Can You Come Back To It?

I just checked in my Hi/Lo books folder on this computer. I found many, many ideas for short books in it. The funny thing is, I knew exactly what I had thought about for each story as I read the one or two sentence description.

Got an idea? Write it down. You can save it in a folder on your computer, etc., or you can carry around/use a notebook to jot down writing ideas. Give each idea at least one full page. Just write the idea on the first line. Leave the rest of the page empty. Details for that idea will pop into your head, and you should put those details/ideas for it, on the page with the main idea for the article, book, poem . . . whatever the form of writing you want to do for that idea.

I just looked at an idea I wrote in 2019 . . . I remembered exactly what it was about and jotted down the ending paragraph. Now I need to write the rest of the hi/lo book.

Remember to read the types of writing you want to write. You won’t get ideas to copy, but you will see how authors construct their works.

Writing is like you’re building an airplane as you fly it. Send out submissions for publication, but meanwhile continue to hone your craft.

Ideas are like an artist’s sketches. You will know what you intended to write when you have time to sit down and develop the idea.

Effie

Recently I’ve had many memories about my grandmother. Her first name was Effie, and it was just by my mother’s refusal to name me that, that kept it from being my name. My mother loved her mother, but she had also been named Effie and did not like the name. Still, with that name and her knowledge came the woman who would mostly raise me.

My grandmother, Effie, was a professional seamstress. She taught me all the tricks she knew and many standard ways of sewing that she went by. I did not realize at the time, as I “tore out that zipper” one more time and tried again, what valuable lessons I was getting.

My grandmother was also a gardener. She always had a garden everywhere we lived, and I enjoyed being outside with her. In that garden I learned many lessons – some about gardening, some about life.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve had my son help me transplant a Dogwood tree. It popped up in the bush that is by my porch last fall. I left it there until recently and then had him transplant it to be beside my bedroom window. The roots on it were long, and although there was only one leaf on it, there were plenty of leaf buds on the end of the branches. I read yesterday that late fall is the best time to set out/transplant a Dogwood tree. I didn’t know that, but I think it said spring was the second best time. My grandmother would have known.

So as all the memories have recently popped up, I’ve thought about all the knowledge that woman, who had a sixth grade education, gave to me. What she knew, she knew well, and she loved to teach me.

She taught me the phonetic way of reading. Back in my childhood, the “See and Say” way was how reading was taught. When my grandmother realized I was not being taught letter sounds, she sat me down nightly and taught me herself. I would later get a Masters Degree in Language and Literacy and teach Reading to struggling readers myself. Been there, done that! I knew how to do it before I got my degree. But the degree enabled me to do it for a living.

She taught me many things, and to honor her memory, I am going to write a book with chapters about things she showed and taught me.

This is how I choose my writing topics. I call it my “muse”. I will be so attentive to a subject that it fills my head and must come out through my fingertips. I’m at that point now. Every day is a new memory and so it’s time to write.

Much of writing happens before the first word is put down by the writer. As we do mundane tasks . . . washing dishes, sweeping floors, our mind goes to our topics place, as I call it, and we mentally do our best “writing” while otherwise occupied. The next time you are doing something and a writing idea pops into your head, jot it down. Do it in a writing journal – a spiral notebook will work, and isn’t expensive.

I’m doing that here. I’ve come up with a working title. I’ve decided it will be a book, not an article or poem or short story. I have plenty of subject matter (Things my Grandmother Taught Me), and I’m ready to write. I’ve thought about this for at least the last six months. Memories popping up. Me knowing no one else will ever hear her wise words, if I don’t write them down.

Publishing? At MY age? It will be a self-publish on Amazon. I’ve done that 3 or 4 times already. Four? I wrote Bow Wow! Meow! and that’s the 27 page book of short poems I wrote about pets and wildlife. Some had been published in National Magazines. Some had not. That’s the book I am proud of. The other three need heavy editing. The one I wrote about teaching experiences was published as I recovered slowly from Covid. It was titled “More Than I Bargained For”. Teaching turned out to be just that. Then there was the one containing other poems. The Title eludes me. And there was one that was actually a Teacher’s Guide to Black History. I titled that one “Black History Raps” and have sold none. That was a title suggested to me since it contained poems (and other things) about famous people in Black History, and I used it. The Rappers have NO INTEREST in the book and the teachers don’t know the valuable contents. I plan to republish that one with the title “Teacher’s Guide to Black History”.

But I have to get these memories out of my head and the only way to do that is to write them down. So here goes!

New Year, New Ideas

I have written professionally since the 1980’s. During that time I’ve taken many writing courses. There’s always something new to learn.

One new thing I learned, beginning last year, 2022, was how to paint on canvas.

I made a new friend that year who is an artist. I enjoyed sitting outside with him listening to the birds chirp and seeing the blue sky . . . feeling the soft summer breeze blowing . . . having small conversations about his craft. . .

One day I said I’d like to try painting. I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it . . . He got a canvas he had sketched a picture on and asked me what color I’d like to begin with? He said to paint the sketch he’d done. He gave me a brush and glanced from time to time and always said encouraging, kind comments. I enjoyed the painting. It is like nothing else! It takes me away and I found I loved it.

He said he could tell by the way I held the brush that it wasn’t the first time I’d ever painted. All I could remember painting was walls in my home . . .

I asked my children if I’d ever mentioned to them about painting a picture? They all said YES! They said I’d told them about a man on TV that had a show teaching painting when I was five or six years old, and how I’d gotten one of his painting sets for Christmas back then, and had spent mornings painting with him. I sort of remembered his name and googled what I thought it was. I found him! It was Jon Gnagy and I recognized his picture when it popped up beside his name. How many very, very fun mornings I had trying to imitate and learn what he was teaching on TV! THAT’S where I’d learned to hold a paint brush and use one! Isn’t it funny how things learned so many decades ago can now help me?

So I told my friend about Jon Gnagy and he just nodded. I finished that painting and framed it and my friend took me to an art and craft store to buy more canvases.

I’ve painted various paintings since and most are on the walls of my home. I was thrilled last month when my oldest visited for Thanksgiving (and her birthday) and said yes, she’d like to have my painting of Wind in the Sunflowers for one of her birthday presents. She had said she loved the dynamics in it when I showed it to her.

What has all this got to do with writing?

In 2015 I wrote a children’s book about a bully bird. It was based on an actual event I viewed at my bird feeder. It needed illustrations. (I worked as a Reading Teacher for years and illustrations help children decode unknown words.) I could not find anyone willing to illustrate the book. So now, guess who’s doing it!

I have the first three pages sketched out and one of them painted. The other two are partially painted.

This morning I copied the sentences for each page from the written story. I had bought canvas boards to use for the illustrations. I taped each page’s sentence to the back of the canvas board. I need two more boards, but I’m sure I have plenty of time before I really need them. The painting takes time and I just hope to have this finished by the spring. There are twelve pages in the book. I need twelve paintings and something to illustrate the cover.

I self-publish on Amazon. I have a few books already published, but plan to edit most of them. The one I am satisfied with is the first one. It’s called Bow Wow! Meow! and is a short book of my poems about pets and wildlife. Some have been published in magazines. I keep the rights to my work and it reverts to me after a magazine’s publication. I believe it’s called North American First Serial Rights? It’s been a long time since I typed up and sent off manuscripts and entered that info.

The cover of the pet poetry book has my oldest, Jordan, as a baby, and our (at that time) dog, Atlas. There is at least one poem that was published about Atlas in the book. I listed the publications and which poems were published where in the back of the book.

I am at the end of my lifetime. I have retired and now have time to write and paint and explore this writing gift (talent?) I think I have. I’m delighted to have discovered I also have – however well I do it – a talent for painting.

As a writer, you really don’t know what in your life will provide inspiration . . . become your muse . . . move your writing career forward. Keep learning every day. Keep writing, and if so inclined, try your hand at sketching / and or painting. You never know what you can do, until you try.

Bow Wow! Meow!: Poems about Pets Stories – Cats Dogs and Others

by Constance Barr Corbett 

Above is how my poetry book about pets and wildlife is listed on Amazon.com

Writers’ Retreats

I’ve seen ads for Writers’ Retreats and often sat and wished I could afford to go to one. To have peace and quiet and time to do nothing buy write! That sounded like heaven.

Guess what! I found one I can afford. It’s right here!

I live in a quiet apartment complex. I seldom have visitors and our signal to each other not to knock is to close our blinds or curtains.

I can write right here!

Do YOU have a space in your residence where you can hide and be quiet and write to your heart’s delight?

When my children were young, I would often write during their nap times. Once in awhile I’d write at night after their bedtimes.

Life went on, the children got older, I went back to work and the Writers’ Retreats in the magazines I’d read looked so appealing. However, that never happened for me.

This morning, yes, JUST this morning, I realized I am now at a permanent Writers’ Retreat. No one else here writes. Some paint. Some do other things (watch their favorite show) and want to be left alone.

I can do this here.

I already planned to set up a website in the next month. I can do that in peace and quiet too.

I don’t know where you are in your life right now, but if you look around and consider alternatives, you might figure out a place for you to be alone and write too.

It may be some people like others around when they write. I need to be quiet and alone most of the time.

IF you have any solutions about a Writers’ Retreat, please leave them in the comments because I love to learn! I’ve lived here a while and it took me this long to figure out I am IN a Writer’s Retreat, if I want to be in one.

The Writing Never Stops

The writing never stops, if you’re a writer, does it?

Something as simple as calling your current pet by your former pet’s name can spark a poem, or a paragraph and maybe even a story? A chapter in your book?

I had decided to write for an hour each day. I am a published writer who has slacked off in the last couple years. Covid, moving, other health issues, depression . . . you name it, I used it as an excuse? More like a reason.

There you go . . . writing merrily along and realize there’s a better way to say that, a better word . . . and it doesn’t stop there, does it? Then there is proofreading and punctuation corrections and misspelled words, etc. Maybe a paragraph works better in another location in the piece? Manuscript . . . not piece.

So I debated whether to share the new poem here, but I do not believe anything I write here is copyrighted and that’s the goal, isn’t it? I created this. . . It’s mine . . . I’d no more hand it to anyone who would take it than I’d hand a child of mine to a stranger . . . some relatives are iffy as well . . .

So YOU have the “what if” mindset? Do you have the “and also” thought patterns? Does your mind dream up things you can only write about? There’s probably a genre for that.

So, this is not a full hour’s writing (lucky you?) but it will count for today. I have plans for today. I usually don’t. I’ll just post this because I was surprised when the poem appeared on my screen as I wrote it. I can usually tell when there’s more to come by the number of lines that automatically pop into my head.

I had a dog named Joy. Joy is still alive and well, living with my son, but I fell twice while walking her 50 pound self, and my son said last time he took her while I mended, that he was NOT bringing her back. And he hasn’t. I skype with her sometimes. But she is happy where she is and I haven’t fallen in eleven months.

I went to the shelter and rescued the oldest cat they had. But still when I talk to her, half the time I call her Joy. Her name is Hera. She was named after a goddess and I kept her name. She knew her name. She was almost ten years old when I got her, and she has fit into my life perfectly!

So today when once again I called her “Joy” as I was talking to the cat, this line popped into my head:

Whoever lived here before me was called Joy . . .

and the rest of the poem began to recite in my mind and I sat down and wrote it out.

There’s that poem and there’s this blog, and my writing is done for today.

The two best things you can do for your craft is to write frequently and read a lot , . . that’s today’s advice. And even if you’re washing dishes and words/lines pop into your mind, stop long enough to write them down. We called it a “Writer’s Notebook” in the old days. You took it everywhere with you. In it we wrote descriptions of places, weather, people . . . whatever you might draw upon to write a scene one day, and also writing ideas . . . jotted down thoughts and beginnings of stories or plots or poems . . . and you never suffered from writer’s block (what’s that? something my friends probably wish I’d get once in while when I’m emailing . . . ), but writing knows no bounds. Enjoy it.

Teaching Your Child To Read

Once upon a time there was a “plague” in the country and everyone tried to stay home and away from each other. Children didn’t even go to school!

During that time, I made a few videos to help parents with young children teach those children to read.

Today I stumbled upon one of those lessons. I am going to put the link to it in my blog. This video is several years old, but the content is still valid. It may put you to sleep. I have no idea.

I just know if you are going to succeed as a writer, you want as many people to be able to read as possible.

That was NOT the reason I made the videos, but for some reason I am sharing one of my Teaching Your Child To Read videos here right now.

I had two articles published a few years ago in Teachers of Vision Magazine. One was titled “The Classroom Read Aloud” and the other was “How to Get Your Students to Write More”.

That is your take away from this blog for today. If you know how to do something others may not know how to do, or even just want to learn more about doing, you can turn that idea into a sellable article.

I could have written this as well as made the video, but I was trying to show how to do what I was talking about.

Here you go, if you have any interest:

On Being Published

Getting started in your writing career, or just frustrated at not getting published? Did you know you can write a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine and if they print it, that’s considered “Published” there?

When I was first getting published, or trying to, I sent letters to a columnist named Dennis Rogers. He was employed by The News and Observer, Raleigh NC. He sometimes used my writings in his column.

I started writing in blank page books for each of my children when I was pregnant with them. I wrote until the book was full. The following was from Nov 12, 1982 when my oldest was not quite a year old.

“November 12, 1982

Dear George A.,

Last night I lost my beloved, loyal dog, Atlas. No, he didn’t die. He was stolen away. Stolen away by your always ready smile, your willingness to play, your laughter and youthful unpredictability. Once before this week Atlas tried to hide in your room at bedtime. I caught a glimpse of him just as I was closing your door and ordered him out. He slept in my room that night. Last night I awaken to the sound of whimpering and the futile scratch of paws against wood. I raised up in bed and saw Atlas at your bedroom door; he was begrudgingly lying down outside. I got up and walked the few steps to your bedroom door and let him in. He curled up under your crib. I can think of no one I’d rather have him than you.

Love, Mom”

I sent it to Dennis Rogers, who was a columnist for The News and Observer, Raleigh NC. He used some of my writings in his Friday columns. He used that for part of his column a couple weeks after I sent it. He always gave me credit for writing it and I think that was the one I received the most mail and clipped columns from my friends. They loved it.

You can also volunteer to write a column for your childrens’ school newspaper. I wrote for Tadpole Tidbits, which was the newsletter for Effie Green Elementary School in Raleigh NC, where my children attended. The school mascot was a frog.

Publish where and when you can. You won’t make a lot of money at first, but you’ll be building a portfolio of work.

One Armed Writer

I haven’t written much because I broke two bones in my arm two weeks ago today and I have to type using one hand.

I tried the speech recognition feature on this computer, and I don’t know if it’s my strong southern accent or what, but very few words were what I’d actually said.

This morning I did get up and copy/paste an already written chapter into the blindman book format.

I type shorter emails.

But that’s where I’ve been for awhile. I take it as a good sign that I’m interested in some of my usual activities now. When it first happened, the ER doc said I would need nuts, bolts and pins to fix these bones The orthopedic doctor said we could try to let it heal without surgery. So that’s the current route we’re trying.

OK, so now I’m worn out. I’m delighted to have done a little writing work today, but that’s it for now.

Blindman

I just added 1,192 words to the Blindman book. I continue to work on it almost daily. I wrote these words in September 2012. Do you date what you write? I put my initials and the date and the number of words. It helps when you are trying to sell something. I wrote these words 9 17 12.
This was 17 years after the incident with the blindman. It read as if it had happened yesterday. Clear as a bell. A bell I never want to hear ring again.

I also continue to gather blogs for my “Most Liked Blogs” book that is moving along very slowly. When someone likes or comments on a blog, I add it to my list of blogs that have been liked. I saw I could go in and look through the blogs and see how many likes each has gotten. That would be a good way to sort them too.

I have three blogs. One is called Ms. Playful and is about things that were funny to me. Another is this blog for writers in hopes things I learn as I go helps others. I’ve had many writing courses and if you haven’t taken one, most are worth your while. The last one I took was James Patterson’s online class. He told me nothing that I hadn’t already learned, so I decided I had taken enough courses. His course was very good, by the way.

Still I’m self-publishing, so I’m learning how to do that. I started with a 27 page book of poems called Pet Poetry. Then I published what was to be a teacher’s guide to Black History Month, but titled it Black History Raps, which it really isn’t. It’s rhymes. Lots of rhymes to help you remember who is famous for what. I plan to revise it, but haven’t done so yet. I then published another book of Poems. It’s titled Tell It In Poetry: Short, Short Stories. My last book I published was my memoir of short stories from years of teaching school. It’s called More Than I Bargained For.

I have several books I’m working on, but my Blindman book is the one I try to work on daily. It’s not easy. I have written most of it, if not all, and am inserting the scenes where they go. It’s hard to read through my writing. I feel many of the same emotions I felt when the scenes took place.

Should Have Been Evident All Along

The Blindman Book. I had to stop it for awhile. I believe it is mostly written, but saved by topic and event and not in chronological order. I wrote feverently as memories came back. The writing is good, in my opinion, but the chapters are not in order. Reading each chapter to insert it in the proper place in the kdp format is difficult.

I figured out another way. Chapters are saved by topic or event. Sometimes I wrote about the same event more than one time. Shall I read, read, read about the same thing to decide which one sounds best? Do I want to go crazy? No. I’ll just put them all in the format and when I get what I think is the whole book together in chronological order, I’ll go back and read a chapter a day. I’ll tell myself this is the LAST time I read about this stuff. I’ll choose the best written description of each event and that will be the chapter for that.

How long have I written this book? What is 1995 taken away from 2022. Twenty-Seven years. I have quit writing about it. I’ve tried to quit thinking about it. Sometimes a trigger will set me off, but mostly I am ok. Doctors say I have PTSD. Shall I go to the post office and try to find a friend? (Remember the “going postal” era?) Trying to joke to deflect the emotions.

Ok. So if this book isn’t completely written by now (you should see the folder of chapters/events I’ve written. So many saved chapters.) I will have to write whatever is lacking. I doubt there is anything.

So I am looking at the kdp format and what I’ve put in the book so far. I don’t have to set it up perfectly. I can look at what’s there and remember what went in between or after or before and look under that topic and read the first line of the first paragraph and the last line of the last paragraph and find where it goes. I can do it that way. If I’m fast and don’t linger and don’t read everything at once.

Ok. Then what? Then when it is all together, I will read one chapter a day. Edit. Revise. Done. Never to see again.

My kids have asked me to publish this book. They know what it’s about, although I don’t know if they have read any of it. I cannot be a Prince in my own country. My kids probably read less of things I write than anyone else does. I guess they already know? Who knows? I will order, inscribe and leave behind each of my books for them and maybe when I’m gone, because I do have a “voice’. Authors have a voice, and mine, I’ve been told, is developed. Maybe they will want to read them then.

I wrote a book to each child when I was pregnant with him/her. Recently one of them said his book meant more to me than to him because he didn’t share the memories. “But look at this”, I told him as I held up the Palm Sunday cross that I had taped into his book. This was from the day you were baptized. (Ok, so I wrote while I was pregnant and after the child was born until I ran out of pages.) The frond seemed to be no big deal to him. It may be in the future. Who knows? The book will go into the container I am making for each child. Maybe it will mean something when I’m gone? Who knows? I would have enjoyed reading a book my mother wrote to me when I was still in the womb. I guess I’m sentimental.