RECENT READS

Another month of winter gone by! Where does time go? Actually, we’ve had it better than most of the country, although this has been a rainy winter, and one morning we woke up to find a thin layer of snow on the ground. It was gone within an hour or so, but the cold nights continue. The days are spring-like, though, warm and for the most part sunny.

I’ve been reading a lot this winter, and am now into “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” by Lynne Truss. This book made the rounds quite a few years ago, but I didn’t have time to read it then. This book provides “the zero tolerance approach to punctuation,” and is a useful guide to why it’s important where we put our commas, apostrophes, and other punctuation marks. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand punctuation. According to my husband, this should be a must read for all writers. I agree!

By the way, the title refers to the diet of a Panda, and should be “Eats Shoots and Leaves.”

I also recently finished a book by a Cuban who as a child was airlifted out of Cuba following the Revolution. Those of you who have read my book, “Looking Back” probably remember the story by Celeste Cañizares Dieppa, who was on one of the last airlifts from Havana to the United States in 1966 at the age of fourteen. This book, “Waiting for Snow in Havana” by Carlos Eire, is about growing up the son of a judge, then having to evacuate Cuba at age eleven in 1962 with his older brother. He left behind both his parents to start a new life of freedom in the States, first in foster homes, then in the home of an uncle in Illinois until his mother could join them more than three years later.

This is a very warm, touching, detailed story of paradise lost followed by the tale of a marginal life in Chicago, and of never seeing his father alive again. I recommend it to those who enjoy reading about different cultures with a slant on history that is little understood today in this country. In the late fifties Cuba was almost like an extension of the United States because of its tourism and American business interests there, but possessing a unique culture of its own when Castro took over on January 1, 1959. He soon declared individually owned homes, land, and everything valuable to be “owned by the people” in what was to become a communist country in the midst of the Cold War, sending chills down the collective spine of the United States. After all, this country was within 90 miles of the United States, striking distance for communist missiles!

"Waiting for Snow in Havana" is a rich and very personal insider's story about what it is like to lose paradise and move to a very different climate and culture in search for the one thing that was deemed more important than culture and climate: to regain freedom.

PUBLISH A SUBSCRIPTION NEWSLETTER

Some of the most fulfilling projects that I’ve ever produced were subscription newsletters. They are a lot of work and take time to build a subscription list, and should only be undertaken if one has the motivation to keep marketing and promoting them.

My first newsletter was called Home Office Opportunities and was written for those who operated a business out of their home. I started it in the eighties during the last major recession (or was it the one before) when millions of people lost their jobs because of mergers and corporate downsizing. The economy seemed hopeless at the time when millions of talented people were out of work. In my case, we had been transferred to the Northwest and I couldn’t find the type of job that I really wanted—although I soon realized there was no such thing. I had been unhappy working for others for a long time, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to start my own business. The mid-eighties was the point when I decided on a new career as a fulltime writer. Of course, at first it was anything but full time, but I quickly got into the habit of either promoting or writing for eight hours every day. It was either that or look for a job--ugh!

I immediately joined a home based business association and was soon serving as a board member. Then I joined another and very shortly became president of it. So I had an insider’s view of home businesses from both my own endeavor plus from the people I met who had lost their jobs and managed to survive on their own talents and motivation. That gave me plenty of subjects for articles!

I don’t know how long I owned Home Office Opportunities, but it wasn’t long before another publisher came along and wanted to purchase it. Luckily, I had decided to transition over to a newsletter for those operating businesses or trying to earn income from a hobby while traveling in their RVs, so I immediately switched gears and started publishing Rolling Ventures.

This was the perfect newsletter for me to produce. I had an interest in RVing and of course, experience operating a business, so it was easy for me to watch the magazines to which we subscribed to find RV rallies and show up to interview people. We didn’t have a motorhome yet, but we rented a couple for trips and soon bought one. I immediately sent news releases to the RV magazines, and in turn got lots of publicity for the newsletter. I could never have made it without that free publicity, because advertising in those publications would have been cost prohibitive!

I never developed a huge subscription list, but it was large enough, and soon we were traveling and producing it on the road. Unfortunately, some health problems plus problems we ran into at RV parks with storms and power outages made me realize that I couldn’t keep it up. And this was before the Internet, which would have made the logistics a lot easier. But we ran into someone I had interviewed at the start of the newsletter, and he was interested in taking it over.

My experience shows that it can be done as long as you are willing to keep at it and seek out publicity. Paid advertising is great if you can afford it, but free publicity is greater, although the publisher must have a slant that is unique to get a steady supply of media attention.

There are so many topics that are suitable for newsletters, and they don’t have to be lengthy publications. Rolling Ventures kept growing in page numbers, but that was because advertisers kept contacting me and wanting to run ads in it. At first I was hesitant because it was subscription based, but finally realized that by adding more pages I could still keep the same word and page count for informational and newsworthy articles. I never had a subscriber complain about it, and received wonderful complimentary letters from all over the U.S. and even from some foreign countries. I’m not sure how those readers stumbled onto it.

Now the Internet is the source for many newsletters, but there are still people who want something they can hold in their hands and pick up to read in spare moments. I’ve seen newsletters that charge more than $100 per year for a subscription (usually for financial information) down to about $20. Remember that if you decide to produce a subscription pub, you will have mailing costs in addition to advertising or promotion costs, and the price for your time spent gathering information and writing, getting it printed, and sticking on address labels and stamps. The latter can be done by other family members, such as responsible kids.

Decide in advance how many pages you want to produce, then get quotes from two or three printers to compare costs. A subscription newsletter is not the path to riches, but it will open up many more opportunities. You may be able to find other publications that will pay you for your previously published newsletter articles, and the experience will certainly get your foot into the door for more newspaper and magazine articles.

Oh, and you might be lucky enough to find a grant that would cover your start-up costs. The publisher that bought Home Office Opportunities had secured a small business grant for $10,000. I have no idea how she got it, but I believe it was because she was located in a tiny rural town that had no hopes of future economic growth. Small business grants were a big part of the economy during the late eighties, but the only businesses I knew who received them were either located in rural communities in the middle of nowhere, or were woman or minority-owned (preferably both) in low-income areas of big cities. Although mine was woman-owned, we were considered middle class in a more-or-less affluent neighborhood, which was not where the government was seeking to stimulate the economy, although unemployment was rampant there, too.

I don’t know if those same sorts of grants are still available, or will become a part of future economic plans from the government, but if so, you might want to check into applying for one to cover start-up costs for your own writing business.

Crystal Mountain Resort, Washington: I may have looked the part of a ski bunny, but my skills more resembled those of a walrus skidding down the slopes, and were just as dangerous.

Follow the Snow for Winter Fun

As everyone who knows the Kennedys knows, we do not under any circumstances participate in snow activities; we stay as far away as possible. However, there was a time, and we know many other RVers who love nothing better than skiing. They use their RVs to follow snowy conditions to the best skiing resorts scattered throughout the country.

Our one ski adventure involved only me, since my husband had enough sense to not participate. He had grown up where there was lots of snow, so he was not a fan even back then. However, having grown up in the South and never having lived anywhere near ski resorts, I was determined to give it a shot.

My ski clothes were a Christmas present in anticipation of all the good times I would enjoy in the great State of Washington. I donned ski pants, turtleneck and parka, and my new boots for the trip to Crystal Mountain Resort by tour bus from Tacoma. A ski instructor met me at the bottom of the ski slope to instruct me in the finer points of staying upright and stopping. Then, with no practice on the “bunny slope” since I guess he thought I appeared bright enough to understand his instructions, he sent me up the ski lift. HA! There I was up that slope with no way down except to ski, so I bravely set out trying to keep in mind all the finer points I had been taught. Everything was fine until a boy fell right in front of me. I screamed at him to move, but he just stared at me with his mouth open as I landed on top of him. In my panic, I had forgotten how to stop and turn.

Let’s just say, that was my last attempt at skiing. My ski instructor informed me that I should make sure I had liability insurance before I tried it again. After giving him a look that could melt lava rock, I stomped off with as much dignity as I could muster on two skis atop slippery snow to lunch with my husband and the two guys who had taken lessons with me. I sold the ski boots, but kept the ski pants and parka, which came in handy to keep me warm in all the cold rain of a Washington winter.

I later tried snowmobiling and loved it. And if there had been snowboarding back then, I probably would have tried that, too.

For those RVers wishing to follow the snow, there are many ski resorts located within short driving distances of large cities, including Vancouver, BC where the Olympics are taking place. Seattle, WA and Portland, OR are within a few hours’ drive from Vancouver, where you can also enjoy all the amenities of a large city, then make an hour or so drive to nearby ski resorts and ski to your heart’s content. There may be camping areas open near ski resorts, but all that I know about are closed in winter because of heavy snow.

If snowmobiling is more your speed, there are dozens of places throughout the United States where you can take your own snow toys, or rent them. We lived near San Francisco for awhile and used to drive up to the Lake Tahoe area for fun in the snow.

Whatever your favorite winter sport, you can follow the snow across the country in search of good clean, but cold fun. The West coast offers many opportunities, from Southern California, north all along the way to Vancouver BC, and then to Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and even northern Arizona and New Mexico. You’ll also find many ski resorts and snowy mountain peaks boasting of fun snow activites along the Eastern seaboard where you can enjoy snowboarding, skiing, ice skating, sledding, and snowmobiling.

RVers are a diverse lot, and some travel to their favorite destinations for sun and warmth while others search out cold weather adventures. There is so much to enjoy on the RV road that virtually everyone will be able to fulfill their traveling fantasies by planning their trips to include their favorite activities.

To Break the Rules of Writing We Learned in School or not?

I can remember shortly after I started writing for publication, I used to meet with three other writers to critique each other’s writing and share ideas, as well as discuss problems we were having with pieces we were writing. One of the writers was a former high school teacher who had never been published, but the rest of us had, so we had some interesting conversations. Her law, which could be traced directly to her teaching career, was that you always stick to the old rules. We who had been published would firmly tell her that the old rules were no longer in use. “Ya gotta change with the times,” we would remind her.

Who was right during these arguments. Well, she was and we were. If we had been writing for literary or scientific magazines, sending a formal letter, or producing a paper for a college professor, then we should have been sticking to the rules. However, we weren’t. We were writing for publishers who produced magazines and newspapers read by the general public, and they didn’t want to wade through formal writing just to get the information they wanted or needed. They wanted it simple and to the point. Some of us were also writing fiction, which means we were writing in the words of a character who might be speaking slang, or might be under-educated, or more likely was speaking casually.

And there’s the difference: formal vs. casual language. Our teachers taught us correct grammar and punctuation so we would be prepared to work in any industry, including, hopefully, some of us who would become teachers. Those teachers would have not been doing their jobs if they taught us to write like most of us talk!

Writers must know the market for which they are writing. Does the magazine use a casual style, or does it present reports written formally? Are its articles simply worded and to-the-point, or are they wordy treatises that go on and on?

What sort of rules can be broken by writers? Well, for one, starting sentences with a conjunction: and, or, nor, so, but, yet, for. This rule has been broken by creative writers for hundreds of years, yet we learned in school that conjunctions were for connecting phrases in a sentence. Creative writing almost demands short sentences. Therefore, starting a new sentence with a conjunction can break longer sentences into two shorter sentences. We also learned not to use sentence fragments, yet sometimes they can be used effectively to add emphasis to a particular thought.

I know that some writers hesitate to let anyone see what they’ve written, much less submit it for publication, because they have a hard time writing formally and abiding by all the rules they learned in school. Some people are not even sure they remember all the rules.

Remember this, if nothing else. Read articles from any publication for which you wish to write. Take note of how the articles or stories are written. Do they stick to the rules you learned? Probably not. Pay attention to things like whether sentences ever start with a conjunction. Whether the language is casual or formal. Check whether stories are written with slang words, or in the local language that represents where the story takes place. For instance, ain’t is certainly a word that would likely fit a character from the rural South (as well as the West and other regions). My rule is to write like my character would speak. If she is college educated, she probably wouldn’t say ain’t, but she might if other characters around her regularly use the word. Writing like this is called keeping it real!

Remember, the story you write is yours to accent with personality and language that fits the piece, as long as you are intimately familiar with the market you want to sell it to.

(Oops, did I just end a sentence with a preposition? That would be a no-no in many markets, but not in all. Sometimes where simple sentences, easily read by people in a hurry, are needed, ending a sentence with a preposition is much preferable to writing something like: as long as you know the market to which you want to sell it. Believe me, some sentences get much longer and more convoluted than the one above when the writer attempts to not end a sentence with a preposition.)

Read books, articles, etc. produced by the publisher where you plan to sell your manuscript and request their “writers guidelines” so that you know what they want and feel comfortable sending in your piece. I’ll bet fear of looking foolish stops many a writer from ever being published, but in many cases, there’s nothing to fear. Certainly not if you know your market!