On Language Patrol: Avoid These Expressions

I’ve been keeping track again of stale language I’ve read in newspapers and magazines these past few weeks. Feature writers and columnists shouldn’t resort to using these hackneyed terms and phrases:

1) pork barrel
2) acid test
3) bone of contention
4) go ballistic
5) cash cow
6) forward-thinking
7) melting pot
8) glimmer of hope
9) reinvent the wheel
10) Monday morning quarterbacking
11) dealt a fatal blow
12) reality check
13) above board
14) good to go
15) what goes around, comes around
16) jockeying for position
17) fly in the ointment
18) get your toes wet
19) has a leg up

Oh well, “it is what it is.”

The above expressions don’t create a vivid image for you, and that is what good writing allows the reader to do.

Don’t impose on your readers. Write expressively, so readers will focus on what you are writing about, rather than skim your writing and not appreciate your subject matter.

Cliches do not enlighten nor entertain your readers. When we read a lot of cliches, it’s often unclear what we just read. “Go figure!”

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

Haiku That Evokes Peace Anchors Us

I love reading and writing haiku that evokes  a moment of peace. I often find peace in solitude when I’m walking alone, or  late at night when I’m in my living room with no noise coming from outside.

I recently sent emails to fellow haikuists about submitting a haiku that evokes peace. I think you will treasure some of the moments they wrote about. I even included one of my own.

winter dawn
watching fog curl
from the teapot

—Alicia Hilton,
Finalist in the Jack Stamm Haiku Award Contest, 2011

early fall morning
we make spoons
the ceiling fan stirs

–Sari Grandstaff
Modern Haiku, Autumn, 2009

silent moon-filled night,
a thousand sand grains move
to make this footprint

–Charlie Rossiter
Dragonfly

evening meditation
on the tao of the next wave
everything rests

–Terri L. French
haiga  online, Issue 12-2, 2011

beyond
old growth . . .
sky

–Charlotte Digregorio
Modern Haiku, Issue 39.2, Summer 2008

leaves changing . . .
the river
lets me be who I am

–Francine Banwarth
Frogpond 2011, Vol. 34, Number 1

Zen meditation–
emptying my mind
when no one is looking

–Stanford M. Forrester
January Sun,  2007

quiet out—
while resting I find
my pulse

–Tom Clausen
Dim Sum, 2010/I

farm pond
now the snowflakes
come to drink

–Dan Schwerwin
bottlerockets, #24

haiku
cradle
me

–Bill Pauly
Wet Cement, (The Cradle 2 Anthology), 2011

finding the path –
the peas emerge searching
for the trellis

–Merrill Gonzales

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

 

 

 

Writers: Get Whimsical

Since today is Friday the 13th, I’ve been having some strange thoughts. During my coffee break, I thought about some zany things I’d like to experience and write about.

Every room in my home has a small notepad and pen, so close to wherever I sit, I can quickly grab paper and pen and jot something down.

These are the 13 thoughts I’d someday like to write about:

1)  I’d like to sleep on a cloud.

2)  I’d like to snap my fingers and pull a chimp out of the air that I could converse with.

3)  I’d like to watch a leopard roam through my yard.

4)  I’d like to see dahlia bloom before my eyes.

5)  I’d like to invent a new color, a pastel of sorts.

6)  I’d like to spend an afternoon being eight years old again, playing hopscotch with the kids I used to know.

7)  I’d like to look in the mirror, see myself when I was 25, and pull myself out of the mirror.

8)  I’d like to go to the park, swing through the air, and land on a beach in the Cayman Islands.

9)  I’d like to scale a skyscraper in Chicago.

10) I’d like to walk in sub-zero weather and suddenly experience summer.

11)  I’d like to invent a new word that everyone would use across the globe and that animals could speak.

12)  I’d like to live in a house covered on the outside with violets instead of ivy.

13)  I’d like to dance upside down on a star.

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

Consider Your Future as a Successful Writer

Like any other goal in life, if you want to be a successful writer, you have to define where you are now and where you want to go.

If you define your writing goals, you can achieve them. They must be realistically carried out over a period of time, going step-by-step. It’s the building block approach.

You need to be realistic about your schedule and try to estimate what you can reasonably accomplish daily, weekly, or monthly. You should be mindful that you may fall behind, despite your best efforts. If so, you should modify your schedule without beating yourself up.

Ask yourself these questions:

1)  Broadly, if someone gave you the gift of time and you could live until the age of 105 with all your mental faculties, what are all the writing projects you’d want to accomplish?

2) If you could spend seven days a week writing, how would you spend your time? On one writing project? Several? What would this (these) be?

3)  If you didn’t have the gift of time, what are half of those projects you’d like to fulfill?

4)  If you have limited writing time, what one genre would you choose to be successfully published in?

5)  What are your strengths as a writer, and how would you plan to build upon them? (This is important. If you are discouraged, you must always start with a positive approach.)

6)  If you could improve your writing skills, (i.e.  being more descriptive), what skills would you cultivate?

7)  If you could pick one successful author in the world to instruct you, who would he/she be? (Hint: If you can’t be personally trained by the author, you should read all of his/her works.)

If you’ve been writing for a while, you might also ask yourself  if you could start all over again, what you would do differently. Then, you can focus on starting fresh from this point forward.

Personally, I love to write detailed lists of what I plan to accomplish. Next, I fill in spaces of my calendar with deadlines for their accomplishment.

For the nuts and bolts about setting deadlines for yourself, read one of my previous posts, “Goal Setting for Writers, ” dated Nov. 17, 2010.

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

Use Your Imagination in Writing a Title for Your Poetry Book

I believe poetry book titles are among the hardest ones to come up with.  You can study your bookshelf to inspire you to write a title or study titles at a library or bookstore.

In looking through my shelf of poetry books, I see some wonderful, evocative titles that may spur you to come up with your own.

Whether or not I thoroughly enjoy each poem in the book, my favorite titles are:

1)  Crinkled Sunshine (Members’ Anthology 2000, Haiku Society of America)

2)  A Solitary Leaf, (Members’ Anthology 1997, Haiku Society of America)

3)  Before All The Leaves Are Gone, by Gary Hotham

4)  The Unworn Necklace, by Roberta Beary

5)  handful of sand, by Stanford M. Forrester

6)  The Windswept Corner, by Alan Pizzarelli

7)  Fragments, by Ed Alison Williams

8)  piano practice, by Tom Painting

9)  The Orange Balloon, by Penny Harter

10) room full of chairs, by John S. O’Connor

11) A Dash Through Leaves, by Penny Griffin

12) Something Unerasable, by John Stevenson

13) curve into curve, by anne mckay

14) The Shape of Water, by Robert Spiess

15) The Heron’s Legs, by Robert Spiess

16) Sailing Alone Around the Room, by  Billy Collins

17) Like a Crane at Night, by Gail Sher

18) the duck’s wake, by Jeff Witkin

19) . . . the path of the bird, by vincent tripi

Keep in mind that often the simpler the title, the more evocative it is. Search deep inside of yourself for a title.

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

Feature Writers: Consider Your Description

When I taught  journalism, I harped on students to be more descriptive in writing features for publication. Below are some descriptive sentences that I’ve pulled from some of their papers:

1)  Soft drinks shoot out of a gun that looks like a prop from a cheap sci-fi  movie.

2)  His gray-green eyes are expressive behind his thick, black-framed lenses.

3)  The warm air is loud with crickets and a lush waterfall, despite the crush of tourists.

4)  I left him sitting in his smoke-filled living room, puffing away, with Brutus, his tiny meek dog, on his lap.

5)  There is a weightless quality to his hands that gesture with the grace of gulls in tandem.

6)  Strolling the boulevard,  a 60s Cadillac that stretches a half-block long, catches my eye. From the open window, I see a plush, slinky mink hanging on the shoulders of a gaunt, wrinkled-faced woman.

7)  His eyes, in deep gray sockets, were buried in the back of his head.

8)  He dines on Oysters Rockefeller, sips  a glass of white French wine at $25,  as his tongue darts in and out of his mouth, licking his upper lip.

9)  With a kitchen knife, he rips into his packaged brownies, and grabs a bowl of vanilla pudding coagulating in the refrigerator. Using a potato masher, he melts the goo into it.

10)  The award-winning professor with broad shoulders, cinder-sharp eyes, and military mustache commands respect from his humble students.

From the above examples, realize that you must constantly practice your observational skills to write entertaining features. It’s not hard, it just takes practice.

For more ideas, read my book, Beginners’ Guide to Writing & Selling Quality Features. It  has been a Featured Selection of Writer’s Digest Book Club.

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.

Writers of All Genres: Get Back to Basics and Get a Reality Check

No matter what genre we write in,  most of us struggle at certain points with motivating ourselves through writer’s block and the revision process.

When we find ourselves languishing, often it’s time to start considering the basics again. Even an experienced writer sometimes loses focus. Reading a simple writing guide may help with refreshing our memories about why we went into writing and what we really like about it.

There are a few books I recommend that have a particular motivational purpose when you are down in the dumps. They can get you on the right track, writing again. Most of them were written long ago, and I consider them classics.

The 28 Biggest Writing Blunders (And How to Avoid Them), by William Noble, is for anyone who writes.  It is simply written, and gets you thinking clearly about producing solid work with good stylistic elements that an editor will respect.

Noble’s book, Show, Don’t Tell: A Writer’s Guide is a good writer’s primer that reiterates the slogan that writing workshop leaders preach. Noble clearly shows writers how to write descriptively, using such devices as anecdotes to entertain readers.

John Jerome’s book, The Writing Trade: A Year in the Life, is great for magazine and book writers, among others. It’s filled with tips on writing effectively and gives helpful personal perspectives on  keeping your nose to the grindstone.

Donald Morison Murray, a Professor Emeritus of English and journalist, authored Write to Learn. This is especially helpful for aspiring journalists, giving them a lot of courage.  Another book he wrote, Writing for Your Readers: Notes on the Writer’s Craft from The Boston Globe, is not only for journalists, but other non-fiction writers, too.

An instructive book by Dona J. Hickey is Developing a Written Voice. It helps you get your thoughts on paper clearly and with style. After reading this book, you’ll feel as if you’ve taken a writing seminar.

Arthur Plotnik’s, The Elements of Authorship is an entertaining one on the rough road to being an author. By reading his book, you’ll feel like you have a writer- friend to commiserate with. You’ll learn not to lose your sense of humor through the long process to publication.

The above books offer us all a reality check. They are the type of books you’ll reread many times during your writing career.

Copyright 2012 by Charlotte Digregorio.