Jan 10th, 2012 by Lynette Benton
My husband and I changed from Comcast to Verizon as our Internet service provider. Naturally things didn’t go as planned. Emails to my old address are not being forwarded yet (after a week!) so if you need to reach me, please use the following address:
Relief11@verizon.net
Thank you.
Dec 29th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
I recently interviewed Leslie Fulton for a guest post about the conflicts between being both a business and a creative writer. Since she sent me a good deal of interesting information about her approach to writing, I said I’d like to share it here, as a guest post. You can read it below.
- Lynette
Writer Leslie Fulton
I have been a freelance writer for more than 20 years—after working in print and broadcast journalism, as well as public relations. I’m lucky to have reached a point where I don’t have to cold call people looking for writing assignments. Most of my client base now comes via word of mouth.
My degree is in journalism and I also took creative writing courses while working on a Masters at Stanford University (which I didn’t finish, but that’s another story).
For a long time, I put aside creative writing as I focused on my career. After a long day writing magazine articles, speeches, white papers—you name it—the last thing I felt like doing was writing fiction for pleasure.
However, I soon realized I was missing something. Writing wasn’t fun. I was getting stale and bored. That’s when I understood that I needed to write creatively, otherwise my career would suffer. I needed that outlet and that sense of fun and joy that creative writing can bring. But, mixing the two can be precarious. How to balance?
My number one rule is that paid writing comes first.
Other freelance rules? Never miss a deadline. Never take on too many projects. Being greedy won’t pay off; you’re bound to drop the ball on one of the projects. Take the job that interests you the most; you’re more likely to write a better piece for your client. Never take on something you can’t complete. And there’s nothing wrong with accepting an assignment you don’t fully understand—I have a number of high tech clients—but make sure you do your research, learn all you can, and get it right.
Freelance writing can be lonely, especially if you work by yourself out of your home. I talk to the dog a lot. Sometimes he answers back.
If I’m stuck on a particular issue, I’ll go work out. Doing something physical gives your brain a chance to process the problem. I’ll come home sweaty and refreshed. Then, after a shower and maybe a coffee, I’ll sit down at the computer and—voila!—the block has disappeared. This little trick has never failed me.
I have often cursed my journalism degree and my business writing, thinking they hampered my creative side. Now, I don’t feel that way as much. Like anything, you have to practice. The more you write, the better you’ll be. Long flights of fanciful prose still aren’t my thing but I’m okay with that. In fact, I dislike reading them in other people’s writing. So, the clean and spare style I was taught in school and honed in my professional life is how I write creatively.
You can contact Leslie at fultonjohnsonassociates@gmail.com.
Follow tweets by Leslie’s fascinating persona @LizziePepys.
To see the original post about the tensions between business and creative writing, click on When Business and Creative Writing Clash. And here’s another first person perspective on the subject. Michele Chiappetta: Balancing Business and Creative Writing.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like What to Expect From Your Copywriter.
Dec 28th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
I recently interviewed writer Michele Chiappetta, The Chipper Muse, for a guest post I was writing for The WM Freelance Writers Connection.
Some of her responses appear in the post, When Business and Creative Writing Clash. But Michele offered so many other useful insights on the tensions between being a business and a creative writer that I knew immediately I wanted to share them on my own blog. So, with her permission, here’s Michele’s guest post.
- Lynette
Michele Chiappetta, Chipper Muse
I definitely have conflicts between my creative work and my business writing. Most of the conflict is related to time management. Because I have an office job doing nonprofit writing (fundraising, PR, etc.), I have plenty of interaction with others during the course of the day. So I don’t mind being alone in the evenings to work on my creative writing. I make sure I attend critique groups to meet with other creative writers for input, but it’s tempting to blow off those opportunities when I get busy with work or tired from writing all day.
In addition to my day job, occasionally I also freelance write and edit to earn extra money.
I don’t know that my time management methods are all that great. I try to stay on a specific schedule (day job, work out, eat dinner, pull out computer to write novel). I carry flash drives with my personal and freelance projects on them, so if I have some downtime at the day job, I can turn to my creative writing or freelance work. I also carry notebooks to jot down ideas or do some writing if I’m waiting somewhere (like a doctor’s office). I even use a note-taking app on my smartphone sometimes. Anything to capture ideas when they come.
I need to take breaks to give my brain a rest; writing full-time and then coming home to do creative writing can be exhausting. I try to take a mental break by walking for 15 minutes mid-morning and mid-afternoon when the weather’s nice, and I try to really be in the “now,” feeling my body moving, enjoying the sunlight and fresh air, and not thinking about work. This helps me feel refreshed, which then gives me more energy to get back to whatever I’m writing, personal or work-related.
I actually think my business writing has greatly improved my creative writing. When you write for a living, you get in the habit of doing it daily, which improves your skills. Also, I’ve learned not to take it personally when my writing gets critiqued. I’m better able to take feedback and apply it in a way that works for me. And I have plenty of writing successes under my belt because of work, which makes it easier to encourage myself that my creative writing will also be a success.
As hard as it is sometimes, I wouldn’t trade the experience I’ve had doing business writing and creative writing simultaneously.
Question from Lynette: How do you balance your business and creative writing?
Michele Chiappetta is a professional nonprofit writer, and a freelance writer and editor. In addition to working with clients, she runs “a funny, intelligent, artistic, creative, and spiritual look at life” at The Chipper Muse. Michele is currently working on a novel.
Follow Michele on Twitter @chippermuse.
Contact her at: chippermuse@gmail.com or on Facebook on the Chipper Muse page.
See how another writer views the relationship between business and creative writing.
If you enjoyed this post, you might also like What to Expect From Your Copywriter.
Dec 13th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
Lesley Peebles is my close friend who’s been part of my reading, and just as importantly, my writing life for 25 years.
Because she’s so prolific and thoughtful a reader and has given me feedback on so much of my writing, I wanted to present her ideas about writing and reading here.
- Lynette
How do you feel reading benefits people?
Lesley vacationing in Montreal
First, there are the pragmatic reasons. Most of us have to read to do our jobs, even if we’re just reading memos or instruction books. The more you practice on your own, the better you get—not just faster but deeper. Reading taught me how to write grammatically, a skill that’s still valuable though increasingly rare. It taught me how to think from different perspectives—I’m able to translate two sides of a conversation that otherwise would go nowhere.
And then there’s the sheer delight of a plot turn, a character, even a perfect sentence. The pleasure of new companions, all with new stories to tell. The escape from the mundane, the escape to a new culture. The sobering reflection to count my blessings. Reading has taught me empathy.
I share my favorite books with my friends and family. When my mother started passing me books she’d just finished, it was a rite of passage. I read aloud to my children long after they’d learned to read themselves, right up to the point where their longing to know what happened next overwhelmed the comfort of my presence.
What do you read—and why?
Read Part 2 of this interview.
Dec 13th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
My interview with my long-time friend and voracious reader, Lesley Peebles. continues below. - Lynette
What are your favorite books from various eras in your life?
Lesley vacationing in Montreal
The Narnia books still inform my spiritual life.
When I was 11, I must have read The Descent of Woman—in which the author proposed that homo erectus spent a couple of millennia on the beach, thus the lack of fur and the presence of sub-cutaneous fat—at least ten times. I was like a toddler watching a movie over and over again, deriving new meaning each time.
As an adolescent, I loved Les Miserables. The melodrama of it, especially the resolution—the hero on his deathbed, with his daughter and her beloved beside him—reflected my own emotional life.
Now I have so many favorite book, but I don’t reread them the way I used to. Instead I press them on my friends. The most recent was Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand. I read Cider House Rules when it first came out, and could hardly wait the ten years or I needed before I’d forget enough about it to read it again.
Have you ever thought about writing a book?
There’s one book I want to write. It would be for grade-school or younger children. It’s about a young man finding his vocation in a very abbreviated and visual way.
Do any particular topics appeal to you?
I dream constantly about parallel lives. About the door I’ve never opened in my house. About the back stairs and hallways that servants used in estate houses. About worlds you can move between if you follow the correct ritual.
In one recurring dream, I enter a spiral staircase at the bottom, climb to the first landing and turn around. Suddenly, the staircase doesn’t end where I came in, but spirals down into another country.
These books would be for young readers: as you can tell, my imagination is plot- and location-based, not character driven.
Do you think you’ll ever write one?
Maybe. My cousin could illustrate my story. But I’d have to conquer my internal editor first, and she’s fierce.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I have opportunities to write from time to time. I wrote a devotional for my church’s Advent booklet, for example. I find writing very satisfying – but only when I have something compelling to say.
What do you read—and why?
Dec 8th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
I’m mystified by man caves. Frankly, I’m not even sure they exist outside of HGTV’s home buying series.
“This would be perfect for my man cave,” the husband always says, leaning back and shaping his hands into a rectangle as he indicates the spot on the wall where he’ll hang the “flat screen.” (The hip husbands never say “flat-screen TV.”)
The couple moves on to the master bedroom, which is easily capable of holding their king-sized bed, a couple of easy chairs, a coffee table, and a treadmill. It’s as large as my living room. But the wife enthuses over the “en suite,” the bathroom off the master bedroom. As a harried mother she longs for the en suite so she can luxuriate in its sunken tub, forgetting that she hardly has time for a shower, let alone a long soak in a tub.
“Oh, this is great,” the home-buying mother sighs over the open concept kitchen with its island and L-shaped counter that faces the family room. “I can watch the kids from here while I cook.” (And set the table, clear the table, and clean up after meals.)
So, why do husbands deserve a room all to themselves? Don’t wives also work, then come home and take care of the house and the kids? And those mothers who stay home with the kids all day? Where’s their private space? Where do they sprawl out, unbothered by messy toddlers, fighting grade school offspring, and sulky teens?
Maybe the wives are glad to have the husbands out of the way in man caves, rather than underfoot. Well, they’re still underfoot, in a literal way—on a completely different floor—in the basement.
Dec 6th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
As I’ve written in other posts here, I teach boomers and seniors to write stories from their lives. Our classes are moving, exciting, suspenseful, and a whole lot of fun—because that’s what the stories the students write are.
My Legacy is Simply This
When new students tell me they have this inexplicable urge to write about their lives, but don’t know what to write about, I suggest they take a look at My Legacy is Simply This, a book of short essays by seniors living in various neighborhoods in Boston.
No matter what age you are, these are stories you’ll enjoy. Among my favorites is the story of his dangerous career, recounted by William Boyle, a former fire fighter. As a young man, he helped quench the big Hotel Vendome fire, which killed nine Boston fire fighters, in 1972. Even after pulling dead coworkers out from the rubble, he still loved his work, especially because that day, he found his boyhood friend, alive in the debris.
Boyle also describes being overcome by smoke inhalation in one fire, and being asked by his wife, as he lay in the hospital, if he would consider giving up the job. But, as his work was one of the loves of his life (his wife being the other), he told her “No,” and returned to work as soon as he was able. His essay ends with the successful CPR performed on a baby.
Dorothy Parks is a woman who lives each day as if it were her last, as a result of the perils she faced in her travels, whether by train, ship, or air. Her essay is the funniest in the collection, as she recounts an absurd brush with death on an airplane with a wing on fire.
Holiday Gift Recommendation
If you’re looking for an engaging gift this holiday season, consider My Legacy is Simply This. Your gift recipient won’t be disappointed. (Note: I have no affiliation with the publishers or writers of this book.)
And if you’ve been considering writing down the stories from your own life, I hope you’ll find the following posts helpful.
Dec 5th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
I'm at the Teen Reading podium
Yesterday the extraordinary teens in my creating writing class read from their work in a public forum. It’s true the audience was mostly made up of the teens’ relatives, but even that’s meaningful. Some of my students had never allowed their parents to see their work before. And trust me, their writing is worth sharing.
When I agreed to teach teens creative writing at my local library, I didn’t know what to expect. I don’t have teens, and haven’t spent much time with teens since I was one. In fact, the only teens I’ve spent any time with were my husband’s and my two nieces and two nephews.
I teach creative writing in numerous locations—to students decades older than these teens. In my first meeting with the group a year or so ago, I brought along my usual lesson plans. I’m glad I listened to them read their work before I got started teaching, because after I became familiar with their writing in that first class, I told them, “You don’t need any of this stuff,” and I tossed my plans.
These teens were well beyond my introductory material.
What they needed from me were those tools and tactics published writers use to keep readers engaged; reminders to avoid cliches in favor of sharp, original wording; ways to shape a story so that is flows well; and methods for making their ideas as clear as possible.
They also needed a place where they felt comfortable revealing their work. I’m amazed at how considerate they are in offering feedback to their classmates, and how willing they are to help one another come up with a title or a name for a character.
They write dystopian and fantasy/SF fiction. One writes mainstream novels. Another writes brilliantly intellectual, yet thoroughly accessible short fiction. And one of them even undertook the ambitious writing of a villanelle, a highly-structured, 19-line poem. (Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is a villanelle.)
While I listened to my students read their work to the public yesterday, I was as proud as their parents. (I’ll post photos of them reading if I get permission from their parents.)
Nov 8th, 2011 by Lynette Benton
I often use Lisa Dale Norton’s gem of a memoir-writing book in the memoir and life story writing classes I teach. Her small book, Shimmering Images: A Handy Little Guide to Writing Memoir (St. Martin’s Press), leads writers along the pivotal path to the heart of our personal stories.
In her guest post below, Lisa explains the critical relationship between the structure of memoir and its meaning. (And don’t forget to check the bottom of this post so you can tune into her AuthorChat on November 10.)
- Lynette
Memoir: Let Your Story Tell You Its Structure
Author Lisa Dale Norton
I work with a lot of writers on their stories, and one of the hardest things for most to accept is that the shape of their memoir will not reveal itself until they know what they are trying to say. It’s counter intuitive and certainly not what we are taught in school where there are tidy formulas, all of which are useless when you are pushing forward the fragile idea of a memoir: you live your life, you remember your life, you attempt to make a story out of parts of that life. But quickly, questions plague the would-be memoirist: What do I use? What do I leave out? Should the story be chronological? How much background is necessary, and how do I make it mean something?
Structure follows meaning; it rises out of meaning. You can’t get to one without the other.
So what’s a writer to do?
I advise writers to keep writing the memories, or shimmering images as I call them, those shiny moments you remember above all others. You remember them because there is a key inside them that is a clue to what you are trying to say in the manuscript. If you allow those memories to articulate through story they will help you figure out the meaning of your memoir. In that organic process the inevitable structure will reveal itself.
Here’s an example. In my new book of narrative nonfiction I combine the story of my experiences in Europe with tales of my parents’ travels there shortly after World War II. But that’s not a story.
Somewhere inside those various tales of travel and discovery there has to be something bigger. It’s taken much work to reveal what that something is. How did I get here? I kept writing drafts of my parents’ stories, my stories. As I researched locations, studied ephemera, searched maps, and hunted my heart for hot points of sadness and joy, I began to understand why those parallel journeys rivet me.
In other words, I have figured out what they mean to me; I know what my story is about. And now I know its shape.
The only way to get here, and it’s a stretch in our control-oriented culture, is a leap of faith. You have to let go of the notion that you know what your story is about, and let it tell you.
Lisa is also the author of the memoir, Hawk Flies Above: Journey to the Heart of the Sandhills (St. Martin’s Press). You can follow her memoir-writing tips on Twitter. http://twitter.com/lisadalenorton
Writing a memoir and need some tips? Ask Lisa Dale Norton Live!
We all have great stories to share about our lives, but how many of us could translate our life experience into something more permanent…say a memoir?
Join bestselling author Lisa Dale Norton for a live front-row seat as she shares her insights and writing techniques regarding the difference between memoir and autobiography, how to claim your voice, and the art of storytelling.
Lisa Dale Norton is the founder of the Santa Fe Writing Institute and teaches writing at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
AUTHORCHAT
DATE: NOV. 10th, 2011
TIME: 5:00PM Pacific / 8:00PM Eastern
How to join in:
Nov 2nd, 2011 by Lynette Benton
That's me
To prevent narrators from coming across as a whiny victims, modern memoirs seem to require that the narrators take responsibility for their complicity in the disasters they’re recording.
There are times in life when s**t happens, when you’re standing on a street corner with your back safely against a building, and a taxi jumps the curb and hits you. Are you guilty of placing yourself in harm’s way? Is a child born to grifters or alcoholics, for example, complicit?
My memoir (or family history) tells the story of what happened after my dying mother let me know she wanted me to find money she had concealed. Who had she concealed it from, and why? What had her kids done that made her want to hide her money from us? (We know why she hid it from our father.) And, had she ever intended her secrecy to cause the subsequent fallout—to herself and to her kids alike—that it did? Say, the IRS got wind of it and seized it. (It didn’t.) Who’d be responsible for its loss?
My take? Sometimes you’re largely an innocent bystander, writing about your family’s foibles.
If you’re writing a memoir or family history, you might like these posts:
Is It Memoir or Family History?
Memoir or Family History? A Deeper Look at the Differences
Follow me on Twitter @lynettebenton for more writing talk.
