So, Where Are You, Already?

For all you newspapers out there with online versions (that's pretty much all of them these days, right?), here's a tip you may not have considered:

Tell people your city, state and country. Put it right up there in your masthead, the one that appears on the top of every page of your site.

Why? Because it's not just your local audience reading your stories any more. A lot of people all over the world find their way to your little ol' newspaper's site, via news aggregation sites, alerts or searches on keywords in your stories. They may be curious as to where these stories took place, and it's not always evident from the content.

Simply "The Times" or even something like "The Valley Times" doesn't give readers any more clues to your whereabouts. What valley? Where? Sure, the locals know all your nicknames for the area, but somebody in Timbuktu won't. Even including the name of your city only narrows it down a little, as very few cities have unique names that aren't shared by at least one other burg somewhere in the world.

So do your readers, and your town, a favor, and tell people where you are. Your local Chamber of Commerce will thank you for it!

Creativity Exercise -- You'll Love This!

I posted this creativity exercise on Facebook this morning, but wanted to expand on the idea a little here. And I'd like for people to post their resulting stories here, as well. It could get interesting!

So here's the idea. You know those little verification words you get asked to type in when you post a link on something like Facebook, or when you're signing up for something online? Start keeping a list of them. When you have quite a few built up, start writing a story that incorporates all those words. Here are the criteria:

• The words have to be used in the order in which they appear on your list.
• You must include all the words you get as verification words; I usually just keep a Word document minimized on my desktop and pull it up when I have words to add to my list.
  
• A capitalized word, other than a proper noun, constitutes the beginning of a sentence. Until you get a capitalized word, you need to keep including words on your list in the same sentence.
• Punctuate the sentences however you wish, and add words in between as needed so that your story makes some sort of sense.
  
• Make all the words from your list bold in the story, so people will know what you've used.
  
• If you want to make a game out of it, say that the person with the least amount of words added to those on their list wins. That'll really push the creativity up another notch.
  

That's pretty much it! Post your stories here when you're done with them, and we'll start a community of people playing this game. Anybody got an idea for the name of such a game?

I've been keeping a list for a little while now, and the combination of words at the end of it right now is this: "when limply explaining war mullets." Doesn't that sound like a delightful concept to include in a story? Enjoy!

New Book Released!

Congrats to ghostwriting client Joe Overby, who has released his second book, Acres Aweigh! It's the story of Joe's life during the time he was stationed at Mayport as a tug master in the late 1950s-early 1960s. It's also the story of his friendship with Mrs. Elizabeth P. Stark, who used to own a 370-acre estate and operate a large resort called Wonderwood By-the-Sea where the basin at Mayport now stands. Fascinating woman who traveled the world, mingled with royalty, and marched for women's suffrage. As with Joe's first book, there's lots of history intermingled with his amusing anecdotes.

The book is available through Joe, at several local retail outlets including the Beaches Area Historical Society, or online at OldMaidCatLady.com, where you can also purchase Joe's first book, Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere.

Today's Escape from Reality?

The nostalgic opening production number at last night's Academy Awards looked like a Busby Berkeley musical from the 1930s. That got me to thinking. During the Great Depression, people went to the movies to escape from their grim reality. These days the economy is pretty grim, but people are so busy with all the technological distractions of the day that there's really no escape. Even when we go to the movies, there are still at least a half-dozen people in any theater texting or actually answering their cell phones and carrying on a conversation during the movie. No escape.

It's not like Hollywood hasn't tried to get our attention. Big-budget CGA films like Avatar go all-out to pull in the viewers, and box office receipts would indicate that they're succeeding. But the industry insiders aren't buying it; the film won only in categories recognizing its special effects, which was where it deserved to win. The modern-style fantasy musical Nine was pretty much overlooked entirely. (Maybe those Hollywood types aren't so shallow, after all.) The Best Director and Best Picture Oscars went to...a film based on today's war environment. More reality.

But if the movies are just another dose of reality, where do we find our escape? Can we go for a nice drive? Not with the traffic on most of the highways. And then there's that concern about somebody texting while driving and killing us in our cars. At home? No, there we have dozens of TV channels showing "reality" shows. Then there are the video games based on real-life crime to remind us, or social networking and a host of other online reminders of the real world. Some people escape into Farmville or Mafia Wars...again, games based on real-life situations. We've become like junkies Jonesing for increasing levels of action, each more spectacular and gory than the last.

Remember the old TV commercial -- "Calgon, take me away!" Where's the old-fashioned, hopeful fantasy in our lives now? Must we make do with Guitar Hero? Where are the regular people, poor but hopeful, bursting into song and dance from sheer joy as they walk down the street? Where are the overhead camera shots of synchronized swimmers diving into huge swimming pools? Even Dancing With the Stars doesn't get that grandiose. And the variety shows of the 1960s, like Jackie Gleason's with the June Taylor Dancers, are a distant memory that only remind us how old we really are.

Truth is, if you're over about 15 years old, the reality of life tends to stick with you no matter where you go. Maybe that's why we're all so stressed out that we can't sleep, but go around shooting each other and yelling at little old ladies in traffic. Maybe what we really need is a good old Busby Berkeley-style musical to forget about the real world for a couple of hours. Have we become too jaded and cynical for that to work for us any more? Has "hope" these days become merely a hollow campaign promise from a politician, a poster icon reminiscent of the Cold War-era placards of Chairman Mao?

I say, bring back the old musicals! Let's get our fat duffs off the couch and start learning to tap dance again. Let's go out and rediscover romance -- pure, innocent, golden-age-of-Hollywood-style romance. Grab our attention and keep us so riveted to the screen that the cell phone can take a rest. Is anybody in Hollywood listening? Or is the best you can do a Hot Tub Time Machine? If so, "Calgon, take me away!"

The Ladder is Available Again!

You may be familiar with A Professional Writer's Ladder to Success, which is the series of e-books I started writing a few years ago to teach people how to plan for, establish, and run a successful writing business. After completing 8 books and 2 packages of them, I got a big contract that consumed most of my time and haven't added any more to the series. Then the sales portal where I had them for sale went out of business and the only way anyone could buy them any more was to see me speak somewhere and buy one on CD. The ladder series seemed doomed to fade into obscurity!

But I just spent this afternoon adding all the available e-books and packages to my Old Maid Cat Lady retail site. There's a special section on there for "Life Beyond the Kitties" that will feature other types of things needed by old maid cat ladies. After all, we have to earn a living, be entertained, socialize, and take care of ourselves, right? So after you've gone there to shop for your cats, you can now find these e-books and download them immediately so you don't have to wait to get started! Titles in the series, which I call "rungs" ('cuz it's a ladder, see?) include:

• Planning for Self-Employment: Building a writing business from the ground up
• Learning the Writing Industry: Is it one you really want to join?
• Polishing Your Writing Skills: Your writer's toolkit
• Writing a Business Plan: Your blueprint for success
• Establishing Your Writing Business: Preparing to open your doors
• A Writer's Professional Ethics: Keeping your integrity intact
• Finding Your Niche: How specialization can improve your bottom line
• Virtual Partnerships: Forging alliances with other creative professionals
• Writing Business Exploration Package (Rungs 1 & 2)
• Writing Business Startup Package (Rungs 1-5)

Best of all, they're on sale! So if you've thought about going into business for yourself as a writer, but you're not sure how to get started, this series will walk you through it. Now, if I can just find the time to get back to finishing the series, we'll both be getting somewhere!

If you also like to read for pleasure, I've also just added two books for one of my ghostwriting clients, Joe Overby, to the site. You can also buy them in paperback version there, which means you will have to wait to read them. But they're both great books, if I do say so myself! Just A Dumb Kid From Nowhere is the story of Joe's childhood in rural Mississippi during the Great Depression. Everybody who's read it just loves it. And his new one, Acres Aweigh!, is the story of his friendship with Mrs. Elizabeth P. Stark, a fascinating lady who used to own the property where the carrier basin at Naval Station Mayport now stands. The book is set in the late 1950s-early 1960s when Joe was stationed at Mayport. Joe is expecting his first shipment of the new book within the next week.

You can go directly to the appropriate page of Old Maid Cat Lady for each of these books by clicking on any of the links in the text above. The new pages of the site are "building" now on my store host's site, and should be up by Saturday morning. Enjoy!

Calling All Editors!

If you'd like to take on some book editing work as a sub-contractor for Thompson Writing & Editing, I'll soon be offering a class on my editing methodology. Drop me an e-mail and let me know of your experience and the genres that interest you. I'm setting up my network of editors to enable the company to take on more editing work than I can handle personally. You'll get most of the fee, and I'll take a percentage. Interested? lynn@thompsonwriting.com.