Write Well Me

License Plates

It's time again for words on cars!

In my recent eight-hour-round-trip travels to Virginia Beach and back, I had ample fodder for a post on license plates. Virginia cars always seem to have more vanity plates than Maryland ones. I wonder if it's cheaper to get a customized plate in VA than in MD.

Here you go for your word pleasure:

• WZA TCHR: I just hope she didn't teach English.
• CAR-VETTE: Very cute, and it almost won the prize for most creative until...
• SA-WEET: I'd do this one in a heartbeat.  (And since when do you get to use hyphens on license plates? I don't think we can do that in Maryland.)
• TRST 1ST: At first, I thought "TRST" stood for "TRYST."  There's someone with a secret. Then I figured out it was probably "TRUST FIRST." Oh well. So much for the fun of trysting. 
• NAPTURAL: I'm not completely certain what this means, but if it means the person is a natural nap-taker, I'm all for it.
• 4MYWYFEY: I particularly liked the "Y" and "EY" in "WYFEY." Very cute.
• IMAGOIN: Since I know a couple of Imago therapists, I thought that this might refer to some sort of Imago verb.  Then, I figured out it was probably "I'm a goin'" - I don't think my brain likes to try to decipher four words out of one long string.
• STR8T UP:  Not hugely clever, but I need something to do in my last hour of driving.
• And from Antonette - she needs help figuring this one out:  4MYXTAQ.  I can get the "For my..." The question is for my what?  My ex-something? My extra something?  Any clues?

I'm An Expert!

Last year I became a writing expert on AllExperts.com, a large-scale question and answer service on the internet, where volunteers share knowledge in their area of expertise. What types of questions does a writing expert receive at AllExperts.com? 

Well, it’s an interesting assortment of inquiries. For the cynical members of our audience, yes, a few high school students have asked me to edit their essays for college admissions applications. On the other hand, there are questions from those who are genuinely stumped. People for whom English is not their first language have asked for help interpreting what an author meant by a certain turn of phrase. I’ve also been asked to give advice on cover letters, letters of resignation, and letters asking for a refund.

Other than that, as you’d suspect, most of the questions are good ol’ grammar questions. I’ve had fun talking with people who truly want to know the answers to grammar questions.  Who knew other people besides geeks like me really cared?

I’ve realized – again – that my stuff (knowledge, programs, passion) works best when the participants really want to be there.  That’s who my market is:  people who really care about writing.  It’s not people who don’t want to be there or who are only doing this because they’ve been told to or think it’s something they ought to do. My gift is helping people become stronger writers – people who really want to write well.

So you can come find me on AllExperts.com, or you can get the full force of the Dawn (I told you I get a lot of mileage out of my first name) in one of my classes. So if you want to write well, want to write with a strong voice, or you want to learn some strategies to let those ideas flow, come find me.

Rocks In My Life

In my post on three words, Patricia commented, "Stones have such a mystical sense to them, and to use them in this way is lovely. I have a window ledge that could use some stones..."

I hadn't really thought about it before, but I have stones all through my house, including a couple of window sills.  I didn't do it on purpose. "Oh, I must put rocks on this window sill." It was more instinctual, and I didn't really think about it until Patricia's comment.

The more I think about it, the more I realize how much rocks and stones figure into my life. One of my favorite monuments in DC is the FDR Memorial, with all its large rocks (with words on them, yet).  I recently wrote a WOW (Writing On a Whim) prompt about rocks as a metaphor for milestones (huh - just saw the word play there:  rocks/mileSTONES).



Rocks in a circle formation on my altar.  (Note that the card from Cheryl Richardson's Grace Cards collection is "Act," along with one of my favorite art pieces. Nothing to do with rocks; I'm just still amazed by the synchronicity of picking out cards at random.)



Window sill in my bedroom. No rhyme or reason to placement or particular rocks.  They do have to somewhat match, though.



And just in case the rocks on the window sill weren't enough, a little bowl of them.  This makes three places in my bedroom where rocks are a staple.



And now for my office.  Yes, all the rocks (except the big purple one on the left) are black.  The only rhyme or reason to placement.

Living, Not Existing

Last week I had the extreme honor of assisting Laura at her Attraction Marketing and Money Mindset retreat.  I knew I'd be there to be the hostess with the mostest, but I didn't realize that it would be yet one more opportunity to create amazing connections with yet more people. 

One of the things to come out of this retreat from one of the AMMMPers (what I call them) was the idea of truly living, not just existing.  This was a powerful shift for her, and it was a shift for me as well.  I'm pretty vibrant and alive, but with all the personal stuff I've been going through, there's definitely been an element of existing.

I'm going to change that.  I'll live my life and my business with more intention.  I'll make writing part of every day.  And not just all the writing I do on a daily basis - blogging, article writing, Twitter - but fiction writing. I'll be making some changes to my business, good changes, life-giving changes. 

I'll be breathing life into all facets of my life.

Thanks to all the wonderful women at the AMMMP retreat who helped me see this, as they were stepping into their own visions.  They all welcomed me with open arms and hearts, even though they were at this retreat for them and their businesses; they invited me to be one of them. I look forward to this journey for all of us.

(Awesome women in the pic above:
1st row:  Beth Pelfrey, Teresa O'Neill, Janine Underhill
2nd row:  Joanne Stein Letlow, Beverly Keaton Smith, Laura West, Martha Pasternack, Laurie Mandato, Chris Baeza)

Can't Do It Anymore

My life has been a little topsy-turvy lately, and one of the temporary casualties of the topsy-turviness is my novel.  After my week with Laura and the Attraction Marketing and Money Mindset posse (more about that this week), I decided I really needed/wanted to get back to writing - for me - on a daily, consistent basis.

While I may not have been actively working on my book, I have been thinking about it.  I've been playing with the idea of taking the story within the bigger story and making it a separate novel/short story altogether.  Or maybe making the container story much smaller.  Or leaving the existing structure as is and working on that.

This morning I decided to play with taking the internal story out of the container story (which, in its current, original form, is the much larger of the two stories).  As I was copying and pasting Isabel's story into a separate document, I caught glimpses of the other story, the container story, as I call it.

If I wasn't clear before, I am now.  I can't work in that bigger, container story.  It served its purpose: it gave me Ilsa's story.  And, probably even bigger than that, it helped with some of the healing I needed to do. 

So why remove the bigger story and essentially start over?  Because that container story is too much my story.  Hence, why it was therapeutic.  But I don't want to work in my story any more.  It's too painful.  I'm done with that, and I want to move on. 

Also, I love working in Ilsa's story, seeing her world, bringing it to life, trying to figure out how she's going to get out...  I'm excited about the characters, all of them.  There's complexity, life, color... None of that is present in the larger container story.  Quite the opposite. 

I'm following my instincts and I'm temporarily scrapping the larger story, and I'll work solely in Ilsa's world.  I say temporarily because I'm not doing anything silly like burning the printed manuscripts I have or erasing the files on my hard drive.  Perhaps that will come later.  But right now, I've separated the two, and I'm happy with that.

More on Ilsa to come.

Marketing Upsells to Witches

I watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks last weekend.  I was recovering from a cold, couldn't work anymore, and the number of movies on my DVR that I haven't watched was starting to stress me out.  (You don't get much more anal than I. Hence, why I went back and changed "than me" to "than I" when Miss Stacy Brice called me out on it.)

It was cute, although at times a little slow (sorry, Antonette). One thing caught my eye, though.  Miss Price (played by a very lovely Angela Lansbury) has sent off for witch lessons from a witch correspondence school. She's found out by the three orphan children staying with her, and so she has to come up with something to keep their silence. (She's a good witch, she is.)

She mentions a special traveling spell she got as a bonus for signing up for the witch correspondence course. The children happily agree, and she imbues a bedknob with the traveling spell, paving the way for traveling beds throughout the movie.

I was struck by that.  Even a Disney movie (and I don't know if the original 1943 book describes this marketing technique) can teach a thing or two about marketing.

Get the prospective buyer to commit by offering a bonus!  Whether that's some freebie book, Ginsu steak knives, chocolates or a traveling spell.  Upsell! But wait! There's more!

I know that last sounds like I hate upsells. I don't; they're a smart marketing tool.  I just think it's funny that they're everywhere I turn.

Speaking in Metaphors

It shouldn't be a surprise that I speak in metaphors. Maybe it's just the frequency with which I do it.  Here's a challenge for Dawn... try to explain something without using a metaphor.  Probably impossible.

Here are just a few of the metaphors I've been using for writing:

• Editing and gardening:  Sometimes people think that editing is just getting rid of the bad stuff, the deadwood, so to speak.  (See? There I go again.)  Editing and revising is also about paying attention to what's strong and has impact and doing more of that.  Think about your garden or landscaping around your home.  You might have some flowers or plants that have spread because you planted them eight years ago and then haven't really done anything with them.  Now, they're so thick that they're choking on themselves.  So, you prune them back.  You might even subdivide them and find other places in the yard to plant them.  Editing isn't all about removing the ugly weeds.
• Websites and welcome centers:  Think of the home page of your website like a welcome center.  You walk in, and the friendly, helpful docent lets you know what to expect at the site and the things you want to make sure to see.  She might even point out tickets to some of the bigger attractions.  Your website home page functions much the same way.  Welcome your visitor in and give him some direction about where to go next.  And guide him along the way.
• Connecting to readers and garden hoses:  (I must have a thing for landscaping.)  As a writer, your goal is to connect to the reader.  Otherwise, why write?  You want that connection to be strong, much like a nice, wide garden hose.  Imagine you the writer holding one end, and the reader holding other.  You want that stream of meaning to come gushing through, not get caught up in kinks and twists and knots, or by an opening that's much too small to even let a trickle through.

And for those non-writing situations:

• Relationship issues and house renovations:  Working on relationship issues and wiring while still being in the relationship is much like doing major renovations on a 100-year-old house while still living in said old house.  Imagine that your old house has one kitchen and one bathroom, and they're both in such bad repair that you need to gut them both.  Yet you decide to live in the house (and you still need to eat, wash, and do, er, other things) at the same time that your kitchen and bathroom are being torn apart. Any contractor will tell you that it's less stressful, quicker, easier, and more successful just to live somewhere else while those renovations are going on.
• Fear and sleeping dragons:  We all have our stressful times when it feels as if we're just going to be crushed by life.  The dragon is awake! And then there are times when the fears subside, maybe because we have regular ol' life to deal with or because we're stronger on a particular day or whatever.  At that point, the dragon is sleeping nicely in his cave.  We know the dragon will wake up again, and even when he's awake, if we're lucky, we know he'll go back to sleep.  And, eventually, if we're REALLY lucky, he'll go find a different cave altogether.

What metaphors do you use?

Groundhog Day Again

So yesterday was Groundhog Day, and of course that brings to mind the movie with Bill Murray, the main character who relives the same day (Groundhog Day, of course) over and over until he learns to become a better person.

Is your writing project going through Groundhog Day (well, without being woken up to “I Got You Babe” every morning at 6:00)?  Like I mentioned before, I could almost be at that place where every day I think that my writing plan is going to take shape.

(I’m really almost there.)

If you find yourself in the same boat, come play with me in Ready, Set, Write.  The next Ready, Set, Write five-week class begins February 24, and the deadline to register is February 10. For more information, go to: Ready, Set, Write.

Big Brags

Yay, me! Big brags. (And why it’s taken me so long to announce this, I just don’t know.  I’ll get over myself some day.)

Through Write Well U, I offer Ready, Set, Write, and I have to admit it’s one of my favorite programs I’ve developed.  *I* want to take this class! The original program covers forty-two strategies to get the writing process started, past the roadblocks of a blank page or an empty screen. (For more information, go here.)

Some people can’t devote an hour a week for five weeks to a live class.  I get it, and I’ve been pushed to offer the material on its own.  I never thought I wanted to do that (because I like to talk so much), but there really is good info here.

It occurred to me there was an opportunity, so we've made the manual for the Ready, Set, Write class available as a stand-alone product. It's the Ready, Set, Write Toolbox, and it contains descriptions and examples of the same forty-two strategies we use in the live program.

Now, when my prospective students can’t make it to a regular class – yet – they can purchase the Toolbox for $35. If they register for a program within six months, they can apply the $35 towards an upcoming Ready, Set, Write five-week class. So what do you have to lose? To purchase the Ready, Set, Write Toolbox, go to: Toolbox.

If you think you might be interested in the live class – and getting the full force of Dawn – the next class starts February 24, and the deadline to register is February 10. You can sign up here.