Alice Osborn » Writing

Save Time and Writing Energy—Ask an Expert!

Alice Osborn — Mon, 07 May 2012 12:00:38 +0000

Today we welcome author Maria McKenzie who shares an insider tip that not many writers do. If you follow Maria’s advice, you’ll save yourself time and energy!

Thank you, Alice, for inviting me to post with you today at Write From the Inside Out! My name is Maria McKenzie and I’m the author of the Amazon Bestseller The Governor’s Sons.

Prior to discovering my love of writing, I was a librarian for several years. I enjoy doing research, but as writers, writing is our first priority, not research. Sometimes, however, we can end up wasting hours looking for information that we thought would be relatively easy to find.

That’s when we need to turn to “human resources.” People can be our best options when looking for those elusive answers! Today I’d like to share an example of how an expert helped me prevent a research issue from becoming a serious time drain.

I asked my husband for input on a scene I’d written involving a dynamite explosion. My husband knows explosives, but he’s not an expert—he just built bombs as a kid (miraculously, he still has both eyes and all ten fingers). After I’d read my scene to him, hubby ripped it to shreds. Granted, at that point, I hadn’t done any research. I’d only used what I’d seen on TV as a guide—never a good idea. My husband couldn’t answer all my questions regarding dynamite, so I turned first to the encyclopedia, and then to the Internet.

Although I found lots of information (including the fact that Alfred Nobel, of the Nobel Peace Prize, created dynamite), I couldn’t find the answer to every single question I had in order to write a believable scene. Instead of going to the library, checking out books and investing more time, I decided to locate a human resource—someone who’d give me more than I could find in a stack of books for the particular episode I had in mind. After playing around for a little while online, I located the International Society of Explosive Engineers. With local chapters all across the country, I called the chapter chairman closest to me.

Understandably wary, the gentleman informed me that he usually wasn’t allowed to answer questions unless someone had gone through the proper channels. After trying to convince him that I really wasn’t a terrorist, he asked me to explain what I was looking for, and then told me he’d decide what he could or couldn’t answer. After the first few minutes, he realized I was safe and literally had no clue whatsoever about explosives.

This explosive engineer taught me more about dynamite than I’ll ever need to know. He even provided me with a more realistic scenario for what I was trying to describe, as well as a way to kill off a bad guy in the aftermath of an explosion, while the good guy survives. In the end, my source gave me 45 minutes of his valuable time, answered all my questions, and let me pick his brain!

Nothing like communicating with a human resource through the good old fashioned way of talking! Sometimes that’s the most useful research out there. Next time you run into a brick wall, pick up the phone and call an expert so you can get back to more important things—like writing!

For more information on research and contacting experts, visit my blog at www.mariamckenziewrites.com, and click on “Published Articles.”

Your Turn:

Do you have an exciting adventure in research to share? And as far as research goes, do you love it or hate it?

Thanks again, Alice for a chance to post for you and your audience!

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The Story Behind Alice Osborn’s Poetry

Alice Osborn — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 01:12:05 +0000

Photo credit: Marthanna Yater

What’s the story behind my poetry? I thought it was only fair to spend a little time talking about new book, After the Steaming Stops available now for $10 till the end of April! Read some of my poems here.

I also want you to check out this video (only 2:30 minutes!) from Diogenes Ruiz of Entertainment Triangle which also reveals the “why” behind my poetry.

Let’s get this party started:

Where did my book title (After the Steaming Stops) come from?

From an Aunt Jemima waffle box—if you check out the instructions on the back you’ll see some of the boxes say, “Bake until the steaming stops” after you’ve poured the batter into a hot waffle iron. I love to make waffles on Sunday mornings and came across this phrase—and thought, “how intriguing.” I changed it to “After the Steaming Stops,” to reveal what happens after the anger and after the love is gone. Many of my poems use domestic imagery and I also wanted the title to have an element of danger—which is steaming. Steam will burn you and it can also melt your love. Love is represented by the frozen popsicle heart that’s being lowered via ladle into the pressure cooker. In this case steam, one of the three states of water, is a metaphor for love in my book. Some love is solid (you know it’s unconditional), some liquid (it flows all around you and you know it’s there), some is steam (it’s in the vapors and you don’t know if it really even exists).

What are these poems really about?

All of my poems are stories, or narrative poems, about love’s flare-ups and endings. They are mostly true stories of what happened to me as a three-, eight -or ten-year old and how inappropriate my parents acted with me. As a kid, I remembered these incidents, locked them into my head so one day I could write about them. All of the quotations from my folks are real. Some poems weigh more on the father than the mother to give them equal time and I’m sympathetic with both. I also love to write about death! I also have two historical poems about a near death and a death and how they affected me. My poem “Early” is about a train engineer who kills someone on the tracks just because he was doing his job. I got the idea from that poem by reading the paper. The article said that over the course of a train operator’s career, they will kill three people on average.

What makes my poetry stand out?

My endings! I like to give readers an unexpected punch in the final line. I use stories and images that will stay in your brain for years (so sorry about that!) and many of my poems include my dry sense of humor, too. My poetry is very accessible and easy to understand BUT the more you read my poetry, you’ll discover more layers and more intrigue!

Your Turn:

What else would you like to know about me or my poetry? Please add your comments here!

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What’s So Transformative About Transformative Writing Anyway?

Alice Osborn — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:00:03 +0000

Today we welcome author Pat MacEnulty who currently hails from Charlotte, NC. Enjoy this post about transformative writing–multi-layered writing that not only can change society, but the individual. Pat will also be coming to Wonderland Book Club in March 2013.

I had tea with a poet yesterday afternoon at a local coffee shop, and he wanted to know what I meant when I spoke of “transformative writing.” He assumed it meant writing that would have a transformative effect on our society. I explained that was exactly what I meant–and more.

To me the transformation is multi-layered. The first layer is transforming experience itself into art. When we write, we are not writing in a vacuum. We base our work on the material we have at hand. And we transform that material — just as coal is transformed into fuel or pieces of highly-organized carbon are transformed into shiny diamonds — into something else. We dig the material out of life, or we find it abandoned by the roadside, or someone drops it in our laps. We put the various elements we have together in our own unique way, and voila we create a work of art.

Secondly, the writer is transformed. When we investigate the raw materials of our art through the lens of a character, we see it differently. Even when we are writing memoir or personal essays or in our journal, we take the substance of life and hold it up to the light. We learn something. We explore, we discover. We may simply have a greater understanding about ourselves or our situations, or we may change at some very deep level within ourselves. For example, when I wrote about my father’s memorial service, I was still bitter about the way he had treated me and my brothers. I wrote about the details of the service, about the conversations I had with my brothers, about the walk along the beach that I took that morning with them. By the time I got to the end of the story, I understood that I may not have had much of a father but I had something better: I had these two wonderful older brothers who knew me and loved me and who shared my life. My bitterness was transformed into gratitude.

Third, the reader or listener is transformed. Stories shape us. They help us to know the world outside of our limited perspectives. We work our empathy muscles. Here is a piece that Jennifer Huang wrote at the Winter Writers’ Retreat at Sevenoaks:

Writing is telling Tommy (my best friend) my hellish weekdays and my rides to the park, sometimes to run and sometimes just to sit and stare; and anyways, running and staring usually leads to writing. Writing is telling him how I like the feeling of velvet beneath my fingers and the pressing of pianos. Writing is him telling me that his parents don’t pay attention at all. He speaks of his car rides to school, his friends endlessly talking about nothing at all. Writing is him telling me that he wishes for something more but cannot describe it. Writing is our friendship, meshed and tidied into a bundle of letters, some turning yellow and others crisp and white. It is the box beneath my bed, exploding with laughter and tears and frustration that can somehow be heard even as I try to avoid them.

As they write to each other, Tommy and Jennifer deepen the friendship between them. They are transformed with every letter they write and every letter they read.

The fourth, but not the final, layer of transformation is societal. It is the third level writ large. I meet so many people in my workshops who are working in the trenches of our society. They are the ones who witness. They work in Washington D.C. and travel through the labyrinth of a system designed to defeat the underfunded; they do environmental work and confront the daily destructions of the greed machine; they spend their days with autistic children and explore the effects of our toxic world; they know what it’s like to be abducted, to lose children, to be widowed, to care so much they bleed. In writing, they have a tool to educate, to transform others, to open our eyes and maybe crack open a heart here and there.

What would Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath have been without the final scene? That example of compassion in the face of desperation is one of the most moving scenes in literature. And I believe that the final scene where Rose of Sharon performs her act of kindness is the one that enabled this work of art to transform a country. The rest of the book opened our eyes. The final scene opened our hearts.

The way we can get to that fourth level of transformation is to search our own lives for the intersections between the personal and the societal (or political). My friend, the poet I mentioned at the beginning of this essay, is interested in writing a book about what it means to be masculine. This is an important question in our culture as we evolve and as gender roles bend, stretch, and sometimes bounce back. For him, it’s also a personal question — one that he grapples with in his work as a therapist and in his own interactions with other men.

There is one more layer of transformation that I believe is important — the spiritual level, which I will write more about next time.

In the meantime, here are some things to think about:

1. Make a list of the books, poems, essays, stories, etc. that you have found transformative. How did they change you? How did they affect your world view? What were the words, the lines, the passages, or the scenes that opened your heart?

2. Try the “Writing About What Matters” exercise. Where in your life does the personal intersect with the societal? This question was the impetus for me to write about taking care of my elderly mother. My personal situation was reflected in some of the questions I had about our society: How do we treat our elderly? What happens when someone no longer “contributes” to society in a tangible way? What resources are there for caregivers? How do we juggle all the demands on our time and attention? So take a look at your own life. What are your pressing personal concerns? Are these concerns that others have to face in some way? And how do our national policies and/or our society mores affect those concerns?

3. Interview someone! I interviewed Ina May Gaskin, the mother of modern midwifery. I had no idea how the medicalization of the birth process has affected the birth experience in such a negative way — even to the point of sometimes causing maternal deaths. You can read the interview in the January 2012 issue of The Sun Magazine. I later turned that information into this essay about that intersection of personal and public.

About Pat:

Pat MacEnulty‘s most recent title Wait Until Tomorrow: A Daughter’s Memoir has been nominated for the 2012 SIBA Nonfiction Book Award. Her other books include the novels From May to December, Time to Say Goodbye, Picara, and Sweet Fire as well as the short story collection The Language of Sharks. Her essays, interviews, stories, and poetry have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers, including The Sun and Gargoyle. Pat has delivered writing workshops at Esalen, Rowe Conference Center, the New York Open Center, the TWA Conference, Sevenoaks Retreat Center, and the San Miguel Writers Conference. She also speaks about writing at colleges, high schools, and libraries. Currently an Associate Professor at Johnson & Wales University, Pat holds a Ph.D. from the Creative Writing Program at Florida State University where she received a Kingsbury Fellowship and a University Dissertation Fellowship. The recipient of an Individual Artist Grant from the State of Florida, Pat is currently completing her book on transformative writing. She also blogs here about transformative writing.

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Celebrate Alice Osborn’ s New Book!

Alice Osborn — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 19:31:33 +0000

My new book, After the Steaming Stops (Main Street Rag, 2012) has now been published and I’m proud to announce my listing of upcoming readings and events. My book is $10 (reg $11) throughout the month of April and available via my website.

Hope you can make some of these book events!

here they are:

Friday, April 6, 6:30-8:30 pm, 207 Fayetteville St., Re/Max City Centre, Raleigh. Get your signed copy of Alice’s new book of poetry when you stop by this reception to enjoy wine and cheese and the amazing guitar of musician Dave Cox.
Friday, April 13, 7:30-1:30 pm, Two Trees Farm, Johnston County, Join Alice and friends at a house party. RSVP to Alice at alice@aliceosborn.com for address and directions.
Tuesday, April 17, 5:30-7:30 pm, Unwine’d Wine Bar, 201 W. Chatham St., Suite 103, Cary. Get your signed copy of Alice’s new book of poetry when you stop by Unwine’d Wine Bar in downtown Cary to enjoy wine and complimentary truffles. Unwine’d features jazz, tapas and of course, wine!
Monday, April 23, 8:00-10:00 pm, East Bay Meeting House, 160 East Bay St., Charleston, SC, as part of Monday Night Poetry & Music
Sunday, May 6, 11:00 am – 2:00 pm, NOFO @ The Pig, 2014 Fairview Rd., Raleigh, Join Alice at her signing, Bring out the whole family for NOFO’s amazing Sunday brunch. Alice’s poetry book and NOFO’s gift store make for great gifts for Mother’s Day, May 12!
Tuesday, May 8, 5:30-7:00 pm, 8450 Honeycutt Rd. – Suite 100, Raleigh, Join Alice for a free wine tasting and book signing at Vinos Finos y Picadas Wine and Tapas Bar to celebrate her new book of poetry. Vinos Finos y Picadas is a South American wine bar with over 350 wines by the glass, bottle or case.
Sunday, June 3, 2012, 3:00-4:30 pm, Malaprop’s Bookstore/Café, 55 Haywood St., Asheville, as part of POETRIO
Tuesday, September 11, 2012, 5:30-7:00 pm, Taste Full Beans, 29 Second St. NW, Hickory, as part of Poetry Hickory

Sara Claytor says, “From snakes to movie stars to childhood memories of parents, lesbian neighbors and more, Alice Osborn’s persona persistently captures a certain wonder and bewilderment of the existing child inside us all. This is a book crammed with images, explicit descriptions, characters and emotions. It needs to be read.”

and Joseph Bathanti says, “Alice Osborn’s After the Steaming Stops is a provocative family invocation—at once precisely journalistic and richly imagined. Nothing goes unnoticed. Osborn’s eye, and what it falls upon, is her enduring story, leavened with unflinching candor. These poems are wonderfully narrative, and cannily crafted, luring the reader in with their easy inviting gait. Yet beneath each tidy surface, trouble roils—trouble Osborn does not turn away from in language deceptive in its declarative set-up, and deadly in its ultimate knockout. These poems never stop steaming.”

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What are Editors Buying?

Alice Osborn — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 16:57:04 +0000

Today we welcome Wendy K. Perriman who shares her knowledge about female warriors and the female heroic journey. Wendy is the author of Fire on Dark Water (New York: Berkley Trade, 2011) and will be joining us at Wonderland Book Club in April 2013. Enjoy!

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Female warriors. As Suzanne Collins demonstrates in her highly successful trilogy The Hunger Games, you can’t go far wrong with an invincible female protagonist like Katniss Everdeen. Indeed, in recent years proactive women have moved boldly center stage, producing such memorable heroines as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, Kay Scarpetta from Patricia Cornwell’s medical thriller series, and Lisbeth Salander in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It must be every editor’s dream to see the next sister-warrior emerging from the slush-pile!

Penguin Books signed my debut historical novel primarily because Fire on Dark Water features a strong female character, an English gypsy called Lola Blaise. When Lola is duped into marrying the buccaneer Captain Edward Teach she becomes thirteenth wife of the infamous Blackbeard, scarcely guessing the unconscionable deeds she will have to perform to avoid the fate of her tragic predecessors. Tales of piracy continue to capture the popular imagination and feminists have looked to Anne Bonny and Mary Reed as historic examples of tough heroines. But carried away by such romanticism many writers lose sight of the fact that most buccaneers were greedy, bloodthirsty killers with addictive or pathological natures. I sought to portray the real pirates of the Caribbean. I also wanted to create the first literary pirate novel since Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe and yet still appeal to readers who wouldn’t usually buy nautical fiction. Therefore Lola’s character had to fulfill a range of criteria. History requires her to be as real, believable, and accurate as possible so she interacts with genuine people in documented situations throughout the novel. Then although Lola suffers terribly at the hands of Blackbeard and his crew, she has to survive the ordeal in order to tell her tale. And while she is a thief, liar, outlaw, and killer, she needs to remain sympathetic. For a detailed account of how I tackled this process please visit the Fire on Dark Water website (New York: Berkley Trade, 2011)

Do fictional female warriors share common traits? Most definitely yes! They are primarily cunning and smart—and whether skilled with a bow, gun, scalpel, or computer, their bravery is ultimately rewarded. These women are driven, organized, calm under pressure, often opportunistic, and while neither Salander nor Lola is particularly likable they take no prisoners and earn the reader’s respect. Heroines may face different challenges motivated by love or duty, anger or revenge, greed or necessity, and yet they all retain hope. They learn to thrive in a hostile environment, sometimes with the help of others and the benefits of training, but always with resilience and ingenuity. Yet despite the commonalities, these characters are strikingly different. Fortunately for the writers among us, bravery comes in many guises so there are endless possibilities for the development of new warriors. And perhaps it doesn’t matter who they are, or where they come from, as long as they each adhere to the sterling advice offered Katniss Everdeen , “Make sure they remember you!”

About Wendy K. Perriman

Wendy Perriman has published two scholarly books on major literary figures. The first, A Wounded Deer: The Effects of Incest on the Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006), concludes that Dickinson’s enigmatic poetry may have originated from a personal exposure to trauma. Her second book, Willa Cather and the Dance: “A Most Satisfying Elegance”, (New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2009), suggests that Cather was among the first intellectuals to train as a leading balletomane, and to utilize dance imagery to enrich and subvert the subtext of her novels. She was awarded a Ph.D. at Drew University in 2003 and here she also won theMichaelEllisPrize for the most innovative M.A. thesis, and theHelenLePage and William Hale Chamberlain Prize for the best-written doctoral dissertation. Originally from ancient English town of Kirkham, Wendy Perriman now resides with her family in the sailing community on the shores of Lake Norman nearCharlotte in North Carolina.

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What’s the Best Book Club for Writers?

Alice Osborn — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:07:10 +0000

What’s the best way to become the strongest writer or literary editor you can be? Join a book club that reads a lot of literary fiction and nonfiction. The strongest writers/editors are always the strongest readers. If you live close to Raleigh, NC, I’d suggest you join my book club, the Wonderland Book Club. I started this monthly daytime club four years ago when I knew that with two kids I wasn’t going to read on my own—I needed a bunch of accountability partners. We have a regular group of members so there’s continuity and we bring in guest speakers, who also happen to be our book that month, for fresh insight and inspiration. If you aren’t so lucky to live in Raleigh, then I’ve got several tips for you based on a decade of book club experience.

Here’s what to look for when joining a book club to make you a better writer.

• Find a club that meets during the day—either a weekday or weekend—there’ll be less likelihood of drinking and getting off track from your literary knowledge. Save the wine for book launch parties!

• Check out your potential club’s website (OK, do they even have a website?) and study their book list. Is the list filled with both classic and current literature? Do they lean on a particular genre that may not lead to good discussions? Do they select the books all at one time or only at the end of every meeting? Is their website listing their books from 2004? If yes, move on.

• Does the club meet in a public space like a library or bookstore, or does it meet at a private home? I’ve found that unless the club has a theme and has been around a long time, meeting at someone’s house for book club is another word for “party on a school night.”

• When you visit their website, do you get the feeling that they want the members to grow and explore new reading finds? One of the great joys of a book club is reading something you would not ordinarily read.

• Does the club welcome guest speakers who are either teachers or authors? This is big.

• Now after you visit, did the book club leader greet you with enthusiasm? Was there a reading guide to follow, or was the conversation easily sidetracked. Was there a discussion leader? Did the folks let each other speak or did they talk over each others’ heads? Were all of the members able to contribute? Did most of the members finish the book?

By becoming a regular at a good book club you’ll quickly notice subtle changes. You’ll increase your vocabulary, you’ll feel more comfortable figuring out the author’s theme/intention and you’ll be better able to articulate why or why you didn’t enjoy the book. You’ll get Dickens, Steinbeck and Austen. You’ll be upleveled and your life will never be the same. You’ll be a superstar writer and editor!

Your Turn:

Friends, what did I leave off this list? What makes a great book club for writers/editors?

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How To Write a Novel Based on a True Story

Alice Osborn — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 11:32:21 +0000

Today we welcome guestblogger, Harlow Coban! Harlow is the author of Life in Death, her debut novel which is now available. A fast-paced murder mystery, Life in Death is the first part of the Kari Marchant series. Read on to find out how to effectively turn your real life stories into captivating fiction! My story isn’t a warm and fuzzy one. My father was murdered when I was 12 years of age. A few years ago, at my uncle’s urging, I looked into what happened to him. The police had suspects, but no one was ever arrested and the case remains unsolved. I learned a lot about police procedure when I looked into my father’s murder. It was then that I decided to write a novel. While my murder mystery novella, Life in Death, is not entirely based on what happened to my father, it draws from real life experiences I had with him. Writing the novel was a cathartic experience for me. What I liked most, and found particularly cleansing, about the experience was my power to spin the story as I saw fit. We all love, hate, laugh, cry, and everything in between, so we’re never at a loss for stories to tell. Here’s how you get started writing a novel based on a true story:

Determine what kind of story you want to write. Talk to family and friends. Look at newspaper articles. I don’t want to be morose, but look at obituaries, too. Take notes. There are stories there.

Determine the story’s theme: Good/evil, love/hate, birth/death, peace/war, etc. Again, take notes. This may be where the title of your book comes from or maybe not. The title of my book came to me in a dream.

Construct a compelling plot. I suggest creating a plot outline to start with. I used the “what if” technique to determine what would happen in my chapters. Basically, you ask yourself “what if” this or that happened to your character and expand from there.

Create dynamic scenes. My advice is something has to happen in “every” chapter or scene.

Create multi-dimensional characters. Many writers, including yours truly, base their characters on real people and then add nuances to create more complexity and depth. This is one way to go.

Read, read, read. The more you read, the better writer you’ll become.
Lastly, start writing. “Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end; then stop.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

Truth can be stranger than fiction, but maybe not as entertaining. The key to writing a novel based on a true story is in how you spin the story to make it enjoyable for readers. About Harlow Coban: Author Harlow Coban was born in Kansas City, MO, but grew up in Denver, CO. She relocated to North Carolina five years ago with her husband, two dogs, and 16-year old twins. She shares a birthday with the notorious Napoleon Bonaparte. In keeping with his legacy, she is currently working on taking over the world. Harlow’s positive attitude and fresh take on life are her tools and conquest is certain. She spends her free time writing, dancing, traveling and defending mailboxes from her 16-year-old twins’ driving. Her debut novel, LIFE IN DEATH (to be published in early 2012), is a murder mystery which pulls from real-life situations from her own family history. She felt compelled to share her story with the world while offering a thrilling, entertaining, and amusing escape for readers. In keeping with her commitment to improving the lives of children, a portion of the proceeds from the sale of her book will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club in her home state of North Carolina. She loves to connect with her readers and can be found on Twitter, her Blog or on Facebook.

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Goodbye 2011! Here’s My Year-End Wrap Up

Alice Osborn — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:03:39 +0000

All in all, 2011 was fairly decent with a few lows and many more highs. As we say “so long” to 2011 and hello to 2012, I felt the need to be self indulgent and review my year with you! 2011 was the year my book, Unfinished Projects published by Main Street Rag, debuted. I traveled about 5,000 miles this year promoting my book throughout the Carolinas along with visiting New York’s Book Revue Bookstore and the St. Louis poetry scene. I met so many fantastic people on all of my road trips, but my favorite gigs were in Charleston and Waynesville, NC. I don’t think I laughed so hard in Charleston after the Monday Night Poetry and Music show in April—ever. (I think it involved not getting caught on Spruill Ave, Hurricane Katrina and Star Wars tattoos—thank you, Aaron, Kevin and Katrina!) Waynesville (about 20 min west of Asheville) was also a trip and a half. My hosts from the Mountain Writers Club took me and my best buddy/honorary poetry roadie Jane to the Sweet Onion where the conversation was a lively as an electric eel. Stay tuned for more road trips in 2012 when I visit Columbia, SC, Asheville, Charleston and Hickory to promote my new book, After the Steaming Stops, coming out in March or April. 2011 was the year I cut my hair. I was so bored with my long hair and tired of strangers telling me I looked like Kathy Griffin, the comic. So I got my hair cut in mid-May. It was a good cut, but so…different. I couldn’t style my hair like before and my husband kept calling me “Prince Valiant.” Oy. The good news was that folks said I looked younger than my 29 years. I’ve got my hair now to about my shoulders after 7 months and I want to go long again. Another part of the good news is that I found a curling iron that keeps up with my style even in bad humidity and my long hairs don’t clog our sinks anymore. 2011 was the year I became a Reiki Level II practitioner. Reiki has helped calm me down—but only so much since as you all know I’m a very intense person. I’ll be training to be a Reiki Master this spring! I’m using my Reiki to be more aware and intuitive, plus with my hair growing longer, my intuition will only get stronger! (there’s a theory that the longer your hair, the better your psychic abilities) 2011 was the year I called 9-1-1 after my three-year-old daughter Erin severely sliced open the bridge of her nose when she jumped from the bathroom sink onto the edge of a plastic trash can. I guess she was practicing for a role in Spiderman? I remembered my health ed classes and kept steady pressure on her wound. She was cool with everything and found it interesting that her older brother practically fainted when he saw her five stitches. 2011 was also the year my son wandered into the deadly April 16 Raleigh tornadoes—I wrote a poem about it. He ended up safe but you should have been a fly on the wall when my husband, who was at work at the time, asked me where Daniel was and I said, “IDK!” and then he said, “Well, the roof of the Lowe’s in Sanford just blew off!” Daniel followed a neighbor with Chihuahuas back to her townhouse to ride out the storm. Oy vay. 2011 was the year I got Craig-Listed by my boss. I was the editor for a fledgling magazine for three months and the publisher (I use that term loosely) put my position up on Craig’s List with me still in the job! I quit the next business day. I have to say I met SO many awesome people in that position that it was worth the time. But I realized I don’t want to take a “jobby job”—I’m having too much fun as an entrepreneur where I set my own hours and have the opportunity to increase my income. Take this job and shove it! 2011 was the year I sang in public for the first time in 10 years. I got the singing bug back, so watch out! I want to take singing lessons next. 2011 was the year I gave blood again after 10 years. And 2011 was the year I took a humor workshop AND wrote and performed five humor-themed speeches. I used one of those speeches in my emcee duties at the CHERUBS Angels Masquerade Ball for babies born with Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH), but I cheated since I made fun of Charlie Sheen the whole time. 2011 was the year I visited the Ozarks, Fort Smith and St. Louis for the first time with my husband. In St. Louis I saw my first cousin KC after 17 years! That was cool. 2011 was the year I took up running again and published a blog post once a week—do or die! 2011 was the year every single one of my dresses, save one or two, came from the boutique consignment store, Our Friends Closet in North Raleigh off of Durant Road in Falls River Town Center. 2011 was also the year of teaching fantastic writers in my memoir workshops, fiction editing workshops and blogging workshops (both in person and online)—may the knowledge continue in 2012! I taught poetry at the Nazim Hikmet Festival in April, sponsored by the American Turkish Association and the Town of Cary, and will return to teaching at the Festival this year as well. I do it to be invited to the crazy Turkish after-party, but please don’t tell anyone that! Well, goodbye 2011 and I know 2012 will create a wealth of good memories and fun! In 2012 I’m going to keep posting my blog once a week, memorize a classic poem every month and practice my singing and comedy routine, along with writing some more riveting poetry—so watch out! Your Turn: How did you survive 2011? What are your promises to yourself for 2012?

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It’s One Space After a Period!

Alice Osborn — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:29:13 +0000

Are you still double spacing after you end a sentence? Well, stop! All of the style guides The Chicago Manual of Style, the AP Stylebook, and the Modern Language Association (MLA) except for the American Psychological Association want you to space only once after you end a sentence. I know, I know, it may be really hard to break the habit of hitting the space bar twice, but you’re still not listening to your 8-track today, right?

Why the Change?

You might be wondering how you didn’t get the spacing memo. Since word processors came into being in the late 70s/80s, spacing only once after a sentence has become the norm. This is because typewriters monospaced all of the characters, so that an “i” took up the same space as an “m.” Computers use proportional spacing so each character is adjusted for the space and double spacing after periods became an extra unnecessary step. In addition, newspapers frowned on having all of that wasted space in columns which could become valuable ad dollars. In my high school typing class in the late 80s, I was taught to double space after periods and colons—it took me awhile to change my old habits, but I have faith you can too! But Don’t Two Spaces Look Better? Not really. Two spaces make the document “holey” and disjointed. It DOES NOT make it easier for someone to read your work nor does it help the reader know you ended your sentence. As an editor, my eyes go directly to the double spaces and then I start hyperventilating, wondering how many spaces I’ll need to correct. So yes, this blog post is really a public service announcement for my present and future clients! What if You Don’t Want to Change Your Double-Spacing Ways? My, aren’t we stubborn? Well, you can stick it to the Man by double spacing in your emails, drafts and letters. Just don’t double space when you’re sending off that email to your future agent, editor or publisher. Bottom line: please save the spaces! It only takes a small change to make a big difference! Your Turn: Are you a single spacer or a double spacer? How do you feel about this convention?

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How to Win at National Novel Writing Month

Alice Osborn — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:27:25 +0000

Goodbye Halloween, hello November’s National Novel Writing Month (called NaNoWriMo for short) where 200,000 writers around the world hash out a 50,000 word novel from Nov 1^st to Nov 30^th. November is also the month of National Blog Posting Month and Write Nonfiction in November. So if you’ve been waiting to write that novel, blog post, memoir and keep coming up with excuses, now’s the time to crank out your pages! I completed two novels during this month and you can too. Started in San Francisco by Chris Baty in 1999 the first NaNoWriMo event only had 21 participants—wow, has it grown in 12 years. I wrote a 50K novel in 2008 and 2009 just to say I did it to my fiction editing clients and to prove to myself that I could do it with two kids, my other writing/speaking/editing work, the NC Writers’ Conference and Thanksgiving. Here are five tips I’d like to share with you if you’re thinking about embarking on the NaNoWriMo journey or have already completed 5,000 words (Day 1-3). Plan out your word count and write daily. 50,000 words divided by 30 is 1,666.67 words a day. It really sucks when you skip a few days and suddenly you have to make up 7,500 words—ARGHHH! That’s what happened to me in 2009. I didn’t write the first week of November and was constantly playing catch up till Nov 30^th with writing 5K, 7K and even 10K in one day. It’s OK to Outline in October. You don’t need to know every subplot or even the main plot before you begin writing Nov 1^st, but it sure helps to have a map so you finish your word count for the day and don’t procrastinate by turning to Wikipedia every five minutes to do “research.” My outline helped me know who my characters were and where the action took place in most scenes. Keep the Typing Going. It’s tempting to stop when you reach a point in your story that needs more thought. Instead of stopping, highlight the area in yellow and keep going. When you edit your novel in December or January, you’ll know exactly where to fill in the missing details. Complete your word count for the day and when your mind is at rest the answers may come back to you. Go back to your yellow spot and fill it in—yay, more words for the word count. Don’t Operate In A Bubble. When you register on the NaNoWriMo site you’ll also be connected to your local NaNoWriMo writers for weekly Write-Ins. I could only go to a few of them, but those were the most productive hours of my month. I also read the daily NaNoWriMo tips and words of inspiration from published authors. Get Yourself on a Schedule. Treat your writing as a job. All professional writers do this—they have set hours for their writing and you need to do the same. You’ll have to give up some things this month like watching Dancing with the Stars or Book Club or reading the paper. But you’ll manifest pages and when you do complete your goal, give yourself a treat like going on Facebook for five minutes or buying the pumpkin spiced latte at Starbucks. Get into the habit with rituals: turn off your phone, play the same music, wear the same fleece jacket, and make tea in your lucky mug. You may be wondering where my novels went to—they are still hanging out on my flash and back-up drives. The second one has some potential, but needs a LOT of work. At this point in my writing career I’m focusing on my poetry. The novels were great practice in taking risks and gave me a lot of confidence and perspective—necessary for any writer in any genre. Good luck this month! Your Turn: What tips did I leave off the list? Are you new to NaNoWriMo or a veteran? If you’re a veteran, how has NaNoWriMo helped your writing overall?

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