Scattered Thoughts

My thoughts are scattered everywhere, and it made coming up with a new blog post this week that much harder. I thought I would take off from writing about writing and address a couple of things that were in the news. I thought I could write about the rage in the news about rich kids buying their way into college. But are we really all enraged about it? Did we not know that this has been going on since the day these institutions opened their doors? I did write a piece about it, but it won't see the light of day because as a public school kid from Kindergarten to bachelor's degree, I don't really have any special insight on the topic aside from rolling my eyes at every mention of these privileged nobodies living off their parents' success.

I was also contemplating writing another piece last weekend about separating the art from the artist, and how its mostly others in creative fields that can attempt to see the actions of the villain in the artist without obscuring the exceptional in the art. Erasing the art/music/movies/TV shows is not the answer. My opinion on this is not the most popular one, but I also know that Pete Davidson did a way more entertaining job of explaining it than I could have. So I didn't write it. But I did buy Moonwalker so that I could watch it at least one more time in my life in case it ever gets pulled. I won't apologize for the fact that watching this was a happy childhood memory for me, and it certainly isn't an endorsement for anything outside of its entertainment value.

When it comes to my main projects for the month, I'm trying to work hard on short stories and In Another Life, but I keep getting pulled back into poetry. I took some time to indulge in found poetry yesterday, not because the urge was irresistible, but because the magazines are starting to pile up, and if I don't get to them I may have to toss them before I can find those new pieces. I did, however, manage to finish a short story outline this morning with the wonders of a morning shower and a writer's mind--that's all I need sometimes because it is the one place I seem to run into the least distractions. These stories are important because I need to come up with something good to get back on the submission train. Hopefully by Monday I will have a polished piece to start sending out.

Chapter 2 Now Live

If you're interested in getting your weekly fix of In Another Life, I have posted the second chapter on Write On. Let me know what you think!

So, what else is going on in my writing life? I'd love to say TONS, but I'm slowly working through a first draft of a novel. Slowly. Like, 200 words a day slowly. But 200 words a day is better than none. I'm hoping to find a better writing schedule so I can maximize the time I have to do it each day. If not, I'm going to have to put myself back on a strict schedule--which only means that I'm on a schedule for about two days before someone else royally messes with it.

Pair the slow progress with the constant distraction of other ideas--stories, poetry, nonfiction--it's all floating around in that brain of mine. I need to jot it on paper and get on with my life, but I find that mulling it over for a few days helps to really solidify the idea first. Or is that just weird? (Oh well. Writers are weird even on their best days!) What's your style for getting an idea out of your brain and onto the page?

Looking at Non-Fiction Writing Resources

I've been doing a little internet searching on non-fiction writing resources, but there are very few that are not  about teaching non-fiction reading/writing. Or, of course, websites offering nonfiction writing classes. I definitely took one of those in college. Gotta say -- didn't help, but it wasn't due to the curriculum. It was due to the professor not exactly being interested in teaching our class. She's also the one that told me I must have had a miserable childhood based on a writing exercise: this one, in fact.

I'm not exactly desperate for non-fiction writing resources since I have a backlog of Writer's Digest issues that clearly cover the subject. I was just curious about whether these tips and tricks existed online. If I find some good ones, I'll let you all know about it.

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A Subtle Shift

My extended swim in poetry is officially on hiatus since my last submission this weekend. It is now time to focus on a nonfiction project that I have outlined. Next step: the seemingly endless research and gathering of information. It may seem like a lot of work to others, but for me research is a lot of fun. I could spend hours in a public or university library reading everything I can get my hands on about a particular subject. There's something exciting in discovering information, even though most of it has been sitting there for the better part of the last century.

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Index of Online Articles

This post is an alphabetical index of the articles I've written and published online. Click on any of the links and you'll be taken directly to the article (and supporting my page views!). If you want to check on new articles, be sure to bookmark this post. I will be updating it on a regular basis.

A
B
C
Calling Out to Daddy (poem)
Carved in Stone (poem)
D
Dark Night (poem)
E
F
G
H
I
I Am Free (poem)
I Am From... (poem)
If I (poem)
J
K
L
Leap of Faith (poem)
Leaving (poem)
M
N
Natural Remedies for Crohn's Disease
Nobody (poem)
Not Who We Are (poem)
O
Ooh You (poem)
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z

Copyrights and Your Book

When I started working on my poetry book this week, copyright issues began to creep into my mind. Should I get a registered copyright for my poetry book? How long would it take? Could I still publish my book without worrying about a copyright? Then I spent awhile researching my own questions. Most of these points refer directly to self-publishing a book, but may also be applicable to other media. Here's what I found out:

* If you intend to publish an original work, generally there is a copyright on it as soon as it is written. The one thing that an author must remember is that the idea is not copyrighted, but only how you express the idea. A great example of this is a how-to book. Hundreds of authors can write a book on how to do something, but the words used to describe the steps are the only part that is solely the property of the author.

* The biggest benefit of having a registered copyright is to have a legal holding on a specific work. Registered copyrights come in handy if the written work is being contested in court to determine who really owns the copyright.

* The proper format for attaching a copyright to a written work is to have either the word "copyright" or the copyright symbol: ©. After that, write the date when the work was copyrighted or completed. Next comes the name of the person (or business) that holds the copyright. For example, the copyright for my book would look like this: © 2009 Terri Deno.

* Adding additional words to the copyright notice is not necessary, but can be helpful to let others know that you don't want them reproducing or reprinting your work. Copyrights can also read like this: © 2009 Terri Deno. All rights reserved. OR © 2009 Terri Deno. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without express written permission.

* The Poor Man's Copyright (mailing a copy of the completed work to yourself to record the date) does not hold up in U.S. courts, but is still a valid method in many other countries.

* The copyright notice for a book is usually located after the title page.

* Many on-demand or self-publishing companies do not automatically include the copyright page in a document unless it is part of an overall design package. Most of the time, the author must provide this page in the final manuscript.

These were some of the most helpful points that I learned over the past few days. I may have to return to the topic of copyrights if I move into a new medium or decide to publish my work in another way.

For more information about registering for a copyright, check out the U.S. Copyright Office or have a look at the forms for copyrighting literary works (the office prefers online submissions).

An essay I thought I would share

I was going through some of my files on my flash drive and discovered some essays I wrote for a creative non-fiction class a couple of years ago. I really don't know what else to do with them, so I thought I would just go ahead and share them with everyone.

The first one I have to share is called "The House I Grew Up In" which was labeled as a descriptive short in my files. It's a basic description of the house I lived in when I was a child... I think the age we were supposed to pick was 5 or 6 years old. I really got into this assignment, but was kind of dismayed when my professor gave it back to me with written comments on it. I can't remember her exact words, but she told me that the way I described the house and yard was so bleak that I must have had an unhappy childhood. I totally didn't, and I don't see that at all in my writing. I see an old, lived-in house. That's all. Anyway... I liked it, so I'm letting you all read it too.

I'll be putting more of these up over the next few days, once I find all of them.

Have a happy Friday!!