A poem about conservation of all resources in reverence of Earth Day.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1552205/spring_cleaning_on_earth_day.html
The Princess Bride is a “Wish” for Every Movie Library
There were many movies that made a big splash in the Eighties, but the 1987 film, The Princess Bride, had many people, “as they wished”, fall in love with fairy tales again.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1552651/the_princess_bride_is_a_wish_for_every.html
Fibromyalgia and Pregnancy
Fibromyalgia is difficult and some people have chosen not to have children in fear of having too much pain. Medication may be a reality for some with fibromyalgia, but sometimes love can be the best kind of medicine too.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1519779/fibromyalgia_and_pregnancy.html
Why Using Exterior Paint Inside Isn’t a Good Idea
Painting with an exterior paint may sound like a good idea, but this article may make you think twice about doing it.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1520969/why_using_exterior_paint_inside_isnt.html
The Connecticut Flower and Garden Show 2009 was a Big Sucess
The 27th annual Connecticut Flower and Garden Show 2009 has come to a close this year and it was a great success.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1518483/the_connecticut_flower_and_garden_show.html
Food Labels
A fun poem about reading food labels.
See more at http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1466229/food_labels.html
Maybe Columbus Would Smile
On Monday I decided to take a well earned break from all of my house cleaning, cooking, and editing of a book that I’m doing for a friend and start to peruse a few poetry groups I belong to. Many of them offer a writing challenge for the day and sometimes I do them and sometimes I don’t, but one of the challenges got me excited. It was a challenge to write Discovered Poetry.
What is Discovered Poetry you might ask? Well, it might not be as wonderful as discovering America, but it is great in its own right as far as discovery goes. It is the art of taking some ordinary words from some ordinary things, like CD covers, magazines, newspapers, or in my case, food labels, and making a poem out of them.
I admit that I was a bit leery about doing this at first because I really didn’t think I could write a poem that would make any sense from a bunch of words that were random, but I tried the challenge anyway and wrote a poem entitled Food Labels. This exercise was really quite fun. I not only enjoyed it for this poem, but I just may use this technique for future poems.
I have added the poem below so you can read it. Who knows, it may spark the poet in you to write some Discovered Poetry.
Food Labels
Fifty percent less fat
Than the regular
With no hydrogenated oils,
Preservatives or cholesterol
Stand out for attention.
Vanilla cake with
Mystery words are out of the mix.
Fair trade cup of the old Joe’s kind has perks and
Salt of the sea and sauce of the soy
With red wine, balsamic, and rice vinegar,
Make a splash in my book.
Macaroni of the bleached kind
Is now discriminated against
The dark wheat kind,
And yet some
Wheat Thins really aren’t
What they claim.
It all comes down to a label
Because nothing processed
Is something gained.
A topic, A topic, my kingdom for a topic!
Most writers will tell you that some pieces they write just came to them in a dream, a thought, or something, and they were able to just write and write and were done in a matter of minutes (or hours or days depending on the type of work). But it normally doesn’t happen like that. Don’t get me wrong– it can happen and sometimes often– but inspiration usually is one of those traits that needs to be nudged out into the light– so to speak.
So how does one nudge their inspiration and come up with the greatest topic to write about since the invention of sliced bread? Well, there are a few ways to get some inspiration, like reading someone else’s books or blogs, watching the news or reading the paper, looking at your calender, or even your own writing. Let’s look into each one of these for a bit.
I love to read. It’s another one of my passions in life. I like to sink myself into a good book and play the heroine for a bit and I also like to read about someone’s else’s thoughts in a blog. These blogs or books can give me some ideas for my own writing, be that a review of their work, or just a great topic to explore for myself in a book, poem, or article.
Watching the news is another great way to get ideas for topics. It’s even a great way to re-discover one of the topics you’ve already written about. Now, exactly what do I mean by this? Well, a couple of weeks ago, I was watching The Today Show and they were interviewing a couple who wrote a book on intimacy. Naturally this sparked my interest because I too had written a book on intimacy about a year ago. It’s called Fibromyalgia and Sex Can Be a Pain In The Neck… and back and shoulders in case you wanted to know. I started to listen to the couple’s commitment to one another and genuinely liked what they had to say. Now, I didn’t leave it at that, I chose to write a blog about my thoughts on this couple and I also wrote about my own thoughts too. This not only gave me a chance to re-visit a topic I had previously written about, but it also gave me a chance to put another plug in for my book– and that can’t hurt can it?
Another great way to come up with a topic is to look at your calendar. What day, week, or month is it? Is there an Awareness Day coming up like Breast Cancer Awareness? A holiday like Christmas or July 4th? Or maybe you’re fond of a particular season or someone’s birthday? Each day on a calendar can be a potential topic for you to write about and the topics don’t have to be limited to that particular day, for instance, Memorial Day may be the kick off for the summer season, but it is also the kick off for home improvements. There’s two topic ideas for one day out of the year and it doesn’t have to stop there because the possibilities are endless.
Lastly, your own writing can be a great way to find a topic. I like to keep everything I write– I even have things I wrote from 20 years ago. Why? Because I’m a firm believer in letting something lie for a bit so you can get a clearer perspective on the subject. In other words, I will keep an article, poem, whatever, even if I deem it as really bad writing, for future topics. This has worked for me countless numbers of times when the subject I was writing about was great, but the actual writing wasn’t so good or didn’t make the point I wanted to convey.
These are just a few ways to come up with some topics for your writing. There are so many more and maybe I’ll go into a few of them in another blog. Right now, I think I’ll let this topic lie for a bit. Take care of yourself and happy writing!
Kimberley
More from that dirty nine letter word
I know it has been a while since my last post, but I have found some very interesting ways to market books and authors since my last post and I am going to share them here in this continued post of That dirty nine letter word.
Now that ebooks, POD, and self-publishing have become popular, getting published is very quick and easy, however, marketing and promoting one’s self can be seem time consuming and overwhelming to someone just starting out in the writing world. The great part about promoting yourself is that it really isn’t hard and can even be fun– if you like to socialize that is. Now, what do I mean by socializing? Well, there are a lot of places on the net that will let you do just that while allowing you to promote yourself and your website.
If you have a website already, great! If not, let’s go into a bit of detail about setting one up for yourself. Try starting one up on a free hosting site like Homestead or even your own internet service provider. They will have a few templates for you to start out with if you aren’t very tech savvy. These sites are great practice for you to get your feet wet. You could also pay someone to set up a site for you, but you would be better off knowing a bit of the basics, yourself, so you can update your site often. Most places that charge you fees to set up a website will only update your site a few times a year, if at all, and some will even expect you to maintain it yourself.
Now that you have a site, promote it through social networking. Social networking is just a fancy word for socializing on the net. There are many places to socialize, like groups. Groups are a great way to get to know other writers and readers. There are countless numbers of sites dedicated to writers and a few are AuthorsDen, Writing.com, 8hop, Conscious Artistry, and Poetry Soup to name a few.
There are also specific sites geared towards perfecting your craft in writing like mikeswritingworkshop (found on Yahoo!), Accentuate Writers Forum, and even the groups that I have founded called Writers With Chronic Disease (found on Yahoo!) and Coping With Fibro (found on Lulu).
Another great avenue to look into when socializing is to go where the readers go. Writers are readers, yes, but there is a whole new area to explore when you find sites that are specifically geared to readers. You can find a lot of them on sites like The Library Thing and Nothing Binding.
There are also a few others sites that you can try when promoting yourself in the big internet world and we’ll talk about sites geared toward independents now. If you are a self-publisher, you have probably heard of a few of these sites already, but even if you are not a self-publisher, these sites are definitely worth looking into. Self Publisher’s Place and indie coffee house are great places to start. They not only provide a place for you to promote yourself, but their sites also have some great info for marketing and some freebies for the writers out there.
The last place I’ll discuss in this blog is another great form of advertising, but it can take a bit of time to research. And that would be other sites that might relate to your particular book(s). A lot of sites love to exchange links because it can help in search rankings, but they also like to link for a more important reason, and that’s to build a site with a great wealth of knowledge. If you wrote a book on a particular syndrome like Fibromyalgia, as I did, you’d want to seek out sites that relate to that topic. Some sites might be informational sites on the particular subject, some might be fellow writers talking about it on a blog, and others might be in the form of a journal. You can advertise by one of two ways, either leave them a comment on their site, or email them and ask if you can add their link to your site. Most people are more willing to help you out if you help them and a nice comment here and there about someone’s else’s ideas or blogs can go a long way. Plus, it just feels good when you do it. I have had a lot of success with added links and advertising this way that not only help me with advertising, but help me to build a beautiful site that has a wealth of information for writers of poetry and self-help, as well as, people who suffer from the debilitating disease known as Fibromyalgia.
Well, these are just a few of the ways that I’ve found that can help with advertising and promoting your book. I’ll be back with more, as well as, some other fun topics for writers. I need to refill my cup, so take care for now and I’ll chat with you all soon!
Kimberley
