ARTICLES TODAY

• Networking during the holidays
• Check the Grammar Lady
• If it's Thursday, it must be Texas

NETWORK WHILE YOU’RE SPREADING HOLIDAY CHEER

I thought this might be a good time to cover networking, since most of us will be out attending parties, dinners and other celebrations during the upcoming holiday season.

First, let me say that I don’t believe in pushing my writing business down the throats of every social contact I make. However, I also don’t believe that opportunities to make contacts should be ignored. If the opportunity to network presents itself to me, I’ll take a low-key approach, but I will take it.

So, when you walk into a large gathering where you may not know some of the other people, how do you make the most of the time spent there? When you meet someone new, what’s the first thing they ask about you? What do you do? or the variation for retirees, What did you do when you worked? People are always looking for a connection to others—maybe a shared occupation or experience.

The next time you’re asked what you do, be prepared. “I am a freelance writer.” You can say that now that you’re retired, you’re working at becoming a writer, or that you’ve begun writing in your spare time if you have another fulltime job. It doesn’t matter what you say, as long as you mention your new career. If they ask what type of writing you do, you have an opening to mention that you can produce a variety of projects such as writing biographies for clients or creating brochures for small businesses. Whatever it is that you want to focus on, mention it.

People will most likely be interested in hearing more. Have some cards with you to hand out to those who are curious. If they’re not interested, you haven’t lost anything.

Now, one of several things might happen:
1. They may say “That’s interesting. I’d like to learn more about it.” Then you can suggest getting together after the holidays for lunch or coffee. This encounter may lead to work for you or it may lead to a friendship with a kindred spirit.
2. They might ask for more information, in which case you can quickly fill them in or make plans to meet somewhere later.
3. They might actually say, “Gee, I’ve been looking for someone to help me ...” or “I have a friend, relative, business associate looking for someone with your skills.” In that case, hand them you business card and get theirs so you can contact them later.
4. They’ll say, “H-m-m-m” and walk away. Okay, these people may decide you’re the most boring person on the planet because you’re a writer, or they may want to digest what you’ve said and will come back over later to talk more about writing.

While you might leave the gathering with no positive feedback, chances are you will make an impression on someone. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve met people who didn’t seem that interested, but that sought me out later for a project or to recommend I call someone who needed my services.

As I write about this, I can remember a conversation from when I first married that, at the time, horrified me. A family member was talking about having joined the country club and taken up golf to meet prospective clients. He said he got so impatient when golfing partners only wanted to talk about golf or football, and he wanted to talk business. I thought that was a ruthless approach to finding clients, but later I realized he was basically right—he just had the wrong approach. However, he did become VERY successful, so maybe he changed his approach, or maybe he achieved success in spite of being pushy and impatient.

There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of social activities to boost your business, but that shouldn’t be your only goal. Don’t go into a situation expecting to blatantly promote your business. Do go in with an open mind, and a willingness to bring up what you do if someone seems interested. And always go in with the goal of helping someone else achieve their goals.

Actually, if I’m at a gathering, the host usually introduces me to people with the phrase, “She’s a writer.” They might mention more. Usually, someone or several people will seek me out to find out more. Sometimes it’s because they want to do the same thing—in which case I offer my help. Sometimes, someone approaches me that wants to know if I can write something for their business, or a personal memoir.

Most people love to help people. It’s inbred, in our blood.

And maybe that’s a good lesson for all of us to remember this holiday season. Perhaps you can’t give time or money to help someone less fortunate, but you can always give someone a leg up by recommending they call you later, or suggesting they call a friend who might can help them achieve their goals or dreams. People don’t always need a handout; they may simply need a helping hand up.

What goes around, comes around. Every time you help someone else, it will eventually come back to you. Look at life that way, and your in-basket will always be overflowing.

HELP FROM THE GRAMMAR LADY

I just discovered a Web site that you might find useful. It is at www.grammarlady.com, where you’ll find grammar courses and helpful tools to make your writing stronger, smarter, richer. An extremely useful program can be found at www.whitesmoke.com. It offers a dictionary, thesaurus, spell and grammar checker and more to help increase writing skills. You can download a copy for a trial run before purchasing. I currently use the one that comes on Microsoft Word and it has problems, such as outrageous suggestions at times. Whether White Smoke is any better, I don’t know, but it may be worth checking out.

IF IT’S THURSDAY, IT MUST BE TEXAS!

Okay, I’ll admit we’re not traveling so fast that it’s a different day, different state. We are in the state of Texas, which is impossible to cover in our RV in a week, much less a day!

We’re now parked at Lake Conroe in a beautiful RV resort on the lake. It’s just an hour or so north of Houston. The weather has been quite warm, but the humidity has equaled or exceeded the temperature on many of the days. Today when I got up it was seventy degrees, but it’s supposed to drop to 30 degrees by tonight. In fact, it's dropped 20 degrees in the past hour! You gotta love how the temperature can swing that far in one day!

When we lived in north Texas for a couple of years back in the sixties, we used to believe that the only thing between there and the North Pole was a barbed wire fence. The wind blew constantly, and many of the buildings on the Air Force Base closed at 40 mph. so many, many days we couldn’t go to the movies on base or even to get groceries at the commissary. So we hunkered down and watched the sky, which was easy there since trees were few and far between. Occasional tornadoes poking out of that vast sky gave us one frightful experience too many, so we were thrilled when we got orders to go to Hawaii.

Here at Lake Conroe, trees are dressed in all their fall splendor, we have views of the lake, and we’re close to civilization—all things that make us happy. Still, we’ll be heading out as soon as we receive our mail next week. Cold weather doesn’t thrill us at all. We’ll probably stop in the hill country for a couple of days before hitting the highway for the long trek across west Texas.

Don’t forget to order writing books for Christmas for your friends and family who want to become published or well-paid writers. You’ll find the largest selection of books on the art of writing and making money at http://www.booklocker.com. Select freelance writing and click, and it will take you to those books.

Also, http://www.amazon.com has a good selection of books. I often order from them when we’re too far from a large town to go check the bookstore. I’m assuming that all of you know that you can just click on the link here to take you to their Web sites—no need to type in the urls.

Since I may not get another chance to make posts on the portable writing newsletter blogsite (http://www.portablewritingnewsletter.blogspot.com) while we’re traveling, Happy reading, Bountiful writing, and a Wonderful Holiday Season to you all.

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT WORD

How do you find the right word that means exactly what you want to say? It’s easy! Just pick up a thesaurus and look up the word you’ve used. You should find several words that mean the same thing, or almost.

Most new writers think they’re supposed to know all about writing and shouldn’t need help with grammar, spelling or finding a synonym. However, that’s just not true. Most writers, no matter how long they’ve been at it, have problems. It is impossible to keep every rule and word available in your mental filing cabinet. Oh, it may be there, but it may take awhile to access it.

So why obsess about it? You can quickly find the best word to use in your thesaurus. You’ll save time and increase your profits by doing this quickly instead of sitting and racking your brain for the right word.

I once worked for a magazine that insisted their writers and editors use a thesaurus. It didn’t take long to find out why. They wanted us to be able to say cute, sweet and precious in as many ways as possible. That’s the kind of magazine it was. And we had to include these words many times in each issue. I finally got to where I thought I would gag if I ever had to say those words in any form again. But I could see why it was done, so I quickly learned to rely on the thesaurus.

All writers find that sometimes it’s necessary to use the same word over and over again throughout an article. I used to write a lot of business articles, and it was important not to use the word business over and over again. It doesn’t look professional, and it’s boring. So I used enterprise, industry, and all the other words I could find that meant essentially the same thing. For business man or woman, I could use entrepreneur if I was talking about the owner. There is a limit to words that work, but simply replacing business a few times helped make the articles more interesting.

Learn what tools work best for you and use them. Don’t forget the dictionary, too. You may think you know how to spell a word, but if you don’t use it regularly, you might have forgotten. Or you might not remember its exact meaning.

We have a general dumbing down of American, as you can see by watching any network news program any day as supposedly smart people use the wrong word or pronunciation. It tends to make us all sloppy and lazy. After all, if these people can’t say it right, who is going to know that we haven’t, either? Your editor, that’s who!

There are lots of rules that we’ve all forgotten if we haven’t been in school for awhile, so it’s important to always remember that anyone can make a simple mistake. Any of us. Sometimes I make really stupid mistakes. Hopefully, I catch them every time before they’re published, but realistically I know some may slip through. I’ll misspell a simple word that I definitely know, but if I’m in a hurry, I may make a typo. Or, I hate to admit this but I might simply not be thinking.

Don’t obsess about mistakes. Use your spell and grammar checker on the computer to check your work. If you question this tool’s suggestion, don’t use it automatically. I’ve found that they are not always right! If one comes up, look again at your word to make sure you haven’t made a typo, such as three letters in a row instead of two, or something else that isn’t easily spotted. If it looks okay, then look the word up in your dictionary. It may be the low-tech, old-fashioned way, but this remains your most trusty tool.

Photo on right: Musicians play for crowds of festival-goers in Mountain View, Arkansas.


Photo on left: Curtains decorate the inside of an outhouse which is lined up to try and outrun its competitors at the Beanfest and Championship Outhouse Races.


100 MILES TO EAT BEANS AND WATCH OUTHOUSES RACE EACH OTHER?

We recently attended the Beanfest and Championship Outhouse Races in Mountain View, Arkansas. How many people can say that? Well, it turns out, a lot of them. Probably millions! Especially RVers and musicians.

The last weekend in October each year sees the town holding its fall festival, and there are few places that can match it for fun and festivities. Mountain View is a small town, 2500 friendly people or so, that is big on charm and fun. Since the 1960s, crowds have been flocking to the community for festivals such as the one mentioned above and the Spring Festival in mid-April.

Musicians gather around the Courthouse Square to jam and sing on the lawn, porches and sidewalks. During festivals, they even get together in the streets surrounding the Courthouse. You see, Mountain View is the folk music capitol of the world!

You won’t find rock and roll or rap. What you will find is the traditional mountain music that original settlers brought over from Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland. You’ll also hear some folk music like the songs that were brought back to popularity during the early sixties.

The reason this town is the gathering spot for this type of music: When Jimmy Driftwood, a local school teacher wrote, then performed “The Battle of New Orleans” for country music moguls in Nashville, it was recorded and became a colossal hit. Jimmy traveled the world and performed this song and others he wrote along with other musicians interested in folk songs and music based on history.

About this time, Jimmy realized traditional music and old crafts needed to be preserved. He gathered up a bunch of musicians from Mountain View, many of whom had never been outside Stone County, and took them to Washington D.C. to perform for Congress. His goal: to get a few thousand bucks to build a folk center where tradition could be preserved. He came back to Mountain View with a few million dollars, enough to build the Ozark Folk Center and install a new water system for the town.

The Ozark Folk Center now sits on a mountain top in Mountain View. There you’ll find craftspeople dressed in old-fashioned clothes demonstrating traditional crafts, and musicians performing on stage in the theater. The Center also holds workshops on traditional music, including bluegrass, where students are taught how to play instruments like the mountain dulcimer, the hammered dulcimer and the autoharp.

But in October, most of the action is downtown! Musicians surround the downtown Courthouse playing all types of traditional music, and outrageously decorated outhouses line up for hilarious races while crowds cheer them on. Dozens of cooks come from all over to prepare their special recipe for beans, which are furnished by the town. After being judged for the best taste, the beans along with cornbread are served free to festival goers.

There’s always something going on around the Square in Mountain View, so anytime is a great time to visit. The views from surrounding mountains are breathtaking. Mountain View is in north-central Arkansas, below Mountain Home and in the Ozark foothills. Several RV parks dot the area as well as motels, bed and breakfasts and inns. You'll leave town full of beans and warmed by the friendly hospitality of these humble, talented mountain folks.