publishing (books or magazine writing where your work appears in print), then you need to be committed to reading on a regular basis. It’s important to take in great information through reading. The experience will fill your mind and heart with something important which will influence your writing. Create a habit of reading.

So. After pondering the statistics and recommendations, I’m feeling positively brilliant for having read a few books in the past couple of months.

Just last weekend I finished Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love.

The kids and I are reading Swiss Family Robinson (read online for free) and listening to The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew on tape (also available online for free).

I also did a quick-read of So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids and almost finished a short book by N.T. Wright entitled Who Was Jesus?

According to Mackay, I’m on track to being “in the top 25 percentile of all intellectuals in the world!”

It’s easy if we follow Mackay’s claim that reading just 15 minutes a day—every day, for one year—we can complete 20 books.

Just fifteen minutes a day.

I’m going to grab that book by Wright and finish it up. But before I head off, I’d like to pose two simple questions and hope that our answers will demonstrate that the blogging world can throw off Mackay’s dismal statistics:

What have you read recently…and what do you plan to read?

The post Just Fifteen Minutes a Day: Ready…Set…Read! appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

What those parents didn’t understand was that parenting is an inside-out phenomenon. What is inside us flows out into our children. We can implement formulas, tell all the right stories, do the required amount of family devotions, and still be imparting exactly the opposite of what we teach. If our outsides (what we say) don’t match the insides (how we act or really feel), our children will detect the difference and will act accordingly….The best method for parenting in a postmodern context is to be real, to share struggles, to show how you run to Jesus when disappointment strikes. Parenting, boiled down to its essence, is modeling.

Mary is a reader, a thinker, and a writer, and while I suspect she’s done a lot more of all three than I have, I do share her interest in reading, thinking, and writing, so I paid attention when she admitted her own concern about losing the heart and simplicity of devotion to Christ to those kinds of pursuits especially in the enthusiastic discussions about postmodernity. She explains:

I’m a thinker. I enjoy discourse. But I wonder whether we are forgetting this verse in our intellectual meanderings about truth: “But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3).The serpent has a way with words. He is able to sway minds. He rallies against simplicity and purity of devotion. And all the while we write and talk and parent, using words but not living them out…Jesus is a person. He is more than mind. He is even more than words. Perhaps we do Him a disservice if we allow our minds to intellectualize everything. I preach this to myself. I love words, making a living from them. But I don’t want to be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Jesus.

She talks about having an ongoing conversation with our kids.She talks about “coaching” them.She also talks about how children help us to slow down, and relates the way their Norweigan friend Frode would walk his kids to school in France:

I run my children to school. Literally. We skip and run and walk very briskly because, well, that’s what we do. We are hurried.But Frode takes time. He talks to his kids. He meanders. He lingers. He is patient.While I rush my children.As I walked (briskly) home after seeing patient Frode, the Lord spoke to me about slowing down, about productivity, about my connectivity with Him…I sensed God whisper, “You know, it’s not how quickly you accomplish tasks in a day that matters to me. It’s you I want. Whether you’re slow or fast. Whether you get ten things or no things done. I love you. Period….Your day is not a to-do list. I don’t look at the tally at the end of the day and either nod in approval or sneer in rebuke. I want to be connected to you.”

She talks about being there for your kids with your focused attention, limiting media, getting kids outside to play, cherishing childhood, reading together, and laughing. In one chapter, she talks about going outside and seeing God in nature, taking art field trips and making art journals, telling stories and enjoying music.Mary is a storyteller, so the book is filled with stories of her own family, stories she’s gleaned from friends, and it’s even bookended with a story to get us thinking about what it means to prepare our child for the world they will one day step into as adults…will we have equipped them with all the best tools and resources?Mary offers us what she has gained from conversations and study of this postmodern world, hoping to give us things to think about–and implement–as we parent our kids. And hopefully, by the grace of God, we will equip our children well for the postmodern world.The key being to recognize for ourselves–and live out alongside our kids–that Jesus is what it’s all about.

The post Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

Here are the rules:1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.2. link back to the person who tagged you3. link back to this parent post (I’m not so much interested in generating links, but rather in tracking the meme so I can perhaps do a summary post later on that looks at patterns and interesting discoveries.)4. tag a few friends or five, or none at all5. post these rules— or just have fun breaking them

So. Why not?

5 Ways Blogging Changed My Life

1. Blogging introduced me to super cool people. L.L. herself is a great example of one major way blogging has changed my life–connecting with people in new, fun, unexpected ways. I wrote about the uncanny connections I made at the Festival of Faith and Writing. There I met several people I had previously only seen on the blogosphere–people I had followed on their blogs and admired for their intellect, creativity, wit, humor, insight, godliness, or other amazing qualities. I got to meet some of them at the event in person–some quite unexpectedly.

   Also, I love “meeting” people in the comments. You people are so smart. Clever. Open. Honest. Poetic. Encouraging. I never know what kind of comments will pop up, but I love every one of them. They make my day. I only wish I could keep up with commenting on the comments better!

2. Blogging has provided a satisfying creative outlet. The blog has given me a way to play with ideas and words as I explore things I’ve been thinking about from Scripture I’ve studied, books I’ve read, or articles that piqued my interest. I can also experiment with my writing and get some good daily practice selecting specific nouns and strong verbs, just like I learned in Creative Writing 101.
3. Blogging–other bloggers, that is–offers endless inspiration. I’m inspired by how others keep their blogs fresh and fun as well as those who maintain a level of honesty and openness that ministers to people deeply. They write a series, perhaps, or insert poetry. They might make theirs more like a women’s magazine with helpful articles or lean on it as a diary. So when I see what’s possible with photography and art and linkage and podcasts and such, I find myself inspired to try new things…someday I’ll surprise you with something other than a stream of nouns and verbs. Just wait. You’ll see. One of these days, I’ll stretch my creativity way outside my comfort zone.
4. Blogging has changed the way I read offline. Now I read things wondering if I can share some helpful tidbit with readers. I like to be helpful, and this has expanded that in ways I never would have imagined ten years ago. So when I read a magazine and tear out an interesting piece, I’m usually wondering if it would be helpful in some way to blog-readers. So you see? You’re on my mind, even while I’m flipping through Newsweek.
5. Blogging has replaced other hobbies. What did I do before blogging? How did I spend my free time? I guess I watched some TV. Now I blog.
6. Not blogging makes me…sad, I guess. Blogging has affected me so much that I hate it when I miss several days or have nothing valuable to offer and choose not to post. Maybe I’m not exactly sad, but I do hanker to get back to it after a break.   

Five–no, six–ways blogging has changed my life. No real earth-shatterers on that list, but it’s a peek into the current spot on the timeline of my personal blogging evolution.

Feel free to pick up on the meme if it interests you–after all, I’m sure that we’ve all been changed by blogging in some way.

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:)Thanx!

One time a candidate rushed to “friend” the potential employer on her personal Facebook page.Moves like these can feel as if the candidate is infringing on personal space.But it may simply be a cultural divide, reflecting an age gap in technology use, says an author named David Holtzman.Others see a shift in workplace communication, as “textspeak” is gaining acceptance. Soon, they think, it will be perfectly appropriate. Text messages are, after all, short and to the point.Thank you notes, even if sent electronically, should be composed in a formal style, like a traditional letter would be. This reassures the employer that as a new employee, the candidate would interact similarly with clients–avoiding textspeak and sticking with a professional tone and style.So this article brings to mind a few broader questions:

• How often do you text?
• When we text, are we really communicating? If so, how effective is it?
• Describe heavy texters’ ability to compose thoughtful, grammatically correct pieces (essays, letters, blog posts). Does it improve their communication, does quality decrease, or does it have a neutral effect on their formal work, being such a different format?
• How do abbreviations and emoticons in a blog post affect your opinion as a reader?
• Any predictions on whether or not texting will have a positive or negative effect on writing in general? Has it already?

 The topic is now open for discussion. The first 10 commenters will receive credit for 20 free AT&T text messages and a chance at a free iPhone.Not really.Maybe I’ll send you a book, instead. And some stationery. And a pen.Wud U luv that?

I [heart] U all!!!!

The post When We Text, Are We Really Communicating? appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

“As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.” (p. 57)

It reminds me of Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Discourse, which was written before the Internet had such widespread influence.Carr says that his literary-type friends are also having trouble staying focused on long pieces of writing. One blogger who was a lit major used to read books voraciously, but wonders–even worries–if not only the way he reads has changed, but also the way he thinks?Another guy admitted that he now has “almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print.” And another wrote, “Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”Looks like I would have already lost him by now, were he reading this post.Carr quotes Maryanne Wolf, author of Proust and the Squid, saying that she:

worries that the style of reading promoted by the Net, a style that puts “efficiency” and “immediacy” above all else, may be weakening our capacity for the kind of deep reading that emerged when an earlier technology, the printing press, made long and complex works of prose commonplace…Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged. (p. 58).

Is Carr right? Are we as a society or even worldwide losing the focus of slow, attentive reading?The article warns:

 Never has a communications system played so many roles in our lives–or exerted such broad influence over our thoughts–as the Internet does today. Yet, for all that’s been written about the Net, there’s been little consideration of how, exactly, it’s reprogramming us. (p. 60)

Carr talks about Google’s goals as a company, and described the company founders’ desire to turn their search engine into an artificial intelligence that might even be connected to our brains. He quoted one of the two founders, Larry Page. “The ultimate search engine is something as smart as people–or smarter.” And then the scariest quote of all:

Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off.

According to Carr, Page said that in a 2004 interview with Newsweek. He really did.Is nobody nervous about that?I’m telling you, that is the stuff of science fiction novels, people. And yet, it’s not scary or uncomfortable at all to a generation of kids growing up with avatars and second lives online. It would seem like a perfectly normal progression to stick a contraption on one’s head and gain access to all kinds of information simply by thinking a question–and getting immediate answers. No need to study for tests anymore, or store up information in one’s head. It’s all right there in a gadget. What’s weird about that?, our children will wonder. They’ll shake their heads and make fun of their old-fashioned parents, so “out of it.””They don’t get it. We don’t need school anymore–we have artificial intelligence. Right here at our fingertips.”I’m not even dreaming this up, because I hear kids say this already. “Why would I need to memorize anything? I just Google it and get all the information I need.”Maybe I am an old fogey, but I’m with Carr:

[Google’s] easy assumption that we’d all ‘be better off’ if our brains were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is unsettling…In Google’s world, the world we enter when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a faster processor and a bigger hard drive. (p. 62, 63)

In my world, contemplation is something to be practiced and developed, not lost; and my brain is something to be exercised and developed, not supplanted. The computer and search engines are tools at my disposal, not a substitute for learning and thinking on my own.What kinds of mental disciplines should we put into place in our lives to fight this?How can we slow down as we recall how to read deeply and start practicing it?What shall we change about our reading in order to focus on one article long enough to absorb it, understand it, consider its premise and argument, and then talk with someone else about it?How can we keep from clicking away and skimming and clicking away again?How can we learn? Think? Truly read?This speed-reading is affecting our ability to study, stick with, and (with the aid of the Spirit) comprehend God’s Word.Which will affect, in turn, our prayer life.Our minds will be fickle and flit from thought to thought, always looking for the next quippy quote that takes little time to “get.”We must pray more slowly, read more slowly.To do so, we may need to live more slowly.If I may finish with a more secular thought from that article, here’s something else Carr wrote:

The kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is valuable not just for the knowledge we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual vibrations those words set off within our own minds. In the quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or by any other act of contemplation, for that matter, we make our own associations, draw our own inferences and analogies, foster our own ideas. Deep reading, as Maryanne Wolf argues, is indistinguishable from deep thinking.If we lose those quiet spaces, or fill them up with “content,” we will sacrifice something important not only in our selves but in our culture. In a recent essay, the playwright Richard Foreman eloquently described what’s at stake:              I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate personality—a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new kind of self—evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology of the “instantly available.”

As we are drained of our “inner repertory of dense cultural inheritance,” Foreman concluded, we risk turning into “‘pancake people’—spread wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information accessed by the mere touch of a button.”

So many quotable quotes just in that section…Read slowly the things worth your time. Don’t lose those “quiet spaces opened up by the sustained, undistracted reading of a book, or…any other act of contemplation” you might enjoy this summer.Make associations.Draw your own inferences and analogies.Foster your own ideas.Read deeply; think deeply; pray deeply.I suggest we get countercultural.Anyone for a long, slow, summer read in the hammock?

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“With a storyteller’s charm and a Bible teacher’s grit, L.L. Barkat weaves memoir, humor and spiritual insight together into a satisfying read,” Edward Gilbreath, author of Reconciliation Blues.”The beautiful and intelligent writing will pull you in, but the deep and uncommon insights will keep you reading…It is a book meant to be read slowly,” Steve Hayner, professor of evangelism and church growth, Columbia Theological Seminary.

And Scot McKnight, author of The Jesus Creed, said, “The only writer I know quite like L.L. Barkat is Eugene Peterson. That probably tells you all you need to know.”Wowzers. Scot says Barkat is like Peterson? No wonder I thought, “That person’s smart!”I don’t know if books that are difficult to categorize really are hard to market, but once I discover them, I have found them to be captivating reading.Stone Crossings was like that.Each chapter begins with a poetically written reflective piece, often weaving in something of her love of natural settings. The chapters then explore the hard places Barkat has been physically, spiritually, relationally, emotionally…and they celebrate God’s grace as He met, taught, and guided her through it all.Her personal stories, powerful and poignant as they are (the discreet but clear personal story that sets up the meat for chapter 2 proved to be a difficult, painful read), don’t necessarily serve as the centerpiece of the chapters; instead, they establish the theme. Within a few paragraphs, Barkat proceeds to highlight a character or story from Scripture, weaving in details and insight that reflect her spiritual wisdom, study, and depth of understanding.In Chapter 2, she offers a beautiful detail about the term “worm” when it’s used in Psalm 22. In this psalm, Jesus “cries prophetically through David that he’s a worm,” Barkat writes. She then explains:

[T]he Hebrew word here, towla, refers to a special sort of worm–a female that attaches herself to a tree before laying her eggs. Once she lays her eggs, this sacrificial mother becomes a protective covering. She dies right there, excreting a crimson fluid that covers both her body and her offspring.Such colorful artistry was not lost on the ancients. (p. 22, Stone Crossings)

That artistry and image was not lost on the ancients; nor, it seems, was it lost on Barkat. Nor was it lost on me, when I read it. The word captured long before Jesus was nailed to the cross is a picture of His sacrifice for us–He covers us with His blood. In Him, we’re saved and, ultimately, safe.I don’t want to tell too many stories from the book and keep you from discovering them yourself, but I was deeply impressed with the story she told about sacrificing her career.  After her first daughter was born, she returned to teaching. She and her husband enrolled their little girl in a local daycare and dropped her off. “I was sad on one level,” she wrote, “but relieved to ‘get my life back,’ as I’d heard women say…But then my infant daughter made her own plea: ‘I want my mommy back.’ At seven months old she had no words to say this. She simply stopped eating in my absence.”The workers at the daycare tried everything to get her to eat, but she wouldn’t. Ten hours would pass, and she would refuse. She would be “dazed and unresponsive. She ignored my attempts to communicate with her. My lively, smiley baby was gone.”After two weeks, they took her to the doctor, who said that distressed babies sometimes go on hunger strikes.Barkat explained:

I went home that day knowing I was at a crossroads. My daughter wanted me, but I wanted a life. What’s more, I wanted a house. With my salary, we were on track to get one soon–a good-sized home in which to raise a family…[God’s Spirit] spoke quietly on my way back from work: ‘You can have a big house with nothing to put in it. Or you can give up the job and the house and fill your home with love.’ While God doesn’t necessarily ask every woman to leave work for a child, he seemed to be urging me in that direction and graciously promising, ‘I will make…your walls of precious stones.’ (Isaiah 54:12).As it went, I took him at his word. (p. 83, 87)

I was deeply moved by the apparent grief and confusion of her young child and the resulting call to sacrifice that L.L. felt that God was calling her to.In a later chapter, I loved her lengthy description of what the blind man might have experienced after Jesus placed mud on his eyes and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam…possibly a long, stumbling walk as he tried to find it still in his dark world of mud-dabbed blindness. I had not considered how far the water might have been from the place where the blind man and Jesus met; nor had I registered that the man was still blind and smeared with mud while searching for it. Barkat took time to climb into that man’s shoes and tie his experience in with her own story.Finally, the story in the epilogue ties in the theme of stones in a highly personal way with Barkat’s extended family.It’s simple. Beautiful. And full of grace.That’s only a choppy peek into a book that’s packed with insight, honesty, poetry, pain, beauty, and grace.She has opened up her life for us to learn and grow.Through this book, she herself has offered every reader hope–by seeing the relationship with Jesus Christ she has developed in and through the hard places she’s been, we have hope that we, too, will find His grace in times of need.L.L. Barkat offers even more honesty, insight and wisdom over at her blog Seedlings in Stone. Pay her a visit, and you can decide for yourself if “that person’s smart.”

The post Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I’d love to sit and have tea with you so we could explore these six questions. They’re not only great questions to ask yourself, but also to ask one another.

First, the tea.

Now, the questions. They’re written first person, but to launch a discussion, just rewrite them to “you.”

1. If I could ask Jesus anything and know I’d get an answer, what would I ask Him?

I got this question from Garry Poole’s book Seeker Small Groups. It’s one of the first things he asks his small groups, because no matter what their background is, everyone’s got unanswered questions. He writes down what people say, and then builds the next few weeks of discussion around those very questions. I’d like to propose that every one of us would benefit from spending a few minutes with a journal and pen and an open heart toward the Lord. Honestly, what would you ask Him if you knew He heard you, and you knew He’d give you an answer? That’s a list worth making. It’s a list worth talking with Him about. It’s worth exploring the answers later, too, with friends or on your own.

2. How have I changed?

The answers to this question could be encouraging if I see ways I’ve changed for the better—how I’ve softened or strengthened, for example, or how I’ve taken risks or served in love. It might be discouraging, however, to realize how little I’ve changed in other ways—though motivating (see the following question).

3. How do I need to change?

Introspective and humbling, this question may draw up some important answers. Approach it open and prayerfully, asking God to reveal what needs to change—what He wants to change in you. A few times, I have humbly asked my family to answer this for me. How do they think I need to change? For them to answer freely and honestly, I had to assure them that they were safe; that I wouldn’t get defensive or hold their answers against them later.

4. What are my values? Or, What do I value?

If I figure this out, I can start to see how my life is aligning with those values—or not. My hope is that my values are grounded in Scripture and that my daily choices flow from them. To actually list out my values makes me put them into words, and then I can compare them against biblical principles.

5. What do I want?

This related question focuses on desire. Consumption. Hopes. Dreams. What do we honestly desire? What do we want? Or what do we want to want? For example, if I honestly want something completely trite and meaningless, but I want to want the will of God in my life, that’s an honest realization. Taking my list to the Lord, I can ask Him about each thing I wrote down. And I can ask if my answers align with His desires…and ask Him to give me His desires if they don’t.

6. What’s next?

This question is deceptively simple, because the answer(s) may change my next few minutes, my plans for the day, or the entire course of my life’s path.

How to Use These Questions

• Use them as journal prompts.
• Use them as essay prompts.
• Write your own answers and publish on your blog.
• Launch a fascinating conversation with your significant other.
• Utilize them in a small group setting.
• Use one to start a thoughtful conversation on Facebook.

Let me know what questions you’d add to the list, and if you have any responses you’re willing to share, let me know in the comments.

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1. Castile Soap for a Simpler Life (and blemish-free face)
2. Thick and Chewy, Fast and Easy Pizza Dough
3. Overnight Crockpot Steel-Cut Oatmeal

What am I doing posting about the perils of my attempts to multi-task?Why bother typing up Katherine Paterson’s thoughts on Beauty?Blog-readers want TIPS.They want HELPFUL INFO.Why do I kid myself and write posts about something cute my kids said, or about some Deep Thought I’ve come across in a book or at a conference? I need to be writing bullet-pointed how-to posts that empower people in some way.My brief blog-analysis reminded me of other surprise hits that were “tip-ish” in nature:

• Six Ways to Refresh Your Mind gained a lot of popularity since I posted it in February 2007.
• 10 Simple Ways to Class Up Your Act (a notch) caused a spike in the stats in its day.
• Thanks to linkage from a Top Mama Blogger, How the Cuckoo Found its Voice also brought in some new readers who joined me in considering the joy of resurrecting old, neglected, forgotten hobbies and skills.
• Crepes? Mai, Oui! offers my Americanized instructions on how to prepare this French specialty.
• Quiet Time Round-Up included a collection of devotional and Bible study tips that I gathered into one place. Several people appreciated the effort. It was………helpful!

Helpful ideas, step-by-step how-tos, and tips. Tips, tips, tips.And yet….And yet people flock to the clever writers, the funny folks, the great photographers. The Dooces and Boomamas and Pioneer Women of the world. They do offer some helpful tips along the way, though, so maybe it all comes down to TIPS. And if you’re funny, too, all the better. And if your funny and can take great pictures, you’re a shoe-in to becoming a Blogging Superstar.By the way, have you seen Dooce make the rounds on talk shows representing the power of Blogging Mommas? She was in the Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago and was scheduled to be on the Today Show either yesterday or the day before.I usually try to save tip-type posts for Rocks In My Dryer’s Works For Me Wednesdays (talk about TIPS–she’s a Tip-Warehouse!).But now I’m curious what would happen if I specialized in tips for a few days?Not that I have that many ideas to offer the world.It’s not like I’m Family Circle magazine personified.But if I talked to friends and thought about it, I might be able to pull together a few “collections” under some kind of theme.If I can manage to pull it off, I just wonder if my titles ended up How-To in flavor instead of story-driven or essay-style, how that might affect things?I feel an experiment coming on.Five Days of How-To Posts: Experiment with Helpful Posts that Offer Value Implementing Quick-and-Easy TweaksHonestly, just to be clear, I love my faithful readers and those who pop in now and then. You’re fun, encouraging, and insightful. You’re writing great stuff of your own. I love the community of like-minded people who drop in here to see what my radar has picked up and posted; and I try to visit yours, as well. So don’t ever question my satisfaction and gratitude for how you let me be myself here.I guess I’m just curious what would happen if I tweaked my content for a few days.Feel free to join me on this experimental venture. You, too, can try posting nothing but helpful, how-to, informational content for a few days.Just to see.Don’t you wonder?I guess I’d better wrap this up and start making some lists.

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So my final notes are from Katherine Paterson’s closing session. She said a few things that stood out to me as poetic or inspiring, but I barely took down a complete sentence.

Her topic was beauty.

Here’s a spattering of words on my page of notes:

BeautyIntegrity/perfection
harmony
brilliance
Simplicity–nothing superfluous
harmony
pleasing symmetry
brilliance–clarity, shed some light on the human experience

Hold onto your pencils, folks–coming up: a complete sentence or two, though even they maintain some mystery by being plucked from context. Also, you may find my parenthetical note puzzling:

Beauty is born of play (psychologically healthy).
Love and work achieve integration by creating….confusion of good with immobility.
Moral education by itself is not beautiful enough.
The Bible doesn’t shy away from truth-telling (through stories). In the truth-telling, there is great beauty.
Children need to be nourished on beauty as much as the four major food groups.

She read from one of her books in which one of the characters, an immigrant mother, was speaking about their children’s need for beauty in the classroom–that she wanted their beautiful children to benefit from the beauty of Puccini, say, or Michelangelo as part of their education. The novel’s character cried out about the need for beauty.

I don’t know that I agreed with all that Paterson presented, and it’s unfair to draw conclusions from these few notes scratched out during a 40-minute message in which she defined and developed the topic. But I wonder if you agree that we need beauty?

Do you feel that our children need to be nourished on beauty?

If so, what kind of beauty?

Do you do anything proactively to bring beauty into their lives?

The post Final Festival Report: Katherine Paterson on Beauty appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

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David was co-writer and producer for the film. He said that it was a challenge to bring the story to film, because, “People have brought their own lives to it; everyone has his or her own idea of what Terabithia looks like. Everybody has created his or her Terabithia.”

Katherine said, “I hardly describe Terabithia at all…in the book, it just gets a few brush strokes.”

David said, “Everyone, when they read a book, they are their own filmmaker.”

Their rapport was charming. She patted him on the knee now and then, and he would reach over and rest his hand on her shoulder. He teased her for calling him by his brother’s name, and she just laughed. The whole hour was just sweet, sweet, sweet. Well, and I learned a little bit about Hollywood, and how David was firm about how the film should stay faithful to the book.

I won’t spoil it for you if I mention that somebody dies in the book, will I? Did I? Did I just spoil the book and movie? I’m so sorry, if I did. At least I didn’t tell you who.

Well, somebody dies in the book. It’s absolutely critical to the plot.

So when David was first in conversations with Disney to see if they were interested in making the adaptation of Terabithia, they said that they were, but they wanted to change a few things. The fact that the character dies was a big bummer…instead of dying, could the person just break an arm? Could the character fall into a coma and almost die?

Uh, no. The character has to die.

Well, they weren’t interested in that. Finally he was able to get someone to listen and understand that the story was the star–the story was everything–and they agreed to stick with the story and make a faithful adaptation.

And the character dies.

But a problem with that was the trailer. The footage created to promote the film looked like a fantastical adventure–no mention of death–and they got phone calls and e-mails from irate parents who went to the film not knowing what they were in for. One dad was so upset that he took his kids to the movies, and then he was stuck actually having to talk about death with his children. He was livid. And both Katherine and David were thinking, “Hm, maybe it’s about time he had a conversation about death with his children. Maybe more parents need to talk with their kids about these difficult topics.”

Uh, yeah. I agree. I mean, if I didn’t know that a character would die, I might have been frustrated as well. I like to be prepared. So maybe it’s good that I told you, too, so you’ll be prepared if you rent it, to talk about death with your kids. But these conversations are important. Hard, but important. If literature and film can help us talk about hard issues with our families, that can be good.

Katherine said it well. “Children’s books give kids a rehearsal for what life will be.”

She restated it two more times. “Books can give you a rehearsal for the hard things in life. When we lose someone to death, those books can come back to us years later and be a comfort to us.”

She told a story about a letter she received from a man who explained that someone dear to him passed away, and he happened to revisit Bridge to Terabithia because he remembered it from childhood. Reading the book as a child, he sensed its power and it stuck with him. Reading it as an adult who recently lost a loved one, it was a source of comfort to him. “If he hadn’t had it when he was ten,” she said, “he wouldn’t have had it when he was 21.”

Again, “Don’t censor hard books because they’re hard; because hard books help to prepare you for the hard things in life.”

She said, “If a book has any power, it has the power to offend. It also has the power, maybe, to mean something to people’s lives.”

She told about the trouble with discussion questions and study guides created for her books over the years. Some are good, some…not so much. To illustrate, she told the well-known story about a little boy in Sunday school whose teacher asks, “I’m thinking of an animal. It’s brown and fuzzy and climbs trees.”

The class falls silent.

“It’s got a fluffy tail,” the teacher continued. Nothing.

“It collects nuts and stores them for the winter!”

Finally, a little boy speaks up and says, “Sure sounds like a squirrel to me, but I know the answer must be ‘Jesus.'”

She used that to make the point that questions need to be real questions. “We need to be careful not to ask questions for which we already know the answer. We need to ask genuine questions.”

She urged us, “Ask the question you have about a book. If we ask a question and don’t know the answer, some really exciting dialogue can open up.”

The post Books offer a Rehearsal for Life appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

She spent most of the time defining that word, “acedia,” that has fallen out of usage. She’s trying to resurrect it, because she thinks it captures our current culture’s general boredom, apathy, or ennui. None of those words expresses the attitude and mood quite right, so she’s returning to acedia.

She wrote in the description:

Few people today have encountered the word acedia, which literally means not-caring, or being unable to care that you don’t care. In some ways, though, acedia defines today’s culture, expressing itself as willful indifference, restless boredom, or even frantic busyness. Norris discusses both acedia and its opposite–the zeal that draws on faith, hope, and love.

She said that when the seven deadly sins were determined and defined, the term “acedia,” which had been used widely among monks who struggled with it, was absorbed into the concept of sloth. It was lost. It has a meaning, however, that is specific and in her opinion, useful.

“I tend to believe words are in usage because we need them,” she said. And she thinks we need the word “acedia” again. When she proposed the idea of a book about acedia, somebody–maybe a monk, maybe an editor–told her, “Well, you’ve got an open field, since not much has been done with it since the sixth century.”

She said she faced an “attack of thoughts spiraling me downward” and made a “powerful connection with my past. When you’re a writer,” she said, “there’s no turning back from such a connection.”

“Acedia works like a spiritual morphine. It leaves you not caring; unable to commit to relationships; unable to stay in one place; and so frantically busy, you don’t have the energy to care….there’s so much coming at you, you can’t care any more. It renders us impervious to care.”

Does that sound like our culture today?

By the way, she passed along what she thought was the best description of midlife she’d ever heard (I can’t remember the source):

“Midlife is a metamorphosis in reverse, where you start out as a butterfly and gradually turn into a caterpillar.”(laughter)

She talks and writes openly of her avoidance of all things math-related. In a room full of writers, I’m sure there were plenty of sympathetic ears. When she said, “I don’t have much faith in linear process,” she was rewarded with a burst of hearty laughter. I have no idea what came before or after that. No context. Only that isolated statement.

She talked about how our culture gives us the art we need and maybe the art we want.

Maybe we want Britney, for example, because we don’t want to deal with the complicated pain and horror of that pesky ground combat in Iraq. “Denial,” she said, “is entrenched in our culture. We don’t want to be awakened from our sleep of acedia.”

Maybe we want to not care; in fact, we might even want to not care that we don’t care.

“Why bother?” we wonder.

She borrowed a phrase from Wordsworth, that we’re in a state of almost “savage torpor.”

Life bores us. And she quoted someone…Baudelaire, I think, saying, “Oh, how tired I am of the need to live 24 hours a day.”

She was speaking to a lot of writers in that room. She talked about the “tyranny of the blank page.” Later she called it the “democracy of the white page–every writer has to return there.”

I would add that bloggers can replace that with “blank screen.” The screen stares. The template taunts. Do we have anything to say? Each writer returns there and asks the same thing…unless, of course, she is plagued by acedia.

“What do writers need?” she asked rhetorically. “Not to stop.”

“We need ‘possibility,'” she said, then quoting Kierkegaard so quickly that I couldn’t get it down. So I jotted a few key words in order to Google it later, which I did, landing on this page of Kierkegaard quotes:

“If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!“

She claims that prayer and the reciting of psalms battle acedia.

Finally, she mentioned in passing a “Commonplace Book.”

Do you keep a Commonplace Book?

I think my blog has become something of an online, virtual Commonplace Book; in fact, I think many blogs are, given the description provided at Wikipedia. It says:

They were a way to compile knowledge, usually by writing information into books. They were essentially scrapbooks filled with items of every kind: medical recipes, quotes, letters, poems, tables of weights and measures, proverbs, prayers, legal formulas. Commonplaces were used by readers, writers, students, and humanists as an aid for remembering useful concepts or facts they had learned. Each commonplace book was unique to its creator’s particular interests.

This very post, in fact, is an act of “commonplacing,” as I record Norris’s quotations and reflect on them personally:

What is “Commonplacing” and what is a Commonplace Book? Commonplacing is the act of selecting important phrases, lines, and/or passages from texts and writing them down; the commonplace book is the notebook in which a reader has collected quotations from works s/he has read. Commonplace books can also include comments and notes from the reader; they are frequently indexed so that the reader can classify important themes and locate quotations related to particular topics or authors.

The commonplace book was always at hand as a conversational prompt…today, perhaps, it can serve as fodder for blog posts, articles, books, or good old-fashioned conversations.

Although I don’t want to add another notebook to my life, juggling it along with my Day-Timer and journal, I’m tempted to begin one for that purpose–to collect sayings and quotations that I can use as a conversational (or blog-versational) prompt. And then the blog itself serves as a more developed, refined version of the notebook.

That’s all I’ve got for Kathleen Norris.

Look for signs of acedia.

And tell me about what you use as a kind of Commonplace Book.

Is it your blog?

Do you weave quotes and facts into your journal or diary?

Do you jot down quotes on pieces of paper or 3X5 cards and toss them in a box?

The post Kathleen Norris, Acedia, and the Commonplace Book appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

I was sitting in the Visitors’ Gallery of the House of Commons, I and forty-nine other artists from across Canada, fifty in all, and I got to thinking about stillness. To read a book, one must be still. To watch a concert, a play, a movie, to look at a painting, one must be still. Religion, too, makes use of stillness, notably with prayer and meditation.

Keep those thoughts of his in mind.The fifty artists went in and presented the reasons that funding for the arts is essential for Canada as a country, but the leaders seemed disinterested. He said that Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister, tends to run Canada more like a business than a country, and sat unmoved throughout the short plea for support of the arts.Martel could have responded in a lot of ways to the apparent disinterest. He decided to be positive, proactive, and clever. I pulled from the site the following explanation: 

The Prime Minister did not speak during our brief tribute, certainly not. I don’t think he even looked up. The snarling business of Question Period having just ended, he was shuffling papers. I tried to bring him close to me with my eyes.Who is this man? What makes him tick? No doubt he is busy. No doubt he is deluded by that busyness. No doubt being Prime Minister fills his entire consideration and froths his sense of busied importance to the very brim. And no doubt he sounds and governs like one who cares little for the arts.But he must have moments of stillness. And so this is what I propose to do: not to educate—that would be arrogant, less than that—to make suggestions to his stillness.For as long as Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, I vow to send him every two weeks, mailed on a Monday, a book that has been known to expand stillness. That book will be inscribed and will be accompanied by a letter I will have written. I will faithfully report on every new book, every inscription, every letter, and any response I might get from the Prime Minister, on this website

I just love that. I love the care with which he is selecting great literature and writing a brief explanation of how it might enrich the Prime Minister’s life.Martel said he has a few self-imposed rules for the book selection process. He chooses relatively short books, trying to respect the PM’s time (and, perhaps, his attention span). And I think with the exception of Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), the books are all in English. I can’t remember why, because I think the PM is fluent in French.Here is an excerpt from the first letter Martel sent accompanying the first book, which was Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych.

I know you’re very busy, Mr. Harper. We’re all busy. Meditating monks in their cells are busy. That’s adult life, filled to the ceiling with things that need doing. (It seems only children and the elderly aren’t plagued by lack of time—and notice how they enjoy their books, how their lives fill their eyes.) But every person has a space next to where they sleep, whether a patch of pavement or a fine bedside table. In that space, at night, a book can glow. And in those moments of docile wakefulness, when we begin to let go of the day, then is the perfect time to pick up a book and be someone else, somewhere else, for a few minutes, a few pages, before we fall asleep. And there are other possibilities, too. Sherwood Anderson, the American writer best known for his collection of stories Winesburg, Ohio, wrote his first stories while commuting by train to work. Stephen King apparently never goes to his beloved baseball games without a book that he reads during breaks. So it’s a question of choice.And I suggest you choose, just for a few minutes every day, to read The Death of Ivan Ilych.

I liked that Martel reminded the PM, as well as his Festival audience on that night he spoke, that reading can be done in short segments of time. Most of us sleep next to a nightstand of some sort. We can leave a book there and “in that space, at night, a book can glow,” as we read from it for five minutes at the end of a day. Even busy people can manage to read. He was, of course, preaching to the choir that night at Calvin College; but to Stephen Harper, he was being understanding and practical.It’s also fun to scan the titles Martel has chosen along with a brief synopsis of each book. Martel includes his own personal opinion about why the book is great, and along the way, gently reminds the PM why literature matters–why art matters–and why stillness matters in the taking in of art. 

The post Yann Martel on Life of Pi, Interpretation, Stillness, and Art appeared first on Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.