WRITERS' Journal Table of Contents
March/April 2004
Volume 25, Number 2

Columns

  2        .....Editor's Note

  4        .....Marketing Helps, Janet Elaine Smith
            Moving on to "Lurk Mode"

  5        .....Massaging the Muse, Lynne Pisano
            Slight or Not? That Is the Question

  6        .....Effective Screenwriting, by Jerry McGuire
            The Best of Times
            Time—something we can share, remember, forget, measure, skip, beat, and even ignore in life. However, in the movie business, we cannot waste time. Every second of a scene on the screen should be vital to the story, no matter what its length, ranging from the mere thirty seconds of a television commercial to a couple of hours for a theatre show.

 8        .....Photography Techniques, by Ronald D. Kness
            Shooting Nature in the Spring
            Spring is a wonderful time of year. Everything is so fresh and new. With the weather warming up, now is the perfect time to get out and start shooting nature. But first, let's cover some guidelines or rules-of-thumb before we start shooting:

10        .....Computer Business, by Robert Anthony
            Time to Write
            For freelancers and free-agent writers, the Internet has advanced a veritable freelance boon. The Internet, in fact, offers the intimacy, the diversity, and the attunement that will unite rural economies with the world's economic infrastructure. (That's how I get paid competitive New York rates for my writing, even though I live in the rural Midwest).

58        .....For Beginners Only, by Susan Miles
            E-zines—Valuable "Apprentice Markets" for Writers
            As a writer, I am a huge fan of e-zines. Not only have they offered me some of my early publishing successes, but also, most of what I have learnt about writing I have found from regularly visiting writers e-zines. Now that I live in a non-English speaking country, these sites are also a vital link to up-to-date- news and information on a variety of topics. Therefore, as both a writer of and a grateful recipient of these convenient communication links, I am disappointed when I hear fellow writers dismiss e-zines as second-class writing markets.

59        .....Words...Tools of Our Trade, by Betty Garton Ulrich
            Get It Right and I'll Stop Harping on It!
            I just read a manuscript in which the author thoroughly screwed up on the words "lie" and "lay." These are indeed tricky words, but that's no excuse for not getting them right. The bad thing is that this author used both words in different contexts and got them both wrong.

60       .....WRITERS' Journal Market Report, by Laurie Graziano
            Do you remember that old phrase used by coaches when they were training junior varsity teams? Every time the child with the worst throwing arm came up, he/she would hear, "You throw like a girl!" Now, of course, this was meant to add insult to injury and encourage the player to throw better next time. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.
                    Markets: Odyssey, American Careers Magazine, "I do"...For Brides, New York Stories, Schurman Fine Papers, Alive Magazine, Epoch, Dog Fancy, Nature Friend, The Chattahoochee Review, Country Woman, Breakaway Magazine, Spider Magazine, Shape Magazine, Blue Mountain Arts, Cowboys & Indians.

Feature Articles

12        .....Using Both Sides of the Brain to Create Fiction, by Dennis E. Hensley
            Part One
            Recently, I was studying the life of Leonardo Da Vinci. He was an artist, inventor, and scientist—not a writer—but his methods of thinking taught me several new ways to stimulate my creativity as a writer. Although he was right-handed, Da Vinci would sometimes draw circles and other shapes with his left hand in order to force both sides of his brain to coordinate their thinking efforts.

13        .....What's Your Punctuation Personality?, by Judy Wolfman
            Your Mark
            As writers, we're tuned in to everything mechanical—sentence and paragraph structure, capitalization, grammar, and punctuation.

15        .....Diary of a Writer, by Rose Flaherty
           Seven Days, Seven Ways of Procrastinating
            Monday
                    It's the first week of the new year, and I am going to kick my writer's block and jump-start my writing career. I know I can because I have a new book right here that tells me exactly what to do. Such good advice: Pen a thousand words per day. Certainly, I can find time to do that. I wonder how long it will take? I remember reading that a writer should spend at least three hours each day writing. Three hours or one thousand words—that's the formula I'll use.

16        .....Details! Details!, by Phylis Warady
            Success Lies in the Details!
            Successful authors of fiction take care to pick and choose pertinent details that either help make their chosen settings and characters more plausible and/or advance the plot.

20        .....Advice Overload?, by Genie Dickerson
            Where to Find the Best Writing Help
            It happens to all beginning writers eager to learn. A flood of advice hits them like the gushing from a broken water main. There's endless free advice from family and friends, such as, "We saw this real writer on television, and he said to...." There are magazines, some like this one, plus how-to-write books, Web sites, classes, conferences, clubs, and critique groups. For a price, professional critique services will evaluate manuscripts and recommend revisions.

21        .....Morning Pages, Day and Night, by 
            Writing Stuck? Start Any Time of Day
            Three shelves in my library are crammed with guaranteed-to-break-your-writer's-block books. All have a thick dust blanket, some have grown moss, and a few have put down roots.

24        .....The Yoga of Writing, by Jennifer Johnson
            Start with Where You Are Now
            As a yoga teacher and fitness coach, I can't tell you how many times I hear phrases like, "Oh, I can't do yoga. I'm not flexible enough," or, "I'm not ready to go to the gym. I want to lose some weight first." Seems there resides in our collective unconscious a deep-seated, often impeding sense of...well, pure, unadulterated inadequacy. It's this idea that you have to be someone other than who you are to start something new. Surely, if you only looked like or thought like or had the courage of someone else, only then could you scale the mountain of your goals and aspirations.

41        .....Special Symbols Improve Your Manuscript, by Gene Cabot
            Most Any Symbol—Just a Few Keystrokes Away
            Your manuscript's format could make an unfavorable impression on the editor. Anything that diverts attention from your message lessens its chance of being accepted for publication.

43        .....Writers' Notebook
            Storybase V2.0—Steven M. Cross
            The Right Words—Connon Barclay
            deFUNitions:—Karl Green

44        .....Ten Reasons Why Writing Groups Flounder, Fizzle, or Fail,                  by Kathy Briccetti
            Tips for Writing Group Success
            Has your writing group morphed into a coffee hour or book club? Did it fizzle out completely, and you're still not sure why? Or perhaps your current group is losing momentum. For any stage of a writing group's life, avoid these ten things to stay on track and remain productive:

Fiction

27        .....The Right Amount of Mayonnaise, by Mary Wolfe
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Fiction Contest

28        .....Hell's Weigh Station, by William E. Riley
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Horror/Ghost Contest

30        .....A Fitting End, by Frank Reynolds
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Short Story Contest

32        .....Island Storm, by Emily Berns
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Romance Contest

36        .....The Moonlight Runners, by Michael Kammer
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Horror/Ghost Contest

October 20, 2003 Write to Win! Winner

38        ....."He approached slowly...," by Roy D. Hall

Poetry

45        .....Every Day With Poetry, by Esther M. Leiper
            "J. R. Rolly: A Man for All Reasons"
            What could be more delightful than calling someone a true Renaissance man? Praise rightfully accords to a person who tries nearly everything and succeeds. Such an individual must possess broad intellectual and cultural interests encompassing a full spectrum of available knowledge; no sluggards need apply!

50        .....Esther Comments On..., Esther M. Leiper
            The Winners —August 2003 Poetry Contest
            Missed spellings continue to haunt contest entries, and if such errors make a poem appear unintentionally amusing or ludicrous, it's difficult to proceed in the serious mind frame desired of a judge. This is not a matter I intend to harp on; but it's offered as a mild reminder: Check your spelling, and if your skill is shaky, get a fresh eye to look over your work. Don't rely on a computer's spell-checker; it is a useful aid, but cannot distinguish, for instance, when to, too, two, or tu is meant. All of these spellings are correct, allowing that "tu" is the informal French noun for "you." But while each word is correct when used properly, they all have different meanings and are not interchangeable.

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