In Print: Protect your privacy online (W&A, February 2009)

Feature : Protect your privacy online
Publication: Windows & Aisles, February 2009

 

In Print: Going with the flock (W&A, February 2009)

Cover story: Going with the flock – a guide to birdwatching in Goa
Publication: Windows & Aisles (February 2009)

 

Guest Post: Life Long Learning

Guest Post by Dawn Francis-Pester

Like Allison below, I took a long break before starting to write seriously. My style became tangled and pretentious in my late teens and early twenties, perhaps after reading too many classics at school, until I gave up. When I returned many years later, I berated myself for leaving it so long, for wasting all that time.

But now I realise that in the interim I was still taking steps towards becoming a writer. For a start I was always an avid reader, polishing off all kinds of novels, as well as books on languages, education, yoga, alternative therapy, greener living, and anything else that interested me at the time. And although I wasn’t penning novels or dashing off articles, I was still writing – long letters to friends and family while I studied abroad, university essays and dissertations, reports, and later emails that helped me develop a more personal and accessible style. More importantly, I was out there, looking around me, meeting people and savouring life. One day every experience from losing my purse on the underground, to losing my religion in Spain could be drawn upon to fuel my writing.

Now that I am back in the writing business, I am grateful for all the experiences I have had in life, including the seemingly dull ones. And I even feel that writing has transformed my way of seeing the world and viewing other people. I’m beginning to find I’m less judgemental and more accepting. When I talk to people, I’m not just looking for similar interests and ways to click, but I really want to know what other people think and feel, what makes them tick.

So although it took me a while to get there, writing has drawn together many different threads of my life, encouraging me to develop others. I’d strongly recommend it!

Dawn Francis-Pester is a freelance writer living in London and specialising in parenting and education. You can see samples of her writing at http://dawnfrancispester.wordpress.com.

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If you would like to write a guest post for this blog, please email me.  

 

In Print: Paper, Tin or Copper (Bride & Style, Jan-Feb 2009)

Feature on Anniversary Gifts. Published in the Jan-Feb 2009 issue of Bride & Style.

 

Using four-letter words in your writing

A writer that I admire has recently started peppering her blog posts with four-letter words. In itself, this new development should not be note-worthy. After all, people are entitled to write what they want to, in their own little slice of internet space.

Perhaps, I say to myself, that’s the way she’s begun talking. Perhaps, new friends and experiences have infiltrated into her thoughts and language. Or perhaps she feels free of the restraint and self-censorship that most of us put ourselves under when aware of the public scanner.

All these justifications don’t do much to quell the sense of unease and distaste that I feel when I check her blog faithfully each morning for updates. Because personally, I feel that profanity in this context (or any, actually) is unjustified – whether you use it as part of your everyday language or not.

This is someone who is a very good writer, who is ambitious and wants to go far. Reading her posts, though, I’ve lost some of my respect for her. I don’t see the need for peppering a thoughtful post on writing with the f-word. It doesn’t add to the message. It merely serves to take away from the once-impeccable writing. I find it distracting. And it leaves a bad taste in your mouth as you hurry away from the blog.

Here’s something I don’t think she’s thought of (perhaps her success and ambition have made her not care): Will her new-found language put off potential editors?

 

Guest post: Follow your dream – my journey as a writer

by Allison M. Atwater

As a child, I always knew deep in my heart that I would be a writer. When other children were outside playing different sports, I had my face in a loose-leaf notebook pouring out different stories. I was always very quiet and reserved. I had close friends but I would welcome the solitude that after school would bring so that I could squirrel myself away and allow the stories welling up inside me to pour out over the paper. From the time I was 8 years old, I knew I enjoyed writing stories. Whenever someone would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, my answer was always the same – a writer.

As I grew older and entered the rebellious teenage years, I spent more and more time confining myself away – to write my stories. I was known to be very shy and quiet at school – writing was where I was comfortable within myself. I knew I had a talent for writing; I was going to be a writer.

I always excelled in the Arts and had very little interest in math and science. I also knew that I needed to have something to fall back on – to have a career to live off until my writing took off. As a stubborn teenager – I was determined to be a writer. My parents, not wanting to discourage me from my dream, encouraged me to sign up for the journalism program at our local community college.

I was a very young eighteen when I went from a high school senior – to college freshman. I was nervous and a little excited about my future in Journalism. From the beginning, the program was not what I had imagined and I began to doubt that writing was truly what I was meant to do. Was it insecurity – maybe? I decided I no longer wanted to be a journalist – at that point I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Once I completed the program I dabbled in continuing with my education, but I couldn’t completely decide what I wanted to be. In the end of my education career at the college – the only course that I had successfully taken all four levels of was Creative writing. Over the years, I settled into a career in different aspects of the travel industry. This was a career that I wasn’t excited about. As I struggled to find a place in the career I chose – I wasn’t satisfied. I did not enjoy going to work. The lack of excitement caused me to change jobs every three years and linger in depression. This was my existence for several years. I was miserable.

It wasn’t until I met and married my husband, that my true calling was realised. The calling that had been there since those early years when I would squirrel myself away in my childhood room and pour out story after story onto paper. One day we were discussing the possibility of me changing careers when my husband asked me this very important question – a question that I had been half-heartedly been asking myself for almost 14 years.

If you could do anything you wanted to do as a career without the worry of money, what would it be?

Without hesitation and as easily as it had left my lips all those years ago, I answered “to write”.

It has taken almost 28 years to bring me back to what I knew so confidently when I was eight years old. I have come full circle and I am finally on the path that I have always known I was meant to take. I am a writer and the world is my muse.

Copyright © 2009 Allison Atwater

Allison Atwater is a freelance writer from Surrey BC and lives with her husband and two young sons. She has her associate diploma in Mass Communications and Journalism. Prior to becoming a writer she worked in the Travel Industry. She has written several pieces for the SharedLog Writing Project. She enjoys all types of writing but her passion is fiction. Allison has started a writing blog directed towards women with children, who are interested in writing. Visit ‘The Writing Mum’ blog at http://amatwater.wordpress.com  

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If you would like to write a guest post for this blog, please email me.  

 

Write to remember

I came across the Petit Fours and Hot Tamales blog via an email from Kelly L. Stone who was guest blogging about how her practice of Vipassana helped her writing.

I studied Vipassana many years ago and I like to believe that it helped me in a positive way. I’d like to re-learn it again; putting myself through that rigorous course doesn’t seem so daunting anymore. And I’d welcome the silence.

That brush with meditation has also resulted in many articles. The topic is now my highest paying one and more than a decade later, I can still write about it as if it was yesterday.

Coming back to this new blog discovery, I loved this post by Nicki Salcedo. It reminded me that writing to remember was important. Some of my best work has come out of remembering. And that I don’t do that kind of writing very often any more.

I write to remember. Good writing is a recollection of things that startle your senses. You might remember that air in California is different, but you will write about the scent of eucalyptus interrupted with the stench of skunk. Or that the sand peppered wind is as chilling as the frigid waves. You write because you can’t find anyone who makes tortillas the way your grandmother used to make and you want to remember. You write because touching your husband’s hand on a cold winter’s morning is not the same as touching his father’s lifeless hand, but the similarity is painfully present. Some write to forget.

Thanks for the reminder, Nicki.

 

Looking for anthology markets?

Via my network on del.icio.us, here’s a new resource for all those looking for anthology markets:
Anthology News and Reviews.

And these are my bookmarks for anthology markets, calls for submissions and everything else to do with anthologies. If you have any other resources, please share them in the comments.

 

Why some freelancers thrive…

and others barely survive.

That’s the title of a new free e-book available from Freelance Folder. As a prelude to their new book, “The Unlimited Freelancer”, this e-book offers insights into why some freelancers make it and others struggle. A quick read, the points in the e-book apply to many of us, especially those starting out.

 

The Universe Conspires

I had promised myself that for the first few months of 2009, I would not actively look for new work. That meant no new queries, LOIs or responses to calls for submissions. I was just going to focus on completing already commissioned work and then starting again in June or so.

The Universe, however, thought differently. Earlier this month, an editor from a big mag emailed me to enquire if I’d freelance for them. Then, a couple of queries sent to a mag on my dream market evoked interest (after a long silence previously) and an editor in NY sent me a lovely card for Christmas with a hand-written note saying she was looking forward to working with me this year.

Faced with all these tempting offers, how does a girl say no?

Well, I thanked the big-mag ed for her interest, told her I was going to be out of action for a few months, gave her a few ideas and said I’d be in touch in June or so. The second ed is still mulling over the ideas. If she comes back soon enough, the features can be done. If not, que sera sera. Her interest did inspire me to come up with a whole list of ideas for their publication (which sensibly I did not pitch, but will save them for later).

It felt great saying ‘no’ to work. I’m blessed to be in this situation and I thank my stars every day. Recession or not, there is still paying work out there and come June, I’m going to be back in the saddle working my way towards those bylines.

Till then, blog posts, notes and ideas, journal entries, a diary for my baby…there will be no dearth of words.