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| << July01, 2006 - Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine -- Issue Twenty-Two |
September05, 2006 - Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine -- Issue Twenty-Four >> |
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Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine - a FR*E*E monthly ezine for writing parents. ************************************************************** You are receiving this e-zine because you subscribed through e-mail. Unsubscribe information is below. ************************************************************** TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. WELCOME NOTES 2. QUOTES FOR THE MONTH 3. EDITOR'S ARTICLE: HOW TO KEEP WRITING WHEN YOU’RE NOT WRITING By DAWN COLCLASURE 4. CONTEST CORNER 5. ADVERTISEMENTS 6. GUEST ARTICLE: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO WRITE! By JUSTIN BROWN 7. BOOK EXCERPT 8. BOOK GIVEAWAY 9. WHAT’S UP WITH THE BOOK’S WRITERS 10. BOOK NEWS 11. SITES SITED 12. FREEBIE CORNER 13. WRITING PARENT TIPS FOR AUGUST 14. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 15. UNSUBSCRIBE INSTRUCTIONS ************************************************************** WELCOME NOTES Hello, Everyone! Welcome to another issue of the Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine! As always, feel free to send me any email at BurningMidnightOil@myway.com with comments, suggestions or just to plain chat. In this issue, my article will remind you of special ways we can keep “writing” even when our lives get too chaotic to even allow for the convenience of a pen! This often happens to many writing parents, who are often left to cope with jotting things down here or there while managing their homes and families. Keep this article’s tips in mind the next time you rarely have the chance to write, keeping up with your “writing” even when you can’t! This month’s guest article is a surefire way to keep writer’s block at bay. Writer’s block is often that dreaded case of having NOTHING to write but Justin Brown will show you how to find ideas for something to write. Read his article “I Do Not Know What to Write!” to learn of ways you can come up with something to write. Enjoy this issue! Hugs, Dawn Colclasure Editor and Publisher http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/ ************************************************************** QUOTES FOR THE MONTH “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.”—E.L. Doctorow “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.“—Sylvia Plath “I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.”—Richard Wright “The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say.”—Mark Twain “The pages are still blank, but there is a miraculous feeling of the words being there, written in invisible ink and clamoring to become visible.”—Vladimir Nabakov “When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can.”—Samuel Lover “Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in that mirror which waits always before or behind.”—Catherine Drinker Bowen “To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music the words make.”—Truman Capote “What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.”—Burton Rascoe “Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.”—From the movie FINDING FORRESTER “Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life.”—James Norman Hall “One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment.”—Hart Crane “Every writer is a frustrated actor who recites his lines in the hidden auditorium of his skull.”—Rod Serling “Keep writing. Keep doing it and doing it. Even in the moments when it's so hurtful to think about writing.”—Heather Armstrong “How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”—Henry David Thoreau ************************************************************** EDITOR’S ARTICLE How to Keep Writing When You’re Not Writing By: Dawn Colclasure No doubt writing parents stay busy. With kids and household chores to take care of, finding time to write often gets put off. But even when you’re not writing, there’s still plenty of “writing work” to be had! Just keep the following suggestions in mind to help you “keep writing” even when you’re not actually writing. Plan Your Next Writing Time. Think about the things you want to write about now so you’ll be good and ready the next time you get to sit down to write. Make a mental note of something that grabs your interest, ponder a cute quote a child says or keep your eyes peeled for an article idea the next time you catch your spouse or child struggling with an issue. Reverse Roles If you write fiction, imagine certain family members as your characters and put together a mental scene of them acting out a part of your story. Or, consider yourself to be “the expert” and observe your children during the day-to-day routines. What sort of insight does watching them this way inspire within you? How does seeing them differently give you an idea for an article? Organize Your Work Make a mental map of your current project, thinking about your chapters, subjects, scenes or characters. What sort of extra work lies ahead? Make a mental note of something your might want to change or add when you get a free minute to work on it again. Record for Later Reference Use a tape recorder to keep tabs on your ideas and notes for current projects. Small tape recorders are convenient enough to carry around, fir into a pocket or purse, or keep in a glove box. Although often considered an obsolete mode of recording information, tape recorders are still valuable writing tools for the busy writing parent. Share Your Thoughts If you have a buddy, spouse or friend around, ask their opinions on a current project or if they’ll remind you about an idea later. Often we have a way of remembering things better if we talk about them, and if you take a couple of minutes to mention to a friend “I’m thinking of writing an essay about last summer” or “I’m hoping to find the chance to write a new poem,” this will help you recall them better when you have the time to sit down to write. An added bonus: Whoever you shared your plans with just might ask or remind you about them later. No matter where you are and what you’re doing, there are ways to keep yourself writing even when you can’t write. By remembering notes or memorizing whole poems to jot down later, listening in on conversations for ideas and audibly recording your work, a writing parent will soon find that having no time to write will be a thing of the past. *** Dawn Colclasure edits and publishes the Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine, which is a product of her book: BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents (Booklocker). She also writes for the newspaper SIGNews and the Web site, The Shadowlands. She’s been published both on and off the Web, in magazines such as Mothering, American Fitness, Home Education Magazine and HOMEspirations, and Web sites such as Absolute Write, Writing Etc. and Writing World. Visit her on the Web at http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/. ************************************************************** CONTEST CORNER Midnight Hour Halloween Fiction Contest Prize: $500 Fee: $15 Deadline: August 31, 2006 For complete information, visit the OnceWritten.com Midnight Hour Contest page now. http://www.oncewritten.com/Contests/MidnightHour.php ************************************************************** ADVERTISEMENTS New Message Board for Writers, Writing Parents and Booklovers!!! The Write Stuff is a new message board created by Dawn Colclasure, a disabled writing parent who loves books! The board offers anyone of similar situations a chance to discuss being a disabled writer, a writing parent or a booklover! The write Stuff offers registered members a chance to swap books, talk shop or discuss Dawn’s books, as well! All writers and booklovers of any age or stage are welcome to participate! Check the new board out here: http://p105.ezboard.com/bthewritestuff66370 *** Check out the FREE Ebook for writing parents EVERYWHERE! From one writing parent to another, “Survival Strategies for Writing Parents” by Dawn Colclasure gives the lowdown on finding time to write, strategies for writing the “skeleton” article and tips and ideas for your home office! Details: http://dmcwriter.tripod.com/id31.html *** Pop artist BRANDON is back! Brandon who gave us the Top 100 Billboard HITS like “Kisses in the night”, “Destiny” and the classic dance tune “Moves” is ready to do it again! Bal Harbour Records Inc. is proud to present our featured artist Brandon with his new single "Don't Go Away". Available now for purchase at our website at: http://www.balharbourrecords.com Go ahead and surf into our website and listen before you buy. Let Brandon take you on a freestyle journey into a whole new dimension. A Portion of the proceeds from the sale of this CD will go to the Special Operations Warrior Foundation (SOWF) The foundation provides college scholarship grants, along with financial aid and educational counseling, to the children of Special Operations personnel who were killed in an operational mission or training accident. www.specialops.org Thank you for all your support Now lets get this party started! Bal Harbour Record Staff *** What's Momfidence? It means believing Oreos make a fine snack...TV won't rot kids' brains...Locks are for doors, not toilets...Hollering happens...Toy guns are harmless fun...And Saturday mornings are for sleep, not tiny-tots soccer. Worry less, wing it more. MOMFIDENCE! An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happier Parenting by Paula Spencer "Bold, true, and a hoot." —Jacquelyn Mitchard, The Deep End of the Ocean, mom of seven "If I weren't dead, I'd give 'Momfidence' Five Stars!" --Erma Bombeck Based the popular "Momfidence!" column in Woman's Day and Paula's features in Parenting and Baby Talk On sale September 5, 2006 Crown/Three Rivers Press To pre-order: http://tinyurl.com/rty64 www.momfidence.com www.paulaspencer.com/work1.htm ************************************************************** GUEST ARTICLE I Do Not Know What To Write! By: Justin Brown A topic that often arises through discussions on message boards and forums is how authors are able to write tens, hundreds, and even thousands of articles, when others find it difficult to write more than a couple. What many people do not realize is that there are several places where you can find ideas for articles instantly, and in fact half of the work is already done for you! With the internet being a central location for information, and expanding with content by the bucket load every day, your topic will have been covered by someone else already to some extent. Now the key here is to locate this information and to improve on it in your own way. You certainly should not simply plagiarize another author’s work, but could for example do the following: - Read the article and note what it is trying to inform you - Write down any other information you can think of that would compliment the content - Compare what you have learnt from the article in comparison to what you were expecting to learn beforehand. Areas that have not been covered should be in your article. These are just 3 simple things you can try to get your creative juices flowing. Writing on a subject that you know, and one that you have an avid interest and enjoyment in, is certainly the easiest subject to write about, but this is not always possible. One of the key areas to writing in those situations is to improve on existing content, as I have mentioned, but where do you find this information in the first place? This is very simple and anyone can do it. The main way many of us navigate the internet and find what we are after is by using search engines. Perform a few searches on your topic and see what you find. Other great resources come in the form of article directories. These hubs of information can literally provide an unlimited amount of ideas for articles on hundreds of topics. Articles can be in varying length. You do not need to sit down and write 1000 word reports on your topic. An informative 500-word article is suffice. The necessity is in writing content that is in some way valuable to the reader. More ideas can be triggered by partaking in, or just visiting, discussion groups. Google and Yahoo both provide places where you can find out subjects that are being discussed, which topics are popular, and any questions that are prominent from these discussions. This will provide you with an idea of what information is being sought. Check out websites that provide regular news updates. Keeping current with up-to-date news topics can help you to find an area that is worth writing about. Maybe you have a mailing list that you can contact. If this is the case, then send out a quick email asking them what they would like to know on a certain topic. Similarly, create a poll on your website to obtain the same results. Comparable to discussion groups, forums can also provide viewpoints from many individuals. You may also regularly take part in a forum. Why not submit a post stating your desire to write about a certain subject, and ask for opinions on what areas would be beneficial to cover. Here I've highlighted several places where you can start if you are having trouble finding topics to write about. Remember, writing articles does not have to be difficult nor time-consuming. Set out with a plan of what you want your article to achieve, and what you want your article to inform the reader about, and you'll be churning out informative articles in no time! About The Author: Justin Brown maintains the website http://www.articleblotter.com and enjoys writing articles relating to article marketing. We encourage you to visit the site and submit articles if you choose to, or browse the many features that are already added to the site to help you online. You can also check out the article blotter blog for marketing news and updates. This article can be freely distributed providing that this resource box remains intact in full. Article Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/writing/article_973.shtml ************************************************************** BOOK EXCERPT No book excerpt this month. ************************************************************** BOOK GIVEAWAY No book giveaway this month. ************************************************************** WHAT'S UP WITH THE BOOK'S WRITERS? The following is news of writers you can read interviews with in Volume One of the MIDNIGHT OIL book. No news this month. ************************************************************** BOOK NEWS What's the latest with the first volume of BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents? No book news this month. ************************************************************** FREEBIE CORNER Download free software! http://www.freewarefiles.com/ Check out more shareware: http://www.topshareware.com/ Check out the ultimate collection of free software: http://www.freewarehome.com/ ************************************************************** SITES SITED The following are interesting, helpful sites that I’d like to pass on. The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: http://www.wellfedsp.com/ The BTVS Writers’ Guild: http://btvswritersguild.dymphna.net/ Writing Canada into the millennium: http://www.ucalgary.ca/UofC/faculties/HUM/ENGL/canada/ College Fight Songs: http://www.fightsongs.com/ For Love of Children: http://www.flocdc.org/ ************************************************************** WRITING PARENT TIPS FOR AUGUST: No tips this month. ************************************************************** WANNA SUBMIT TO THIS E-ZINE?? I am always open to submissions for the E-zine!! Feel free to submit any of the following: 1. An article. Any style and length. Articles must relate to writing, being a writing parent or successful business/marketing ideas. If the article is a reprint, you must own the reprint rights. 2. Tips for writing parents. 3. Advertising info, a freebie link, fan mail or, if you are included in the book, news and updates on what’s going on in your writing life! PLEASE NOTE: Payment for submissions has been restored to $5 per article, payable on publication. And, please, be sure to include your bio with submissions. It gets everything moving a little faster. :) ************************************************************** You are subscribed to this E-zine because you requested a subscription or signed yourself up on your own. To unsubscribe, send a blank e-mail to: 59308-unsubscribe@zinester.com |
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| << July01, 2006 - Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine -- Issue Twenty-Two |
September05, 2006 - Burning the Midnight Oil Book Zine -- Issue Twenty-Four >> |
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