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WRITERS' Journal
Table of Contents
May/June 2007
Volume 28, Number 3
.....Editor's Note,
by Leon Ogroske
Christina Hamlett was able to get an interview for us with director Kevin
Macdonald of the award winning The Last King of Scotland movie. Read this
revealing column on page 8.
We have some good information for marketing your writing in this issue. You
may be surprised at the work available to you if people only knew about your
skills. Sonya Carmichael Jones will explain how writers can market themselves in
her "Get Customers, Get Sales" article on page 41.
On page 46, Patricia L. Fry tells how regional magazines are treasure-troves
for writers. It seems as though regional magazines spring up frequently. Some
are short-lived, while others are as old as the cities from which they reign.
Don’t pass up this lucrative market for your writing.
Sometimes it is difficult to put yourself in the minds of young readers and
know what will make them eager to read on. You need to create suspense. Suzanna
E. Henshon, on page 56, offers a few ideas on how you might accomplish this in
your writing.
Do you need a killer as a character in your story? If you find it hard to
come up with a believable murderer, Evelyn M. Seranne, on page 48 has just the
formula.
While editing this publication we came across some very interesting writers’
errors. Test yourself with our quiz on page 42.
You don’t have to travel thousands of miles in order to write a travel
article; you can write about local events and places. Most people don’t travel
overseas. Some of you may not even travel out of your home state. Remember the
old adage: write what you know. Write about local places of interest that you
think readers may like to visit. Your chance of being recognized in our Travel
Writing contest is good because the number of contest entries has been rather
low. Give travel writing a try. You may be amazed at how easy it is to tell
others about a backyard getaway.
If you do travel this summer, jot down some notes you can use to create that
winning travel article or story. Are you going camping? Tell other campers about
your newfound remote campsite. Are you the sightseeing type? Where did you go?
What did you see? Write up a description about your destination, give it your
best writer’s flair, and enter it in the 2007 Travel Writing contest. Then
take that same piece and submit it to one of your regional publications. Readers
are always eager to learn of new and interesting places to visit.
Leon Ogroske, editor
Columns
4 .....Readers'
P.O.V.
5 .....Massaging the Muse, Lynne Pisano
Three's
Company
6 .....Marketing Helps, Janet Elaine Smith
Bring Your
Characters to Life
7 .....Vocabulary
Review, Carolyn Howard-Johnson
Decks
8 .....Effective Screenwriting,
by
Christina Hamlett
Through a Lens
Darkly: From "Real" to "Reel" with The Last King of
Scotland
"No
man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good
he seeks."—Mary Wollstonecraft. Though she didn't live to see her
namesake daughter write Frankenstein, Wollstonecraft's quote lends itself
well to this month's spotlight on the soul of a villain and the consequences
that transpire when monstrous ambition gets out of hand....
11 .....Photography Techniques, by Ronald D. Kness
Shooting
Marketable Travel Photos
Today
we are going to look at some tools and techniques that, when used, will
considerably improve your travel photos. Marketable travel photos aren't
necessarily the product of which type of camera you use or how expensive it
might have been, since many of the point-and-shoot cameras take very good
images. It is more about how you compose the image than anything else....
56 .....For
Beginners Only, by Suzanna E. Henshon
What Happens
Next? Suspense in Children's Fiction
Ask
children why they like a book, and they'll probably say they couldn't stop
reading it. The story line drew them in, and they brought it to soccer practice
and homeroom class. They neglected their homework because they had to find out
what happened to Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005)....
57 .....Words...Tools of Our Trade,
by Betty Garton Ulrich
Brevity Is the
Soul of Wit—and of Good Writing
One
flaw that often besets beginning (and often more advanced) writers is that of
verbosity: too many words!....
61 .....WRITERS'
Journal Market Report, by
Laurie Graziano
May/June 2007 Market Report
And, Heather Ray of n good health
The
n media group provides a wide array of specialty magazines for interested
readers and writers. Many of the titles are theme-related and focus on the
southwest Florida area. This part of the state includes many of the sixty-seven
counties Floridians enjoy for both work and recereation....
Markets: n good health, nvestments, n magazine,
Golfing Naples & Southwest Florida, Southern Boating, Betty & Veronica,
Hobby Farms, Magical Blend, True West, Western Interiors & Design.
Feature Articles
13
.....Writing-Management Systems, by Don Merrill
Getting
Organized
Writing
is my passion. Management of that writing is not. I may be brimming with ideas
for articles, but the organization of my writing, from inspiration to invoices,
looks a lot like my sock drawer....
16
.....Travel Writing Questions and Answers, by Susan Miles
Practical
Answers to Your Travel Writing Dilemmas
I
am inspired to write this article to capture the wonderful questions on travel
writing that have recently landed in my inbox. They have come from both aspiring
amateurs and experienced professionals, covering many and varied aspects of this
enticing nonfiction genre....
20
.....Are You Writing Yourself to Injury?, by Aidan Lucid
There's a
Right Way to Write
You're
hunched over the keyboard, typing furiously for one hour without any break.
"Just one more line," you keep telling yourself; and then that one
more line becomes one more paragraph and that, in turn, leads to one
more page. Little do we realize, however, that we may be writing ourselves
to a probable long-term injury....
22
.....The Author-Agent Partnership, by Shutta Crum
A
Comprehensive Checklist for Getting It Right
No
one needs an agent to sell creative work. Even if you do have an agent,
that does not ensure that your work will sell....
41
.....Get Customers, Get Sales, by Sonya Carmichael Jones
Marketing
Tips for Enterprising Writers
When
you depend on writing assignments for your livelihood, you can't entrust your
career to job boards entirely. That's why there's marketing....
42 .....Writers' Notebook
Newspaper
Jargon
What We Found
While Editing WJ
43
.....Beckett's Inspiring Example, by Patrick J. Ziska
He Never Let
Rejection Crush Him
He
was penniless, rejected again and again by dozens of publishers, and nearly died
when he was stabbed in the streets of Paris. He lost many of his closest friends
to the Nazis during World War II. In 1932, he wrote his first novel, Dream of
Fair to Middling Women, Which was rejected scores of times by scores
of publishers; he stopped sending it out. (It was finally published posthumously
in 1992.) In 1933, He tried to publish his first book of poems and had no luck
there, either....
44
.....The Short-Shorties, by Isabel Joshlin Glaser
Big Stuff in
Poetry
Now
and the, new shapes in poetry are dreamed into life by the fertile minds of
today's poets. Perhaps because I write poetry for children as well as adults, I
find the short forms especially appealing....
46
.....Regional Magazines, by Patricia L. Fry
Make Them Your
Bread-and-Butter Market
Do
you direct most of your queries to consumer magazines? Are you mainly focused on
landing assignments for nationally circulated publications? If so, you might be
overlooking a lucrative market existing right in your own backyard: consumer and
trade regionals....
48
.....The Mystery Writer's Crash Course, by Evelyn M. Seranne
Creating a
Convincing Killer
While
your sleuth has the burden of unraveling the clues and solving the murder the
person who commits the crime is the individual who activates your story and
determines the direction of your plot. For your story to resonate with the
reader, it's essential to provide your killer not only with opportunity and
means, but also with the compulsions that drive him to such desperate
measures....
Travel Writing
Contest
25
.....A Taste of Turin, by James Sajo
First Prize
Winner of November 2006 Travel Writing Contest
28
.....A Crane Quest Behind the Scenes in China, by Laura L. Mays
Hoopes
Second Prize
Winner of November 2006 Travel Writing Contest
29
.....An Ancient Marvel—Newgrange, by James Sajo
Third Prize
Winner of November 2006 Travel Writing Contest
Fiction
32
.....Aw, Rats!, by Laurel L. Burke
Honorable
Mention Winner of 2006 Horror/Ghost Contest
36
.....Mirror, Mirror, by Allison Harris
Honorable
Mention Winner of 2006 Horror/Ghost Contest
December 20, 2006
Write to Win! Winner
38
....."Portrait of Julie"—"The paint wasn't even dry...," by
Diane Meholick
Poetry
51 .....Every Day With Poetry, by Esther M. Leiper
"Repent,
Repeat, Revise"
The
preacher cries, "Repent," the teacher orders, "Repeat after
me," while the poet is repeatedly advised to revise as in fine-tune,
prune, work a piece over, cut the fat, choose the exact word, don't gush or use
cliches, skip pretentious vocabulary, know where an idea is heading, reveal
layers of meaning, and consider where to break lines and—or if—to place
punctuation. Should one choose rhyme and meter? Such combined discipline
requires a special skill and knowing pitfalls to avoid. Sometimes being a ditch
digger or a sanitation engineer appears easier than squiggling away on paper!
Even free verse has drawbacks, for it can sound like fractured prose with seesaw
lines broken according to neither sound patterns nor logic. (Robert Benchley
blandly remarked, "If free verse, why not free arithmetic?") No wonder
writers get scared! It's hard enough to capture a clear thought without worrying
about fancy stuff....
55 .....Esther Comments On..., by Esther M. Leiper
"Glass
of Water"
It
takes special skill to write a poem that flirts between being serious and
humorous, and I was delighted when Travelli's poem "Glass of Water"
greeted my gaze. The message he conveys is not funny in a laugh-aloud sense, yet
details are vivid and clever and this serves to soften a rather didactic
conclusion....
Photo Contest
December 2006 Photo Contest Winners
64
....First Prize, "A Thirsty Blue Jay," by Susan Blevins
Susan
specializes in country scene and nature photos as an amateur freelance stock
photographer. After working for seven years as a Head Start aide and teacher she
has decided to make her hobby of photography into a full-time career. She has
had two photos published in Country Extra magazine and plans to attend
college and pursue photojournalism.
....Second Prize, "Jessie's Fence," by Barb Rathbun
....Third Prize, "Sisters," by Shelly LeBlanc
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