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Dialogue with my muse |
| I have been carrying on a dialogue for almost a year. During this time we have discussed the progress of my writing, editing, and publishing efforts. Join in to listen to our conversation about my daily writing life and add your comments if you think of anything Calliope and I miss. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Cranking along quite well. CALLIOPE: What have you been up to? JOE: Yesterday was technology day. I bought a new digital camera to use capturing more photos for you to look at while reading our posts in Blogger. It took a while to get the software involved and working CALLIOPE: Sounds like fun. JOE: Sometimes it can be a challenge. CALLIOPE: What else? JOE: Posting an audio proved harder than I thought it would be. I have posted it on my website, Commonsense Wisdom, and I think on MySpace but the message says they are still processing it, whatever that means. I also learned there are royalty free sites for music although there is still a download cost, at least for some of them. CALLIOPE: What other challenges await you today? JOE: I finally started my story, Or Not To Be, last night. I also need to get going on my column for Saturday which I will base on a Simon and Garfunkel song, or at least that's the current plan. CALLIOPE: Let me know how it turns out. JOE: The Daily News also called and will come next week to conduct an interview for an article on Marital Property. I'm looking forward to it and feel prepared after the interview with Phil Davis. CALLIOPE: Sounds like you are making progress. JOE: I think so. Now it's just a matter of juggling everything and keeping all the balls in the air. See you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. Did you sleep in this morning? JOE: Actually, no. I've been hard at work for a couple hours. CALLIOPE: Really? Doing what? JOE: My brain started working before I climbed out of bed, planning my Vineyard story. CALLIOPE: You haven't started writing it yet? JOE: No. Finishing my first edit of Marital Property gobbled up my time yesterday. CALLIOPE: So you finally finished it? JOE: Yes, I did and am ready to go onto the next stage. CALLIOPE: Which is? JOE: Reading it out loud to see how it sounds. I have tried this as an editing technique before and found it quite useful. CALLIOPE: I agree. What else did you do early this morning? JOE: Phil Davis sent a great audio recording form our recent podcast interview. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. No readily apparent way to upload an audio file to MySpace, YouTube or my website presented itself to my feeble mind. I guess that will be a major undertaking as well unless someone suggests an easy way. The best way I could see was to convert it into a video file and upload it as I did my first podcast. Maybe there is an easier way, but I haven't discovered it yet. CALLIOPE: Isn't technology wonderful? JOE: Once I figure it out everything seems to make sense. In the mean time, I just plod along. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Not bad. I worked hard editing Marital Property yesterday and have only thirty pages to go to the end of the book. CALLIOPE: Great progress. Then what? JOE: I think that will complete the major editing. Next I will read the book aloud to see how it sounds and correct it for tone. CALLIOPE: Sounds like a good next step. And after that? JOE: Next is to call my reviewers back into action. I have several who read my books in the past and made excellent suggestions for revisions. I plan to ask them to read it. CALLIOPE: Have you decided what to do about publication? JOE: No. I think I might take another run at agents to see if I can generate any interest. If not, I will probably use Booklocker again and get started on Commonsense Wisdom for Teens. CALLIOPE: How are your marketing efforts coming. JOE: As you know I completed my first video and posted it on MySpace and YouTube. I plan to work on others starting Monday. I will complete a general podcast about my writing, readings from my other two books, ten reasons to read or not read each book and one about my Commonsense Wisdom for Teens project. CALLIOPE: Sounds ambitious. JOE: It is. I have plans laid out for the next few weeks. CALLIOPE:I hope you can keep it all straight. JOE: I hope so too. But at least I know where I'm headed. Talk with you on Monday. |
| JOE: Good morning, Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you this morning? JOE: Excited. CALLIOPE: That's a nice change. To what do we owe the honor? JOE: To my intention of creating a video podcast. I finally found the wire for my Canon camera but could not get the camera and computer to communicate for some reason. I decided to try using the webcam with Windows Movie Maker and found the whole process relatively painless. CALLIOPE: How far did you get with the process? JOE: I recorded and posted the podcast about Commonsense Wisdom for Everyday Life on MySpace and YouTube. CALLIOPE: With no difficulty? JOE: None. The whole process went swimmingly as the British would say. CALLIOPE: I'll have to take a look at it. Is it professional quality? JOE: Well, no. Just a conversation with me and a brief reading. Quite informal. But I don't think my approach needs to be slick. I tire of slick ads on TV and find them annoying in their competition to outdo each other. CALLIOPE: Agreed. How is your editing of Marital Property coming along? JOE: Quite well thank you. I can smell the end of my initial edit and inch up on it every day. I make a conscious effort no to minimize the use of the verb "to be" in all its forms. I find it quite a challenge sometimes but I think my work sparkles more without it. CALLIOPE: What about your story? JOE: Haven't started it yet. Editing keeps my attention. This weekend might be the time. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: A little weary. I spent most of yesterday working on revisions of Marital Property. CALLIOPE: How is it coming? JOE: I forgot how much work revising a novel text demands. It seems to take forever although I think the quality of it improves with each edit. CALLIOPE: That's encouraging. What's the hardest part. JOE: Knowing what to do with the verb "to be" and all its forms. It makes for dull writing but I can't always easily find alternative ways to express myself. CALLIOPE: Maybe it's just a bad habit. JOE: Maybe so, but I'm working on it. CALLIOPE: How are you going about it? JOE: Mostly by reading The New Yorker, Salman Rushdie and others who might teach me by example. CALLIOPE: Anything else? JOE: I just try to keep focused on finding better ways to express myself. In my last novel, I avoided almost all conversation tags and found other ways to denote the speaker. CALLIOPE: Do you think you could write a whole novel without this verb. "To be or not to be. That is the question." JOE: Very funny, but I have considered it. Could I do it? Maybe I can write a short story in that fashion. One is brewing in my mind about a woman in Martha's Vineyard. Maybe I'll try it on a smaller scale. See you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you this morning? JOE: Still trying to digest yesterday's letter to the editor about my recent column on priest sexual abuse. CALLIOPE: What's the problem? JOE: A reader interpreted my column as an attack on the Catholic Church rather than an inquiry into the nature of abuse. CALLIOPE: What did he say about you? JOE: That I seemed to be ignoring the abuse among others charged with care of children and was singling out priests, only a small minority of whom abuse teens. CALLIOPE: How do you plan to handle it. JOE: I'm considering it. A friend suggested a brief acknowledgment of the writer's position and then moving on. CALLIOPE: How does that sound? JOE: It's good advice. At the end of his letter, the writer says, "Maybe Dr. Langen would agree with me that an honest, courageous and thorough study of this psychological condition is desperately needed because it is spreading." CALLIOPE: Do you agree with him? JOE: I do, but also think there are cultural and institutional factors bearing consideration as well. Maybe I can just restate that and move on. CALLIOPE: Good idea. I guess you have to be careful about what you write. JOE: I guess so. Explaining my entire position in a five hundred word column can be daunting. If it stirs up controversy or need for further discussion, maybe that's not so bad. See you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: Better. CALLIOPE: On what account? JOE: I solved my webcam problem. CALLIOPE: How? JOE: After considerable gymnastics (mental, physical and electronic), I reached the conclusion that my first webcam was a dud, or at least not about to cooperate with the machinations of my computer. Back it went, and then I tracked down another which worked fine from the outset. CALLIOPE: Glad to hear it. Is your mind at rest? JOE: At least it's relieved. I still have much to learn about webcam workings but at least the immediate crisis is past. However I wasted time I could have used on my writing. CALLIOPE: Did you get anything done along that line? JOE: I did some work on editing Marital Property and also critiqued a story on Critique Circle. CALLIOPE: What about creative writing? JOE: Critiquing stories reminded me that I haven't written anything original for a while with all my efforts going to editing and marketing. I have been working in a story idea. CALLIOPE: Care to share? JOE: I met a woman in Martha's Vineyard several years ago, best described as a character. Such denizens are in no short supply on the Vineyard. I thought it might be interesting to write a story about her, or at least about what I imagine her life to be about. I plan to start working on it this afternoon. CALLIOPE: I am looking forward to it. JOE: I will most likely post it in one or two of my writing groups and will let you know when it's ready. Off to work. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How are you today? JOE: A little frustrated. CALLIOPE: How so? JOE: After my podcast interview with Phil Davis on Friday, I thought I was about ready to work on video podcasts for my writing and my books. CALLIOPE: And? JOE: I found a video camera but was unable to install the software for it. CALLIOPE: What happened? JOE: My computer refused to acknowledge that there was any information on the installation CD or that I even had it in the drive. CALLIOPE: And then? JOE: I tried installing it manually through a roundabout process which seemed to work but when I tried to use the camera, it was not recognized. CALLIOPE: So what do you think the problem is? JOE: I think the drivers may not be installed. CALLIOPE: It's a little beyond me. JOE: Me too. I am beginning to think this might not be the right camera for me. I might try another one. Maybe it would be good to give this a rest and work on my writing. CALLIOPE: Did you do that over the weekend? JOE: Yes. I copied some chapters and edited them yesterday. It seems to be going much better editing on paper than on the screen. I don't know why, but I'll accept it. Back to work. Talk with you tomorrow. |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. How did the podcast recording go yesterday? JOE: I was quite pleased with it. Fortunately I took the time to be prepared and had everything I needed at my fingertips. CALLIOPE: Any problems? JOE: No. The only one I anticipated was my tendency to say "uh" quite a bit when I'm thinking. I made a big sign and placed it in front of me during the interview as a reminder. I did well for the most part. CALLIOPE: What did you cover? JOE: It was comprehensive. First, we talked about my development as a writer. I talked about two of my books, Commonsense Wisdom for Everyday Life and The Pastor's Inferno and read a passage from the first one. Then we talked about my marketing. CALLIOPE: Any surprises? JOE: Only that I had made quite a bit of progress with marketing, more than I had realized. CALLIOPE: Is the column published? JOE: Yes. Time to Give Words a Rest is ready for your consideration in the usual place, www.commonsense-wisdom.com. CALLIOPE: And the editing of Marital Property? JOE: I tried printing some chapters and editing them on paper. I found myself being much more critical and detailed editing on paper that I was on the screen. I think I will continue that practice. CALLIOPE: What's up for today? JOE: I have to mail out a signed copy of one of my books. I signed up for Skype, an online video and audio service. I will spend some time today figuring out how it works. See you on Monday. (Rainbow- St. Maarten) |
| JOE: Good morning Calliope. CALLIOPE: Good morning Joe. I didn't expect you so early. JOE: Surprise. I was planning to record my podcast with Phil Davis for Authors on the Net at eight A.M. It turns out that I will indeed be doing it at eight mountain time which is still two hours from now. I guess I am just too used to my little insular world and need to practice thinking globally. CALLIOPE: Well, it's nice to talk with you anyway. Are you ready for the podcast? JOE: Almost. I prepared some general comments on my writing background. We will also talk about my first and last books from which I have some selections ready to read. We will also discuss my marketing efforts. CALLIOPE: So all that is prepared? JOE: Just about. I have notes on my marketing plan but want to type them out so I don't have to struggle reading it during the interview. CALLIOPE: Sounds like you've thought of just about everything. JOE: I hope so. I would like it to sound spontaneous, so I guess it's not good to be overly prepared. CALLIOPE: Have you done this kind of thing before? JOE: I tried it once several years ago with a telephone interview. However the quality was quite "tinny" and not something I thought of sufficient quality to disseminate. CALLIOPE: You don't want to sound amateur. JOE: No I don't. As you know I have been considering video podcasts for my writing in general and for each of my books. I thought it would help to get this interview under my belt first. It might give me some ideas about the videos. CALLIOPE: That makes sense. JOE: I wanted to let you know I printed several chapters of Marital Property to work on at Carol's last night. I think I did a more thorough editing job on the written text rather than on the screen. I will continue this approach to see how I like it. Talk with you tomorrow. |
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I just tell them to go get a life...
It's a sunshiny 24 here at the moment; 19 in Buffalo.