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Writing Course: Lesson 3 - Lessons one and two were easier to catch up on than anticipated, so I am on to lesson 3 this week.

FreelancersOffice.com — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 09:00:20 +0000

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I picked up lessons one and two quickly from memory of having taken them two years ago, so have advanced to lesson three of the How to Think Sideways course for this week.

I will still be building on the skills learned (and relearned) in lesson two as I work my way through lesson three and learn how to generate ideas while on a deadline. I remember doing this lesson, it was very fun and taught me a lot, so I can’t wait to dive back into it and work on getting some good ideas moving about that I will be able to work from.

Midlife Crisis of a Writer

FreelancersOffice.com — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:09:37 +0000

So, midlife crisis strikes and most people will go out and buy a sports car, or quit their job, or maybe get divorced. Me? I’m three days shy of the big four-oh and have come to the determination that I have to stop letting external influences sidetrack my dreams of being an author.

My mom never faltered in her belief that I would be a published author. She believed strongly in my writing, encouraged me to follow my dreams. There were more than a few months over the past six years when the only way that we got from month to month was by the margin I added to the month’s income from my writing work. And this came to be enough for me. My mom felt that I had made it as a writer when my writing earned enough money to pay the bills.

Still, I wanted to be a published novelist and she encouraged me to reach for that star.

After she passed away, in late 2008, I let my dreams slowly get snuffed out under the pressure of others and other needs. I worked at writing, kept working to pay the bills, but the dream to be a published novelist was a lost dream for well over a year now.

I am no longer going to be afraid to pursue my dream, my mother’s dream. I am going back to the How to Think Sideways course that I was a part of when my mom passed away. The course that she encouraged me to take, and take it over from the beginning. As I work my way through that course I will use this website to track my progress and share my thoughts on writing.

I would like to offer the most heartfelt of thank yous to Holly Lisle, the course creator, for creating the course and for giving me a chance to return to it all these months later to work my way back through it and move toward my and my mother’s dream of me being a published writer.

PlotCraft

FreelancersOffice.com — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 03:03:00 +0000

I have downloaded a new CareWare program called PlotCraft, that seems to have a slight stumbling block along the learning curve, but it seems to be working okay for me now that I have started learning it. I’ll be posting more about it later on, once I have more of a chance to investigate the program some more. Right now I am still learning how it works and getting used to it.

PlotCraft is a simple program for tracking ideas that crop up for various plots. The program has a grouping feature that lets you sort ideas based on whatever grouping methods you prefer – you get to create your own headers for the groupings. I have created one that has my novel’s title and one that is a basic “short stories” group. Things can be further sorted by idea type, genera and sub-genera.

As I said, I am still learning how to use the program, but it looks like it is one that will be very useful once I get the hang of it. And you can’t beat the cost.

PlotCraft website

To download, click the “download” link in the middle of the first billeted list. I’ll post more about the program as I use it more and get an idea for how it works.

Writer’s Guidelines

FreelancersOffice.com — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 02:51:30 +0000

I added some links to a few magazines that have their writer’s guidelines online. I don’t have very many, just ones I found doing a simple “writer’s guidelines” search, but I will be expanding the list as time permits and hope to soon have a decent sized database of writer’s guidelines built up.