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01/31/2011 • 3:29 PM 3

Writers: Check out the Pay It Forward Contest

Cover of Pay it Forward

This post is a little about a writing contest.

It’s mostly about being a better, happier and richer person.

Over at Market My Words, there’s a great contest for writers. The author will pluck the right query and sample from the entries and push the winner’s name to her agent. It’s a chance to get out of the slush pile. If your manuscript is worthy, this contest could save you an awful lot of time and energy.

What pulled my attention was that she called it the Pay It Forward Contest. Do you remember the movie? (SPOILER ALERT) It wasn’t cynical. It was inspiring. It might have caught on even larger if the ending hadn’t been such a downer. Still, it was a reminder we must all use our time well.

And it made me think of how I’ve been paid forward. I have a very successful friend. By the force of his mind and personality, he’s achieved a lot and continues to achieve a lot. People are always glad to see him coming. He’s gone out of his way to help me on several occasions. That spirit defines him and, precisely because he is so generous with his advice, time and money, his success is multiplied however you choose to measure it.

Too often we associate business success with a dog-eat-dog mentality. To succeed, we’re often told, others must fail. Instead, my friend looks for opportunities to reach out to people. He helps them and in turn, he is helped. He’s genuinely interested in other people’s problems and tries to help them.

It takes very little effort to slip into the human network to, with kindness, grease the wheels of interaction and eliminate friction. S.R. Johannes, the author of the Pay It Forward Contest is doing it. Though I must decline to specify how I’m doing the same, I can tell you I’m already on it (promise!)

**You know what’s great about paying it forward?**

**It feels fantastic!**

Key question:

Somebody’s helped you at some point.

**How are you paying it forward?**

Random Acts Of Kindness 31 – Locker Room Love [Michael Turner] (ecademy.com)
Pay It Forward Green (ourdailygreenlife.blogspot.com)
Patrick House: Biggest Loser Winner Season 10! (rightcelebrity.com)
The (Unlikely) Economics of Your Book Becoming a Movie (dailyfinance.com)
If you love somebody…show it !! (dialoguewithyou.wordpress.com)
A 14-year-old girl pays it forward (theprovince.com)

Filed under: agents, authors, Contest announcement, DIY, movies, writing contests, Arts, Pay It Forward, Writers Resources, writing contest

01/31/2011 • 9:11 AM 0

Egypt: Solidarity Against Oppression

Somebody (don’t recall who) ranked Mubarak as the 15th worst tyrant in the world. I sure hope rulers 14 through to one are taking notice and not sleeping so well.

I don’t usually touch on politics much. It’s all about writing and publishing every day. I’d prefer to avoid it for this blog, in fact.

But how could I not?

This is one of those cases where if you say, “on the one hand on then on the other…”

you’re a douche.

When the people arise, the government must fall.

Scenes from Today’s Egypt Solidarity Protest (sfist.com)
The Canada-Egypt connection (theglobeandmail.com)
“`All repressive regimes must go!’ — Asian socialists in solidarity with the uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia and the Middle East” and related posts (links.org.au)
Egyptians in Canada find solidarity in protest (theglobeandmail.com)
Bush and Obama on Egypt: Neither lived up to rhetoric (politico.com)
Social Media Solidarity (twofourseven.co.uk)
A Frightening Lawlessness Takes Hold In Egypt (npr.org)

Filed under: Media, Uncategorized, Egypt, Egyptians, Hosni Mubarak, Protest

01/31/2011 • 7:30 AM 0

Writers: Is writing therapy for you?

Reverend Billy from The Church of Life After S...

Image via Wikipedia

Writing can be therapeutic. You can get some etheric vengeance, exorcise your demons and find peaceful transcendence.

But I don’t think your therapy should show. If you stray into telling the reader how to feel, your writing experience intrudes into their reading experience.

Don’t do that, please.

What writing teachers don’t say is, “Not getting preachy is really hard.” For instance, in my WIP, I touch on issues around censorship. In fact, I’ve noticed my penchant for not just touching on the issue, but hammering on it.

How do you know you’re hammering your personal issue too hard? Overexplaining irritates readers. Making two characters argue and leaving the opposing side too weak is another sign. Look for when the action stops and restart it. For instance, when your protagonist slips into a monologue that goes on uninterrupted, he’s at the pulpit and you’re losing readers.

You can still have a point of view, of course. Just lay out facts. Let your readers decide. Slip the facts amongst the action of the story. Don’t lay it all out at once. Instead of pontificating, let arguments percolate through the story.

Orwell’s 1984, for instance, shows the horror of the all-controlling state. Orwell doesn’t tell you it’s awful and list why. He shows cages full of rats. Chuck Palahniuk‘s style is another good example. He doesn’t tell the reader how to feel. Non-judgmental writing yields effective results.

Don’t write from your therapist’s couch. The benefits you get from writing may be every bit as personal and profound as a therapy session from In Treatment, but if you’re writing for an audience, please let your readers find their own therapy. In Finding Forrester, Sean Connery says, “You write the first draft with your heart and the next with your head.”