Happy Dance Time! Here @ Writercize

Hello all! I'm just stopping in for a quick little happy dance.

Fun things happening in my little writing world - I got a couple of emails last week about books I get to preview and share with all of you (HOORAY!), so once I have them in hand I will ferociously read through them and share. One will even be a give-away! (Even bigger hooray for you!!)

Keep your eyes open for those reviews coming soon. Of course they will be attached to a couple of fantastic writercizes so that you can get the writing juices flowing along with your reader curiosity.

In case you might be interested in an Amazon order without the review or writercize, they are:

Chicken Soup for the Soul: Inspiration for Writers - 101 Motivational Stories for Writers Budding or Bestselling from Books to Blogs (available now!)

and

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher (available July 2, open to pre-orders)

I love when fun opportunities fall into my lap!

Now, the BIGGEST reason for a happy dance?!

I am delving full throttle ahead deep into my Work In Progress, a creative non-fiction book I am co-authoring with Sarah Chapman, the founder of Build a Better Benin, a nonprofit to improve education and health practices in West Africa. 

I am ridiculously excited, over-the-moon, happy, happy, happy about this book. We are still in the early stages, but the manuscript is really starting to take shape and I'm feeling good about it. After much hemming and hawing about the first chapter, I had some divine inspiration a couple of nights ago and sat down to pour my soul into it, and it's looking good.

I don't want to give too much away yet, since it is still so early and we don't have representation yet, but ... it's fun. Sarah calls it the humorous humanitarian, which is pretty spot-on. We're aiming for the full range of emotions from belly laughs to crocodile tears and everything in between recounting her story of dropping everything to live alone, in the bush, in a third-world country.

She's spent the past several months sharing her incredible journey with me, and now it's time to translate it into a work of art. Huge feeling of contentment watching the story develop.

I'll continue to check in here as writercizes strike, and to share those book reviews with you, but in the meantime, please to join in the happy dance with me! Cha-cha-cha!

Know Your Stuff - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.11

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Take the day off writing and do some research instead. Pick a topic that interests you, but you do not know much about, and research it. 

If you are currently working on a novel or non-fiction work, look for a way to re-energize it with additional knowledge on the subject.

(Catch me repeating myself again? Yep, still in Mexico, lazing around on a hammock and scheduling this post to recycle last year's A to Z Challenge K entry - Knowledge. Think of it as being extra kind to the earth this April with an attempt to reduce, reuse and recycle.

For more background on the writercize from last year, follow this link. Tomorrow, I'll still be away, but the writercize is new, and I'll be back home Monday refreshed and ready for some new challenges!)

I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment!

And, if you let me know you stopped by, I will be sure to pay you a visit as soon as I am able!

No writercizer sample response on a research day!

How in the World? - writercize #AtoZChallenge 3.8

Please note: writercize (a portmanteau of write and exercise with a z for ... a twist? fun? street cred?) is participating in the A to Z Challenge through the month of April with alphabetical writing prompts. I'm skipping the stories behind the prompts so you can spend more time practicing and less time reading! Please participate, and enjoy!

writercize: Write about how something happens, or how something works.

You may pick any topic in the world (or beyond!), but here are a few questions to get you started:

• How do clouds form?
• How do birds fly?
• How do seeds turn to plants?
• How does the tooth fairy know when to visit?
• How do animals know how to swim?

Fiction and nonfiction writers alike can benefit from an exercise to uncover how things work. 

Fiction writers may tap into mythology or creative writing to come up with a fictional account of how real things happen, or create a believable answer to a false premise. 

Nonfiction writers can brush up on research as well as writing clarity and organization skills.
 
I love reading your comments and especially your writercize results, so please, drop me a line to let me know if this worked for you! Better yet, share your attempt with the world in your comment! 

Click "read more" for writercizer (fictional) sample response. 

Writer Seeking: Genre to Compliment My Every Thought

Heads up: I recently decided to allow myself a little more flexibility within writercize. I often find inspiration strikes for a blog post, but it doesn't quite fit in with the writercize theme, so I paralyze both the thought and the blog. Therefore, I hereby allow myself to post the occasional opinion and/or reflection on the writing life as I see fit to indulge. I have updated my 'writercize in a nutshell' description accordingly through one additional paragraph.

Here you are: "The site will also be peppered with a few opinions here and there as well as insight on the growing pains and highlights associated with a burgeoning writing career. Please bear with me. It's my blog, so I get to indulge my ego every once in a while. Right?"

(See it along the right hand side there? Man, I love the power of sidebar.)

Now, onto the topic at hand. Genres. Without a writercize at the end. (Eek. Can I really do this?)

Here's the thing about genres. They kind of freak me out. They're like labels. Sticky little labels that tell the world who we are and what we are meant to write. She writes romance. He writes horror. She writes board books. Sure, they help land an agent and define a readership, but they also feel a little like shackles - or unspoken glass ceilings.

I will be perfectly honest - I don't especially like labels for myself. I find them sort of, well, confining. And I don't much like to be confined. Look at my Facebook labels - I chose "independent" for political views and "an amalgam of sorts" for religious views. I do quite enjoy the label "writer" to be honest. That is one label I'll be happy to hang on to for a bit. And I love "Mom." But should anyone begin to pigeonhole me by a label and attempt to relegate me to the land of the like-minded, I shall break away screaming my little head off.

I get why they are important. I get why they may be comfortable to some. Once a genre is selected, the mind can focus on the most appropriate story lines, and networking can occur within a familiar zone. Agents and publishers can follow established routines and marketing campaigns to get books into the hands of the most likely readers. It all makes sense. It truly does. But it still gives me chills.

Nutschell, my good friend over at The Writing Nut, tells a story of how she decided to write a memoir a few years ago. Memoirs were hot, and she felt like she could tell the story of her life. She sat, and sat, and sat. For more than a year. And she had nothing on the page to show for it. She had backed herself into a corner with the wrong genre. A memoir was not living in her soul. Finally, one day, she looked at her shelf, and saw it was filled with YA and fantasy. That was what she loved to read, and that was what she was meant to write. She found her genre, which she now states proudly as she works on her second manuscript and leads the non-profit children's writing group, Children's Book Writers of Los Angeles.  

I joined CBW-LA a few years ago, as a stay-at-home mom tired of reading drab stories to my kids, and longing for a chance to harness my first dream career in life and write. I felt that I had the responsibility to give myself that chance. Since I didn't have the time as an SAHM (those labels again!) to twin toddlers, I thought I could join and start writing picture books. I really like picture books - they were one of my first loves growing up. I admired the authors who would visit my school and sign my books. I would really like to publish a picture book. But, I am not a naturally born story-teller with visions of characters and plots dancing in my head shouting for a turn on the page. And from that standpoint, picture books are hard. They need inspiration. I need inspiration. As I wade through manuscripts and half finished stories, I see that my inspiration is education. I will never be able to create a story that is whimsical and just for fun. My stories will always serve a purpose - to teach a child about a love of writing or a topic that may be slightly uncomfortable or nebulous to teach without a book. I am coming to understand that, and I am pleased with that distinction in my mind.

Most of the time, when I write, it is for our local weekly newspaper. I work as a freelance journalist and cover city government, school news and features. It is far and away the best way to get to know a city in the world. (My humble opinion.) I do not opine in the newspaper. I simply tell facts. I conduct interviews. And do a ton of research. And in the end, I attempt to tell the facts as a story, a riveting account that draws a reader into the subject and educates the reader as fully as possible within an 800-word limit.

Looking forward, first and foremost, I want to continue my life as a journalist. Because, hey, that's my connection to local life and that's my consistent bread and butter. And I do want to write for children. And I do want to write for adults. And I do want to tell real stories in a fresh, new way. And I think I finally found my label, my genre, that will allow me to do this.

My label, my genre, is called "creative nonfiction."

Creative nonfiction is defined by Lee Gutkind, founder of Creative Nonfiction magazine, as "true stories, well told." He writes: "The words “creative” and “nonfiction” describe the form. The word “creative” refers to the use of literary craft, the techniques fiction writers, playwrights, and poets employ to present nonfiction—factually accurate prose about real people and events—in a compelling, vivid, dramatic manner. The goal is to make nonfiction stories read like fiction so that your readers are as enthralled by fact as they are by fantasy."

This is my genre. This is my purpose as a writer. This fits me like a glove. Creative nonfiction. I'm so happy to have finally found you.

Falling Back in Time - writercize #126

This week (most of) the United States fell backwards an hour with the switch back to standard time.  For those who have trouble remembering when to turn the clocks forward and when to turn them back, the beauty of an English language that offers homonyms and nouns that double as verbs has made a simple sentence to remember:  "Spring forward, Fall back."

Gain an hour in the fall, lose an hour in the spring.  If you're single.  Or have older children.  If you have young kids, you will be completely unable to gain or lose that hour as kids seem to believe their stomachs and sunlight more than a digital clock.  Darn.

A couple tidbits about time changes that you may not have known:

• Residents in Arizona and Hawaii are fortunate enough not to have to worry about changing their clocks twice a year, although they also don't get the joy of adding an hour to a fall weekend ... a joy I'd gladly pass up to keep the sun setting later in the evening year round.  In my ideal world, the sun would never, ever dare to set before 7:00 p.m.  (Noteworthy: While Hawaiians and Arizonans don't have to consider time change, their relatives living in other states, however, must remember that the time difference is variable which could be sort of a nasty chore.)
• We do not change our clocks at the same time as Europe.  We're two weeks earlier in the spring and a week later in the fall.  (They are last Sundays in March and October; we're second Sunday in March and first in November.)  That means we get three weeks extra time admiring a later sunset.  This I am happy about.
• Prior to 2007, we changed at the same time as Europe in the fall and a week later in the spring.  The President has the power to change when the time changes, and George W. Bush did just that.  I guess I have something to thank you for G-Dub.  Though I'd prefer if you just abolished ugly, dark Standard Time altogether and threw us into permanent Daylight Saving Time.  (We were first Sunday in April and last in October.  Europe was still the same.)
• The fire department wants you to check your smoke alarm batteries when the time changes.  Did you do it?  Go now.
• In the southern hemisphere, the clock changes opposite of the northern hemisphere to match the seasons "down below."  Which means there is a wide variable in time differences across time zones between hemispheres.  Families straddling zones and hemispheres may need an advanced mathematical degree to figure it out!  (Or a iPhone ... those things seem to know it all.)

Want to know more, including which countries don't make the switch at all, and who the first person credited with suggesting daylight saving time is?  Read more about it at Time and Date.

So how does this fit into a writercize?  Remember my fall back, spring forward thing?  You have to create a shortcut to remember the change on your own!  It can refer to the time change in general (like the season and direction above) or get specific about the weekend ... or it can somehow address the difference between states/countries/hemispheres in how they participate ... or the fact that you gain an hour by falling back and lose an hour by springing forward - a concept that seems to keep a lot of minds I know running in circles.  Good luck!  And please share!

writercize:  Create a simple phrase that can be used as a way to remember those pesky time change rules.

Click "read more" for writercizer sample response, and please leave your phrase as a comment or link below!  I prefer my second take, but am not one hundred percent on either yet!

Evaluate and Speculate (Occupy Wall Street) - writercize #121

One way to engage in the outside world, sharpen your writing skills and work on your powers of perception is to keep on top of current events.  When I watch the news, listen to the radio or read the newspaper, I am constantly asking follow-up questions in my head, finding the hole, looking for the true motivation or backstory behind the story.  

A journalist should be there to ask questions and translate the motivation to a larger audience, using nothing more than the story and the subjects' discussion point.  An editorial writer would look at a singular situation and relate it to the bigger picture of what is happening in the world, injecting some opinion.  A fiction writer could look at what is happening and what is being said and imagine what else is happening behind the scenes, what dialogue is happening inside of the subject's head beyond their words, what body language says and how that moment is one moment on a continuum of life experience.

Find your comfortable place in those roles above.  It may be a hybrid of two or more.  Write.

writercize:  Look at a current local, national or international event.  Evaluate the situation and translate what is happening to your reader.  Speculate if you feel compelled to do so.  Remember the Ws of journalism - who, what, where, when, why and how?

Click "read more" for the writercizer sample response on the timing of the "occupation" (Occupy Wall Street, etc.).