WRITERS' Journal Table of Contents
November/December 2004
Volume 25, Number 6

Columns

  2        .....Editor's Note

  4        .....Readers' P.O.V.

  5        .....Massaging the Muse, Lynne Pisano
            'Tis the Season

  6        .....Marketing Helps, Janet Elaine Smith
            Shall We Chat

  7        .....Effective Screenwriting, by Jerry McGuire
           Careful! Is Your Script Protected?
            Sorry, there is a serious business side of the script writing game. This does not mean your costs for new pencils, paper clips, a think-for-itself-computer, or a three-martini lunch. (Whew, the sacrifices we must make.)

 8       .....Photography Techniques, by Ronald D. Kness
           Using Filters with Digital Cameras
            Hands down, the most popular accessories for landscape photography, with 35 mm SLR film cameras, are filters. If you own a digital camera, your film camera filters may be gathering dust because you think you don't need them. Nothing could be further from the truth.

10       .....Computer Business, by Robert Anthony
           You Have E-mail
            Back in the old days—that is, the 1960s and '70s—large corporations and government institutions used mainframe computers for data storage and management.

46        .....Essay Writing Contests, by Dorothy J. Geiger
            November/December 2004, Essay Writing, 300 Words or Less; Targeting the Markets
            Can you write a compelling essay on why people need a hair transplant to change their looks or their life? Hair Loss Learning Centers are offering free transplant surgery. This offer is ongoing monthly  Contact: http://www.regrowhair.com.

55        .....For Beginners Only, by Anne Doyle
            How I Became a Columnist: A Passion Energized My Writing
            None of this was planned. Like all the easiest, and best, things in life, it grew organically. I'd been casting around for ages, it seemed, for some creative work to do. Everyone else seemed to have creative niches in this artist-rich city of Brighton, on the English south coast. There were painters, potters, jewelry makers, and craftspeople of every persuasion. Over the years I'd soaked up women's art courses, made mosaics, and studied photography. For one reason or another, I didn't make any headway once the courses were over.

56        .....Words...Tools of Our Trade, by Betty Garton Ulrich
            Think Before You Speak—or Write!
            Recently I came across some quotes, in separate places—but they seemed to tie in to each other. The first (found on the Internet) was by the writer John Andrew Holmes, who said, "Speech is conveniently located between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both." One could write an essay on that quote alone, But I was intrigued by the way it applies to us as writers. How often we write without preceding our words with sufficient thought.

58       .....WRITERS' Journal Market Report, by Laurie Graziano
            A favorite question asked of celebrities during interviews is: "What book have you recently read?" Usually, the answer reflects the field in which the actor works. Naturally, dramatic performers read novel and documentaries. Talk-show hosts inevitably cite best sellers. And comedians push the envelope with darker nonfiction. So, who is the best and the brightest? All or none!
                    Markets: Stumped, ePregnancy, Farm Collector, Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, Luxury Communities, Robb Report Vacation Homes, Modern Haiku, Analog Science Fiction And Fact, Creative Knitting, Homes of Color, Bead Unique, Woodworking For Women, Giant Robot.

Feature Articles

13        .....Three Tips for Publishing Your Life Experiences, by Isabel Viana
            How to Write Essays
            If you're interested in turning your personal experiences into published pieces, I encourage you to consider the following three tips when crafting your personal essays:

15        .....Various Questions, by Keisha L. Burton
            Answered
            What advice can you offer on breaking into the lucrative business of ghostwriting?

19        .....Developing Flesh-and-Blood Characters, by Damian McNicholl
           A Few Pointers
            As writers, we've all been there. We've all picked up a book, delved excitedly into the initial chapters, and then been appalled at the feeble characterization or, worse, encountered the same blue-eyed beauty with large breasts, or medium-framed guy with dark, receding hair whom we met a few months ago in a previous work.

20        .....Improving Your Screenplay Dialogue, by Dennis E. Hensley
            Eight Steps to Better Dialogue
            Dialogue in screenplays has three basic purposes: It can move the action forward; it can provide background information about a situation or central character (back story); or it can help reveal a character's personality, concerns, and goals.

21        .....Magazine Freelancing in the 21st Century, by Keely Helgason
            How Two Successful Writers Broke into the Market and Built Successful Careers
            Freelance magazine journalism is not a place where stars are born. It is a rare day when someone actually reads the byline of an article and remembers the writer as a creator of fine art. Editors are hailed as geniuses; magazines sell based on their titles alone; but it is the writers behind those magazines who make them successful.

41        .....What Salespeople Know that Writers Should, by Kim Zachman
            Nine Sales Principles to Boost Publication
            The most valuable ideas and the most beautiful words will end up in the trash if not sold to a publication and printed for the public to read. How many times have you read something and thought, "I could write better than that"? And you probably could—but you didn't sell as well as that writer did. Just as there is no substitute for quality writing, there's no substitute for marketing skills if you want to be successful. 

42        .....Writers' Notebook
            Cartoon, by Henry Boye
            Favorites: www.authorlink.com , www.writersbookcase.com , www.mediaresource.org
            The "Write" Diagnosis, by Patricia F. D'Ascoli
            He Is Not They, by Mark Landsbaum

44        .....Travel Writing, by Susan Miles
            So How Exactly Do You Organize Sponsored Travel?
            My favorite television program is a quaint English comedy about separated young lovers reunited n their later years. While the two leads are brilliant and their interaction charming to watch, it is one of the supporting characters that grabs my attention.

Fiction

May 2004 Short Story Winners:

27        .....Roadkill, by Timothy Charles Smith
            First Prize Winner of 2004 Short Story Contest

28        .....The Apothecary, by Frank Reynolds
            Second Prize Winner of 2004 Short Story Contest

30        .....Amazing Grace, by Mary Wolfe
            Third Prize Winner of 2004 Short Story Contest

More Fiction

32        .....The Bottle, by Bob Brown
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Horror/Ghost Contest

36        .....Love's Way Home, by Renee Hampton
            Honorable Mention Winner of 2003 Romance Contest

June 20, 2004 Write to Win! Winner

38        ....."Charlie's Revenge"—The spit ball whizzed...," by John S. Pena

Poetry

47        .....Every Day With Poetry, by Esther M. Leiper
            "Concrete or Con Job; Shipshape or Slipshod"
            Poet Norma Sundberg tells an amazing anecdote from her experience teaching poetry to children at the College For Kits at Kent State University:

52        .....Esther Comments On..., by Esther M. Leiper
            The Winners—April 2004 Poetry Contest
            Fourteen lines are presented in "Enter: Qwerty," our First Prize Winner, by Daniel Berlin, and the poem instantly poses a rhetorical question: Who can Qwerty be if he's smoking cigarettes in the woods in the (presumably) present day and yet has also gazed at Egyptian pyramids in the distant past while "babbling towers" fell? (Babylon's tower of Babel, presumably?) Does he represent "Everyman"—the hoping, doubting human who attempts to find ultimate truth even as he doubts that he can?