Great Local Resources for Writers’ Research

LiLI

Libraries Linking Idaho
The LiLI Databases (LiLI-D) are online services providing full-text articles from magazines, professional journals, newspapers, and reference books free to all Idaho residents.

A comprehensive genealogy database of census, birth, marriage, death records and more. Brought to you by the Kootenai-Shoshone Area Libraries. Only available for use in your local KSA Library.

Access census records from 1790-1930, search through over 1.9 million genealogy and local history articles, find information on people and places described in over 20,000 family histories, and browse through Revolutionary War and Freedman's Bank records.
Remote access available. Contact your local KSA Library for log in and password information.

Whatever your goal, LearningExpress Library's resources will help you succeed. Each of our Learning Centers offers the practice tests, exercises, skill-building courses, and information you need to achieve the results you want—at school, at work, or in life. Looking to land a job? You'll find an entire Learning Center dedicated to helping you get the one that's right for you.

Novelist Plus

The site includes Recommended Reads, Author Read-Alikes, Book Discussion Guides, Book Lists, Award Winners, and much more for children, teens, and adults. With over 150,000 fiction titles, 50,000 nonfiction titles and over 4000 custom created articles and lists for your reading pleasure.
Remote access available. Contact your local KSA Library for log in and password information.

Go to this source and sign in for an account: www.ksalibraries.org/explore/room/htm

Happy New Year from all of us at writingnorthidaho! We hope you have a productive, successful, fulfilling 2011.

Travel Writing

Are you interested in becoming a travel writer? Most writers say, “What is there not to like about travel writing?” Here are a few web sites to help you understand the trials, rewards and how-to’s of such a choice.

The first web site is by Laura Duniston who is in her words a perpetual globetrotter and travel writer. She has written for such exclusive travel magazines as “National Geographic Traveler,” “Get Lost,” “Hemisphere,” “Lonely Planet” and “Thomas Cook.” She tells us exactly what the life of a travel writer is like. Duniston says she travels anonymously with her travel photographer husband so as not to influence the treatment she receives in restaurants or hotels. She also says she spends many days in a drab hotel room in some city she does not like, glued to a chair facing her computer and on deadline.

http://cooltravelguide.blogspot.com

The second site gives an article by Phil Philcox on the specifics of writing travel articles. He takes a unique approach for finding buyers for his articles. His slant is to contact off-beat trade magazines like cattle ranching, dry cleaning or printing businesses telling the editors he is going to be visiting (country.) Would the editor be interested in an article about the costs, difficulties and successes of dry cleaning in New Zealand or buying dyes in India or whatever relates to that magazine’s business interest. You will not get rich this way but it would offset some of your travel expenses as long as you do not mind working part of your vacation.

http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/aug98/philcox.htm

The third site I previewed and liked is about how to get freelance jobs as a travel writer. It gives you the bones of the operation, how to get started, where to look for assignments but not much about the negatives of travel writing.

http://jobs.lovetoknow.com/Travel_Writing_Careers

Motivation -- The Rocking Chair Test

How do we as writers become motivated? Books on how to write say that reading has the most impact. We are what we read. Successful authors tell us the most significant impact will be to write every day. Both motivate us. Reading shows us how clever phrases, tightly crafted plots, a good story line and an extensive vocabulary combine to provide us with a wealth of tools to feed our creative brains. Writing daily produces the same results.

However, what if you are not motivated to write? The people who say they wish they could get going in their writing are not willing to put forth the effort required to be considered writers. What happens if we wait for an idea and no idea surfaces and inspiration doesn’t strike?

Take the rocking chair test. Sit in a rocking chair and look back on your life. Examine all the things you accomplished and the rewards you received from those activities. Then look at your life as if you had not achieved your goals or accomplished what you wanted. Relate this to writing. Have you set goals for writing and strived consistently toward them or are you waiting for motivation?

Mark Twain could have been talking to writers when he said, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Paraphrasing John F. Kennedy, “If not (your name), who? If not now, when?“ Nike made a fortune selling tennis shoes with the tag line “Just do it.” They were right. “A determined person will do more with a pen and paper, than a lazy person will accomplish with a personal computer.” Catherine Pulsifer

History of The Pencil

On Fridays we post weekend events that are of interest to writers. Since there are none this weekend, I thought you may be interested in some trivia.

The pencil is one of the oldest and most used writing utensils. The forerunner of today’s pencil was devised by the Romans and Greeks who used flat pieces of lead on papyrus.

In the 1400’s, graphite (Greek meaning graphum “to write”) was discovered and mined in England. Graphite is one of three forms of pure carbon, diamonds and coal the other two. Graphite was cut into square rods which were bound tightly with twine. Late in the 16th century, a method of gluing strips of wood around graphite was invented.

Initially, the centers were square making it difficult to use any pencil sharpeners. Round graphite pencils came into use during the early 1800’s. By the 1840’s pure graphite mines were depleted so inventors including Henry David Thoreau developed forms of graphite mixed with clay and sometimes water; they were still referred to as lead pencils. An aside is Henry David Thoreau’s father, John, operated the biggest pencil factory in the United States. Henry worked there many years. Erasers were first attached to pencils in 1853.

Today’s mechanized method seems simple.

1. A block of California cedar is cut into slats.

2. The slats are stained and grooves cut into one surface.

3. A graphite clay mixture (“lead”) is put into the grooves and a second slat is bonded to the

first.

4. The slats are sawed into individual pencils.

5. The individual pencils are painted.

6. A ferrule is crimped onto one end followed by an eraser.

7. Pencils are stamped with the company’s name and hardness of the graphite mix (1 is the softest, 4 is the hardest.)

Some famous authors who used pencils are Thoreau (of course), Hemingway, Kerouac, Nabokov, Steinbeck and Francis Scott Key.

Purdue Online Writing Lab or OWL

Many universities and colleges have websites that provide support and information about how to write, answers to grammatical questions and how and where to do research. Most are aimed at undergraduate students and writing for a college level class assignment. However, there are always times when we non-collegiate writers need backup references or answers to questions.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ is one of the best sources I have found. According to the introduction, OWL provides “global support through online reference materials and services.”

Their main divisions are:

*Writing and teaching writing

*Research

*Grammar and mechanics

*Style guides which includes formatting and style guides for APA and MLA 2000

The research section tells you how to conduct research (interviewing, surveying, observing and analysis) as well as how to evaluate your sources of information. If you have questions on where to put the quotation marks (inside or outside the period), look for dependent clauses, dangling participles or if a sentence needs a comma, the grammar and writing section can help you.

I have used other university web sites but find I go back to OWL. Instead of reaching for my style books or grammar books, I click on this bookmarked site and find the answers quickly.

A Special Gift of Inspiration

It is Christmas Eve and you just sat down with a cup of coffee, glass of wine or eggnog. The fixings are chopped for tomorrow’s turkey dressing, the fresh cranberries are cooked, the table is set and all the presents are wrapped. Your mind stops spinning and begins to contemplate the family members who will be sitting at the table Christmas Day….

I was stumped for a topic for today’s blog, hence the following email exchange between my daughter and me.

“Hi Sweetie,

Can you think of anything wonderful to write as my blog to be posted Dec. 19, the week of Christmas? I thought of the legend of the spider in the Christmas tree or mistletoe but neither one seems right (or write). I can’t think of anything Christmas-y and writing related. Seems kind of weird to write about punctuation or how to plot stories.

Thanks! Love, xxoo, MOM”

“Hi Mom,

For the Christmas blog you should write about how a great gift would be a letter written to a loved one to tell her how much you love her, like you did for all of us on our birthdays. We treasure your letters.

Love, A”

What Angela is referring to are letters I wrote to my husband, daughters, their husbands and each grandchild during 2009 on their birthdays. I told each how grateful I was that he or she was born. Not surprisingly, it was easy. I was thankful for one who has such a good sense of humor, intelligence, and caring. For another was his ability to see all sides of a situation and come up with an agreeable solution and the love he displays daily to my daughter and their children. To a three year old, I wrote how excited we were when she was born, how fun it was to read her books because she was so quietly in my lap, how much she resembles her grandfather and how impressed I was with her developing artistic skills. My husband’s letter could have pages about why I was glad he was born! Love displayed daily, wonderful children, a secure life, and lot of exciting adventures were just a few things I noted.

The letters were about a page long, some shorter than others depending upon the age of the recipient. I started each one with “I am writing this letter to you on your (x)th birthday to tell you how glad I am that you were born.” I was with only one person as he read his letter so I do not know the exact reaction of each person but reports were that each letter was appreciated.

It does not take much to convey “I love you.” Hopefully, we say it every time we talk to our loved ones. A special letter or simple note written for Christmas 2010 could be an extra gift your family will cherish throughout the New Year.

TGIF: Scrumptious Writerly Tidbits

Despite what the newspaper circulars are screaming in bold type, there's still plenty of time (well, maybe not plenty, but enough) to stock up on fabulous books to give as gifts. Or keep them yourself, thinking ahead to those long winter evenings best spent with one's nose in a book. In any case, come out and support some local authors while you're out and about this weekend. Here's what's happening around the Inland Northwest literary scene:

On Friday, December 17, Jane Fritz will sign copies of her book Legendary Lake Pend Oreille at the Cedar Street Bridge Cafe in Sandpoint (corner of First and Cedar) from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (208-263-3573)

On Saturday, December 18, Patrick McManus will visit Auntie's Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave., Spokane, from 1:00-3:00 p.m. to sign copies of his books, including his latest, The Huckleberry Murders, and the paperback release of The Double-Jack Murders. (509-838-0206). Michael Marsden will sign copies of his book Sam d'Bear at Hastings in Coeur d'Alene, 101 Best Ave., from 1-4 p.m. (208-664-0464). And Carolyn Nunemaker, author of Spokane and the Inland Northwest During World War II, will appear from noon-3 p.m. at Hastings on Wellesley, 1704 W. Wellesley, Spokane (509-327-6008)

And here's something for anyone who enjoys a good tale. On Sunday, December 19, DiLuna's Cafe (208 Cedar, Sandpoint) will host A Christmas Storytelling Company, an evening of Christmas songs and stories to warm your heart and make you smile. The event begins with dinner at 5 p.m., followed by the show at 6 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults and $6 for kids under 12, plus the cost of dinner and beverages. For info or tickets, call 208-263-0846 or e-mail storytellingcompany@gmail.com.

Stay warm!