The Writer's Mailbag: Installment One-Hundred and Nine

Bill

Sunday's my only day I get to sit and read some hubs at the moment, but what a treat when I do!

I so loved what you said about the 'vivid imagination' I've got three books on the go at the moment as simply put otherwise my head would explode with what the 'muse' tells me.

As for 'competition' well I'm too far away to be any serious competition for anyone, but I remember reading what Robert Kiyosaki said in one of his books that every month one trillion $ changes hands and all we are trying to do is get a little more of that $1 trillion to land and rest in our accounts!

Great stuff here, and I know the auto-checker is telling me that the last sentence has bad grammar but I'm leaving it that way as while $1 trillion is lots of little $ there is only one of the 'trillion' and that makes it singular!

I needed the refresher on the comma and but. Thank you. Also, I was wondering how many times you went back and revised your first novel? Does it get easier to write without edits after time?

Hi Billy:

Writers are a community, normal everyday people carving out a niche where they can share with word and what is on their hearts.... well written as always Billy... Glad to hear Bev is on the mend...

Hugs from Alberta

I don't see writers as competition either, Bill. After all, there are so many genres in the literary world and most readers have their preferred genre(s). Not only that, not all writers are good writers. To take it even further, each writer has a different voice and that's what adds variety to each genre. I don't only read Koontz, or King, or Johansen, or Grisham. Hell, I don't only read Holland or Baker, for that matter. Each writer worth reading has something unique to bring to the table. That's not competition. That's variety and, as a reader, I thank God for it! As a writer, I embrace the community and share in the joys of success on each and every level.

Yes, I hear it's a tad damp there. lol

I can't be without sunlight for too long. It really messes with my head. Happy Monday to you too.

Bill

I read in one of your comments on another page that Bev has been ill. So sorry to hear that and I am hopeful that she is on the mend.

Take care of both of you.

Healing Angels are on the way ps

Spring and summer here in England are just lovely. And I don't mean the tourist traps like London. I live in a rural area so I have the privilege of warm sun, sultry breezes, and the occasional thrilling thunderstorm. Knowing that it's coming to an end again always makes me sad. Winter's have always been hard on me; both weather wise and psychologically. At least there's Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to look forward too.

I didn't want to believe that summer is receding but after a long drive yesterday, I see that it's true. The blackberries are in and the farm workers are harvesting the fields and orchards. Even the scent on the breezes is changing. Time to break out the apple pie recipe and go berry picking.

(sigh)

Hi, again, Bill!

I'm not sure if you can answer these, but I would imagine that you could.

As you know, my degree is in English, but I studied quite a bit of Sociology. Let's put it this way, I love both so much that if I was writing for an English class, I used Sociological theories and if I wrote for a Sociology class, I used literature analysis. Anyway, I am considering writing and publishing some work about Sociology on Amazon. Would it be wrong of me to do so, even if it was my minor?

My next questions are concerning citation and bibliography. Professors from both of my colleges had me use MLA, most of the time. Only on rare instances APA. Lately, I have seen Chicago style knowledge required under job listings. Do you think that if I were to publish educational material, I need to learn and use Chicago? Does it matter which one?

Thank you for any advice!

I hope Bev is home and doing well, now!

I'm glad Bev is back home. What a difference that makes to both of you, I'm sure.

Just been de-mothing my old Teddy who's rather sad at the moment. Thanks for the smile!

Ann

Great stuff, bill, as ever!

Sorry to hear that Bev has been unwell and I hope she is now well on the road to recovery. Please give her my best wishes.

To continue the comma thing - it seems to me that this is the only area where American English is more complicated than ours! I can't get my head around those rules at all. We Brits are a simple lot; well I am anyway!

From a simple Brit to a clever American, have a wonderful, if complicated, weekend!

Ann :D

Your very last answer is 'cool.' I like it. Won't dwell here, because I did touch on it last week.

Buildreps is 'testing you out.' Ha ha. There is a creative workshop programme for writers and poets where I recite poetry. I refuse to attend at all times. They can be so limiting....so confining! Generally I avoid the commas after 'and' and sometimes after 'but.' Still, 'feel' or 'intuition' is so important!

Some say the English use double inverted commas more (") and the Americans( ') but I see both being used successfully on either side. Anyway, for my creative spirit, the standard knowledge of usage of grammar is more than enough.

The summer is waning Bro. I really like that. Does that mean you're getting younger? Bev is in the hospital, but August is a special month for birthdays.

My Teacher, to me, one of the greatest luminaries or visionaries of the 20th and 21st century, was born on August 27th. God's willing, I will join the celebrations in NY next week.

So sorry that I do not have this poem to share: I believe the poet called it 'Seemingly Less Beautiful.' Yet it was one of the most beautiful poems I've heard for a very long time. May you, your wife and family, continue to experience an array of positive vibrations and ever-increasing Delight.

"The only thing I can control in this business is the quality of my writing and how I market my writing." I share your views on this Bill. More good books only mean more good reading for me and everyone else.

Just catching up. Thank you for your answers and now I know that my craziness is natural. That is what I really love about writing - I can leave this wild world for many moments at a time. Blessings to both you and Bev and I hope she'll be home soon.

Keeping you and Bev in my thoughts and prayers. Hope today comes with good news. Thanks for this week's Mailbag, Bill!

I enjoyed reading your take on the competition for today's writers in this media rich environment. Yes, it is tough to buy every book we might like to have and there are so many from which to choose.

Sorry about Bev's illness and I understand the toll it has taken on you both. Still hoping and praying for her quick recovery and return to good health. Sometimes illness draws people closer. I know it did in the case of my hubby when he was ailing before surgery and afterward. All the best to you both.

All good answers, as usual.

To me one's imagination is like the TARDIS. Supposedly it's contained in one's brain, but it can travel galaxies and eons in an instant and turn a cloud into a castle. All creativity begins with imagining--with a mental image or sense impression suggestive of the end product or result. But imagination, while necessary, is not sufficient. Craft is needed to manifest the imagined.

A well-advised hub on grammar. Always an educational hub from you.

Spot on with your coordinate conjunction rules. One of the biggest things I try to emphasize is that contrary to popular belief, grammar is not a hard science, and therefore gets very fuzzy at times.

If you never want to be wrong, always put a comma before conjunctions that connect 2 sentences, but stylistically, I personally prefer to leave them out when the sentences are short.

Great read.

Hi Bill

I sure hope Bev is out of the hospital by the time you get to this. I continue my prayers for her.

I gleaned so much from this "Writer's Mailbag." Each one is a treasure chest full of priceless information for a new writer such as myself. And you are pure gold!

Thank you for sharing your expertise, experience and inspiration.

Love and gratitude from me to you!

Audrey

Bill, I don't think I will ever get this punctuation deal down correctly. I just use them as I go with the flow of what I am thinking. If I want to break up something here or there, I just use them. I hope that does not piss off my readers too much.

I have been in the hospital on emergency and planned visits many times. I have never felt anything but relief in getting there alive. I reckon I am like the high percentage of people who go to the hospital to get better and do. With that said, the doctors only do so much. It is your love that will heal your Bev. I am sending my love to join yours.

Just a short question you might just answer here. Do you sometimes feel like "scoop" the old time investigative reporter when you write about the facts of your imagination?

Much useful questions and answers. The comma after but is really an unknown fact for me. Thanks for the insight provided. Yes, it is a good fact that writers need to involve in vivid imagination and should move along with the characters. That is a fine lesson imparted. Very insightful mailbag. Thanks once again.

Hi Dear Bill,

Oh, please take care of that sweet woman of yours Bill. I do hope she is feeling all the way well soon. I'm sorry to hear she is not well.

It has been one of the hottest summers in years here and I am ready for Fall too without the humidity! I love October for it is the most pleasant of weather here, usually.

A short, sweet, yet really good Mailbag once again. Love the imagination question.

I hope you have a peaceful rest of the week.

Hugs

I'm glad to hear that Bev is a bit better, Bill. Thanks for creating another interesting mailbag edition for us to read.

Re: Competition. For a writer to presume he has "direct" competition is to presume he has identical offerings to other writers. Shopping for a book isn't the same as shopping at Walmart. And if, indeed, his product is identical to another writer, he's lost the game. He has become an undifferentiated commodity.

But I will say that the competition question does have validity. I have found that the greatest competition for my business does not come from direct competitors (other writers), but from everything else my customers and readers can buy. This takes a great deal of market intelligence to combat. But that's what it's going to take in the market for readers' minds now and in the future.

Have a great week!

Thank you, good friend, Bill. I had no idea where to start researching for that type of ebook program. I’ll get on it and see what my author thinks.

I usually dislike autumn because winter is just around the corner, but this summer has been so hot that I might reconsider. I really do dread dodging school traffic though, especially since a bridge over the Arkansas River is being replaced and thousands of us are going to have to find a new route to and from work.

So sorry to hear that Bev is in the hospital, but it’s good that she’s on the mend. I hope it isn’t serious. Blessings to you both.

Thanks for answering my question. For native English speakers it might a dumb one. I've had some problems with the usage of "but" because it is in my native language exactly the opposite. You explained it perfectly well. Thanks for that. The other three questions were awesomely answered. I like to add to that one about competition that if you're the only writer in the world, you might have a much bigger problem...

Bill - The question from Rasma and your response were a great part of the mailbag today, that a writing needs to have a vivid imagination.

I am in the midst of reading a fiction-based-on-fact story about the life of Ernest Hemingway. He wrote powerfully about running with the bulls in Spain, and did so by totally immersing himself into the story. He became the story and it became him--they were inseperable.

Could he have accomplished the same writing without being there? I rather doubt it.

So where am I going with this? Does a great writer need to fully experience (not simply imagine) that of which they write, or did Hemingway suffer from a lack of imagination?

I am wishing your lovely wife a speedy recovery.

Hi Bill. Hope Bev continues to mend and is home soon. I prefer the fall also. All this heat and humidity wears on me. Have a great week.

Hope Bev is feeling better with each passing day, Bill . It's been a very educational morning. I was thinking along the same lines as Buildreps. Glad you cleared that up. Thanks for another useful mailbag!

So very sorry to hear your wife has been ill. I do hope she recovers soon.

And once again, I love your competition answer. I would say that your third job is encouraging the other million or so writers out there to contribute their absolute best to the mix as well. And a good job you do at that third one, I might add. A technical deal to go along with MizB's question is about the stretching of images. It doesn't matter if they are old, new, black and white or full color. The editing software doesn't take note of any of that. Its only job is to fit the submitted data to the page parameters. This is one of the reasons that many publishers save the photos to add to the back of the book. They save them as a pdf file which basically is a file that saves it flat exactly as you set it up. It cannot move, stretch or divide. If you really wanted to photos to appear at the end of a particular chapter you could save the photo pdf and the chapters separate and load them separate so that they don't move when added to the program. It is when the photos are embedded into the text that they can suffer stretching. The same thing can happen when we artists try to submit images to magazine publishers embedded in text. The magazine publishers will make us save the text and images separate for this very reason. Hope that makes sense.

Blessings,

Denise

Rasma's question was great. When I was a kid, I wrote a scary story on the computer in the basement and felt terrified. I thought, "Am I crazy for doing this?" Then, you remember how Poe wrote about what he feared most.

The competition question reminds me of how I'm sure most people in my age range are feeling about the job market. Personally, when I vent about having a degree without the job, I don't only think of myself. I consider all of us in the same boat. We are all smart and have something to offer. We all deserve well-paying careers that use our skills. To see other grads as competition would make me conceited. It's the same way I feel about other writers.

I hope that Bev recovers soon. She's in my thoughts.

I like your comment about imagination, mine runs wild sometimes. I've been out of the loop because my laptop crashed, so I was unaware that Bev was sick. I hope she is better. Still love this mailbag series. Thank you...

I hope Bev is soon on the mend. Whew the grammar questions can get very very specific. I like your attitude about other writers as colleagues rather than competition. Styles, tastes and luck influence so much.

For a moment there I thought you were going to banish the comma from the English language, just like you exiled the semicolon a few weeks ago. I have had homeless semicolons knocking on my window since then, begging to be let back in. I am relieved I can still use the comma, though it might be troublesome to do it right.

I hope your wife is doing better. Great work!

Am I the first......well as I start this comment I am but usually by the time I finish it and click post, another has got in first. So I'll make it short...good mailbag, Bill. I was right, by the time I posted, Janine and Eldon beat me...damn )

Hey Bill, I hope your wife has a timely recovery from whatever ails her. She's in my prayers (though I don't know Mrs. Holland's first name). Anyway, I'm always glad when Monday arrives. Your mail responses are a great way to start the day, and the week. Glad to see you've got e-books off the ground and running!

Wishing you the best Bill, as always,

-E.G.A.