A Fun Writing Excercise

 

We thought it might be fun to take a break

 this week and do a writing exercise.

Here are 3 words. All you have to do is choose one of the words to begin your paragraph and then use the other two words somewhere in the paragraph. Make it a short paragraph in the comment section.

Don't be shy. It's fun! 

Which word will be used the most to begin the paragraph?

What Has Happened To Your Writing During the Pandemic?

Susan Reichert

I would think every person on the planet has heard about the pandemic.

It has conjured up fear in millions of people, cost the lives and lively hood of many.

Yet, as with in times past, we have to remember we will get throuigh this.

Maybe things will be somewhat different than before, but we will see the light at the
end of the tunnel, as they say.

I pray during these times, if your children still live at home, that you have reacquainted yourself with your spouse and children. It is such a blessing to have family.

Sometimes we go at such a fast pace, we don't slow down to enjoy what we have.

When this is over, I hope all of us remember, how special our families and friends are and make concerted efforts to spend quality time with them.

It can be a lonely life without family or friends. While we have them let us show them how much we love them and how much they mean to us.

If your children are grown, like mine; call them, text them, zoom them, but make efforts to talk several times during the week. Don't lose touch. When all is said and done, they matter the most.

During this time, have you found yourself putting off your writing? Or have you spent more time creating and developing a new book?

There are many things we can write about, especially right now. Who knows, you just might pen the next best-selling book of all time.

May God bless each of you and your families.

Retired Editor-in-Chief of Southern Writers Magazine. Facilitator of Collierville Christian Writers Group, President of Southern Writers Author's Services, Gallery of Stars, and Suite T. Author of Storms in Life and soon to be released book, God's Prayer Power.

                                                

To Write or Not to Write

Anderson Harp       @AuthorAHarp Anderson Harp   

International Thriller Author

My friend David Morrell’s book on writing, Lessons From A Lifetime of Writing, has a most interesting anecdotal story. Morrell wrote First Blood which created a character you may have heard of -  John Rambo. The story is very much a Greek epic of the reluctant hero being pulled into a journey. Anyway, he spoke of the comedian Jerry Lewis who decided one day to teach a class in comedy at the University of Southern California. Of course, the applications rolled in. It was intended to be a small class. So, to narrow it down, Lewis asked the simple question of “Why do you want to be a comedian?” Of the many answers he got back, there was only one right one. It was simply “Because I have to.”  It has to be in your blood.

David and I had the great pleasure of doing a USO Tour in the Persian Gulf some time ago. A USO tour is not a bed of roses. Between transportation and visits at several bases, most days lasted twenty hours. But the troops truly were thrilled to have visitors. Many of the soldiers expressed their interests in writing and hopefully we encouraged that endeavor.

Our message was an encouragement of writing whether by a novel, short story or diary. Many of our greatest writers wrote short stories. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Flannery O’Conner, and Anton Chekhov were some of the many short story writers. And writing also helps you in your reading. Where one toils over the creation of an opening sentence, particularly after many re-writes, you learn appreciation from a Leo Tolstoy.

          After your first book is published, you enter a different world. Why does anyone want to put their soul on the line? Don’t look at the reviews. Ronald Reagan was happy to get fifty-point-seven percent of the votes. And it was called a landslide. A friend who took the liberty of being particularly harsh on one of my books was told by me in speaking about the book that “you do realize that you are speaking about my child?”  These books are our children. I can take it. A reviewer’s constructive criticism is always welcome. However, one Amazon reviewer who gave me three stars gave To Kill A Mockingbird two stars. I guess that is a very high compliment, but those looking at Amazon would not know what high company I was in. But writing has to provide the thrill of putting together a tight and elusive plot that makes a turn at the end that the reader doesn’t see coming. It is the challenge of building a character that has you in tears as the character struggles with some conflict. Once the manuscript is finished, it just begins. Edits, re-edits, spelling checks, marketing, social media, and much more. But it has such a reward.

          I was in a local store with my wife and as we were leaving the owner stopped me. She asked if I was the one who wrote this novel. I said yes, I did.

She said that her father who had just died of cancer went through months of painful chemotherapy. “The only thing that took his mind off of all of that was reading your book.”

          Jerry Lewis was right. You just got to do it.

Anderson Harp is the author of international thrillers that have been compared to “Tom Clancy at his finest!” (New York Times bestselling author James Rollins). His military experience informs his fiction, earning him high praise (“authentic … exciting … timely … believable” (New York Times bestselling author David Morrell, creator of John Rambo). Anderson’s “breakneck pacing” and suspense satisfy “even the most demanding reader” (New York Times bestselling author Douglas Preston). His fans rave that his “keenly insightful military thriller compares to Robert Ludlum’s trilogy about CIA assassin Jason Bourne” (www.militarywriters.com).

Anderson has served the United States Marine Corps in many capacities, from artillery to teaching mountain warfare and arctic survival. Harp’s military work has taken him from the Arctic Circle and Fort Greely, Alaska, (where a typical day reaches 44 below zero), to the Persian Gulf, Central America, Europe, South Korea, and the Pentagon. As an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve, he was mobilized for Operation Enduring Freedom and served with MarCent’s Crisis Action Team. He has attended the Iowa Writers Workshop’s Summer Festival on many occasions and has a Masters in Fine Arts in Literary Fiction. He has also taught writing at workshops and published works in the medical field.

Anderson was the spearhead for the International Thriller Writer’s acclaimed “Operation Thriller.” Harp chaired and participated in the first USO author’s tour in its seventy-year history, which took fellow thriller writers and Anderson to meet troops in Iraq and Kuwait. He also was a member of the 2012 Operation Thriller Tour with tourmates Michael Connelly, Brad Meltzer, Joseph Finder and Kathy Antrim. He is one of only two authors in the history of the USO to attend multiple tours. All of the Operation Thrillers to date have gone into hazardous duty locations to include the Persian Gulf and other undisclosed locations.

Much like his fictional hero Parker, Anderson is a pilot, has skied in Aspen, Kitzbuhel, and Killington, run marathons, climbed Mount Fuji, scuba-dived wrecks, and hunted in South America. He was a national-level runner in college at American University.

Harp lives in Columbus, Georgia, home of Fort Benning. He and his wife, Jane have four children.

 Author.andersonharp@gmail.com

  www.andersonharp.net

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 @AuthorAHarp                                         

Follow Your Dream (Part 2)

Larry B. Gildersleeve   @LarryBGAuthor
Christian and Inspirational

Part 2 (Part 1 April 21)

The familiarity of Bowling Green from my high school and university years easily enabled my home town to become the setting for all of my novels, either partially or entirely. Certainly not unique, many of my imaginary characters have a basis in people I’ve known over the years. One example. A character in my first two books is Kentucky’s Chief Justice. The character’s fabric is based upon my late father, who was not a lawyer, and my understanding of the work of a person in such a position came from our current chief justice who has been a friend since my college days.

Hearing Ann Patchett speak brought so much into focus for me. She said that while there is no one formula for success, worth considering is that most books are purchased and read by women. She went on to say that writing books about women, for women, with strong women characters not defined by nor dependent upon men, and a happy ending, would be worth considering. I didn’t just consider, I embraced all of it.

I know when I begin how my book will end, and work backward to create a chapter-by-chapter outline of the story and the arcs of my characters. My style has been carefully evolved into short, fast-paced, dialogue-driven chapters with page-turning endings to draw the reader onward to the next chapter. My first two books each had over fifteen named characters. My third and future novels will only have four or five.

I write in the Christian and Inspirational genres. Regarding story ideas, Follow Your Dreams was inspired by my lifelong commitment to journaling, and The Girl on the Bench touches upon the travesty and tragedy of human sex trafficking. The novel I’m currently writing has a character beset by early-onset Alzheimer’s, an illness that disproportionately plagues women over men.

I read once that “Vision without discipline is a just a dream.”

With that in mind, I discipline myself to invest substantial time and effort six days a week – writing, publishing and marketing. I’ve gone well beyond the 10,000 hours, and regard this pursuit as a journey, not a destination I’ll ever reach.

Now that I’m a thrice-published author, albeit self-published, my dream is to cross the threshold to become a legitimate bestselling author. As my female protagonist says in Follow Your Dreams:

“Dreams never come true for those who never dream.” 

Larry B. Gildersleeve is a father of two and grandfather of four who turned to writing after a four-decade career as a corporate executive. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky with Kathleen, his wife of 30 years. www.larrygildersleeve.com

Follow Your Dreams (Part 1)

Larry B. Gildersleeve   @LarryBGAuthor

Christian and Inspirational Fiction

There’s no way of knowing how many people dream of being a published author. What we do know is that relatively few invest the time and resources to see the dream through to fruition. That was almost me.

Compositions I wrote in high school English classes received A’s. I know because I saved them to inspire me to one day try to become a published author. My mother, the town’s librarian, encouraged me to pursue that dream after university graduation. I didn’t, succumbing instead to the lure of corporate America.

But over the years, as I moved from the East coast to the West, and travelled around the world, I filled journals with story ideas and character descriptions, saving them for the day when writing would become a priority in my life. It took almost forty-five years, and happened when I wound down my late-career entrepreneurial ventures and returned home from Seattle to Bowling Green, Kentucky. The lessened business demands, the slower pace of life and the welcoming feeling extended by new friends and old created an environment that sparked my desire to finally begin to write in earnest.

I didn’t just ease into a comfortable chair in front of a keyboard, rather I attacked my new profession with an all-in commitment. I had read it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours to become truly proficient, but not necessarily successful, at a new endeavor, be it a different career direction or playing golf. Or becoming a novelist.

I invested a lot of time and quite a bit of money studying my new craft. I purchased more “how to” books than I care to recall, and studied a variety of resources available online. I attended a few writing conferences and seminars, but departed more disappointed than fulfilled. The kindling to get the fire burning happened when, on a referral from an author friend in Seattle, I engaged a wonderful writing coach/editor in California – Lynda McDaniel – who was a successful author and journalist in her own right.

Lynda and I have never met. She taught me to write fiction through the exchange of countless iterations of the manuscripts for my first three novels, and she will be receiving the first draft of my fourth in June. Since I began in 2015, I’ve been creating my own MFA program in a Word document in which I record the best thinking and most useful guidance I’ve encountered about the craft of writing, and I will happily share it with anyone.

My first novel, Dancing Alone Without Music, came to life with KDP in 2016. The sequel, aptly named Follow Your Dreams, was a 2018 KDP release. Sales of both have been underwhelming because (I hope) I still haven’t figured out how to effectively market self-published books online. But I’m investing a lot of time trying to figure it out. My third novel, The Girl on the Bench, was published by Book Locker and released in late 2019.

Larry B. Gildersleeve is a father of two and grandfather of four who turned to writing after a four-decade career as a corporate executive. He lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky with Kathleen, his wife of 30 years. www.larrygildersleeve.com

Use Each Day~Make It Count

Susan Reichert    @SouthrnWritrMag

Editor-in-Chief Southern Writers

With everyone having to stay in their homes, our attitudes are the things most of us are having to monitor.

As I told my children (who are grown) we can decide each day to use our day and make it count or we can complain and gripe. Staying in a good frame of mind is important––physically, mentally, emotionally and spirtually, for all of us.

I pray God, through His grace, will bring all of us through this better than we were when it started.

For writers we have the opportunity while this is going on to write a new story, or finish one we
have been working on.

There are many things as a writer we can do during the days we are home. I am hoping I will be able to finish some projects I have put off for a long time. It gives me a sense of accomplishment each time I get one completed.

And I get to spend more time with my family which I am grateful for thanks to Zoom. Since we don't live close we use this to visit. It is very comforting.

So many things we take for granite––like being able to run up to the grocery store and grab a four pack of toilet paper, paper towels, milk and bread. Now we only go once a week, and seeing the shelves bare is mind boggling.

During this time let us pray for one another, keep good thoughts, and make each day count in our own way.

God Bless!

A Healthier Mindset for Social Media (Part 2)

Edie Melson    @EdieMelson

Social Media Director for Southern Writers Suite T

My worth is not determined by my numbers.

For me, the blog posts that mean the most are rarely the ones that generate the highest numbers. The ones that mean the most are those that help someone, that connect the dots for an individual who’s hurting or help someone who’s frustrated finally see the light. It’s when I pen those words that I feel true satisfaction in my calling.

So how do I avoid the numbers race? I’ve come up with a few things to keep me on track.

• I quit talking about myself on social media—completely. Instead I work hard to help someone else succeed or reach a new level. This takes my focus off me.

• I volunteer. I offer to write an article or blog post for someone who doesn’t have the same size audience as me.

• I issue an invitation. I ask someone who doesn’t have as much experience and/or exposure to contribute to my blog. 

• I watch the clock. I limit my time on social media to a strict thirty minutes a day. With that, I don’t have time to obsess over my numbers.

• I reveal something new about myself. I know this seems like the opposite of the first bullet, but it's not. I'm talking about being vulnerable, not saying come look at me. I've discovered that I make those important heart-to-heart connections when I open up and I'm vulnerable. When I revert to slick slogans and polished posts, I'm just hiding.

Even when I follow my own advice, there are times when the people I’ve invested in move on. They may stop following me on social media and/or unsubscribe from my blog. How do I deal with the disappointment that inevitably follows?

• I remember it’s not about me. My first thought is always to wonder what I’ve done wrong. Truthfully, I can only think of a few instances when it’s really been something I did. On the few times when I’ve contacted someone to ask why they’ve moved on, I’ve learned that their focus has changed.
• I remind myself that we all have limited time. Perhaps the person leaving is reprioritizing, and for that I’m glad. We’re all trying to do too much. I applaud anyone taking steps to get control of life.

• Finally, I take time to pray for the person who left. I ask God to bless them and to let me know if there’s anything I need to readjust.

Social media is an important part of our toolbox as twenty-first century wordsmiths, but it’s not the focus of what we do. It’s so easy to get caught up in the race to the highest numbers and forget why we’re doing it. This media driven world we live in ebbs and flows. One second we’re on top, the next at the bottom of the pile. When we measure our worth through charts and graphs generated by numbers, we’re certain to fail. But when we look at the lives that are impacted by our words, success is guaranteed.

 TWEETABLE

A Healthier Mindset for Social Media @EdieMelson @southernwritersmag

Edie Melson is the author of numerous books, including the bestseller Connections: Social Media and Networking Techniques for Writers.

She’s the co-director of the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, Social Media Director of Southern Writers Magazine and board Member of the Advanced Writers and Speaker Association.

Visit Edie on www.EdieMelson.com and through social media.

A Healthier Mindset for Social Media (Part 1)

Edie Melson    @EdieMelson

Social Media Director for Southern Writers Suite T

As writers, we all know the importance of building an online following. We spend time crafting valuable blog posts with SEO rich headlines. We follow others on social media, working to connect. All the while keeping a sharp eye on those numbers that define success or failure. It’s easy to get caught up in those numbers.

But the truth is, they’re people—NOT numbers!

We even begin to judge the worth of what we have to say by those numbers. Let me remind you why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why you sweat over a keyboard, struggling to find the right word. Why you risk rejection by submitting those carefully crafted words to editors, agents and contest judges.

PERSONAL STUDY LED TO COMBAT! (Part I)

Dennis L.Peterson  

Independent Author, Historian and Editor

             Writers get ideas for their work from a variety of sources, including overheard conversations, watching children at play (or adults arguing), commonplace events in the routines of daily life, and even their own fertile imaginations. The idea that led to the book Combat! Spiritual Lessons from Military History came from the intersection of the personal study of my two favorite subjects, the Bible and military history.

            While reading during a period of several months a few books on military strategy and tactics used during World War II, I began to realize that in many ways what I was reading dovetailed with what I was reading in the Bible. Desiring to share what I was learning; I began to organize various points for what I thought might grow into an article. Over time, however, as I continued to read and study the subjects, I realized that such writing would involve something much longer and more detailed than a mere article. It might even develop into a book!

The Defense of Poetry

Sara Robinson  @facebook

Are we responsible for making poetry matter? How do we prove or defend the idea that poetry can make a difference? How will our lines influence society in general, our own lives, or even the conservation of nature? Do we use poetry to expose a morality of bad taste?

What about the use of hyperbole to create a defense of poetry? It could be noted that the use of extreme exaggeration, in a line, to make a point could risk overwhelming the entire poem. Or does the entire poem work as hyperbole?

How can we find a balance as part of our defense of poetry? Author Michael Robbins, in his new book, Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music (Simon & Schuster) stated, “No one has ever changed his life because of a poem or song…” Really?  Why do I find that hard to accept? On a personal note, a young woman heard me read my poem, “A Poem Written As Scars,” came up to me and said my poem changed her life. Later in the same book, [Robbins] also says, “There is no limit to what a poem can’t do…poetry makes all sorts of things happen.” These statements add to the confusion of how best to defend poetry.

Poets, since the beginning of the genre itself, have used its form to confront grief, describe horrors of war, starvation, and suicide. We have learned about the complexities of human lives through poetry. Witness Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. The tragedies of mental illness, for example, are laid bear with these and others. Poetry provides insight and intimacy without which we might not understand how precious life is.

Poetry has emboldened people to reveal mental turmoil, has given us the heartland of America, and has enlightened us.  Poetry may not give any one person everything or every answer. Humans are too individual for universal acceptance. But what would we have, if we didn’t have poetry?

I often say at readings, “While poetry is mostly fiction, it always states great truths.”

For many poetry is more accessible than philosophy and in this access people gain their sense of worth, even as why they are even here. When we read poetry about the wonders of nature, the sentiments of love, and the sadness of death, we share the experience with the writer. We also gain the sense of hope. Perhaps that one sense is the most important gift of poetry. Hope.

Poetry can be experienced alone or in public. Tea-sippers and whisky enthusiasts can appreciate poetry. When we share poetry at gatherings connections are formed that add to the value of the human experience.  Poetry can help us fall asleep or it can keep us awake and energized into action. We may not “binge-read” poetry, but I can show you books I could not put down until I finished. That’s another defense: poetry books are typically less than 100 pages, easier to complete at a sitting and easier to pick up for repeat readings. It is easier to carry a poetry book in one’s purse than a novel!

Even single lines can be poetry. How marvelous is that? Think about this line:

“I fix upon what would give me pleasure in my average moments…” (Marianne Moore)

When we read poetry in our average and spare moments, we can gain pleasure.

Who doesn’t love Mary Oliver? Here is a three line stanza from her poem, Landscape, that I believe is so powerful: “Every morning I walk like this around / the pond, thinking: if the doors of my heart / ever close, I am as good as dead.” What an incredible validation of how our own personal openness can enrich our lives.

Louis Menand, in a review titled, “The Defense of Poetry,” for The New Yorker magazine, wrote, “When the going gets stressful, the stressed want poems.”

Amen to that.

 Author of Sometimes the Little Town (her fifth book and fourth poetry collection), is founder of Lonesome Mountain Pros(e) Writers’ Workshop, former UVA-OLLI instructor on Contemporary Poetry, and poetry columnist for Southern Writers’ Magazine. Published in journals and anthologies, she is a former Virginia Writers’ Club and Blue Ridge Writer’s Chapter officer.  Her most recent book, Needville has now been turned into a play.

Her website is www.saramrobinson.com

Focus on the Message

By Susan Reichert, @swmeditor

      Editor-in-Chief Southern Writers

From Pinterest

Many of us focus on “we must be writing”. While that is true, we would do better to focus on the message we want to write. (The Story.)

We know our writing needs to be interesting, whether fiction or non-fiction. How do we accomplish this? By choosing the right words.

 Mark Twain said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

He also said, “Use the right word, not its second cousin.”

Writing, What’s the Rush?

By Lynda McDaniel

Last October, while I worked on final edits of my latest book, the Northern California fires swept through my hometown. I was lucky. My home didn’t burn—but my concentration was shot. Somehow, a dangling participle or misplaced modifier just didn’t matter.

To get back in the groove, I decided to take it easier and edit only one chapter a day. That worked so well, I plan to use it from now on. The slow pace helped me zero in on every sentence, and I caught way more inconsistencies, repetitions, and errors (and a misplaced modifier or two!). I found my brain didn’t get lazy with its “yeah, yeah, I’ve read this a million times” attitude.

It’s a slow technique, but, hey, it takes time to write well. I’ve been known to say that bad writers just stopped too soon. Keep at it, and the writing just gets better and better.

So why do I see so much emphasis on speed these days?

If your inbox is like mine, it’s chocked full of tips on how to write a book in a weekend—or a day! Or how to get my books out before someone beats me to the punch, as though my creative ideas are so fragile, so like everyone else’s, I’d better hurry before I’m outfoxed.

I thought my job was to publish the best writing I could.

And, of course, writers are an impatient lot. We’re eager to see our words in print. We work hard and get tired. Before you know it, we cave. It’s good enough, we tell ourselves, dismissing the power of the 10^th (or dare I say 20^th?) edit.

Instead, we need to ignore the inner and outer chatter and stop. Stop writing. Stop editing. Walk the dog. Watch a movie. Throw a party. When we’re not writing, our stories will tell us what they need. They’ll send us messages that are impossible to hear through all the noise, but come through loud and clear when we slow down.

Recently, I received such a message while taking a break: Writing and storytelling are two very different skills. Capturing ideas and developing dialogue and denouement are only step one. Step two is crafting a great story. Once all those words find their place on the page, make sure they coalesce into a story that: 1) grabs readers from the get-go, 2) develops conflict and complications, 3) resolves them, and 4) offers a satisfying ending. (By the way, that last point doesn’t mean everything is tied up neatly. As the late Sam Shepard wrote, “The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning.”)

The writing process is just that—a process. It’s not write-edit-publish. Rather, it’s more like write, rest, write, stroll, edit, play, edit, listen, and edit some more.

Sure, all those steps take time, but, hey, what’s the rush?

__________________________________________________________________ 

Lynda McDaniel’s writing career started at the end of a gravel driveway lined with tall pines and sun-dappled daffodils. Although it was more than 30 years ago, she says, “I still recall that day with the fiercest clarity: walking up to the massive oak door with a hand-forged handle, tugging on its surprising weight, and entering a world of art and craft, music and writing. I was visiting the Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, where I got a job writing newsletters and press releases, articles and ads. Once I saw my first published article, I was hooked. I haven’t stopped writing since.​ “I’ve gone on to write more than 1,200 articles for major magazines, hundreds of newsletters, and dozens of blogs. I'm proudest of the 17 books I’ve written, including my Appalachian Mountain Mysteries trilogy: A Life for a Life, The Roads to Damascus, and soon-to-be-published Welcome the Little Children.  ​“Other books include Words at Work, which I wrote straight from my heart, a much-needed response to all the questions and concerns people have about writing today. (It won top honors from the National Best Books Awards.) Since then, I’ve written two Amazon Bestselling Books: How Not to Sound Stupid When You Write and Write Your Book Now! (with Virginia McCullough). Since I moved to California 10 years ago, I've also enjoyed serving as a writing coach to clients who wanted to write their own books.” WEBSITE:  www.lyndamcdanielbooks.comBLOG: www.lyndamcdanielbooks.com/blog  SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/lynda.mcdaniel.908 LINKEDIN  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndamcdaniel/TWITTER https://twitter.com/WordWardrobe

Writing, Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

Memphis has had the hottest weather of the year this week. Heat is oppressive and drives everyone inside to seek air conditioned rooms. This was true on Monday night when I tuned into the Republican National Convention. I normally pass on viewing the antics of both political party's conventions. I've been there done that and have several t-shirts, pins and hats. However, after watching the RNC candidate enter to the Queen song, "We are the Champions," I was intrigued. Via the New York Daily article, rock band, Queen was not and issued the following statement, "Queen does not want its music associated with any mainstream or political debate in any country." Minutes after Melania Trump's speech, social and news media turned hotter than Memphis weather.  

This is not a political blog post. It is about authors, plagiarism and copyright infringement. As an author, plagiarism and copyright infringement is a serious charge and can land you in a courtroom for years. In today's technological atmosphere, it is just too easy to check if your words are yours. At plagiarism checker you can easily find interesting articles about plagiarism and copyright infringement. This site has two free printables you can share with other authors and writing groups. 

Starting in middle school, students are required to turn their work in to turnitin.com. If your work is deemed plagiarized, a student can find themselves suspended from school. A high school and college student could be expelled for plagiarism or not citing sources within a paper. Students learn early that their writing should be their writing, period. 

Do you remember the 1989 Academy Awards where the opening was a Snow White theme song and dance number/skit? The Academy was sued for use of Snow White by Disney who held the rights.  In March 1989, Frank Wells, Disney's president and chief operating officer, said at the time, "we have great respect for the academy and for all that it does, we were therefore greatly surprised and dismayed when we viewed last evening's Academy Awards ceremonies to see that our Snow White character had been used extensively without our permission." 

As an author, excluding the obvious legal ramifications, I want the satisfaction of being a success with my own words not using someone else's. How about you?

Writing, Procrastination and Agatha Christie

By Annette Cole Mastron, Communications Director for Southern Writers Magazine

“Write even if you don’t want to, don’t much like what you are writing, and aren’t writing particularly well.” -Agatha Christie 

Dame Agatha said a mouthful in that statement. My issue is never that I can't write. I'm mentally knocking on my head because thankful I've never had writer's block. My issue is procrastination.

How about you, can you identify?

I write better under a deadline. A good thing since I'm always on a deadline with my job at Southern Writers Magazine but throw in a couple of independent writing projects and life, well my procrastination seems to kick into overdrive. For me it works as a huge motivation to get super focused. 

First, I block out time to accomplish the writing goal. That means no chores or distractions. If you write to music by all means put it on. For this project, I popped in a familiar Miss Marple movie for inspiration.

Second, fight the edit gnome in you on the first draft. Get the words on paper then and only then edit. 

Third, block enough time to edit on a different day that you write your first draft. Fresh eyes find all the edits needed. 

Fourth, once edited have courage and hit the send button. 

In words borrowed from J. K. Rowling, "Mischief Managed."

You may be curious my project was a short story of 1800 words for an anthology book. The working title "Dinner With..." I blocked out this past Sunday afternoon and wrote my story, 3500 words. I purposely overwrote the story so the 2nd draft had plenty of room for reduction of words that come with most edits. 

My fictitious dinner subject is with Agatha Christie. She wrote over 88 mystery novels. She remains the most successful mystery writer of all time. 

Who wouldn't want to have dinner with the Dame of best selling Mysteries?  

What Writers Regret

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


By the time the mag celebrates its 3rd anniversary in July, we will have had the pleasure of featuring over 600 authors in Southern Writers Magazine.  All have published at least one book, some have as many as 50 or more (I think those authors deserve to have a statue made of them).  If you add up all the books by all these authors—and of course, 600 is just the tip of the literary iceberg—we're talking thousands of books by these excellent wordsmiths.

One question we often ask during interviews is, If you could change anything in your writing career, what would it be? And this is the answer we've received hundreds of times:

I wish I'd started writing sooner.

This regret is echoed by writers of all ages, not just the ones who followed their inner Dickens after retirement.  The thrill of having publishing dreams come true at 25 is no less exciting than at 75.  And the bottom line is, no matter when they do it, they regret not having started sooner.

What does this oft-repeated sentiment tell us?  That authors who have experienced the joys and the struggles of committing to their craft have discovered it to be a rewarding enough undertaking that they only wish they could have had more of it in their lives.

How much greater regret will be felt by the many would-be writers who always knew they had a book in them, but never made the time to write the first chapter?

When you're writing, you're 100% more productive than every other writer who isn't writing.  I don't know who said that first, but I'll give credit to Annie K., from whom I heard it first.  (I encourage you to visit Annie K.'s awesomely motivating blog post on the 50 Reasons You Should Be Writing Right Now.)

For any of us who feel the urge to write, it's an essential part of our nature and something that will never be satisfied until it's fulfilled.  Whether we put our everything into it now, or put it off for some distant future, the day will come when we say, "I wish I'd started writing sooner."

One thing's for certain. You will never say, "I wish I hadn't become a writer."