It's a wrap for Writing North Idaho

The Blogettes Summer of 2011
(From left to right) Jennifer Rova, Jenny Leo, Elizabeth Briton,
Mary Jane Honegger, Nancy Owens Barnes and Kathy Dobbs

After nearly five years we have made the decision it’s time to move on to other writing adventures and end our Writing North Idaho blog.  We thank those who joined us as Followers and those who merely stumbled upon one of our posts through the serendipity of the World Wide Web. 

Now for analysis of our little online adventure. 

1. Did we reach our goal?

2. What did we gain from the experience?

3. Is writing a blog a worthwhile endeavor for a writer?

1. Did we reach our goal?

Yes we did.  Much to our surprise and delight, the simple blog we created with the goal of providing a forum for local authors to gain knowledge and find encouragement and support, eventually touched nearly every corner of the world and received 277,719 pageviews as of this morning.  Each time we signed onto the blog and glanced at the recent viewers, we realized the scope of our blog was much larger than we ever dreamed; as readers from China; Sun Prairie, Wisconsin; Australia; Newfoundland; London England; Kazakhstan; Fayetteville, Georgia; Ukraine; and New York, New York had visited to view one of our posts in the past hour.   We found it hard to believe that writers in Russia were second only to our U.S. viewers. 

2. What did we gain from our experience?

Each of us gained knowledge and honed our writing skills as we researched and then wrote over 690 posts.  Our determination to post three times each week required us to meet deadlines and do our work in a timely manner – valuable assets for any writer.

We enlarged our network of writing contacts and corresponded with many writers along the way, but one of the most valuable assets of taking this blogging adventure was the friendships we developed with one another.  Writing is most often a solitary endeavor, so our quarterly meetings to discuss our blog were looked forward to with anticipation.  We met in a home or local café, shared a meal, and talked about ourselves, our lives, and our dreams … eventually we would even get around to talking about the blog.  Although most of us are past the age for nicknames, we had fun calling ourselves “The Blogettes” and belonging to a of group dedicated writers.

3. Is writing a blog a worthwhile endeavor for a writer?

Writers are encouraged to blog to raise their presence on the Internet, promote their work, and allow possible editors and publishers to get a look at their writing.  We are uncertain whether or not WNI was valuable to us in that type of self-promotion, but we do know it  gave us great satisfaction.  Just this morning a viewer from Kenya visited to read my 2012 post outlining the AP Guide for using numerals.  It doesn’t get much more rewarding than that.  I encourage you to give it a try.

So we say goodbye to this adventure with a little sadness, and a heap of thanks for the support and friendship of one another as we continue our writing journey.  

 Nancy Owens Barnes – (WNI founder) 

working on a series of poetry and photo books and promoting her first book 

Mary Jane Honegger - working on full feature screenplay

Jennifer Lamont Leo - seeking publisher for first and working on second book 

Jennifer Rova - seeking publisher for first book

Kathy Cooney Dobbs - writing her own blog

Elizabeth S. Brinton - posting at www.elizabethbrinton.com as well as promoting her first book and seeking publisher for second.

Anna Goodwin - promoting her books and working on another

Elizabeth (Liz) Mastin (The Joy of Prosody) - soon to publish a book on poetry 

And special thanks to Lila Bolme and B.J. Campbell for … well they know…

That’s a wrap!

Dear Diary and the Art of Journal Writing

My first journal, begun in the summer between the fifth and sixth grade,  sits on my desk as a reminder of my love of writing. I loved that little blue plastic book with its tiny lock. To record my private thoughts, with no worries about uninvited readers, seemed like total bliss at the time. However, as I apparently come from a long line of hackers, it took the spies in my midst all of two seconds to pry their way into my deepest secrets, only to repeat them for general entertainment at the dinner table. Nevertheless, I plodded on, writing diaries and journals through most of my life. I can be sporadic, missing a year or two here and there, but I am happy to say that I can at least fill a modest bookshelf with my efforts. Lest you think they would make for interesting reading, a record of my time as a teen, then a young wife and a mother, followed by the trials of middle age, I can only attest to the fact that, they are nothing short of pure drivel. How did this happen? I tended to use my diaries and journals as a place in which to beef. The stings and arrows of life that tended to swirl around in my mind, distracting me from my goals, were a nuisance, and so I found a way to expunge them. I have had to make it very clear to my husband and children that they are for my eyes only and in no way a record of my happy, family life. My complaints, when read in bulk, are totally depressing to me now. Why did I not record the cute things the kids said, my thoughts about life, my dreams or my aspirations? I can only confess that they record an inner relationship I have with myself where I like to process things slowly.

In the past, I have thoroughly enjoyed well-written journals and have spent weeks and even months reading volume after volume. The top three on the hit parade are as follows: Virginia Woolf, Noel Coward, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Virginia Woolf, like me, set down many frustrations. The unwanted criticisms, the interruptions from writing, and the stings of patronizing male reviewers are all preserved for prosperity. My admiration for her as a writer could never be overstated. Her brilliant work, A Room of One's Own, tells us flat out, what we, as women, will have to carve out for ourselves if we are to have any chance at all. To know that anyone would disturb her clear and acknowledged genius, over a question regarding lunch, made me want to chase her housekeeper around the yard brandishing a rolling pin. Her ups and downs, pain and sorrow, small moments of triumph, gave me a clear picture of the path, the road and the way a writer must take. Her bouts of depression and sad end did not deter me either, as it was clear from the start that she suffered from a malady that had no cure in her day. Describing her struggles, in the light of her illness, afforded an even greater level of inspiration. Her courage astounded me.

By contrast, Noel Coward had a much more exciting life of glamor and parties in London, but he had his endless frustrations as well. In reading his journals, I found much to delight in. The obstacles in his life had a similar ring and can be summarized in one word: interference. Again, I was shocked that anyone would dare think they had a better way to say a line or to put on a play than he did. I wanted to shoo them out the backstage door. I also loved his take on critics which would be summarized by, “Insulting review in The Times.” I gained an understanding that opinions that some people seem to value, are often nothing short of hostility, for whatever reason, and the greatest minds in our midst, those who crafted works of pure genius, seem to have a great ability to not listen to any negativity of any kind.

The third and best grouping I did not read until a few years ago, and when I did, I became so involved in them, it changed the way I go about my daily life. For some strange reason, I read the journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, in reverse order. I understood her life from her last days to those preceding The Great War and predating the creation of her most famous work, namely, Anne of Green Gables.  It gives me chills to this day to think of her sitting at the kitchen table, in a simple farmhouse on Prince Edward Island, warmed by the fire in the cook stove, with pencil and notebook in front of her, and no idea of the future ahead,  in the process of composing the greatest selling book of all time. Her novel was rejected, and stuffed in a hat box, shelved in a closet, and all but forgotten until a spring cleaning project had her take a second look. Astonished to rediscover it with the understanding that it was quite good, she vowed to try again, and the rest is history.

In many phases of my life, I have turned to reading journals when I am stuck and casting about for ideas. This often leads me back to keeping a journal once again. As I scribble away, getting things off my chest and out of the way, sometimes new ideas begin to take hold. When we see a published group of diaries, we are looking at entries that have been recopied and reworked. Some editing and piecing together form the finished look, and no doubt a lot of what is mundane and downright petty is discarded.

From the Selected Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery
The first entry:

1890
Monday, Jan. 20

"Mollie and I have made a decidedly startling discovery about some of our little personal affairs. I am not going to write it down because it is a dead secret. We have refused to tell Nate what it is but we have hinted just enough to fire his curiosity to the blazing point."

Because We Are Writers

 

We are writers. Somewhere within us, is the need to communicate our thoughts in some lasting way. To articulate some feeling, the vision within, in the most potent manner. The process can be vital, latent, uncomfortable, and exhilarating all at the same time; experiences richly allegorized in Hemingway's story, The Old Man And The Sea. 

 

The tale follows an old fisherman, Santiago, as he tries to prove his skill and restore his reputation. For 84 days he has gone out to sea and come back with nothing, not even a guppy. This is a scene familiar to most writers at least once – a period of low production that puts your abilities in question.

Alone, Santiago leaves the safety of familiar water in hope of catching a marlin. He endures hours upon hours of sweat and discomfort before he feels a tug on the line. In the same way, writers may spend hours researching, brainstorming, rewriting, trying to hook into the big one. We want it to be bodacious, the catch of a lifetime. 

 

Then, just as the old man pours his strength out to bring the huge fish to the surface, we too work diligently to bring our catch up from the murky deep. On the surface, it's a beauty. The whole glistening thing looks wonderful as we lash the rough draft to our skiff.

Like Santiago, we see our destination far off and wonder if we can really bring it in. On the way, the tides change, our sails sag, and just as Santiago's fish is eaten away by sharks, we are harried by the voracious jaws of editing. They gnash here and there and gouge away chunks. And as Santiago beat at the sharks, we defend our prize viciously, trying to salvage every bit possible.

By the time we reach shore, our beautiful trophy has been ravaged. Sometimes, there's nothing left but a hard beginning, a floppy ending and a bony carcass in between. We're relieved that we've managed to bring some of it in. And we have proof that we aren't ‟salao, which is the worst form of unlucky”. We are encouraged by our friends and reassured of our ability. But for a while, we rest and dream about writing something new...something different.

And we will...because we are writers.

Predicting Success

It may be a pie-in-the-sky dream but if there was a checklist that I could use to launch my book to the lofty status of best seller, I'd want that checklist posthaste.

Well, we've sent a man to the moon, we've broken the sound barrier and now we may have found the black box of such soaring literary icons as Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe and Hemingway.

The Department of Computer Science at Stoney Brook University in New York has found a way to predict the success of novels based on writing style. The method they used is called Statistical Stylometry and their findings were accurate about 84% of the time, which seems way better than a wing and a prayer.

Goal: To see if the success of a novel could be predicted based on elements of writing style and to identify what those elements were.

Parameters:

• 800 books selected from the genres of Adventure, Mystery, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Love Stories, Sci-fi, Short Stories and Poetry.
• selected on the basis of 2 conditions
  • they had already been published
  • they were written by previously unseen authors

First they differentiated between successful books and highly successful books. They then measured for style elements that were common for each.

What they found:

There are elements that are typical to successful literature both within genres as well as across genres.

Less successful books were found to use:

• cliches & common settings
• more verbs and adverbs and verbs that describe emotions or actions
• words that convey feelings
• words that are considered negative or extreme
• foreign words
• simple sentence structure (which, ironically, should give them higher readability)

Highly successful books were found to use:

• complex and/or inverted sentence structure
• more nouns and adjectives, a characteristic which calls to journalistic writing
• fewer verbs and adverbs and those related to thinking

The study then applied the same algorithms to some highly successful prize winning and national award winning books as well as movie scripts and the results were consistent.

So it appears that success doesn't always depend on “readability”.

I guess if I want to elevate my game, I not only have to draw my reader in, I've got to use effective nouns and unique locations, avoid adverbs, passive voice and cliches, and quit worrying so much about how many connectives I use.

Connectives:

in, and, but, which, since, that, what, whenever, where

Thinking Verbs:

remembered, recognized

Action/Emotional Verbs:

cried, cheered, shout, glare, jump

Cliches –

• Negative words:
  • heavy, hard, prison, never

• Extreme words:
  • never, absolutely, sacred, breathless, perfectly

• Love related:
  • desires, affairs

• Locations:
  • room, beach, avenue, door, boat, bay

The New Research into Memory: Do we really remember events as they happened?

My book Justice Forbidden: What is memory all about?

Does our brain really remember events as they happened?

 

Recently I read the quote, "We are now in the age of brain and memory research." It's about time I said to myself. What we knew about these topics until a few years ago was mere speculation and could have fit into a shoebox.

Have you ever wondered whether your memories of the past are accurate? I have. And as a psychotherapist in a private practice working with many clients who had been diagnosed as having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, I often questioned and so did they. I had no real answers for them at the time.

And so after my retirement, when I unexpectedly changed my course in life and began to write mysteries, I decided to explore this question and add my own feverish imagination to the plot. Justice Forbidden is a murder mystery/thriller of a psychologist who is being sued for creating memories in a client about previous abuse that she now says never occurred. Were Kera's memories real? Is she lying to get money? Or did Dr. Faythe Bradington implant those memories as Kera now claims? And is that even possible? What does the present research of the brain and how it constructs memories now say?

Did you know that in Freud's day it was thought that the brain worked like a camera? It took an accurate movie of an event and stored it unchanged forever. That meant there was only one true story and all your memories were accurate. Later psychologists realized that each person had his or her own perception of what happened but they believed this perception never changed. Psychologists thought that some people could repress difficult memories and then could retrieve them later. More recently some researchers in psychology conjectured that memory was not completely accurate and that there was no evidence that memories could be repressed and then later remembered. As a matter of fact, they thought that all repressed memories that were later remembered had been merely made up by someone with an overactive imagination or had been programmed into the brain by an authority figure like a psychotherapist. Thus the False Memory Syndrome was born. You have probably heard of it. The topic used to be all the rage and several fiction books included false memories.

In the meantime the question of memory was still not answered and most of us had no idea what memory was really all about. Now that we have Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, researchers can actually see what is happening in the brain as it works and forms thoughts, emotions, and memories. So what is true? Of course the whole truth is still unknown and may take years of research to pin down. But we gradually know more and more.

Yes, first of all, complete false memories can be created by the brain without the person knowing. What is even more interesting is that each time you remember an incident the brain reconstitutes it in a somewhat different way. A new memory is born. The old memory is gone and can never be retrieved exactly as it originally occurred.

So what does that mean for what we call truth and nothing but the truth? Is anyone remembering the "truth" of an event as it really happened? Probably not. That may at least partly account for the fact that you and your sister or brother don't remember the same incident in the same way. Or maybe you remember something she says never happened. Who is right? Possibly neither of you. And what does that mean for the accuracy of eye witnesses? And what about autobiographies and true stories? We may have to call everything we remember just that. "My memories of what I think happened. They are probably based on an actual event."

Researchers now know how we can repress and forget difficult memories, but they are still not sure repressed memories can be recovered. One researcher states he believes he has found the path the brain takes to retrieve them.

Recently the military designated millions of dollars to test drugs that will actually erase PTSD memories. However, actual use of them is still years away. Will the drug eliminate only the memories a person wants eliminated or will they clear out all memories? Or are the memories repressed deeper in the brain?  Only time will tell. Because of the horrendous effects and memories of war and abuse, the researchers already have lines of volunteers waiting to become subjects when human trials begin.

Stay tuned for the next chapter in this puzzling but critical issue. Oh, and in the meantime read my book Justice Forbidden for an exciting and stimulating, can't put down read. It is on www.Amazon.com as an e-book for only $2.99. I am writing the sequel at present.
Check out my website for my writings www.anaparkergoodwin.com