Real Words

Death Becomes Them: Writers Who Became Famous After They Died

kathrynv — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:46:10 +0000

I received a link to an interesting article about 10 Greatest Writers who Became Famous After Death. What an interesting topic! I’ve often thought about the people who became well-known as artists after they died. However, I hadn’t thought extensively about people who didn’t receive a lot of writing fame until after they had passed away.

If I had to think about it, only one of the names on the list would have come to mind. That name is Anne Frank. Her diary is so incredibly famous, as both a piece of writing and as a piece of history. Of course, it wasn’t something that she was famous for during her young lifetime.

Other names on the list became more obvious to me once I thought about them. Sylvia Plath is a good example. She is so widely known now for her poetry. Even people who don’t know a lot of poetry know her name. And yet, during her lifetime, she didn’t make nearly such a mark even though she was a published poet.

And then there are some folks on the list that I hadn’t even heard of before. I’m curious to check out their writing now since I don’t know them yet.

Can you think of any other writers who became famous post-humously?

Little Building Made From Books

kathrynv — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:07:46 +0000

I’ve written here before about how much I like book art - books turned into something amazingly creative that becomes art. I think there’s always a double meaning when books (which symbolize knowledge, learning, education, self-expression and so much more) are used to create art. So what about when they’re used to create architecture?

Inhabitat has a cool post about a small octagonal building that is made entirely of books. The create it, the artist made an octagonal frame, filled it with stacks of books and removed the frame. What’s left is a building that you can enter even though it’s just made from books.

The pictures of it are cool; readers will like them so go ahead and check them out over at the original post.

Unnecessary Quotation Marks: Pet Peeve or Fodder for Funny?

kathrynv — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 14:48:41 +0000

As a writer there are some things about writing that completely annoy me. You know how it is - there are grammar issues or spelling problems or other quirks of writing that are just your personal pet peeves. These things are unique for everyone. For example, a lot of people are annoyed by typos in writing and they’re actually something that I find completely amusing.

On the other hand, one of my pet peeves has always been unnecessary quotation marks. People seem to love putting quotation marks around words for absolutely no reason at all. And I just don’t get it. There are two times that you need quotation marks. The first, obviously, is when you are quoting someone. The second is when you’re trying to indicate that what you’re saying isn’t really what you’re saying at all. Although we do this in writing, it’s more commonly seen when we add air quotes to our speech.

For example …

“Where are John and Suzy?” Jen asked. Lesley’s responded with a wink that the on-again, off-again couple had gone in the bedroom to “talk”. In this case, we all know that talking doesn’t mean talking at all.

I like those quotation marks. I like that we can say one thing and mean another and everyone can know what we really mean because we alter our tone of voice or use those quotation marks. So perhaps that’s why it bugs me so much when people just randomly decide to use quote marks for no apparent reason.

However, I have to confess that I’m learning to find the humor in these annoying cases and it’s due in no small part to a blog I recently discovered call The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks. Much like the popular FAIL blog, this blog posts pictures of real life notes and signs and then follows them up with a single sentence or two about why the sign is funny. To be honest, I find the notes they add a bit superfluous. However, the pictures crack me up. I love seeing all of the ridiculous ways that people are using quote marks without needing them.

One of the things that I like about typos is that they make me stop in my tracks for a moment. They make me look at what someone was writing, puzzle over what they really meant and actually think for a second about all of the information streaming through my brain. Often, looking at the typo, I see something ironic or funny there. And I’m learning through this blog that I can think of unnecessary quotation marks in the same way - less of a pet peeve and more of a fodder for momentary humor throughout the day.

What do you think - are unnecessary quote marks one of your pet peeves?

Poetry Can Be Found Absolutely Everywhere

kathrynv — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 01:39:10 +0000

Not too long ago I did a post showing photographs from my mural walk which featured poetry written all over the city. Today I’ve got a video to share that shows Portuguese poetry written along a bike path. What a beautiful idea! I love the thought that you can find writing everywhere that you go … it’s inspiring for writers of all types! TreeHugger has the video along with a written translation.

The “Rules” That Bloggers are Debating

kathrynv — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:01:44 +0000

There are no hard and fast rules about how to blog. Yes, there are guides. There are six-figure bloggers who provide tips and ideas about being a successful blogger. There are general etiquette practices that bloggers tend to follow. But the truth of it is that the most successful bloggers are the ones who find the way of blogging that works for them regardless of what they’ve been told works in general.

And as blogging as grown to such huge proportions, bloggers have found that there are some common beliefs about blogging that they just don’t agree with other bloggers about. In fact, Problogger had a great post recently listing 29 Debates Bloggers Have. This simple x vs. y list shows that there are not only no clear cut rules for blogging but actually totally opposing beliefs about a lot of blogging methods.

One example given in the article is whether you should have descriptive titles or keyword-focused titles for your blog. Either way can work depending on what you’re seeking to do, who your audience is and what type of blogger you are. This isn’t the only title debate either; bloggers even debate whether you should have short titles or lengthy titles.

This is what makes blogging great … it’s very personal, very individual. You can blog in the way that is right for you and find an audience of like-minded people who like your style. You get to be yourself. And really, there’s no debate that that’s the best way to be a good blogger.

Upcoming Webinar to Boost your Link-Building Skills

kathrynv — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 13:29:02 +0000

There is a webinar coming up soon that caught my eye and I figured it might also interest some of the folks who read my blog. It’s all about how to get the best incoming links to your website or blog. This is a topic that you might think that you already know something about but there are two good reasons that the webinar could be worth checking out anyway:

Things change fast on the web. The best ways to get high-quality incoming links are not the same today as they were one or two years ago. It’s important to have the most updated information.
Refreshers are always helpful. Even if you really do know all of this stuff, it’s helpful to have your mind refreshed about it. It’s like a little poke that says “oh yeah, that’s what I should be doing” and it motivates you to re-focus your efforts on correctly building new incoming links.

The webinar is supposed to cover a wide range of topics from why links and anchor text are important to the issue of whether or not to pay for links to building links naturally without making major mistakes. The webinar is being led by Arnie Kuenn who has spent the past 20+ years working in marketing and new technologies. The event takes place on 2/16/10 at 11:30 in the morning. Follow the link at the start of this post to get more information.

Oh, and as a bonus, 20 of the folks who sign up for the webinar will get a free t-shirt with the slogan “link love, not war” on it. Cute!

T-shirts for Readers

kathrynv — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 16:05:10 +0000

I’ve started blogging for a really great local Tshirt company called Edgi. Needing to research for that blog gives me a great excuse to read a lot of fashion and t-shirt news. Doing so led me to a post from Cool Hunting which I thought might interest other writers. It’s about a T-shirt company called Out of Print that uses old and out-of-print books as the inspiration for its designs.

The designs themselves are cool and the tees make great conversation starters. After all, people are going to have something to say when they see you sporting a vintage edition of Lolita or some other classic novel that they’ve read (or think they should).

More importantly, however, the T-shirt company is a partner to a company called Books in Africa which aims to bring books to areas of the world where it’s not easy to find them. Imagine not being able to go to your local library to pick up a read. People in other parts of the world don’t have that luxury and this organization tries to help. For every t-shirt that is bought, a donation goes to Books in Africa. Definitely a cool idea.

Thoughts on Dating a Writer

kathrynv — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:10:08 +0000

A lot of people have commented on the article that I wrote here awhile back giving 20 good reasons to date a writer. The article was recently noticed by Examiner.com writer Melinda Maddison who writes a column about dating over 40. She reprinted some of the article along with her own thoughts comments. She has some neat things to say so I thought others might want to check it out.

Other blogs that have linked to this article include The Shared Journey, Write it Anyway, The Creative Penn, Beyond the Rhetoric, Eyeweekly.com, Fiction Scribe and eek - even HoustonMassageParlors.net!! Thanks all.

29 Other Writing Blogs to Check Out

kathrynv — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:13:11 +0000

I received an email last week letting me know that this blog had been included in a list of the 30 Finest Creative Writing Blogs of 2009 that was published by the Online Colleges and Universities website. (Scroll down past the featured schools list on that page to see the list.) I enjoy their site, which often features terrific writing tips an resources, so it made me happy to see that this blog was included there.

I was also happy to see myself in some great company. Here’s a look at the other 29 blogs that were included on their list (in alphabetical order):

Which one is your favorite from the list? I’m a big fan of Writing to Done, The Urban Poetry Muse, Thursday Bram and Men with Pens.

How to Effectively Go Through Old Stacks of Writing

kathrynv — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:37:49 +0000

My big writing project for 2010 is to go through all of the old writing that I’ve been meaning to go through for years. I have tons of projects that relate to this. I’ve got old files on my computer that need to be organized, some of which can be deleted and others that can be re-worked into new articles. I have an entire box of old scraps of writing that date back more than ten years. I have several poetry and fiction projects that were started and have been ignored. It’s my goal to go through these, save the stuff I’m actually going to use, mine some insights wherever I can and then toss the rest. The goal here is to clear out the old writing (either by using it or tossing it) in order to make room for new writing.

What I’ve discovered is that it’s not easy to accomplish this task (which is why I’ve been starting and stopping it and putting it off for so long). But I think I’ve found a system that works for me. Here it is:

Identify all of the writing to go through

The first step for me had to be to get organized enough to know what I wanted to look through. Then I needed to prioritize. The main things I want to look through are computer files, that box of writing and my unfinished projects. I prioritized them in that order.

Define clear goals for what to do with the writing

My biggest problem with going through my writing has always been that I don’t really know what to do with it as I’m going through it. Sure, there are some scraps that I clearly just need to toss but mostly there’s a bunch of stuff that may or may not be useful to me in some form. Defining exactly what I’m looking for as I go through my writing makes it a lot easier to actually sort through it. For me, the goals are:

Repurpose any work that can be used somewhere else. This goal needed to be even clearer so I had to set specific things that I was looking for such as writing to use in my personal blogs, writing to repurpose for clients, writing to turn into magazine articles for specific magazines … By defining this, I am able to do a much better job of organizing existing writing for new uses.
Look for any insights into myself. Much of my writing, especially on those scraps of paper, reminds me of things about myself that I had forgotten. That’s why it’s so hard to get rid of some of it. What I’m doing is setting aside anything that provides specific insight and then journalling about it now before I get rid of those original pieces of writing.
Save any great lines. Usually there are only one or two great lines of writing in a whole stack of papers. I’m learning to look for those and then set them aside while getting rid of the rest of the writing junk that is there.

Knowing that these are my goals makes it easier to organize my writing because as I’m looking at a document I can ask myself “can this be used somewhere else - and where”, “what does this tell me about myself” and “are there any really great lines I need to keep?”

Create a system of organization

After defining these goals I was able to start thinking about how I wanted to organize what I was sorting through. Because I’m sorting through several different things, I’m using a few different methods to get organized:

Computer and physical files. For the work that I want to use somewhere else, I’ve got files labeled “blogs, clients, magazines”. There is a file on my computer for each of these so that I can drop other files into each of them to get organized. I also have physical files for each of these which is where I’m sorting the paper stuff in the same manner if I plan to use it in a writing project.
Stack for journalling. If something seems like it gives me some real insight into myself then I place it in a stack for journalling about later.
Highlighting. The few great lines that I’m coming across are highlighted and then stacked together. I’ll be going through these highlighted portions later and copying them into a journal or computer file - a sort of inspiration packet for myself.

A note on the “miscellaneous” stack

At first, I also was tempted to have a “miscellaneous” stack for keeping “good” writing that didn’t seem to have any other place. I quickly realized this would just fill up and I’d be left with the same mess that I had before. I decided that there would be no miscellaneous stack. If a piece of writing didn’t fit into one of my categories, I’d ask myself if there was any purpose at all for it. If I couldn’t come up with one then I’d get rid of the writing. It’s ruthless and tough but it’s the only way I’m going to mine through this stuff, find the gems and move on.

Start plodding through in small chunks

Now that I’ve got this system ready, I’m able to start plodding through it. What I’ve discovered is that I need to do this in small chunks. I take a stack of the papers that I have and sort through them each evening. I only spend about half an hour on this project. I just go through that stack, put each paper in one of the aforementioned files or the trash, and then that’s it. A few times a week, I do the same thing with computer files. I’ve found that tackling small chunks on a regular basis is helping me get through this project much more efficiently than ever before.

So that’s my system and it seems to be working so far. How do you mine through your old writing?