To Write or Not To Write

Today is day one of my journey to break into copy writing. Of course, instead of actually doing the aforementioned thing (i.e., creating a Fiverr profile, researching how to write a blog post, getting out there and getting my first gig), I'm here writing a non-monetized blog post that no one will ever read. But it's ok. I hope to document my process and the results, and who knows, maybe one day, I, too, will publish an e-book on the subject.

So, where will I start?

I downloaded this e-book from amber-baker.com. I think it's helpful, but do wish for a bit a more. (I'm a complete child when it comes to these things and want someone to hold my hand throughout the whole process.) My first impression is that I'm thankful for Amber and her website and I'm 100% satisfied with my e-book purchase. She's just one person that God will use on this journey of getting me into writing ... and it was her Instagram account that gave me the kick in my pants that brought me here today. 

Next: I'm now downloading this e-book. Let's see if it gives me the hand-holding that I desire. I'm not a throw-myself-into-the-deep-end kind of girl. My tendency is that I'll endlessly research and never get started. Or I'll procrastinate, which is what I'm doing here with this blog post.

Here's to writing! (Hopefully.) I'll let you know how it goes...

When Farmer Oak Smiled

"When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread, till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to mere chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun."

I love these opening lines to Thomas Hardy's classic novel of an independent and spirited woman courted by three suitors. I watched the film adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd last night, my third time in as many months, and found more insight now that I've finished the book. Farmer Oak, as can be easily discerned from the lines above, is a delight, and Hardy's talent with the pen inspires in me such admiration, as well as sadness that he so early gave it up (with his last novel being released thirty years before he died). Just think what else there might have been!

Back to Farmer Oak:

"In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing had they been exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and urban alike – for which the mind is more responsible than flesh or sinew – a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them; and from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world's room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, quite distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for his valuation as a total more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not. He had just reached the time of life at which "young" is ceasing to be the prefix of "man" in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine life, for his intellect and emotions were clearly separate: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the state wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short he was twenty-eight and a bachelor."

Isn't it beautiful? Happy and fortunate is he who can craft a novel.

Avoid Using the Word 'Very'

So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.

~Dead Poets Society, N.H. Kleinbaum

Writing is Like Driving Sheep Down a Road

The way for a person to develop a style is (a) to know exactly what he wants to say, and (b) to be sure he is saying exactly that. The reader, we must remember, does not start by knowing what we mean. If our words are ambiguous, our meaning will escape him. I sometimes think that writing is like driving sheep down a road. If there is any gate open to the left or the right the readers will most certainly go into it. . . 

~C.S. Lewis on "developing a style" of writing, Decision magazine, December 1963

Rilke on Writing

"Search for the reason that bids you to write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write.  This above all-- ask yourself in the stillest hour of the night: must I write?  Delve into yourself for a deep answer.  And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this ernest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it." 


~Rainer Maria Rilke in a letter to Franz Xaver Kappus, February 17, 1903

What Poetry Does

“Poetry makes the half man whole by saying the things which he feels but cannot say.”

~Clyde Kilby, Poetry and Life (New York, Odyssey Press, 1953), p. 3 via here

"The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say."

~GK Chesterton

Write Music!

"This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am sure the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important.So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader’s ear. Don’t just write words. Write music."


~Roy Clark, Writing Tools via Justin Buzzard

Mark Twain on Developing a Writing Style (i.e., Read!!!)

"Let us guess that whenever we read a sentence & like it, we unconsciously store it away in our model-chamber; & it goes, with the myriad of its fellows, to the building, brick by brick, of the eventual edifice which we call our style."

~Mark Twain in a letter to George Bainton, October 15, 1888

Trip to the library

It's that time again-- time for a trip to the library! Here's what I picked up tonight:

WHY I PICKED IT UP: I was a huge fan of the Harry Potter series. I saw this title at the library, and had to check it out. Looks to be a quick read-- should be interesting!



WHY I PICKED IT UP: I keep hearing about the fabulous Mitford sisters-- first over at Liebemarlene, and then from my friend Sara who reported that Love in a Cold Climate is one of her favorite novels.



WHY I PICKED IT UP: This was recommended by my friend Amy. I've never read anything by Stephen King before, but apparently this one is helpful to aspiring writers.




WHY I PICKED IT UP: This is another author I've never read, as my tastes tend to run to the classics. But, I've been spending a lot of time in the paperback section of Walmart these days (first buying the Twilight series, and now reading the Sookie Stackhouse books), and this one caught my eye. I didn't seek it out at the library, but when I saw it on display there, I snatched it up. I'm definitely going through an easy reading phase.




WHY I PICKED IT UP: The most recent installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series (with another coming out in May), this one promises to be as deliciously addictive as its predecessers. It's a vampire mystery series that I just heard about from my sister who watched the HBO series based on the books.



I just can't wait to start reading! What are you reading these days?