Authors That Inspire Me – Stephen King

Ok I’ll admit it, I have never read a Stephen King novel *gasp* but after reading his non-fiction work “On Writing” and hearing about his books from my boyfriend (who is an avid fan) I’ll definitely be adding his novels to my summer reading lists.

PHOTO CAPTION: I bought this book from Half Price (sorry Stephen I’m new graduate and have limited funds!) and inside the previous owner had left a bookmark – the King of Hearts. I found this symbolic enough since Stephen King has such a passionate heart for writing and it’s now in my collection of things to look at when I need inspiration.

            I just finished his book “On Writing” and really got into it. It’s sub title is “A Memoir of the Craft” and I have to agree that it is quite the memoir and really describes his love for the writing craft. The book starts out as an auto-biography and states the way he got into writing at a young age encouraged by his mother to let his creativity flow through his writing. What I found especially inspiring was when he talked about his rejection letters. Not that I have gotten any rejection letters yet (as I am still writing my manuscript draft), I have felt the sting of not being hired for some freelance jobs that I have applied for. It was great to find out that even a very well-known and respected author had the same experience when he first started out. I loved how Stephen described what he learned during this rejection process and how he never gave up. He just kept on writing stories and articles and sending them out to publications during the 1950-60’s. The process to get published now hasn’t changed very much except in the way documents are attached via email and approved or rejected more quickly these days. Still whenever I am sending out a proposal or article I still have the same feeling like, “Is anyone actually going to read this?” or “where in cyber space did my content end up?” Even though I have only been doing freelance for profit for less than a year, it was still inspiring the read how every writer starts in the same place: broke, determined, and waiting for their big break.

            On Writing also highlights something I had been neglecting – reading. King states that in order to be a great writer you have to be a good reader and keep up with others doing the same thing you are trying to do. Neglecting a reading practice won’t give you any inspiration or encouragement to continue on with your own writing. Since my manuscript is in the genre of New Adult Fiction, I have looked for other novels that are trying to cover this genre as well. I found a few and I’ll review them on here when I’m finished. I must say that Stephen was right, every time I crack a book open that has similar “college-aged” content like mine, I do get inspired to write. Maybe I like something that they wrote or maybe I thought how my character would have said something similar (or not). Or how the descriptions are cheesy or the way the character’s inner dialogue seems too much like in film “breaking the third wall” which speaks to the viewer directly and isn’t seamless like an internal voice over. When reading novels as the pertain to my own book I feel very much like I am dissecting the product to see what I can apply to my own writing.

            The book then goes on to discuss the different aspects of writing fiction – description, dialogue, character building and theme. It has A LOT of example from Stephen’s works which are great and from other novels as well. My favorite section was about dialogue and how so many writers either get dialogue right or very, very wrong. The example he highlights really gave me an idea of what to avoid in my own writing and see things that I don’t think I could ever pull off (but those authors did). The section about revision was also very helpful. It describes how a portion of the work (10%) should always be cut at the end. This will streamline the book and make it easier to read.

            On Living Post Script, was a description of the harrowing accident that almost killed King and really brought the whole book full circle. It was truly amazing that he survived and came back to writing to help his recovery. After reading that story, I was like what am I complaining about? Or waiting on? Life is precious and I really want to get my story out there.

            As a crazy line edit fanatic, I LOVED the very last part “And Further More, Part I: Door Shut, Door Open” which has a sample of his editing process. This section was full of really juicy line edits and section edits that I know I will be referring to for years to come. I especially like his shorthand methods and symbols used for editing. I feel like these days I have a few symbols but it isn’t taught in school the same way as before word processors.

            IMO this book is great for anyone aspiring to be a writer and learn more about the process. It is a long one and this book isn’t short but like King said he felt he barely scratched the surface and I wished he had written more. The stories, examples and life tribulations were very accurate even decades later after publishing his first successful novel.

            

Why Women Are Better Freelancers

From another site but I totally agree with this article, I am glad a FEMALE colleague with a PHD suggested I do freelance work, it totally suits me and I absolutely love working with so many different clients and projects.

http://www.truelancer.com/blog/7-reasons-why-women-make-better-freelancers/

Wine Frog Term - Deacidification

Just finalized my first term for my contract with the website www.winefrog.com, it was so fun to write and I'm already working on the next terms right now.
It has been an awesome experience first getting hired through Upwork and then working with WineFrog on their platform to produce great content about wine. The site is excellent and I'm so happy I was chosen to help contribute!

Hope you enjoy learning about wine because I'll be posting more and more of these!

https://www.winefrog.com/definition/1561/deacidification-wine

Writing Samples 2016

Psychological/Sociological/Academic Samples (APA, ASA, MLA)

Psychology:

The visual cliff is an experiment that uses a plexiglass covered table with a checkerboard print underneath, one checkerboard is right beneath the glass and the other is lowered several feet below the glass. The infant is placed on the side with the closer checkerboard pattern, it perceives this to be the actual surface of the table.  There is a white edge in between the checkerboards so the infant can perceive a cliff when looking over the white edge and to the lowered part of the table. This experiment is designed to test if crawling infants can perceive the lowered part of the table as a cliff and avoid a steep fall over the perceived edge. It was found that the majority of crawling infants do not readily cross to the deep side. While some crossed over, most did not, proving that infants have preference for the shallow side of the table and avoid the deep side. This exposes the infants ability to perceive depth and their survival instinct to avoid drop-offs, that may lead to a fatal fall. This leads us to assume the correlation between neural development and physical independence. As babies have more experience independently exploring their worlds they strengthen neural connections associated with vision and spatial awareness.

Children can pick up their mother's communication style as early as age 3, which means that for an American child, it is vital to use a variety of communication styles at a young age. This ensures that they will not just be well rounded, but test well academically, which is proven to be correlated with overall life success. In other cultures where standardized testing isn't as vital to their communication, they may emphasize other styles like rhyming/singing, nonverbal communication and gesture language (Demuth, 2015). It is important to remember that communication styles do not denote a lack of intelligence. The tests themselves not being designed for every style of communication are not going to give accurate results to those who are not familiar with testing language. Those with differing communication styles may be just as intelligent within their own culture and simply do not fit into the binary testing categories/styles of the Euro-American nations.

Sociology:

Environmental racism is directly caused by industrial corporations and the government institutions that regulate them. Those who suffer from it continue to be nonwhite minorities, that have low-income, low levels of education and underrepresentation within their local government. These practices I have witnessed first hand through the oil refining plants, toxic landfill systems and hazardous waste facilities that surround the black communities in Houston. Through consumer re-education, industry regulation and restructuring zoning policy we can alleviate some of the damage but most can not be undone.

That the TV series is showing a underrepresentation of the actual population demographics of the U.S. prison system. This is important because the media is trying to hide the racism that is the cause for mass incarceration of African Americans over the last 30 years. By representing the numbers disproportionately the American public is fooled into thinking that prison populations must be made up of similar numbers. This is not true and by the media doing this we are forced to turn a blind eye to the racial disparity of the prison population

Marketing Sample/Copy Editing for Dynamyst Solutions

New Product Launch

Have you always wondered what product we use to make your car look brand new? Or how we are able to keep up the maintenance on such a high volume of cars? For the first time ever, we are releasing our amazing product to you, the car owner and enthusiast! Dynamyst is a polymer based product that takes automotive detailing to the next level. This product is able to effectively clean each part of your car. No more dish-soap and buckets! With Dynamyst you can have a professional detailing solution right at your finger tips. 

Want to Learn More?

Dynamyst has been in development for several years and we have finally found the secret formula to work on all vehicles and most surfaces. This all-in-one cleaner can be applied to your car's paint/clear coat, wheels and tires, chrome accents and glass. But what about the inside? It is hard to keep the interior clean without heavy cleaner odors. Dynamyst is safe to use on the interior of your car and can easily remove stains from seats, carpets, and trim without leaving a lingering cleaner smell. Dynamyst will truly revolutionize they way you clean your car with time saving results you can see!

We have designed a special eco-friendly package to deliver this amazing product to you, affordably and waste free. For the first time ever in car cleaning products, we are using a collapsable bottle which contains the perfect amount of Dynamyst solution. All you have to do is add water! We have designed the size of the bottle and perfected amount of the solution to ensure a perfect cleaner once our collapsable container is filled with H2O. 

Marketing/Investor Plan

This special formula designed for the professional detailer, represents the culmination of many years toiling and refining an effective chemical product into its penultimate phase of existence. In the over-saturated chemical cleaner market, starting controversy with an innovative product, can pose unique and interesting challenges that we are ready for. Upon release of our unique packaging design combined with a highly effective polymer solution, we strive to create that controversy which will disrupt normalcy in a market that could use a change in awareness and ingenuity.

Fiction

She finally got to my place around 11:15 and barged through the door in the skimpiest hot pink terri cloth dress. Her implants busting out of the top of it and only covered by her bikini, tiny hot pink cloth triangles with string attached. She was tall, thin fake tanned and platinum blonde. By anyone's standards you could say she was beautiful in a stereotypical stripper way. But equally beautiful she was crazy. Meredith was the same age as Q and she didn't trust him at all. I only think she came over half the time to look after me which I didn't mind. I nicknamed her Mama Mere because she was always trying to take care of me more than herself.  She had her hair pulled up but a full face of makeup on. She had brought a handle of Tito's and some cranberry juice. 

"Heyyyyyyy!!!" she announced into my ear as she gave me a hug. She lifted the bottle above her head. "I stole this from the bar last night!"

"If you had already bought bottle service it doesn't count as stealing." I told her as I took the bottle out of her hands and into the kitchen.

"I didn't buy it" she grinned back at me and I laughed as I got the shot glasses out of the cabinet.

New Year, New Career

So as the end of the year keeps getting closer, I think back over and I find myself reflecting on the negative aspects of 2015. Not just myself, others included, it seemed to be a rough year for a lot of folks. I was no exception. So as I sit here adjusting to a new persepctive, I decided that 2016 has to be different. By starting this blog I hope to make it so. I want to be a writer, for this blog I am going to document what I learn on my journey into Freelance Writing.

A litle bit about me: I've almost finished my degree fom the Uuniversity of Texas, I'm sure some people can relate to it taking long than expected. Those last online classes can be hard to finish nonetheless I am not worried or feeling rushed. I feel that actually devoting more time to other people's projects and interests will actually make me work harder on my own endeavors. My writing goals started when I was very young with a dream to be an author. Since I was 5 and started writing my first book about my American Girl doll, I knew that writing would be in my path someday. I guess that day has come. I started doing some part time writing for my Dad's and Fiance's businesses, their newsletters and marketing plans mostly. With an English degree, I thought I would be doing mostly fiction/creative editing. I have found that my two years spent in Journalism were not wasted and now I feel that the combination of the two fields gives me a particular expertise when it comes to content; design, creation, grammar, point of view. I have found great pleasure in business copy editing which I never expected. After all I do have plans for a novel...someday....said every other writer ever.

Which is why I am starting a blog. To start a new leaf, a new pattern, make some friends, maybe some enemies. But to be honest about my journey and document it, so maybe in a year from now I can see how far I've come. Right now, being broke, in debt, barely enough money for rent, living off generous family donations and leftover student loans is NO way to live. Wish me luck!