Today is the start of author, Jane Choate’s three part interview of Roulf Burrell, a self-described otherworldly writer who gives zombies life and other creatures life. Roulf Burrell is one of the most creative writers I’ve had the pleasure to read. I know you will enjoy this interview as much as I did!
How did you start writing?
As a young puddle-stomper, I enjoyed reading fantasy and science fiction. In my room, I escaped an unhappy childhood through books. In college, I tried fantasy role-playing games and discovered my creativity and plotting ability created a fun experience for those who delved into my dungeon. Later, it seemed natural to produce the fiction that I had enjoyed so much. All I had to do was buy a pen, some paper and dash out a story. I did. And the result was… so embarrassing; I spent the next 25 years learning to write fiction.
Fantasy and Fiction
Why write zombie or “otherworldly” stories?
They’re fun. For example, do vampires need their teeth cleaned? How do they find a dentist? If witches are melted by water, why do they fly on broomsticks in the sky?
Advanced Science
Be it magic or advanced science, it’s fun to imagine being able to do the incredible: fly, lift cars, see through walls, etc. And people enjoy seeing themselves as an empowered hero. It’s also a chance to remind us that our abilities, great or small, do not change our basic nature. Greater ability leads to greater responsibility. Conversely, unrestrained power will make its own monster out of us.
Otherworldly stories allow people to see preconceptions and biases in a different light. Why can we mistreat machines but not people? Could mistreating robots (or aliens) lead to a hardened conscience? Could our own scientific knowledge overwhelm us? If we presuppose certain creatures are evil, do we ever really give them a fair chance, or are we condemning them for “who they are” rather than “what they do”? These questions all have “today relevance.”
How would you answer these questions? Next week, we’ll discover how Roulf imbues out of this work characters with human characteristics we can relate to.
We’re going to wrap up our discussion of Organization this month with advice from two experts as well as my own suggestions for how to keep yourself organized.
We’ll start with Steven Covey, whose
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is a classic. When talking about
organization, Covey has one simple suggestion:
Substitute weekly organization for daily planning.
This may sound counterintuitive.
After all, don’t we need to know what we’re doing each day? Yes, of course, but
Covey’s advice allows life to happen. By establishing goals for what you want
to accomplish each week, you’re setting yourself up for success, not failure. Why
risk the frustration of telling yourself that you absolutely, positively have
to finish Task A on Monday and Task B on Tuesday when it’s possible that one of
those will take longer than you expected or that what was supposed to be a
half-hour trip to the supermarket took far longer, putting you behind schedule?
Weekly Organization
Organizing for the week, assuming
that that organization includes the transition and unscheduled time that
Marilyn Paul recommends, gives you a higher probability of actually meeting
your goals.
The advice from our second expert of the month, Brian Tracy, is a corollary to Covey’s. Tracy, who’s the author of Time Power, urges you to:
Work from a prioritized task list.
This may sound like a part of our
earlier discussion of priorities, but it never hurts to repeat it. Prioritizing
your tasks for the day and the week helps you avoid detours and time-wasters.
While it may be tempting to work on a low priority task simply because it’s
easy to finish, it’s important – I’d go so far as to say critical – to tackle
high priority tasks first.
Prioritized Task List
Listen to the experts. They’ve “been
there, done that,” and lived to tell the rest of us what they learned.
I’m not claiming to be an expert,
but here are three ways I’ve found to keep myself organized.
Find your own writing space.
Organize
Whether it’s a separate room or a corner in the basement that you’ve delineated with duct tape on the floor, if you have a specific place to write, you’ll be more productive. It’s also important that family members respect that space and recognize that you’re at work when you’re there.
2. Prepare to write.
There are two aspects to this.
First, have all your raw materials ready before you begin. Remember Marilyn Paul’s “have a place for everything and everything in its place”? That’s a quintessential part of organization and a proven way to increase productivity.
Second, reread the last scene you wrote or remind yourself of the problem you want to resolve before commuting, exercising, or going to sleep. This allows your subconscious mind to work on it while you’re doing other things and will often result in a solution popping into your brain seemingly unbidden.
3.Don’t leave home without it.
This was the slogan for a major credit card several decades ago, but it also applies to your writing. Take your work with you, literally. Whether it’s a pad and paper or an electronic device, if you’re always prepared to write, you won’t waste time when you’re caught in a traffic jam, when you’re sitting in an airport lounge, or when your lunch date is late. Instead of being frustrated by the delays, you can be productive and work on your book while you wait.
Take your work with you.
These are all part of being
organized. They may not be easy initially, but once they become habits, you’ll
find that you’re more productive, and that’s an essential part of reaching “The
End.”
We’ve reached the end of Organization,
but before I end this post, I have one last piece of advice:
Don’t forget that writing is your number one priority.
All the organizational techniques in the world won’t help you finish your book if you don’t believe that and if your day-to-day actions don’t reflect that principle.
(C) 2019 Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a
sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house
long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether
or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is
the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four
non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles
to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.
Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
The last article in the SEO Series focused on the importance of making your content stand out to increase your hits. The more hits your site gets where the visitor stays a while, the higher your ranking. This article takes a look at more ways to increase your hits.
Stay A While
Article Length:
Blog length articles should be between 300 and 500 words. There’s a reason for that. You don’t want to overwhelm a reader, but by the same token, statistics show that readers typically only read half of an article. That means, for a 300 word blog, they’ll read 150 words. I was asked to write an informational article with a minimum of 1000 words for The Attorney General of another state (not Colorado) by the SEO firm hired by the Attorney General. They wanted to increase awareness of a new bill and the implications both for and against, and make sure they stayed on the site without bouncing off. The keywords and length were critical to increasing their SEO presence – this was the way the Attorney General was monitoring the effectiveness of the SEO firm he hired. He wanted confirmation that his constituency was informed and had the facts they needed to make an informed decision.
SEO – Article Length Matters
The problem with short blogs is that even if their target audience read the entire blog, they would not be on it long enough to register as “liking it.” Scary.
Update frequently:
At least one time each month, update your content, even if it’s only a paragraph. Google and the other search engines love updated content.
Search terms in additional places:
If you include search terms in places other than your title and page description metatag, you’ll optimize your site even more. But don’t force them if you can’t naturally make it work.
Search Terms In Additional Places
Links: The words from your search terms should be used as text links or anchor text (these are words forming a link to an external site or another internal page). Keep in mind that linking to words like “click here” or “learn more” won’t increase your ranking. Also, make sure that external links open in a new window while internal opens in the same window. With an external link in a new window, if they check it out, Google reads them as still on your site as well — they like it.
Headings: Not only do headings and subheadings assist in the organization of your text, but they help readers find what they’re looking for. If you include search terms in the headers, it’ll help your ranking. Search engines can’t read words within a picture, so make sure it appears in regular text.
Text within body: Use the search terms wisely. Don’t overload a page just to try to increase your ranking, not only will it bother your readers, but Google won’t like it.
Images & tags: Images can help with your search engine results. They not only appear in search results, but they can increase your ranking when search terms appear in the filename, caption, title, nearby text, and tag (when you over over an image on a pc, this is the text that appears.)
Next month we’ll look at the importance of mechanics, what search engines “hate” and a great free tool.
This month we’re going to conclude our discussion of priorities by talking about opportunity cost. Are you familiar with the term? The basic concept is that resources, whether time, money, energy, or something else are finite and that the cost of something is not absolute. Rather than measuring dollars or minutes, opportunity cost measures what we give up when we make a choice.
Video Game or T-shirt
Consider a child whose allowance is enough to allow him to buy either the video game he wants or the T-shirt with his favorite sports star’s picture on it. If he chooses the game, he cannot buy the T-shirt. Therefore, the opportunity cost is the T-shirt. When he buys the video game, he’s making the decision that it’s more important to him than the T-shirt.
As writers, we make the same decisions each time we set (or ignore) our priorities. In our case, the precious and finite resource is time.
If you remember one thing from this post, I hope it will be the following:
Time to write is not free.
You might want to print that out and post it everywhere you posted the picture of your goal, because it’s equally important.
The End
In your quest to reach “The End,” you should ask yourself two questions.
(1) How important is writing to me?
(2) What sacrifices am I willing to make?
You can say that writing is important, but as the adage reminds us, actions speak more loudly than words. If you procrastinate, if going to a movie or (shudder) cleaning your house is what you choose to do rather than finish your chapter, you’re demonstrating that writing isn’t as important as you claim it is.
Actions Speak Louder than Words
The second question is where opportunity cost becomes critical. I used the word “sacrifices” deliberately, because there will be not simply tradeoffs but true sacrifices if you make writing and reaching “The End” your highest priority. There will be times when you’ll have to turn down an invitation you’d like to accept, simply because you need that time to write. The cost of that invitation is finishing the chapter. Don’t mislead yourself by saying, “just this once won’t matter.” Each choice you make is significant.
As you accept the fact that time is finite and that you will have to make choices about how to spend your time, it’s important to decide what will not get done. I recommend the following three steps.
Review your current time use analysis. Remember how you tracked your time for at least a week and categorized how you were spending it? That analysis is an invaluable resource and a key to establishing priorities.
Warning — There May Be Side Effects
Differentiate between urgent and important tasks. If your child has broken her arm, taking her to the doctor is urgent. Doing laundry may be important, but – unlike an urgent task – it can be delayed.
Substitute writing for the least value-added tasks. Did you discover that you spent a lot of time watching television or reading tweets and Facebook posts? While you might consider those important, are they more valuable than writing another chapter? The opportunity cost of the time you spend on them is time you didn’t spend writing.
Establishing and following priorities isn’t easy, but it’s essential if you want to reach “The End.” Each time you make a decision about how to spend your time, consider the opportunity cost. And, one final bit of advice: “No” is an acceptable response when someone asks you to do something that will interfere with your writing time.
(C) 2019 Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city.
Her most recent release is A Tender Hope, the third in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
Welcome Kathryn Ross with The Editor Diet: Pantry Substitutes for Digestible Writing, a part of her Series—The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words.
A discouraging diagnosis triggered my anxiety meter to spin into the red zone.
“Looks like you’ll need to remove a few things from your diet, Mrs. Ross.” The nutrition counselor spoke with confidence. She found the culprits of my digestive woes and dispensed a prescription with nary a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. “No sugar. No dairy. No eggs. No gluten. No soy. No. No. No.”
I went to this woman for help. I hoped for a quick fix. Maybe an encouraging word. But to hear her say “no” repeatedly to the hallowed mainstays of my diet, threw me into confusion.
“But . . . but . . . what can I eat?” Perhaps she would recant when she heard how disappointed I was at her advice.
“Oh, there’s plenty of clever substitutes you can make for these foods that will better agree with your system,” she said. “Once you make a habit of healthier food choices for your metabolism, I promise you’ll feel much better—and lose those pounds around your mid-section, too.”
Fruits & Vegetables
REALLY?
The promised prize shone like gold before me. If only I could accept the new normal of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Tooling me with a list of foods to avoid and a list of foods to eagerly eat, plus a tips sheet on shopping and meal preparations, I left her office with a sense of both trepidation and hope.
Was I brave enough to make the life changes necessary to feel better, lose weight, and gain back lost energy? Could I be consistent with the new meal plans and food preparation protocols I had to learn? Would completely redesigning my pantry, fridge, and freezer to toss out the old staples and welcome in new and unfamiliar ingredients be within my power?
The red zone of a troublesome health diagnosis can be a blessing or a curse. It’s all in the way you choose to accept it and act upon it—with open arms, or stubborn resistance.
The Editor Diet: Pantry Substitutes for Digestible Writing by Kathryn Ross
It’s the same with my writing. Knowing that what I’ve drafted needs work, I submit it to the review of an editor’s eye. In so doing, I must allow for my words to fall into the red zone of a marking pen diagnosis of where problems may exist, then follow editorial advice for healthy writing.
Thankfully, the English language is tooled with many options when choosing words and applying grammatical rules. Satisfying, healthier word choice substitutes slim down a written work suffering from illness, overweight, and lack of energy. The more those options are exercised, the easier they become to use on a consistent basis.
Here’s a couple writing pantry tips for your journey to healthier compositions:
Substitute vibrant vowels for weak “to be” verbs: In everyday speech, we use the simple verbs is, are, was, were, and the like to communicate. But on the printed page, a diet of such verbs wearies the reader and lessens the impact of the material communicated. Strive to edit out as many of these simple verbs as possible. Use meatier words to empower your story with greater accuracy of action.
Substitute similes and metaphors for bland adjectives and lazy adverbs: Descriptive language can make or break a written work. When it comes to adjectives and adverbs, too much dulls the reader’s senses or repels them entirely—like eating cake with too much sugar in the batter gives one an upset stomach. Vary your descriptive language with the use of similes and metaphors to cement understanding, allowing a reader to better apply and articulate what they read. Whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction, the use of these powerful figures of speech add sticky sugar and spice to your work beyond the elementary use of simple adjectives and adverbial modifiers.
The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words
Kathryn Ross
Inventory your concepts to focus on the topic and curb redundancy: Fill your first draft with all your ideas. Review to determine where your focus is and how you’ll build on it. Sometimes, you may illustrate your point by restating it more than once. Creatively, you’ll need to decide what to delete and what to keep. Take a bold inventory of how you communicate your focused thought and in what order you arrange the details, guiding the reader through to a persuasive ending with impact. Be brutal when you cut—like I had to be when tossing all the flour and eggs and cheese from my kitchen to accommodate my new lifestyle diet. Never easy—but ultimately rewarding.
This is by no means a comprehensive prescription, but a good start towards adapting an editor’s diet for digestible writing. At first, you might think you are losing your writing voice by making such substitutions to your normal writing diet. In fact, you are finding your voice—a healthier voice—that will be fitness to your readers and strength to your continued growth as a writer.
(C) 2018 Kathryn Ross
The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words
By Kathryn Ross
Writer-speaker, Kathryn Ross, ignites a love of literature and learning through Pageant Wagon Productions and Publishing. She mentors writers as a book shepherd and publishes homeschool enrichment and Christian living books for home, church, and school. Her passion is to equip women and families in developing a Family Literacy Lifestyle, producing readers and thinkers who can engage the world from a biblical worldview. She blogs and podcasts at TheWritersReverie.com and PageantWagonPublishing.com. Connect with Miss Kathy on Facebook.
Welcome back to APODS, one technique for reaching the elusive “The End.” Today we’re going to start our discussion of the analysis phase. As the title line says, this means answering the tough questions. Since I want to keep this relatively simple, I’ve limited myself to three questions that I think every author should answer. The first two help us identify what is special about us and our books; the last identifies barriers to reaching “The End.”
First Question
Why do you write? This first question may sound simple, but answering it may not be. Each of us has a different reason for writing. Some of us write because we need to pay the bills, others because characters have invaded our brains and won’t leave until we tell their stories. Others hear a snippet of conversation and start asking, “What happened next?” There’s no right answer and no wrong one. The key is to identify the reason you write.
Why do you write?
A corollary to this question is, “Do you want to write, or do you need to write?” This is a variation on the “Is writing what you do or who you are?” question that Francine Mathews posed to attendees at the 2004 Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers conference. The difference is fundamental. Again, there are no right answers, but I will tell you that if you need to write, if writing is who you are, you’ll find it easier to reach “The End.” Simply put, if you cannot not write, if not writing leaves an empty place inside you, you’ll be more likely to persist even when it’s difficult.
Second Question
Why is this the book of your dreams?
On to the next question. Why is this the book of your dreams? Don’t just let the answers bounce through your brain. Take a minute to record them. What makes this book special? What makes you want – or need – to tell this particular story? Why will your life be incomplete if you don’t finish it?
If you can’t answer the question or if your first response doesn’t ring true, I suspect you’ll have trouble finishing the book. Writing is hard work. Don’t ever doubt that. But if this truly is the book of your dreams, you’ll be able to persevere through the difficult times.
Once you’ve answered this question, save your answer. You did put it in writing, didn’t you? If you keyed it into a document, print it out and put it in a place where you’ll be able to retrieve it easily. Why? If you’re like most authors, you’ll find stumbling blocks along the road to “The End.” There will be times when you hate the book or are convinced it’s the worst prose in the English language. (For me, that happens regularly when I reach the middle of the first draft.) This is the time to pull out your answer and remind yourself why this book is special. Trust me, that little piece of paper helps.
Third Question
What is keeping you from finishing the book?
Our final question is, What is keeping you from finishing the book? When I’ve asked writers why they have so many unfinished manuscripts, the answers have fallen into four categories:
Not enough time
Conflicting priorities
Fear of rejection
Fear of success
Starting next month, we’ll focus on the first two. Your assignment in the meantime is to reflect on these three questions. Think – really think – about why writing and this particular book are so important to you. The answers may surprise you.
Amanda Cabot
Amanda Cabot is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city. Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
(C) 2018 Amanda Cabot
A Borrowed Dream by Amanda Cabot Cimarron Creek Trilogy
Unfortunately we live in a very litigious society, which is why it’s important to be made aware of the legal pitfalls. This series will give you a heads up on what to watch for and can also provide an understanding as to why publishers may have certain provisions in their contracts or take a stance with respect to some aspects of the work, for example, whether an author wants to use real places and historical figures.
The Contract
General Resource
Please note, Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls is a series that is intended to be used as a general resource only and is NOT legal advice. You CANNOT rely on it as a substitute for legal counsel from your attorney.
Who Can File A Lawsuit?
Litigious Society
First of all, anyone can file a lawsuit about anything. Once filed, the defendant has to defend him or herself which can get quite expensive. Although frivolous lawsuits are supposed to be dismissed, that is not necessarily the case.
I’d like to open with a few examples of lawsuits that thankfully were dismissed just to give you some perspective.
Off the Wall
A convicted serial killer sued an author for $60 million. Even though the felon was found guilty and waited on death row, he claimed innocence in the 16 murders. His claim was based on the writer’s characterization of him as a serial killer, which he believed was misleading, false, and “defamed his good name.” He also claimed that he would be “shunned by society and unable to find decent employment” once he was able to return to life outside jail. Needless to say, the judge threw out the case in just 46 seconds, but it still cost the writer’s publisher $30,000 in legal fees.
Silence
Music
Can you be sued for silence? Mike Batt, a musician, was sued for plagiarism after including on his album a silent song. Yes, silence. There were no vocals or music. The late John Cage’s publishers sued this musician for silence claiming it “ripped off Cage’s” album which contained no vocals or music. We don’t know what the outcome is of copyrighting silence because Batt agreed to a six-figure out of court settlement.
The Sleeping Student
When a teacher slammed her palm on the desk of a sleeping student in an effort to wake him up, she was hit with a law suit. Yes, he claimed she damaged his hearing. Really??
Batman
Batman
I am not sure how many of you are Batman fans, but did you know there is a city in Turkey with the name Batman? The mayor sued Warner Brothers as well as Christopher Nolan, the Dark Knight director, for using the name Batman without their permission. Did they just realize the existence of this superhero after 70 years or did they want to take advantage of the movie’s billion-dollar income? It’s up to you.
Suing Yourself?
Nothing ceases to amaze me. An inmate sued himself in Chesapeake, VA. He was arrested for breaking & entering as well as grand larceny. He was upset with himself so he decided to sue himself for $5 million dollars for a civil rights offense — his own religious beliefs were violated by himself. Because he didn’t have the $5 million to pay himself, he requested that the state pay. Needless to say, his suit fortunately was thrown out.
There are many more off the wall lawsuits, but the fact is, they are a reality we need to be made aware of. Next month we’ll take a look at copyright basics.
Welcome Amanda Cabot back to Thyme for Writers with the first in her series on time management and getting to “The End!” Amanda is no stranger to getting to “The End.” She juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines and building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year. Whether or not she kept her sanity during that time is debatable. Amanda is the best-selling author of over thirty novels, eight novellas, four non-fiction books, and what she describes as enough technical articles to cure insomnia in a medium-sized city. Her most recent release is A Borrowed Dream, the second in the Cimarron Creek trilogy.
Getting to “The End”
Have you ever started a book, filled with enthusiasm and certain that this will become the next #1 New York Times bestseller, but somehow you never finished it?
Have you ever said, “If only I had more time, I’d write a book”?
Thyme for Writers
Have you ever wondered how some writers manage to complete multiple books in a year when you still haven’t finished the book of your heart?
If you’ve answered “yes” to any of those questions, I’m here to tell you that you’re not alone. While these can hardly be classified as the great mysteries of the universe, they are questions that plague many writers.
The good news is that there are solutions to the problem of not reaching the elusive “The End.” The bad news is that the solutions are multi-faceted. While you might believe that a course in time management will solve your problem, it’s only one aspect of the solution and not even the first one to be addressed.
APODS
Over the next five months (maybe more, if I become too long-winded on any of the posts), we’re going to talk about a system I’ve given the acronym APODS. This not-so-catchy name stands for Analysis, Priorities, Organization, Discipline, and Support. (See what I mean about time management being only part of the solution?)
Let’s take a quick look at each of the five subjects.
Getting to “The End”
You can’t solve a problem unless you can identify it. Remember the adage about the person whose only tool is a hammer seeing every problem as a nail? You don’t want to be caught in that trap. That’s where Analysis comes into play. It helps you determine why you haven’t finished that book.
Establishing Priorities ensures that you’re working on the right things and that you understand the implications, what some call the opportunity cost, of each decision you make.
Proper Organization helps you make the most of the time you have by using some hints from industry experts.
Discipline could be nicknamed “just do it,” but we’ll talk about techniques that will make just doing it easier.
And finally, you can’t succeed without Support. While you may think of all support as coming from the people around you, we’ll also discuss the internal support process, which is equally critical.
There it is in a nutshell: the APODS technique for finishing your manuscript and living to tell another story.
Have I intrigued you? I hope so, because I’m looking forward to your comments and questions as we journey from those initial moments of wild enthusiasm along the long and sometimes difficult road to “The End.”
(C) 2018 Amanda Cabot
You can find Amanda at:
A Borrowed Dream by Amanda Cabot Cimarron Creek Trilogy
If writing that book and getting it published were only that easy … . If it was just a matter of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys) …, but it’s not. In today’s fast-paced technological society, writing is a multifaceted business.
Thyme for Writers
Since writing is a long, difficult, and solitary road for the most part,
The Author Toolbox
Thyme for Writers is meant to lighten your load for each facet of writing. It’s purpose is to be:
a source of inspiration to writers and readers alike with words of encouragement and uplifting stories that bring a smile to your face; and
a go-to resource with helpful hints, tools, and knowledge.
Technology
To help you through the technology behind it all, Candee Fick shared her Author Toolbox. A tool everyone should have on their “shelf.” If you haven’t checked it out yet, it may be “thyme.”
The Write Spice: Writing Tips for Flavorful Words by Kathryn Ross
Writing Tips
Kathryn Ross is back with her monthly, The Write Spice – Writing Tips for Flavorful Words. If you haven’t seen her posts yet, wait no further. Each article is just a click away:
One of the largest stumbling blocks for most people, especially writers, is time management. I am excited to have Amanda Cabot as a monthly guest, the fourth Thursday of each month for her series on time management. She not only teaches workshops on this subject, but her life is a reflection of how well it works as a multi-published author who juggled a sixty-hour a week job with nonnegotiable deadlines while building a house long-distance at the same time that she wrote two books a year.
Legal Pitfalls
Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls
As a writer, reader, or someone who may have your own website, you are probably following some of the legal issues that hit the news lately — GDPR compliance and trademark issues to name just a couple. To provide some insight on what may be lurking, I will start a monthly series the third Thursday of the month as an educational resource — Writers Beware of the Legal Pitfalls. As with the workshops and university Business Law courses I teach, this series is meant for educational purposes as a general resource ONLY and NOT to provide legal advice. For any legal issues you may have, you will need to speak to your attorney.
I’ll continue to feature other guests on Thyme for Writers… . I hope you enjoy what’s to come!
Those periods in your life when there is no “thyme” to write, may just be one of those times when inspiration happens for your next season of writing. Your next season may include getting over a writer’s block, burnout, a new blog series, an article for your next blog, the next book, the next series, the next book in a series, or a short story to name just a few. We are all in a different place in our journeys.
Inspiration for Your Season of Writing
No “Thyme” to Write
My last article let you know that for the month of May, there was just no time to write, and I wasn’t the only one. Kathryn Ross, who is a monthly contributor to Thyme for Writers with her series, The Write Spice became a new grandmother and had no “thyme” for the month of May either, but she will be back in June.
Graduation
Graduation
For me, the month of May included three graduations and a pinning ceremony. Wow, talk about inspiration… .
Congratulations JC!
The first two graduations were local and only one day apart:
My Son graduated with a Masters of Science degree in Radiological Health Sciences, and
his very special lady graduated with her bachelors in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.
Hooding of Victoria by Her Grandfather
Pinning Ceremony
One week later we all traveled to our nation’s capitol, Washington, D.C. for my daughter’s graduation from Georgetown School of Medicine. My father who graduated from Georgetown School of Medicine 59 years earlier hooded her. It was a beautiful ceremony, a very special time in our lives. We also attended her pinning ceremony where she was promoted to captain and pinned by her dad (my husband). The next leg of her journey is her Neurosurgery Residency — she was one of two army selected (one of 3 military).
Talk about inspiration… . One thing I can guarantee is that these beautiful events in my life which gave me no “thyme” to write, did provide inspiration for my next season of writing — another book (yes, that story is brewing), articles, and more… .
Establishing Priorities ensures that you’re working on the right things and that you understand the implications, what some call the opportunity cost, of each decision you make.
