Who Influences Your Thinking?

That's quite a profound question. I was talking to someone-who-shall-remain-nameless. Let's call her Ms. Negativity. She was upset because someone had made a disparaging comment about her new home. Of course, in my blunt manner, I immediately asked, "What does it matter what they think? What do you think?"

What Matters

She just kept sputtering about how the mutual friend had hurt her feelings, etc. She didn't get the point that I was trying to make: it doesn't matter what someone else says or what they think. The only thing that matters is what you say to yourself when the other person shuts up.

Ms. Negativity could have said: "Well, Horace just doesn't know what he's talking about." Or, "Horace is a jerk with the social skills of a jackass."

Instead, she said to herself: "Oh, my God. Horace is right."

What Do You Say

Sure, we all recognize that my friend is insecure or she'd have just ignored what Horace said. But, how many of us act just like Ms. Negativity when it comes to something we're trying to achieve?

You write a manuscript and submit it to an agent. The agent soundly rejects it. What do you say to yourself? "Oh, my God. She's right. It is crap." Or, "That's just one person's opinion. I'll send it to the next agent on my list and see what she/he says."

What You Learn

Maybe a particular manuscript will never get published. So what do you say to yourself then? I'm a loser. Just paint a big L on my forehead. Or, "Okay, for whatever reason this manuscript won't sell. But my time wasn't wasted in writing and marketing it. My writing improved. I learned more about the publishing business. I'll take what I've learned and write another story. That's how you succeed and be happy in this business.

Takeaway Truth

Success and happiness are largely dependent on what we tell ourselves.

Link to Define

When you're writing on the vast page of the Internet, you should remember something very important: not everyone who reads your copy is an Internet expert. I know it's hard to believe, but everyday there are people online who are novices when it comes to the Internet and its resources. These beginners probably aren't up on the lingo.

Options

Do you just ignore that fact and sling around esoteric terms and ideas thereby adopting the attitude that it's their tough luck if they don't understand?

Do you stop and explain every single thing and risk boring your Internet veterans?

Is there, perhaps, another option where you try to serve these newbies, explaining ideas, terms, and procedures - all without alienating your regular readers? Ah, I'm glad you asked.

Link to Explain

One thing you can do is link a word to a page that defines or explains the Internet dynamic. For instance, if I wanted to blog about monetizing a site, but I wanted to explain to a new reader what that meant, I'd do it this way.

Can you make money by monetizing your blog?

As you can see by this simple example, the linked word takes you to a Wiki article about the subject.

Obviously, you wouldn't fill a blog post with hot linked words, but, by doing so, you make sure your subject matter can be clearly understood. After all, isn't that one of the reasons to write? To educate?

Don't Forget Audience

At the same time, you provide service to your current readers by ensuring your content is fresh, with new ideas, or expanded information about old ideas, so you won't lose your existing audience in the process of providing service to new users.

Takeaway Truth

Strive to make your content of value to all users.

Make a Fuss

Quote for the Week

Elizabeth Janeway (Barbaralee Diamonstein, Open Secrets, 1972)said: "If one is going to change things, one has to make a fuss and catch the eye of the world."

Okay, listen up, everyone! You have a new year. Now is the time to make some changes that will better your life. If you didn't get what you wanted last year, then you need to change your approach.

Sometimes you just have to make a fuss to get going. That might mean stirring things up on the home front in order to have the time to dedicate to your goal. It might mean writing without censoring yourself. It absolutely means identifying your vision and being true to it.

The amazing thing that happens when you know who you are and what you want is that the world takes notice.

Takeaway Truth

Only through change can we grow.

You Like Me! You Really Like Me!

Pardon my channeling my inner-Sally Field. I feel like I'm in high school again and was named Miss Popularity.

I just found out Moonlight On Snow, my online novel published by Romantic4Ever.com and now linked at Online-Novels.blogspot.com is one of the most popular free online books for the month of December.

Wow! High Five!

Susan Crealock is the guiding light behind Online-Novels.blogspot.com. Her website is a resource of links to free books posted online. She had discovered my romantic comedy Moonlight On Snow, published by Romantic4Ever.com and asked permission to post a link to it. Of course, the publisher and I were delighted to have Susan do this.

The result is immensely gratifying. I've received much fan mail about Moonlight On Snow so I know readers love it. If you haven't already read Haley and Jeff's story, hurry over to Romantic4Ever for a little love and laughter.

Starting February, my new romantic comedy The Trouble With Love will begin on Romantic4Ever. A chapter a month will be published until this longer novel is completed. I guarantee smiles, laughs, romance, emotion, and heat. So mark your calendars and bookmark the site.

Takeaway Truth

To paraphrase one of my favorite movies Field of Dreams: if you write it, readers will come.

My Mom's Book

I'd like to introduce everyone to a new author - my mom!

How I Spent Part of 2008

This past year I spent much time helping my mom write her memoir. Then I learned Adobe InDesign in order to format the book for self-publishing. After all, no publisher is going to be interested in a memoir unless it's someone who is a household name. Don't get me wrong. My mom's memoir of her childhood in the rural South during the Great Depression is entertaining and educational, but I'm savvy enough to know it's a no-sell to perhaps all but regional or university presses.

I edited the manuscript, filled in some gaps, interpreted some uniquely southern things about which she wrote. Then I recruited my daughter the artist to do the layout, cover, and all the other myriad aesthetic tasks associated with publishing a book.

Published Finally

The result is Memory Lane: My Sentimental Journey by Lucille Dickinson Ainsworth and me (of course). I self-published the book through CreateSpace where it will remain for sale. It's also available from Amazon.

Who Will Enjoy This Book

I think the audience for my mom’s book is actually greater than one might suppose. Of course, those of my mother’s generation who lived through the Great Depression will want to read it for the shared nostalgia. So if you’re looking for a gift for an older American, perhaps grandparents, it’ll be perfect.

For anyone interested in early twentieth-century life, especially as lived by ordinary people in small towns and rural America, Memory Lane will be a resource to treasure. If you’re a teacher or a writer, this book will help you understand life during that long ago era.

My mother was born to parents who themselves were born in the 1880’s so she has a unique perspective which she brings to her writing with stories about outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, the Long political dynasty, life without electricity and running water, butchering and curing your own meat, home remedies for people and animals, and celebrating holidays when times were hard.

The book describes a woman’s lot in life when washday involved building a fire outside and hanging a big black iron pot over it. From the Roaring Twenties, to the New Millennium, my mom Lucille Dickinson Ainsworth, has experienced it all and tells about it in Memory Lane: My Sentimental Journey.

The process of self-publishing was an educational experience. I started a series on my Joan Slings Words, my other blog about it including my opinion on why it really is a valid choice for some projects.

In case you'd like to bring a smile to my mom's face, buy her book! I'll keep the book cover as a clickable link in the sidebar of this blog so you can always find it. I'm proud of my mom and incredibly impressed with the result of our family's labor of love on her behalf.

Takeaway Truth

Everyone has a story and an identity apart from their familial relationship with you. Take the opportunity to discover the person behind the label of mom, dad, or grandparent before it's too late.

Serenity Prayer for Writers

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote The Serenity Prayer which was printed on plaques, books, cups, and other items in the 1970's.

A few years ago I took the thought of Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer and created my own serenity prayer just for writers. I usually print it on cards and send to writing friends. This year I'd like to share it with you today. Perhaps this bit of wisdom will help you in 2009 when faced with bumps in your writing road.

A Serenity Prayer for Writers © 2006 by Joan Reeves

God grant me the Serenity to accept rejection of manuscripts over which I've sweated blood and wept tears; the Courage to revise those that might sell; and the Wisdom to know the difference between those that might fetch contracts and those that need to be mourned, buried, and forgotten. Amen

Takeaway Truth

May 2009 be Your year for writing success.

Handwritten Notes & Letters

Do you still write letters by hand? Once, letter writing was not just communication but also an art. I admit to seldom writing a letter by hand these last few years, but I'm going to do better in the New Year.

Why? Because when I was working with my Mom on her memoir Memory Lane: My Sentimental Journey, I treasured the handwritten correspondence, notes, and cards she'd collected over the years.

Love Letters Are Handwritten

In her book, we published the poem my grandmother had written to my grandfather on a Leap Year prior to their marriage. To see the words she'd written in her own handwriting affected me profoundly. That love letter, treasured over the decades, made me realize how lacking our modern world is in the art of letter writing.

I can't visualize a future in which a woman unties a ribbon from a packet of ink jet printed emails to disclose the love letters from her husband. It just doesn't seem as personal.

I have notes my husband has written me on scraps of paper over the years though we were never separated long enough to need letters. I treasure those bits of paper. He sends me emails when he travels, but, somehow, they're not the same.

Test of Time

Handwritten notes and letters stand the test of time. Maybe they're treasured because they represent a gift of time. It takes but a moment to dash off an email. When writing a letter by hand, one must gather paper, envelope, postage, pen, and one's thoughts. When a letter writer sits down to write, to transfer thoughts to paper, more consideration and introspection is called forth.

Indeed, it strikes me that a handwritten letter is a gift of time. It's even more of a luxury in today's busy world.

In the Bible, Jeremiah 31:33 says: I have written you in my heart.

Takeaway Truth

If you love someone, make an effort to hand write a letter to them more frequently this next year.