There are pale lavender bands streaming across the sky this morning and the temperature is supposed to reach the 70s today. This blog is a mishmash of tidbits. I try not to bitch about politics too much here, but the Obama finance team is driving me crazy. Talk about the foxes watching the henhouse! Sometimes don’t you get the impression that many politicians think the American people are idiots. We need to speak up. For example, here is tidbit from Glen Greenwald’s column: Lawrence H. Summers, one of President Obama's top economic advisers, collected roughly $5.2 million in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw over the past year and was paid more than $2.7 million in speaking fees by several troubled Wall Street firms and other organizations. . . .

Financial institutions including JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch paid Summers for speaking appearances in 2008. Fees ranged from $45,000 for a Nov. 12 Merrill Lynch appearance to $135,000 for an April 16 visit to Goldman Sachs, according to his disclosure form.

$135,000 is not onlya hefty pay check for a single visit, but what’s really disturbing is that in April either Clinton or Obama were likely winners in the election so Summers current position as a government big wig. Or, as Greenwald writes, “It’s basically an advanced bribe. And it’s paying off in spades.”

But if you don’t believe me, take a look at the transcript from Bill Moyer’s most recent show when Professor William Black outlined how Tim Geithner was involved in a massive fraud and how he and Summers were involved in blocking regulation. It’s positively chilling. Didn’t we have enough of this sort of corruption under the Bush administration? The interview can be seen here and the transcript is here. Read it or watch it and weep.

And speaking of Bill Moyers—he interviewed both Glen Greenwald and Amy Goodman for recently winning the I.F. Stone Award. Congratulations to both of these fine journalists. They were on the show to discuss the media’s role in this on-going corruption. It’s been a long time since I thought of I.F. Stone and it was lovely to remember a writer of such passion and integrity.

Here’s another tidbit from Jim Hightower explaining how to “too big to fail” really means too big to regulate: “A new report by Wallstreetwatch.org reveals that from 1998 to 2008, the finance industry made $1.7 billion in contributions to Washington politicians (55 percent to Repubs, 45 percent to Dems), spent $3.4 billion on lobbyists (3,000 of them on the industry payroll in 2007 alone) and won a dozen key deregulatory victories that led directly to today's financial meltdown.”

Grey, grey skies here and this morning I woke at 6 and switched on CNN to check out the protestors at the G20 Summit in London. And was surprised to see the tens of thousands and their tents parked in the midst of busy London as bankers are camouflaged for the day in jeans and t-shirts. The people are shouting “shame on you” and calling today “Financial Fool’s Day”, smashing windows at the Royal Bank of Scotland which awarded a $1 million lifetime pension to its CEO. Meanwhile, in France workers at the Caterpillar plant have taken their bosses hostage after it was announced that 700 jobs were going to be cut. I wonder where all this populist outrage will lead us—in the 60s it led to better things. Is anyone listening?

I was talking to members of Oregon Press Women on Saturday on the demise of the newspapers. Many of the members are free lance journalists and their gigs have dried up or are dwindling. I posed the question--what will a democracy be like without a press—after all, the Founding Fathers thought freedom of speech so important that they rolled it into the First Amendment. We talked about Rupert Murdock's influence on the news and the death of the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But now the Chicago Sun-Times has filed for bankruptcy protection, the San Francisco Chronicle is likely going down, and even the venerable The New York Times is on life support. What this world needs is more investigative reporters not more bloggers (myself included.)

And the corruption charges against former senator Ted Stevens have been dismissed. Sigh.

On to better news--it’s National Poetry Month, inaugurated in 1996—so happy April to all and you can visit poets.org to find a calendar about worldwide celebrations. Also, if like me you like poems arriving in your in box, beginning today, Poets.org sends one new poem to each day to celebrate National Poetry Month. The poems have been selected from new books published in the spring.

And here is another writing opportunity from Colleen Sell, the editor of the Cup of Comfort series:
In like a lion, out like a lamb! I, for one, am glad to be saying "so long" to March, because it means that, moving forward, the weather will become increasingly spring-like. Yet, I have only to glance at the front page of a newspaper to be reminded that, for many of us, just as the temperature rises, so, too, do our concerns about how we'll weather the storm of this shaky economy. Some days, it's enough to make even the sunniest person feel down.

The tenacity of the human spirit is never more apparent than in challenging times like these. And when the going gets tough, we often look to others whose tenacious spirits have enabled them to weather similar storms and whose living examples inspire us to persevere and to find a ray of hope behind even the darkest clouds. That's why we want to hear how you cope with, get through, and rise above your own challenges.

To that end, we are thrilled to announce the Silver Lining contest, brought to you by REDBOOK magazine and Adams Media!

In a 1,000 to 2,000-word personal essay, tell us how you've found the silver lining—what or who gave you inspiration, strength, hope, and comfort—during a personal challenge. If your story is selected as the grand-prize winner, it will inspire millions of others—and you'll win $1,000! Your story will also be excerpted in a future issue of REDBOOK and published in full on CupofComfort.com. Prizes will also be given to the authors of the three runner-up stories; these will be announced in REDBOOK and on CupOfComfort.com.

You must enter by May 15, 2009, and submissions will be accepted only through the online submission form. Make sure to select "Silver Lining Story Contest" on the pull-down menu of the form's "Select Cup of Comfort Book/Contest" field. To submit a story, you must be a CupOfComfort.com member (Register Now) and logged into the site (Login Now).

Please note that the Silver Lining submissions are for the contest only and not for publication consideration in a Cup of Comfort book. Please also note that I will not be involved in vetting stories or selecting winners for the Silver Lining contest. Instead, all entries will be reviewed by Meredith O'Hayre, the Cup of Comfort project editor at Adams Media, and REDBOOK editors will review the top 100 submissions and select the winning stories.

To learn more about the Silver Lining contest and for complete contest rules, click here.

Good luck with your Silver Lining submissions!

May the remainder of your March be as gentle as a lamb.

Colleen Sell


Writing Guidelines for Your Silver Lining Story:

* Create an anecdotal story about an event or series of event(s) that had a profound and positive impact on you or on the person(s) you are writing about.
* Write a personal story that embodies a universal truth.
* Show, don't tell. Color your story with action, imagery, dialog, and/or dramatic scenes.
* Write from the heart. Make each scene as real for the readers as it was for the person who lived or witnessed it.
* Begin with a strong lead that hooks the reader and that clearly and creatively introduces the main character(s), establishes the central theme of the story (plot), and sets the scene.
* Create a rich middle that depicts compelling life experiences and human emotions—in other words, dramatic action. The mid-section should include at least one compelling plot point (pivotal moment) as well as transitional scenes or other transitional devices that continually move the story forward and toward the conclusion.
* End with a satisfying conclusion that resolves the conflict/challenge in a positive way, leaves readers with an Aha! or Wow! or Yes! moment.
* Build your story around a distinctive, compelling, and believable premise that weaves together the story and drives the plot forward.
* Use lively, descriptive language that is appropriate for the time, place, and people depicted in the story as well as for A Cup of Comfort and REDBOOK readers

Still raining here in Portland--although it seems like it does every year for spring break. I'm passing along information about a playwriting contest that has just appeared in my in box:

New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest is accepting scripts through June 30, 2009 for new works that:

1) Enhance self-realization
2) Support peace and social justice
3) Foster new understanding of minority issues that focus on racial, ethnic and gender discrimination both in the United States and abroad
4) Empower youth to build healthy inner foundations
5) Educate to gain further insight into healthy social/emotional living
6) Shed new light on religious, spiritual, and cultural differences and issues
7) Build respect for cultural expression and identity in a world that is experiencing rapid globalization
8) Explore the widening gap between the values this country was founded on and the values we present to the world today

For Guidelines and Application Form: PLAYWRITINGCONTEST (dot) CJB (dot) NET

As a direct result of the New Works of Merit Playwriting Contests:

* “Arkadelphia” by Brett Williams was published in Best American Short Plays by
Applause Books.

* “He Came Home One Day While I Was Washing Dishes” by Christine Rusch was
published in Best American Short Plays by Applause Books.

* 2004 contest winner, Rudy Gray, is now a Resident Playwright of 13th Street
Repertory Company-NYC

* “Conversation with a Kleagle” by Rudy Gray was produced twice in NYC Feb 16, 2006 – Apr 7, 2006 and also Feb 6, 2009 – Mar 29, 2009

* “Ruby's Story” by Ron Osborne was produced in NYC May 13, 2004 - July 3, 2004
and will be produced again June 12, 2009 – July 19, 2009.

* “Interview” by Valerie Killigrew, was produced in NYC Nov 2 – Dec 2, 2006.
* “Cry Wolf” by Deborah Mulhall was produced in NYC Oct 7 – Nov 27, 2004.
* “Shades” by Paula J. Caplan received a free development workshop
June 28-July 2, 2004.

* Eleven finalists and five scripts that were not finalists received a free reading.

Since January 2002, Sandra Nordgren, the founder of the contest, has been responsible for the offering of over 150 readings, 36 productions, 16 development workshops, and two theater playwriting residencies, all in New York City at no cost to the playwright.

As writers, we have been given a precious gift. Let us use that gift to create powerful, heartfelt new works that not only entertain, but also educate, enlighten and uplift humanity.

You were recommended for this group by either requesting to be a member or through a recommendation from a colleague or industry professional.

Please note that your information and email address will not be shared with anyone and that you will receive no more than 4 emails a year. If you wish to be removed from this list, simply write Unsubscribe in the Subject line and upon receipt, your email address will be promptly deleted.

We look forward to receiving your script!
Sincerely,

Merit Theater and Film Group, Inc.
The Literary Staff
New Works of Merit Playwriting Contest
PLAYWRITINGCONTEST (dot) CJB (dot) NE

There is also an open casting call happening in Portland this Sunday, March 29 for a Harrison Ford movie being filmed here.

Clouds everywhere and more rain in the forecast. Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all. And did you know that blue, not green is the official color of St. Patrick?
On Sunday night my book club was here and we were talking about some of the good dramatic series on television. I started the conversation because I’m crazy about Breaking Bad on AMC. Its amazing writing and acting. Now, I don’t watch a lot of series now that I don’t have HBO any more, but compared BB to Deadwood—also an amazing drama. And one of the club members said she’s never wasted time watching television, implying that it was beneath her. I have missed entire decades of television, and don’t watch sit coms or anything with a laugh track. I’ve never seen Will and Grace, or Desperate Housewives, or St. Elsewhere, or for that matter Seinfeld or Friends. But good storytelling can come in many forms, including television, and Breaking Bad is fabulous storytelling.

A confession: I don’t text, I don’t tweet or twitter, or have a profile on Facebook. Don’t have the time or interest. And although I’m not a Facebook gal, here are 25 short things I know about writing.
1. Writing while artful, it is a craft and can be learned.
2. Keep a writer’s notebook where you capture the world around you.
3. Gather metaphors from great writers to inspire your own.
4. When you’re writing your final draft and the writing seems flat keep asking yourself, what does that remind me of.
5. As Strunk & White proclaimed “Omit needless words.”
6. Make sure your beginnings grab a reader. Use an anecdote, dialogue, action, raise a question, slip in a potent description.
7. Use a variety of sentence lengths and structures.
8. Verbs are the most important parts of the sentence—collect vivid verbs.
9. Use onomatopoeia—it brings language to life.
10. Prepositions are the carbohydrates of language—comb your writing and trim prepositional phrases that clutter your sentences, burying nouns and verbs.
11. Justify every modifier—they should only modify what the noun cannot and should always surprise or jolt the reader. Arthur Plotnik’s example is don’t use yellow daffodils because daffodils are yellow, instead describe them as gaudy. As Mark Twain said about adjectives, when it doubt, strike it out.
12. Adverbs are usually clutter, especially those with an -ly ending as when you write walk slowly instead of plod.
13. Write in the active voice.
14. Use short sentences for emphasis but don’t overdo because a series of short sentences actually slow the pacing—sort of like driving over speed bumps.
15. Use words of mostly Anglo Saxon origin.
16. Learn all you can about narrative structure, including the structure of individual scenes.
17. Read critically analyzing authors’ techniques.
18. Avoid using qualifiers (sort of, kind of, pretty much, a bit, etc.) and intensifiers (very, quite, really, awfully, deeply, truly, etc.)
19. Write your first draft as fast you can while the idea burns bright within you.
20. Learn the rules of punctuation as a courtesy to readers and avoid using exclamation marks because they make you look like you’re 8 years old!!
21. Don’t wait for the muse or mood to arrive—you’ll be waiting most of your life. Write despite your tiredness, bad back, low self esteem, worry about your mother’s health, or despair over your kid’s addiction. Just write. Every day.
22. Editing can feel like you’re wandering through the seven circles of hell. Do it anyway.
23. Don’t talk too much about your writing—it dissipates its power. Spend your energy on the actual writing.
24. In the beginning, before you have developed the discernment to understand if your writing has power, find readers to give you honest feedback. This is likely not your spouse, best friend, or mother.
25. Accept that rejection is part of your job description.

And if you’re having a bad writing day: Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. (George Orwell, "Why I Write," 1947.)

Pale blue skies this morning and another day of sunshine on the way here—it’s been so lovely lately it's ridiculous and yesterday I spotted buds on a cherry tree.

Well, another big book deal just came down. From the Daily Beast: “Yes, it’s official: The book world has gone crazy. Here we are, a few weeks after some of the darkest days in publishing—both in layoffs and in actual sales—and along comes the newly revamped HarperCollins imprint William Morrow to give more than $3 million to Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the admittedly genius pilot who saved 155 lives by landing USAirways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in January. Yes, Sully’s a bona fide hero, and after hearing his testimony in Washington about the conditions pilots work under, I believe a grateful nation owes him a big payday.
But wait: The crazy part is that the Sullenberger deal was for two books. The first will be a memoir, and the second is a collection of Sully’s inspirational poems. Who knew that next to the heart of a hero lurked the soul of a poet? …..”

So on one hand, we hear about the demise of the publishing industry, on the other hand, these crazy mega deals are still going on for celeb writers.

Here’s more from the article: “But the rest of BookLand doesn’t have this pandering rationale to blame for some of the nutty deals that have gone down in the last few weeks. $2.5 million to comedian Kathy Griffin? (Who, with that advance, goes from Hollywood’s D-List to publishing’s A-list.) And a staggering $4.8 million to Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife? That, too, was a hot auction—the first book was a phenomenon—run by New York’s Joe Regal. At one point more than ten publishers were in the mix, some within Random House bidding against each other (as is their wont). Last night the rumor was that Reagan Arthur of Little, Brown had “won” the privilege of publishing Her Fearful Symmetry in fall 2009, but at least one wag, who rightly insisted the auction wasn’t settled yet, was willing to believe it. “It figures. They’re buying up everything all over town.” In fact, the book went to Scribner, leaving all that money in the Hachette coffers (left over from Twilight goddess Stephenie Meyer) with which to overpay another day.”

I just wanted to pass this tidbit along from www.powellsblog.com. The folks at SMITH magazine have been compiling tiny memoirs for a while now, first published in print as Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Contributors range from ordinary people who submitted their six words online to not-so-regular folks like Amy Sedaris ("Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched.") and Chuck Klosterman ("Nobody cared, then they did. Why?").

Now, they've followed up with Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: By Writers Famous and Obscure, being released just in time for the most polarizing of saint-based holidays. Some of our favorites include Elizabeth Minkel's "Silently suffered his facial hair experiments" and Jaynel Attolini's "Among your sexiest attributes: health insurance."

Simply post a comment containing your six-word autobiography below — a general summation, not limited to love or heartbreak. (But really, is it ever about anything else? Sigh.) We'll pick 10 finalists, to be featured on our blog, and submit them to the HarperCollins panel of judges, who will choose the soon-to-be-published author.
Deadline for submitting is 12:00 midnight (PST), April 15, 2009. Click here for official contest rules.

How about: You too young, me too wise? Or am I giving too much away?

Gorgeous layers of clouds this morning. I’ve mentioned before in this blog that writing practice—writing just for fun with no expectation of getting published— is a terrific means to keep your skills sharp and your voice fresh. Practice can open up new possibilities for your writing life, can be used as a warm-up exercise, and can invigorate daily routines. It’s one of the reasons why I include writing prompts in my newsletters. So I was combing through old emails yesterday looking for some contact information and ran across this email from one of my students who lives in British Columbia that I want to pass along. In case you haven’t seen this before:
http://www.lifeformz.com/cgi-bin/idea/idea.cgi

It’s a sometimes funny, automatic situation generator that might be useful in your writing – enjoy! Here are a few examples.
A bank teller meets an one-armed restaurant owner.
A race car driver engages in pointless banter with a hot-shot outlaw in a cave.

Also, did you know that March is National Sauce Month? How fun is that? Sauces were likely originally invented to hide the flavors of spoiled meats, but these days are, of course, flavor enhancers. A sauce is liquid or sometimes semi-solid food served on or used in preparing other foods. Sauces are not consumed by themselves; they add flavor, moisture, and visual appeal to another dish. Sauce is a French word taken from the Latin salsus, meaning salted. Sauces need a liquid component, but with dishes such as pasta can contain more solid elements than liquid? I like any sauce with ginger in it, but then there’s adobe or chipotle chilies, lime, garlic, shallots, wine, and, of course, bacon. Gotta stop, I’m getting hungry and I need to get back to working on my manuscript. After you’ve concocted your sauce, just keep writing.

Clouds this morning after rain in the night. Yesterday was so soft and lovely and spring-like that it's difficult to describe in words. Well Blagojevich got his six-figure book deal. His publicist Glenn Selig says that it’s going to be a tell-all about “the dark side of politics.” Doesn’t he personify the dark side of politics? The deal is with Phoenix Books, “run by maverick publisher Michael Viner.” Hhmm...there’s that word maverick again, code for a**hole. The working title is The Governor.

“The governor chose to go with a large independent company because he wanted to tell his story without any restrictions over content that might’ve come with a major publishing house,” Selig said in the release. “He simply did not want to accept constraints or conditions on what he could say in this book.”

Anyway, read between the lines about why he isn’t with a major publisher, but I’m sure he’s raring to be out on a book tour, proclaiming his innocence. Except there’s a small hitch. The Illinois legislature doesn’t want him to cash in on his notoriety if he’s convicted of federal charges. “Corrupt Illinois politicians, for example Rod Blagojevich, are looking to cash in by telling their stories after the fact,” Rep. Jack Franks (D-Woodstock) said. “They should not be allowed to benefit from their actions in any way, most of all financially.”

Yikes, the more we learn about the Bush Crime Family, the more they sound like, well, a crime family. The Huffington Post is running links to the released the memos from the Obama administration. They are previously inaccessible memos written by Bush administration officials outlining their reasons for why the military had the right to warrantless wiretaps and warrantless search and seizures of people in the U.S. they deemed to be terrorist suspects.

This just in from the Associated Press: "New documents show the CIA destroyed nearly 100 tapes of terror interrogations." Confirmation of the destroyed videotapes came in a government letter filed in a New York court today as a result of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU "seeking records of the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad."

Is it just me, or are you feeling like we’ve just lived through the Stalin administration?

One more bit of depressing news. Salon is starting a new blog—The Brand Graveyard about the American businesses that are folding in our bottomed out economy. One of first entries is about the death of Rocky Mountain News. R.I.P.

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured,will revive and will prosper.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment. Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of temporary profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself,treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

first inaugural address, January, 1933 (edited for brevity)

An overcast sky this morning and rain is in the forecast. NPR’s Scott Simon is on in the background hawking then news. A story reports that the shoe repair business is booming in this economy and libraries are crowded, with library patrons displaying a special interest in investing and the economy. Daniel Schorr is reporting that Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal’s response to the president’s speech to Congress was a crushing failure and he (Jindal) should have stayed in bed. I’m still working on rewrites of my book—lagging behind because of reasons too boring to divulge and shocked that February is chugging to a close.

Since time is passing much too quickly and we haven’t had nearly enough time to work on our New Year’s resolutions, here are few cheery thoughts. First, Joe the Plumber had a book signing in Washington D.C. on Wednesday night. He was in town as part of the CPAC conference where apparently most of right wing fringe have gathered. I’m sorry to report that their keynote speaker is Rush Limbaugh. But back to Joe, who hired ghostwriter Thomas N. Tabback, and banged out the book in record time. Only 11 people showed up at the signing and he only sold five books, and the event was over in 55 minutes instead of the slated 3 hours. So perhaps the gods of justice have been at work after all.

And then today is Open That Bottle Night. Yes, the last Saturday in February is for opening a special bottle of wine you’ve been hoarding or wishing for a special occasion to pop the cork.

And here is another list of 100 books you should read in your lifetime---I don’t agree with all the books in this list although I’ve read a good portion of them, but then I fear I’m not as omnivorous as I should be in my reading habits. Compiled by the Telegraph (UK). Maybe it’s time to compile our own list, or perhaps the most overlooked books?

Happy writing and reading to all.

Morning is muted grey with rain and NPR is broadcasting more bad news about the economy. They’re reporting that the Philadelphia newspapers are filing for bankruptcy and the stock market is falling again (or would that be still?). I thought the Oscars were great last night although I would have preferred that Frost/Nixon win the statue. But then my picks rarely win so I’ll need to be content that 2008 was a fabulous year for the movies. Just call me psychic, but rumors are percolating that Rod (the f-bomb) Blagojevich is about to land a book deal. Apparently his agent has been pounding the pavement of NY publishing offices trying to land the most lucrative deal.

Just a brief political rant: Would someone please gather his or her courage and tell Bill Clinton to quit hogging the limelight? Is he trying to steal it from Obama or his wife? And we don’t need his report card grades on the new president’s first month in office or Clinton chiding him to sound more hopeful. As if an injection of optimism can transform a country that’s got about as much going for it as the Titanic. And if you aren’t worried about the economy here, pay attention to the mess that’s brewing in Mexico. Our neighbors to the south are in a world of trouble and the country is in danger of turning into a narco economy.

If you’re not familiar with it, there’s a great website called conversationalreading.com. It covers the book industry and lately has been running a series on publishing during the recession.

And here is a site for childrens' writers to check out. Although it focuses on writing in New England, it has great links and industry news.

Another great site in case you don’t have it bookmarked is the book blog at the New Yorker.

Here’s a lovely quote for you from Barbara Kingsolver: “Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer.”

Meanwhile, keep it lit, keep writing, keep dreaming.

The morning sky is overcast and rain is in the forecast. I can’t complain because we’ve had so much sunshine this winter and spring-like temperatures are on the way again with bulbs emerging from the ground all over town. I woke with the first line for my next book delivered in a dream—so I feel as if I was given a diamond necklace. Well, actually I don’t really like diamonds that much, so make that a pearl necklace.

I’m at the finish line with my book for Tarcher—Thanks, but This isn’t for Us which is going to be published in August. I’m working on the epilogue which is about living the writing life. You can learn about craft and technique until you’re blue in the face as my grandmother used to say, but if you cannot sit still day after day and write your heart out, these skills won’t matter much. So more than ever, I’ve been mulling over what it takes to crank out words on the page. Here are a few ideas for you:

Have a plan in mind when you start out on the journey of story. Writing with a plan is more like playing a game with rules than slipping into a straitjacket.Writers can be divided into broad categories—those that overwrite and those that underwrite and those that outline and those who don’t. Screenwriter and author Charles Deemer divides outliners and nonoutliners into forest people and tree people. Tree people sit down and write trusting that the story will emerge from their imaginings. Forest people are planners and outline the whole shebang before they write the first scene. Forest people often outline or create scene cards and character biographies. Tree people wing it.

There is no right or wrong way to write, no formula that works for everyone and every writer has a different means to tap into ideas and inspirations. The ancient Greeks believed in the capricious muses who bestowed gifts on artists and writers. But what I’ve noticed over the years is that the muse is much helped if you know your ending before you start writing because you’ll rewrite less.

Next, you need to learn how to edit ruthlessly. I cannot stress the importance of this stage of writing enough. If you don’t have an effective editing process, read books on the topic and research how other authors manage to shape early drafts into polished gems. It’s likely that you’ll need to rewrite or rework your manuscript three or four times.

When you revise you need to see your story with fresh eyes, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses with your inner editor {located in your left brain} handling most of the tasks. Start by analyzing the biggest issues such as the structure and viewpoint. Fix the plot holes and larger problems first and then keep honing in on smaller parts until you’re tightening paragraphs or dialogue, then fixing on a sentence level such as by amping up verbs. Don’t stop just because you give up or you’re so sick of your story that you feel like retching—keep at it until you’re proud of it.

Build a platform and have marketing tricks up your sleeve. These days all publishing houses require authors to be highly involved in promoting their books. And yes, this means fiction writers and memoirists, not just authors of how-to or inspirational books. Again, use the Internet to note what published authors are doing to push their books at readers. Authors are sending out newsletters, email blasts, writing blogs, booking on-line chats, and using MySpace. Almost all of these promo activities are done without the help or financing of the publisher. So keep your eye on these methods and find ways to build a readership before you get your first book published.

Create a project bible. There are hundreds of ways to write a book—some writers outline, some write scene cards, some talk into a tape recorder, some allow a story to emerge from deep within and write it in snatches while ferrying children to soccer practice. However, as you’re getting your first draft [and this works for fiction, memoir, or nonfiction manuscript] create a project bible. In this bible, you’ll want to jot down notes and ideas on plot or characters. Many writers get ideas in the middle of the night or on a plane flight, so carrying around your project bible is a handy way to keep tabs on things and record ideas before they slip away. It might include a list of scenes if you’re writing fiction along with bios of characters, including their key backstory and agenda in the story. Whenever your story falters return to these character notes and ask yourself if you know enough about what your character’s think, about how his or her past has shaped him or her.

Include research notes, information from the Internet, maps, photos, collages, sketches, questions you need to answer in the story. Also, project bibles are just fun to work with.

As another note, whenever I’m working on a book I also create a Word document I simply call EXTRAS. It’s where I cut and paste all the stuff I delete and other items that don’t fit into my project bible.

Morning sky looks like a dust storm in a Western. Years ago I was the Writing Expert at iVillage.com. In this capacity I taught hundreds of writers and learned a lot about what can go wrong on the page, especially when a beginning writer was typing away without any sense of using craft or any inkling of technique. I hosted twice weekly on-line classes, which has forever given me the ability to crank out about a hundred words a minute and also invited writing celebs to be my guests once a month.

Those on-line classes were focused around specific topics and were connected to the writing exercises that were assigned. The whole thing was a lot of fun, tons of work, and emotionally exhausting since an on-line community can attract angels and crazies. I was laid off from the gig after about three years when the dot com bubble burst, but I’ve never forgotten my favorite students and all I learned about teaching.

I wrote columns for the site and was also prone to posting writing tips at the site. This morning I ran across something I posted in April of 1999. I’m including it here because some techniques about writing are timeless.

Ever since last week’s character class I’ve been thinking about how to write compelling characters. Here are a few more tips: 1. Remember when writing fiction that readers are reading for emotion, not information. 2. E. M. Forster said, “The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round.” 3. Whenever possible develop character and describe characters through action and dialogue. 4. Somerset Maugham suggested that it wasn’t necessary to list all a character’s physical characteristics, but just enough information to tell the reader whether the character is attractive or not. 5. Avoid writing scenes where your character appears alone. Since fiction is based on conflict, these lonely scenes are often static and without impact. 6. Major characters must possess a real or imagined fatal flaw. 7. Major characters must change over the course of the novel. 8. Remember that as in real life, first impressions are important. Bring your characters into the story with flair.

Morning sky is ashen with a light snow falling frosting the rooftops and last night’s full moon, which Native Americans called the snow moon, was huge and silver as I toddled off to bed. I think I’m finally over the bad cold virus that has invaded my body—if you’re thinking of visiting Portland this might be a time to change your travel plans. Everyone I know has been sick, and coughing and hacking and wheezing are the sounds in the air. Meanwhile, our state budget, like most places, is in trouble and they're proposing cutting days from the school year.

I wish governments would take global warming more seriously—aren’t the heat, drought and fires sweeping through Australia one of the shrillest alarms heard in awhile? I’m afraid to check on the death count, but my thoughts and prayers to people in Australia suffering from the heat and fires.

Here’s a quote for today From Annie Dillard’s Notes for Young Writers:
“Ignore your feelings about your work. These are an occupational hazard. If you are writing a book, keep working at it, deeper and deeper, when you feel it is awful; keep revising and improving it when you feel it is wonderful. When you are young and starting out, often it is better, however to write something else than to labor over something that was a bad idea in the first place. Write something else; then write something else; then write something else. No matter how experienced you are, there is no correlation, either direct or inverse, between your immediate feelings about your work’s quality and its actual quality. All you can do is ignore your feelings altogether. It’s hard to do, but you can learn to do it.”

Pale grey skies again this morning—rain is supposed to be coming later today. Here’s an excerpt From the Daily Writer by Fred White: Cultivating the Writing Habit “Is it possible to generate a powerful desire to write? Yes, and quite easily, actually. Erasmus, the prolific Renaissance thinker, author In Praise of Folly, put is simply:’ The desire to write grows with writing.’ For many beginners, few activities seem more unnatural than filling pages with words day after day, year after year. But this is exactly what an aspiring write must learn to feel comfortable doing. Whatever you learn to do on a regular basis eventually becomes natural. If you want to become a prolific writer, you must write out of habit. The longer you keep writing, the easier it will be to make writing a habit.”

Sky is pale blue again with an equally pale band of pink encasing the horizon. Yesterday the weather here was so soft and fine and springlike it made you giddy. I’ve had a bad cold lately, but dragged myself out of bed to trek to the grocery story and was so glad I went outdoors.

A good friend has been trying to sell a short story collection in the past year just as the publishing industry was on a downturn. So I just sent her an email to let her know that--Harper Perennial is declaring the year of the Short Story, and will be publishing a short story for each week this year. Some are heavy-hitters from existing collections, but they're also accepting new submissions (yippee!). Here's their special website, Fifty-Two Stories. I hope by now anyone who is unpublished and looking for a book deal is checking out publisher and literary agency blogs.

A few of my favorite short story collections are Amy Bloom’s Come to Me and Even a Blind Man Can See How Much I love You. Meanwhile, keep writing….
and local casting agents are looking for boys age six and nine for a movie being filmed here starring Brendan Frazier and Harrison Ford.

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. George Eliot, Middlemarch

Fog has crept over the landscape again. Here's another reminder about the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards that I received in an email:

As you have expressed interest in writing or publishing, we would like to remind you that the entry phase of the 2009 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards is about to begin!

Submissions of unpublished novel-length fiction manuscripts will be accepted beginning this Monday, February 2nd, 2009 at 12:01 a.m. (US Eastern Standard Time). For more information about the contest, including the rules and submission guidelines, please visit the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards web site at www.amazon.com/abna.


What is the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award?
The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award is an opportunity for emerging fiction writers to join a community of authors on Amazon.com, showcase their work, and compete for a chance to get published. Sponsored in partnership with Penguin Group (USA) and CreateSpace, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award first launched in October 2007 and received more than 5,000 initial entries. In the inaugural contest, Amazon customers voted and named Bill Loehfelm the winner with his novel 'Fresh Kills.' Several of the other Top 10 finalists also received publishing deals with Penguin.

What is the contest’s Grand Prize?
The Grand Prize is a full publishing contract with Penguin to market and distribute the Grand Prize winner's winning manuscript as a published book, including promotion for the published book on Amazon.com and a $25,000 advance.

How do interested authors enter the contest?
Contest submission period begins February 2nd, 2009, at 12:01 a.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time) and ends February 8th, 2009, at 11:59 p.m. (U.S. Eastern Standard Time), or when the first 10,000 entries have been received, whichever is earlier. There is no entry fee. To enter the contest, go to www.amazon.com/abna.

Where can I find more information about the contest?
Visit the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards web site at www.amazon.com/abna to find full contest rules. You can also sign up to receive contest updates, get tips on how to enter, and participate on the ABNA message boards.

Fog is so dense this morning I feel like I’m floating far out in the ocean with no land in sight. Some days I feel so out of it….such as when I read stats like how 86 percent of Japanese teenagers read cell phone novels. Is it just me that finds this amazing because I’d rather shove chopsticks in my eyes than read books on a cell phone? And just a note: at last count Rod Blagojevich gave twenty media appearances in the past few days and is scheduled to give a closing argument at his impeachment hearing today.

But never mind…..I’ve been thinking about John Updike’s death—didn’t know he had cancer and only was aware of his most recent book release, the sequel to Witches of Eastwick. A book of short stories, My Father's Tears and Other Stories, is scheduled to come out later this year. But of course, a great man of letters has died. Years ago I took a whole course on John Updike in college. Looking back I cannot imagine why I enrolled--it must have fit my schedule because I was always trying not to be on campus every day. My professor was a passionate fan, thought he could do no wrong. I found his female characters cardboard, his sexual obsessions and escapades supremely sexist, his language verbose, his self conscious descriptions and metaphors endless and overripe. My professor and I argued a lot. I don’t recall if anyone else in the class objected to some of Updike’s antics, as I remember only I questioned some of his excess.

But memory is a tricky thing and over the years I also came to realize that I also admired Updike who was willing to write about anti-heroes such as his Rabbit Angstrom character and small town life and the dullness and vapidity of the middle class, and later, the indignities of illness and aging.

Because in the midst of dizzying excess he had a gorgeous vocabulary and command of the language. His writing soared and swirled and left us breathless (if not a bit exhausted). And look at the subjects he chose—from a Muslim terrorist to Ted Williams to the agonies of adolescence to car lots and infidelity and divorce. He was gutsy and risk taking and wild and navel gazing if not narcissistic. But let’s not forget thoughtful. Even when I was superbly irritated I admired him and his prolific outpourings—short story collections, novels, poems, essays. Some of his works were great, some not so. Who among us is going to write 50 or so books, especially those that chronicle such a tumultuous period of history as was America in the post-WWII years? And he was funny. Suffering from asthma, psoriasis and a stammer maybe it was natural that he turned to writing. But mostly he was a writer’s writer. As Michael Katkutani said: “ENDOWED with an art student's pictorial imagination, a journalist's sociological eye and a poet's gift for metaphor, John Updike – who died on Tuesday at 76 – was arguably America's one true all-around man of letters.

He moved fluently from fiction to criticism, from light verse to short stories to the long-distance form of the novel: a literary decathlete in our age of electronic distraction and willful specialization, Victorian in his industriousness and almost blogger-like in his determination to turn every scrap of knowledge and experience into words.”

In his 2005 NPR essay "This I Believe" essay he wrote: "I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness."

I cannot imagine who will fill his shoes. Meanwhile, let’s turn every scrap of knowledge and experience into words.

Morning sky is silver and a bit of snow is predicted today—waiting to see what happens since I have a doctor’s appointment later. You know how these days writers are advised to build a platform and need to be heavily involved in promoting their books? I’m thinking we need to find out who Rod Blagojevich (called Governor F-bomb by some in the media) hired for his PR. Yesterday, instead of facing the Illinois legislators who were running his impeachment hearing, he appeared on the Today Show, CBS Early Show, The View and Larry King. Who is this magical booking agent? And if I were a betting woman I’d bet that a book deal is soon to follow….Speaking of betting, do you think Karl Rove is going to show up for his subpoena on Monday—or perhaps he’ll leave the country again.

A big congratulations to the winners announced by the American Library Association yesterday. When I was writing my book Bullies, Bad Guys, and Bitches I had a chance to read a lot of kids’ authors. What a revelation—the writing was so edgy and fun that it almost made me want to become a kid again.

Novelist and graphic novelist Neil Gaiman won the John Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book, which was illustrated by Dave McKean. Called “A delicious mix of murder, fantasy, humor and human longing, the tale of Nobody Owens is told in magical, haunting prose. A child marked for death by an ancient league of assassins escapes into an abandoned graveyard, where he is reared and protected by its spirit denizens.” Susan Marie Swanson and illustrator Beth Krommes won the Randolph Caldecott Medal for picture books for the book, The House in the Night. Described as “Richly detailed black-and-white scratchboard illustrations expand this timeless bedtime verse, offering reassurance to young children that there is always light in the darkness. Krommes' elegant line, illuminated with touches of golden watercolor, evoke the warmth and comfort of home and family, as well as the joys of exploring the wider world.” Melina Marchetta won the Michael L. Printz Award (for young adult literature) for the book, Jellicoe Road. Kadir Nelson won the Coretta Scott King Award for a book written by an African American with We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball.

And just for giggles you might want to read Heather Havrilesky’s Faster, pregnant lady, kill kill! piece at salon.com. In it she suggests that Obama needs a team of impatient, unforgiving, third-trimester pregnant women to whip the country into shape. Whenever my sense of humor is somewhere around my ankles, Heather is one of the writers I turn to.

You can tell the days are getting longer—5 p.m. and it’s still light out. And yet another day of sun and cold, with a dusting of snow still on the ground. Happy Chinese New Year to all. I’ve been thinking about the Year of the Ox and the qualities of the ox—calm, hard work, resolve, tenacity. Perfect combination for a writer. Thinking about what I want to accomplish—what I’m going to ask the universe for. If you read this blog you know that I’m an author but I’m also recovering from injuries from a car accident that included brain injuries. If there was ever a time I didn’t feel like writing, this has been it. But…well, I’ve been writing. No matter how I feel, I get up in the morning and I write. Many days those first hours are about all I accomplish. I write because it’s become a part of me, I write because I love to write, I write because I don’t know of another way of living.

Years ago I wrote a column called Beginning No Matter What. Here it is:

There are writers who are prolific, driven, confident and born with buckets of natural talent. And then there are the rest of us. Who doubt, despair, and procrastinate. Who have learned while writing a (fill in the blank: a novel, story, poem, essay) that it really is possible to gnash your teeth or gain five pounds over a sentence or plot that won’t mesh. Who conclude that facing a blank page or empty screen is about as much fun as trying on swimsuits. And as we sit staring at its empty vastness, without a clue where to begin or why we’re here, we conclude with a terrible clarity that we’re hopeless (fill in the blank) frauds, hacks, incompetents.
So how do we leave this pit of despair and ascend to the rarified heights of accomplishment? How do we find a way past the silence, the canyon of our first words and onto the page? How do we stir the slumbering or cowering writer who lives in all of us? I believe that one way is to remember why we write in the first place: because it’s a joy. Because most of us have loved words and books and stories since we were small. And can remember the first books we read and the first stories we wrote; the ones that proved we can create magic. That we’re able to touch hearts with our words.
Second, turn back to writing for its therapeutic powers. Writing makes us proud of ourselves, but also, because it’s one part creativity, coupled with one part analysis, it helps us think clearer. We can transform our worries, stresses, and muddles and shape them into a coherent tale. Or better yet, inflict them on our heroine so she can suffer in our place, while we merely pull the strings of her misery.
No matter your reasons for writing, they add up to something remarkable. Writing adds a depth, a quality, a magic that can’t be accomplished by scrubbing or baking or dancing the tango. It comes from somewhere deep inside, and even if we cannot quite understand how the words emerge, they frost our days with fairy-like charms.
So how DO we begin? I suggest that you face, then conquer the fear and the awful blankness by writing just for the fun of it. Write without strings, without proving anything, without showing your words to a soul. Write as if it doesn’t matter if the ending doesn’t jell or the character is a bit too similar to your sister. Just write. And then write some more. Allow the words to work their magic, let them massage your worries and ease your way back into the lovely land of writers.
Here is a list of prompts to take you past your fears and onto the page. Remember, this is just for fun, simply practice. Until you’ve found your way, sure of what you want to write, play around a while.

Jump Start:
Write about a place where the inhabitants are afraid of the changes that will occur when your character moves to town.
Finish this sentence and keep writing: The main difference between men and women is that_______________
Write a story or scene where a lavish meal eaten out-of- doors is featured.
Finish this sentence and keep writing: Whenever I look back to the night when my husband walked out on me, I realize that the no-good _________did me a______________.
Write a story or scene that is inspired by the fragrance of flowers or perfume.
Write about how a ‘new look’ changes a character’s life.
Write a story or scene where somehow ice is featured.
Write a story or scene where somehow candlelight is featured.
Write a story or scene about a character who doesn’t appreciate someone who loves her.
Begin a story with this line: Snow began falling shortly before midnight, and as it drifted down _________________.
Write about a character with an unusual career—professional wrestler, animal trainer, stunt double, race car driver.
Write a scene or story that takes place near a body of water and have the river, lake, ocean influence the events of the story.
Write a story or scene where a child or teenager is wrongly accused of an offense.
Write a scene where characters share a secret in a darkened room.
Write a scene or story where five women gather for a weekend at a beach house or mountain cabin. What do they talk about?
Write a scene or story where a character wrestles with her doubts about her ability to finish a job.
Write a scene or story where a person from a character’s past returns and shakes up her world.
Write a scene or story where something in nature—moonlight, the first days of spring, the first snow---cause events to happen because a character is intoxicated by the influences.
Write a story or scene that incorporates the smells of bread, cookies, or pastries baking.

What a day! What a country! (And I don't believe in exclamation points--do not try this at home kids)

Happy Inauguration Day to all. I’ve never been more proud of this damn-near-in-ruins country. Here is the oath, that means so much to so many:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

George Washington also started a tradition of adding the line "so help me God."

Morning sky is pale grey with an equally pale pink swath running through it and the trees are being tossed around by the wind. Well yesterday I found the quote I was looking for. I was writing about problems that are most immediately visible in a manuscript and one of them is when the story is episodic. While it’s fine for scenes to stand up on their own, good fiction (and memoir) must be tied together with theme, language and voice, and of course, characters. Thus connectivity is the key and all fiction is causality related. So here is the quote I was looking for—from not Henry James, but E. Forster from Aspects of the Novel:

Let us define plot. We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time-sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it. Or again: The queen died, no one knew why, until it was discovered that it was through grief at the death of the king.” This is a plot with a mystery in it, a form capable of high development. It suspends the time-sequence, it moves as far away from the story as limitations will allow. If it is in a plot we ask “why?”

The darkness has faded revealing that fog has settled everywhere this morning blanketing the neighborhood, the giant evergreens across the street rising out of the mist. Easy to imagine I’m in England, or a Dickens-type character might emerge from the mist perhaps wearing a top hat or some shabby bundle of rags. I’m reminded of Carl Sandburg’s line, "the fog came on little cat feet", because when you wake up to a world of fog, it’s such a delightful surprise.

And oh joy, I just learned that Charlie Huston has a new crime fiction book out, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. If you can handle gore and such, you might want to check out his site pulpnoir.com . He’s also blogging at Amazon’s Omnivoracious this week. Read his dialogue and weep.

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday. He was already a Baptist minister when he led his first boycott of segregated buses in Montgomery at 26.I hadn’t realized that he was so young when he first became a civil rights activist. I was thinking back to myself at 26—it was the time I was living on an Ojibwa reservation in northern Wisconsin, writing poetry, raising my daughter, singing. I was a bit lost at that time in my life—partly because I was afraid of being a writer, partly because I had a lot of growing up to do. But leading what turned out to be a revolution at 26? Whew—with gratitude to his friends and family who lost him.

Yesterday I was trying to find a Henry James quote about drama—haven’t found it yet—but was reminded of his knowledge of storytelling. In his more than 50 year career he produced novels, plays, criticism, essays and stories. Since it’s January and despite a world-wide recession and weather that is freezing our eyeballs shut in some parts of the world (I talked with my aunt in northern Wisconsin yesterday and didn’t dare mention our temperatures were supposed to be in the 50s this week) we need to saddle up our hopes and plant our butts—some a bit wider since the holidays—at our computers.

Here’s a bit of inspiration from The Future of the Novel: Essays on the Art of the Novel by the esteemed Mr. James:
The house of fiction has in short not one window, but a million—a number of possible windows not to be reckoned, rather; every one which has been pierced, or is still pierceable, in its vast front, by the need of the individual vision and by the pressure of the individual will. These apertures, of dissimilar shape and size, hang so, all together, over the human scene that we might have expected of them a greater sameness of report than we find. They are but windows at best, mere holes in a dead wall, disconnected, perched aloft; they are not hinged doors opening straight upon life. But they have this mark of their own that at each of them stands a figure with a pair of eyes, or at least with a field glass, which forms again and again, for observation, a unique instrument, insuring to the person making use of it an impression distinct from any other. He and his neighbors are watching the same show, but one seeing more where the other sees less, one seeing black where the other sees small one see coarse where the other sees fine. And so on, and so on; there is fortunately no saying on what, for the particular pair of eyes, the window may not open; ‘fortunately’ by reason, precisely, of this incalculability of range. The spreading field, the human scene, is the ‘choice of subject’; the pierced aperture, either broad or balconied or slit-like and low-browed, is the ‘literary form’; but they are, singly or together, as nothing without the posted presence of the watcher – without, in other words, the consciousness of the artist. Tell me what the artist is, and I will tell you of what he has been conscious. Thereby I shall express to you at once his boundless freedom and his ‘moral’ reference.

It’s Wednesday night and I had to check out my guilty pleasure American Idol in Kansas City and the new judge, singer-songwriter Kara DioGuardi. So far, lots of fun, thousands of people auditioning and many faces of delusion, eccentricity, and tone-deaf crapola mixed in with real talent. In case you missed it there was a woman (Mia?) who called down the wrath of God on the judges after being rejected. Actually I think she did it four times as in God is going to get you. Poor losers are so unattractive—let’s all remember that.

Thanks to a kind Portland-based writer Loey Werking Wells here is the information on the blogging gig I mentioned earlier from the Huffington Post: “SYDNEY, Australia — Position: Island caretaker. Duties: Lazing around Australia's Great Barrier Reef for six months. Salary: 150,000 Australian dollars ($100,000).

Unemployed, take heart _ the aforementioned job ad is for real. Billing it the "Best Job in the World," the tourism department in Australia's Queensland state on Tuesday said it was seeking one lucky person to spend half a year relaxing on Hamilton Island, part of the country's Whitsunday Islands, while promoting the island on a blog.

The move is part of a AU$1.7 million campaign to boost tourism in the state. In exchange for the plush salary, free accommodation in an oceanfront villa and airfare from the winner's home country, the "employee" will be required to stroll the island's white sand beaches, snorkel, maybe take a dip in the pool _ and post photos and videos of his or her experiences on a weekly blog.
"It'll be huge," Tourism Whitsundays chief executive Peter O'Reilly said, adding he expected thousands will apply.

Applications are open until Feb. 22 and 11 finalists will be flown to Hamilton Island in May for the final selection process. The job begins on July 1.

On the Net: Best Job in the World: http://www.islandreefjob.com/ “

Morning sky is pale grey and weather prognosticators are predicting a week of sun and warm weather. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I can handle another day of the Bush Farewell Tour. Hasn’t this been the longest two months of your life, or is it just me? At Monday’s press conference (which, by the way, they needed to fill in the last two rows with interns because there weren’t enough journalists to fill the chairs) he was in full blown loony mode, playing fast and loose with the truth. As pugnacious, arrogant, defiant, delusional, and bizarre as ever. As usual there were no tough questions from reporters who no longer needed to worry about being barred from the White House press corps, and as usual, Bush refused to call on Helen Thomas. Bush said, “I think it’s a good, strong record. You know, presidents can try to avoid hard decisions and therefore controversy. That’s just not my nature.” And after leaving an enormous swath of wreckage behind him from millions of Americans out of work, an economy in ruins, our stature in the world destroyed, to two unsuccessful wars, to Paulson giving away billions to banks with no accountability, not one damn reporter disagreed with or questioned him. We need journalists who are not yes-men for corrupt administrations and we need them now.

It was especially disturbing to hear him defend the federal government’s handling of the Katrina catastrophe, claiming they weren’t slow or inept. As you can imagine this didn’t sit well with the people of New Orleans where there are still 200,000 abandoned houses, where five hospitals still haven’t opened, where the bitter memories of Katrina will never fade. According to Editor & Publisher: Tuesday, The Times-Picayune -- whose staff was forced to abandon its New Orleans headquarters in the rising flood waters and whose reporters were the first to alert the nation that the city had not "dodged a bullet" on Katrina -- begged to differ. Strongly.

"There ought to be no question that the government's immediate response was slow and shameful," the Times-Picayune said in an unsigned editorial headlined, "New Orleanians, and the nation, know what happened after Katrina." But I could go on and on about the human catastrophe that is George Bush. Memo to him and Sarah Palin (borrowing from Keith Oberman): we cannot miss you if you don’t go away.

Elizabeth Alexander was on The News Hour last night with Jim Lehrer discussing poetry and her role in the Obama inauguration. She says she plans to be “quiet and humble” and explained the role of poetry in people’s lives. She also talked about how when she was one her parents took her to see Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream Speech in Washington. Talk about coming full circle—she was an amazing. Asked how she is crafting her poem for the inauguration, Alexander said, "I am trying to both be quiet inside and keep my ears open outside to listen to where we are right now." You can see a clip of her at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ There are also poems and more information about her at the ArtBeat blog.

Yesterday I had the radio on in the background and Thom Hartmann of Air America mentioned that there is a position open for a paid blogger. I’ve searched for information but cannot find it, but here is what I heard. There is now an audition process going on for a blogging gig that sounds too good to be true. The person who is awarded the job will spend a year on an island in the Great Barrier Reef blogging about life on the island. And oh yes, earning $100,000 a year. If anyone knows the details, write me.

I woke several times during the night to the roar of wind thundering through here loud as a 747. Blustery-- a marvelous word-- was invented for days like this. Highways and roads are being closed in the mountains because trees are toppling over and debris is blowing around. Meanwhile, there are flood warnings and watches out for the region, especially southwest Washington since the ground here is saturated by rains and snow and now more rain is arriving as snow melts.

For the past ten years or so I’ve taught a workshop called Writing Recharge in January and during the workshop we’d talk about how to push aside doubts and excuses and make writing a part of our daily lives. At the core of every writer’s life is a routine that sustains him or her during the good times and bad. Now many of us don’t like to subscribe to routines—too confining, too dull, too, well, routine. But think about how children respond to a bedtime routine—how a routine can offer comfort and solace and peace. Here are some tips to help you slip back into your writing routine.
1. Put writing first. Writing goals will never be accomplished if you write with leftover scraps of time and energy.
2.Remember that difficulty and anxiety are normal components of writing..
3.Don’t wait for inspiration, write anyway.
4.Don’t give in to distractions.
5.Associate with positive people who have like goals.
6.Take charge of your thinking.
7.Keep going despite your moods.
8.Take breaks. Writing is sedentary and cramps the arms, upper back and shoulders. Get up and stretch at regular intervals, walk around the block, perform yoga postures.
9.When the going gets tough, take a vacation.
10.Analyze your writing and life goals and start living as if your already have it.
11.Experiment. When you’re stuck or procrastinating, try another medium. Haul out crayons, paints, collage materials, clay, and express your ideas. Draw a sketch of a character or thumb through decorating magazines and create a collage that represents the home and lifestyle of your wealthy, eccentric protagonist. Grab a camera and travel to an inspiring location and snap photos focusing your writer’s eye on the world. Go to the garden and plant a bed of flowers or bulbs or herbs. Or, slip into the kitchen and make a pot of soup or stew, bake a cake, experiment with a lasagna recipe. You might be surprised at how many ideas for your stories will begin simmering as you dabble in another medium.
12. Stay focused. Work on one paragraph, one scene, one project at a time during your writing session. While outlines or elaborate plans can be immensely helpful as a map for our projects, each day as you begin your writing, focus on a single goal for that day and don't let the whole project crowd into your head. Often the enormity or complexity of a project can be intimidating. Don’t scare yourself: keep your goals firmly in mind —perhaps you want to write two pages, two hours, or finish a tricky scene where your character must escape from a locked cellar.
13. Ignore trivial worries. Don't worry about trivial concerns---such as other people stealing your ideas, how to spend your book advance, and what outfit to wear when you appear on Oprah. Or they’re obsessed with copyright issues. Should they print the copyright mark on every page? Should they date every page, mail copies of their work to themselves? Or they wonder if Courier or Times New Roman is the best font to use. Other writers are obsessed by the worry that someone will make them change their words. Other writers are nitpicky perfectionists and tinker with every comma and adjective afraid to declare ‘the end’. Write first, then edit and polish what you’ve written, then worry about getting it published.
14. Conserve your writing energy. Don't squander your creativity talking or fantasizing about your writing. Keep the details to yourself and write instead of gabbing about what you plan to write. Some writers waste their story by spilling it to friends, but talking too much can dissipate its power. Or sometimes well-meaning friends or family will have so many suggestions that we get confused about the true direction of our work.

More words to add to the word list: Hurdy-gurdy, whipsaw, cobbled, avatar, corrode, chirping, bulwark, loopy, spangles, lofty, rocketed, pomposity

Night is settling in on the first day of 2009. I wish you and your family a happy, healthy, and peaceful New Year.

So what are your doable or impossible dreams for the new year? Here are a few of mine:
I hope that no matter how trying our times that we can all muster a dose of optimism and more than a dose of laughter.
I hope that children everywhere are safe and beloved.
I wish that children everywhere would spend less time with video games and more time reading.
I hope that my aunts will thrive this year after dealing with radiation treatments, heart surgery, and other health issues.
I hope that people (especially my students and friends) who were born to write will sit down and write instead of surrendering to their fears.
I hope that poetry and poets will thrive.
I hope newspapers will find a way to survive while continuing their necessary tradition of investigative reporting and other services to communities. And may they find readers, especially younger readers, who appreciate good journalism.
I hope that news organizations everywhere will devote more ink and air time to the catastrophic effects of the economic crisis on people who were low-income before the current downturn.
I hope that family farms continue to thrive and become more numerous, and more people will grow gardens and teach children where food comes from.
I hope that a college education can be made affordable for low and middle income students.
I hope that independent film makers continue to make intriguing films.
I hope that global warming will stop being a political issue, and become a fact of life that must be combated with rationality and worldwide cooperation.
I hope that things start shifting so that our sense of community and mutual responsibility grows. Which might mean that people who collect friends on Facebook and other such places, might instead start nurturing friendships in the real world, as in face to face, as in I’ll bring you chicken-soup-when-you’re-sick and hold-your-hand-at-your-mother’s-funeral kind of friend.
I hope that fake memoirs will no longer be published.
My greatest hope is for peaceful solutions in the world’s craziest trouble spots. Let’s all hope for lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians; for the suffering people of Zimbabwe, Congo, Sudan and other African countries ripped to shreds by hatred and violence; for Pakistanis and Indians, also, people so often on the brink of hostilities.
Along these lines, I hope that a more rational and creative policy for Afghanistan is reached. Perhaps the folks in government and the military will realize that if Alexander the Great, and the Soviet Union and Great Britain at their military peak could not conquer Afghanistan, that neither can we and we should get the heck out of there. Perhaps a modern, functioning democracy is simply not viable there…..Or perhaps we can help them rebuild their agriculture instead of supporting the current narco economy.
I hope that a flag lapel pin will never again be equated with patriotism.
I hope that the phrase “war on terror” is retired.
I hope that the Obama administration has great success in 2009—although this takes into account the daunting tasks ahead. Universal health care would be a fine start.
I hope the Detroit automakers return to profitability, this time selling cars with fuel-saving technologies.
I hope that as promised, we begin the troop withdrawal in Iraq along with diplomatic envoys, and work with the Iraqis to establish a working, trusting, long-term relationship. And fix the electricity system for the Iraqis on our way out the door.
I hope that stem cell research is once again funded.
I hope that Guantanamo will be closed down.
I hope that a Special Prosecutor is installed to investigate the Bush administration war crimes.

Sky is the color of soot with clouds the color of gloom. The drifts and piles of snow are mostly melted, the nearby creek has risen two feet, and the city of Portland needs a new plan for dealing with a “snow emergency.” Perhaps they could start by buying more snow plows.

Meanwhile, 60-plus miles away in the Pacific 19,000 Gray whales are surging south to Baja to warmer waters to birth their calves. It’s the largest mammal migration in the world, and they travel about 12,000 miles. In my imagination I imagine them passing by, huge bulks with knuckled backs and spouts sometimes visible from the shore, their acrobatics as they breach from time to time, their songs reverberating into the depths. Whales calve only every two to four years and the mystery of whales seems endless.

In yesterday’s New York Times book section there was another exposé about a falsified memoir, Angel at the Fence by Herman Rosenblat. Now this one was supposedly a shocker because the author was a guest on Oprah, and had previously published the story in shorter versions. The book will not be published and the publisher has asked Rosenblat to return his advance. He said, “I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people,” he wrote in the statement. “I brought good feelings to a lot of people and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world. In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream.”

It seems fairly simple to me: fiction is a pack of lies—the bigger, the better. Memoir is the truth as best you know it.

I wanted to pass along a press release I received for Oregon writers: Willamette Writers Coast Branch starts the New Year off with a workshop, “Writing Oregon 150 Stories,” led by Matt Love, editor of Citadel of the Spirit: Oregon’s Sesquicentennial Anthology (Nestucca Spit Press, 2009) on Tuesday, January 6, 2009, at Newport Public Library from 7-8:30pm.

Part of the Oregon 150 Celebration is the Oregon Stories Project (www.oregon150.org/oregon-stories) an online site collecting stories of 500 words or less about Oregon. Anyone can submit an essay or oral history as well as an accompanying photo, audio or video.

To encourage local authors to write their own Oregon 150 story, Matt Love will provide examples of current Oregon 150 Stories as well as exercises and prompts to get writers started. All interested people are welcome to attend, listen to stories, tell and write their own, and receive help in shaping them to the 500-word limit. The workshop concludes with directions to submit stories either online or by mail to Oregon Stories Project, Oregon 150, 1211 SW 5th Ave. #L17, Portland, OR 97204.

Matt Love, Director of Writers on the Edge and publisher of Nestucca Spit Press is the author of parts 1 and 2 of the Beaver State Trilogy-Grasping Wastrels vs. Beaches Forever Inc.: Covering the Fights for the Soul of the Oregon Coast; and The Far Out Story of Vortex I.

Snow is falling again, adding to our white, white world and I’m heading out to spend Christmas with my daughter’s family. I wanted to wish everyone safe travels and a beautiful Christmas and downtime to enjoy the peace of the season. I also wanted to point out a few articles at salon.com. ( http://www.salon.com/)

First, there is Garrison Keillor’s essay about attending a Spanish-speaking mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Christmas Without Translation.

Then, there is the list of the top ten movies of 2008 by Stephanie Zacharek—Two of my favorites made the list, The Visitor and Happy-Go-Lucky.

I would also recommend the article about the state of the publishing world Read it and Weep: Book Industry in Financial Crisis by Jason Boog. It behooves writers to pay attention to the huge shakeup happening in the publishing world. It also behooves us to write better and make contacts and then write better.

And finally just a tidbit to pass along--the Saddleback Church of which Rick Warren is the pastor has scrubbed from their website their position about not allowing gays to join their church. They’ve also removed information about how humankind once walked the earth with dinosaurs. Perhaps besides Obama, Warren is feeling the pressure.

He recently was interviewed by Sean Hannity, and Sean Hannity asked him, “Should we attack Iran?” And Rick Warren said, “Well, it’s our God-given obligation to take out evildoers.” Doesn’t that have an eerie ring of familiarity?

I don’t need to dream of a white Christmas any more but I do dream of a world where everyone is given dignity and a place at the table.

Happy Solstice and Hanukkah to all. Winter began around here awhile ago and snow, lots and lots of snow toppled from the heavens, followed by ice and more snow and now our world is frozen and quiet and still. Oh, and more snow is in the forecast. My plans for Christmas are now in doubt as the world remains white. I have to laugh at myself—in my secret heart I’ve been longing for this much snow and like the song says, I dream of a white Christmas. But now that it’s here I fret because I cannot go anywhere…..

A lovely reader of this blog sent me an email decrying my opinion of Rick Warren being chosen by Obama to take part in his swearing-in ceremony and suggesting that I dislike all Christians. Since she doesn’t know anything about my religious or spiritual affiliation I find this accusation puzzling. I have nothing against Christians in general who are in the majority in this country and do countless good works, although there are certain religious organizations that I believe are dangerous. Particularly right wing evangelicals who are constantly inserting themselves into our laws and rights of individuals and who operate with such breath-taking hypocrisy as they espouse pious views about family and the sanctity of life. Now, I know that Rick Warren and his church accomplish lots of good works, but I still don’t trust the post-Falwell face of the evangelical movement and question how the Saddleback Church, which doesn’t allow gays into its congregation, can identify themselves as love-thy-neighbor Christians.

As a writer I recognize that symbolism matters. And the symbolism of Warren at the inauguration ceremony infuriates me. For the record I believe firmly in a separation of Church and State, believe in a benevolent God, a just society, and freedom and equality for all, not just the 80 million evangelicals in this country. And that art matters. But don’t get me started on all I believe…

Like many people in the publishing industry I’ve been complaining about the mega-advances that celebrities receive for their books and so was thrilled to read Timothy Egan's NY Times attack on Joe the Plumber. If you haven’t had a chance to read Egan’s books, you’re missing a great writer.

Also, since books lists are so much fun, here’s Jezebel's list of 75 books that women should read. The article was in response to Esquire's list for menwhich is a response to Esquire’s list for men. I’ve read most of them! Happy holidays to all and stay warm out there.

The morning sky, a dismal shade of slate promises snow.
I’m getting jazzed about 2009. Since I spent half of 2008 recovering from a car accident because a young woman could not find her cell phone while driving and plowed into me, I’m ready to close the door on this not-so fun year where I spent so much time in bed I’ve memorized the obscure pattern in my bedroom ceiling. I’m not kidding about this. And since I’m still recovering and lately my head has been throbbing constantly, well, it’s best to dream of spring and new things and imagine goodness that must surely follow travail.

So I was thrilled to hear that Elizabeth Alexander will be the inaugural poet when President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in next month. She is the fourth poet to achieve this honor and along with Aretha Franklin and Yo—Yo Ma, I’m sure she’ll rock the place. Violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill will join Ma for a new work composed by John Williams. I always equate Williams with Steven Spielberg movies, don’t you? And I hear that Nickelodeon is going to cover the inauguration. How fun is that? Everyone is planning for a massive turnout with Rick Warren giving the invocation as the sour note for the day. Would someone explain why it’s necessary to court evangelicals?

But back to Alexander. From her website: “Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, Antebellum Dream Book, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize. She is also a scholar of African-American literature and culture and recently published a collection of essays, The Black Interior. She has read her work across the U.S. and in Europe, the Caribbean, and South America, and her poetry, short stories, and critical prose have been published in dozens of periodicals and anthologies. She has received many grants and honors, most recently the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954,” and the 2007 Jackson Prize for Poetry, awarded by Poets and Writers. She is a professor at Yale University, and for the academic year 2007-2008 she is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.”

And speaking of poets, W.S. Merwin was a guest on NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross on December 16th and discussed his new volume of poetry, The Shadow of Sirius. If he’s still writing at 81, surely we can all pen a few more lines?

Meanwhile, speaking of out with old and in with the new, I’m trying to ignore the Bush Crime Family’s Farewell/Legacy tour as they try to reshape their oh-so tarnished image. Like they’re going to change our minds that invading and occupying Iraq was a good idea??? And now that Cheney admitted he authorized war crimes, what are we going to do with him? Throw shoes at him? So let’s not schlep down that wincingly obvious pile of horse pucky.

I’m also jazzed that Caroline Kennedy might be joining the Senate because I’ve long admired her and think she’s a terrific writer with a great mind. Other good news: in case you haven’t heard, check out ART BEAT at pbs.org/newshour/art/blog which is covering the national art scene by Jeffrey Brown, Newshour correspondent—I’m looking forward to this coverage. As I’m sure you know, in hard times we need art…and more art….

The wintry weather is still blustering through our region, and I’m keep listening in to the prognosticators trying to figure out when I can venture forth. Stay warm and keep it lit and power to the people.

The morning skies are pewter colored as we’re heading for the Solstice and another winter storm is arriving to add to the snow and ice already on the ground. School closings are being announced and I can imagine children all over the city still tucked in their beds. Yesterday afternoon after the sun shone on the icy street in front of my house, I was able to make it to the post office to mail out-of-town Christmas gifts and the grocery store to stock up on food. The line in the post office was the longest I’ve ever seen, but everyone was cheerful and resigned and laden with packages. I passed the time trying to peek at the addresses on these packages, imagining them arriving in North Carolina and Ohio and other destinations.

At the store, there were few parking spots and carts available and inside it buzzed and clattered with throngs of shoppers jamming the aisles in search of provisions. For the first time since I’ve lived in Portland, the shelves were being stripped of basics like bread and butter and milk. I was reminded of people stocking up before a hurricane although the parking lot was slick with ice. After returning home with my provisions I walked inside and experienced a dull, empty sensation that can only be called cabin fever as there are predicted more days ahead of storms and ice and cold.

Now, since I grew up in Northern Wisconsin, I know that winter can deal out much harsher blows that our below freezing temperatures and traction-device only driving conditions. Last week I was talking with someone about the coming storm and talking about a winter I spent in Wisconsin on the Lac du Flambeau Indian Reservation when I was in my twenties. My daughter was in first grade and every morning I’d walk her about a half mile to the bus stop through the woods. Most mornings it was about twenty five below and the dawn came in shades of violet painting the horizon and we’d shine a flashlight on the animal prints in fresh snow. As we walked along it was still as if the whole world was holding its breath in the snow-covered forest except for loud cannon blasts emitting as trees cracked in the deep freeze of winter. Somehow, these memories are still some of my best although I can still remember the bone-chilling cold and what it felt like to return to my cabin and the wood stove.

This morning I told myself I was a winter writer, that sun is a distraction. I tell myself that cold weather makes a person feel really alive—and it does, it does. So I’ll concoct a pot of stew and I’ll drink tea by the quart and I’ll watch the snow tumble down, marveling at how the world is transformed under fresh layers of white.
For people living in Washington, Kay Kenyon, of the Write on the River conference held each May in Wenatchee, WA sent me this announcement: Update: Expanded Writers' Competition

Greetings! It's time to give yourself a gift this holiday season, or to spice up your new year with an early resolution. The 2009 (second annual) WOTR Writers' Competition has been expanded with two distinct prose categories, both fiction and nonfiction, and more generous awards.

Some things are the same: maximum word length is still 1000 words, and the entry is $15, or $40 for entry fee and a written critique. Anyone in Washington may enter -- aspiring, pre-published, or published, and you have until February 6, 2009 to mail in your entry. See our website for rules, guidelines and printable form.
You can start the new year right -- just start writing!! (http://www.writeontheriver.org)

The neighborhood is blanketed in such thick fog that some of the nearby trees are mere shadows. Over the weekend I was out a tree farm on Saturday during a day with turquoise skies then drove home later with my tree under a sunset of rose, amber, and violet that was spectacular. On Sunday morning I was upstairs at my desk in my pajamas when I heard a loud truck approaching. A house was sailing past with two men riding on top of the roof like circus performers riding elephants. One man walked along on the sidewalk snapping photos with his cell phone as a gaggle of families with children followed along. I dressed quickly and joined my neighbors to watch the house being lowered into the lot. A deep hole had been dug because they’re adding another story beneath the house, then the engineers spent the next hour positioning it so that it could be winched into place. I spoke with one of the drivers of wide load trucks who described some of their more difficult jobs and then chatted with neighbors I’d never spoken with before. And I kept imagining a real circus arriving in the days of old when the men would erect the Big Top and all the excitement and speculation.

America has always been a place of opportunity and second chances. Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York, is now writing a column for Slate. His first column is titled We need to stop using the bailouts to rebuild gigantic financial institutions. I couldn’t agree more…

I received this notice from amazon.com yesterday that I wanted to pass along:
We invite you to visit the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award website at www.amazon.com/abna where you can read the latest news on this year’s contest. Find out more about bestselling authors Sue Monk Kidd and Sue Grafton who will be leading our expert reviewer panel upcoming contest.

You can also read about some of last year’s finalists who have since received publishing contracts. Plus, don't miss Bill Loehfelm's 2008 winning novel “Fresh Kills,” hailed by the Associated Press as “the finest crime fiction debut since Dennis Lehane burst on the scene,” now available in hardcover from Penguin Group (USA).

The submission period begins on February 2, 2009 and ends on February 8, 2009 or when we receive 10,000 entries, whichever comes first. If you're an author with an unpublished novel, you can sign up for important contest updates and information on how to get your entry prepared for submission. Please note that previously published titles, including self-published titles, are not eligible for entry.

Visit the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award website at www.amazon.com/abna.

Writers ask me often about finding agents or if I can hook them up with agents. Sorry, not in the business of match making, but I suggest that if you’re agent hunting that you read their blogs or at the least the submission guidelines that their agency posts online. Here are two blogs that are worthwhile. The first is from Nathan Bransford who writes:
I'm a literary agent with the San Francisco office of Curtis Brown Ltd., a New York based literary agency that has been representing writers since 1914. I'm particularly interested in literary fiction, mysteries and suspense, historical fiction, narrative nonfiction, business, history, sports, politics, current events, young adult fiction, science fiction and anything else I happen to like! I'm afraid I do not represent poetry or screenplays. If you are interested in submitting a project for representation, please e-mail me a letter describing your project at nb@cbltd.com. No attachments, please. If you have a question, please first check the links in "The Essentials" directly below, and especially the FAQs. Thanks for reading this literary agent's blog, and best of luck with your search for representation!

And another blog by Janet Reid Literary Agent . Here is her introduction: I’m a literary agent with FinePrint Literary Management in New York City. I specialize in crime fiction. I’ll be glad to receive a query letter from you; guidelines to help you decide if I’m looking for what you write are below. There are several posts labeled “query pitfalls and “annoy me” that many help you avoid some common mistakes when querying.

It’s December already and today the sky shifted from foggy mist to a silver hue. Then it was sunny and blue and by mid-afternoon a cloud bank had rolled in like it meant business and now it’s drizzling. Temperatures still warm, ski resorts still not open on the nearby mountains. Luckily, I write instead of ski and clouds are conducive to writing. On this day in 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in the front of a bus to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama. Martin Luther King Jr., took up her cause and called for a boycott of the city-owned bus company, which lasted 382 days. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of buses was unconstitutional.

So I was thinking about Rosa Parks and her rare act of courage and thinking too about how writing requires courage and belief. What if the book you’re writing or are afraid to write causes a movement, just as Rosa’s refusal exploded the South’s Jim Crow’s laws? Or maybe your book will make a reader look more closely into the past, or understand her sister or father or neighbor better. Or maybe your book will open a groundswell of compassion for all humankind. You never know what a single act of courage or words on the page can unleash.

And news from MediaBistro: Bill Shapiro (editor of Other People's Love Letters) is looking for your literary rejection letters, planning to publish them in a 2010 collection entitled, Other People's Rejection Letters.

If you need more immediate satisfaction (or sympathy) feel free to include your literary rejection in the comments section. Or check out the excellent Literary Rejections on Display blog.

From the press release: "Whether typed form letters or handwritten in a fit of rage, whether sent by text message, email, or scrawled in crayon, any kind of rejection is fair game ... If you have a letter, you can either send it to me or scan it (600 dpi, por favor) and then email it."

For my word list ballyhooed, boondoggle, hornswoggle, crimeny....What words have you added lately?