Carnival Cruise Line's newest, and largest, ship the Carnival Dream made its US debut yesterday in New York City. In a laid-back ceremony designed to be fun, since Carnival is the "fun ship" cruise line, guests were treated to a performance of hip-hop acrobatic troupe "Fun Force" and entertained by Carnival's blogging senior cruise director John Heald. Finally, ship godmother Marcia Gay Harden swung an official Yankee bat, signed by A-Rod himself, at a larger-than-life champagne replica, thereby christening The Carnival Dream.
Have you ever wanted to try your hand at travel writing? Do any of you who know me ever get jealous when you hear about the latest trip I've gotten to take? If you answered yes to these questions and you think you've got it in you to be a travel writer, then pay attention to this contest I came across.
WorldNomads.com, in conjunction with Rough Guides, Intrepid Travel and Hotels.com, is offering aspiring travel writers the chance to win a travel writing scholarship and write their way around Tokyo, all-expenses paid.
To apply entrants must write a travel-focused essay of no more than 500 words based on a personal experience and written around one of the following themes: A Journey that Changed Lives, Responsible Travel, Adventure in an Unknown Culture or A Memorable Experience Involving Food in a Foreign Country.
Candidates can be students, emerging and non-professional writers and lovers of travel looking for a career change. The prize is the chance to travel, all-expenses paid, to Tokyo where you will first learn some tricks of the trade from Rough Guides travel writer Simon Richmond, then travel around on your own for seven days researching, reviewing and updating essential travel info (accommodations, bars, restaurants, shopping, tours, transport, etc) for the Tokyo section of The Rough Guide to Japan. After you've completed your research and writing, the winner will get the chance to relax and enjoy a four-day Flavors of Tokyo independent tour with Intrepid travel offering a cuisine-focused insight into Japanese culture.
The application deadline is Dec. 21, 2009. Applicants must be available between Feb. 15-26,2010 to participate in the Rough Guide to Japan writing assignment and Flavors of Tokyo independent tour.
Other requirements: excellent writing skills with a high degree of proficiency in written English, comfortable traveling on your own, 18 years or older, a current passport, and a lust for adventure travel, plus a strong desire to be a travel writer.
The winner, along with the best entries received will be published on the WorldNomads.com Website on Jan. 8, 2010.
I'll be attending the inaugural ceremony and festivities for the Carnival Dream this Thursday evening. It will be my first cruise ship inaugural ceremony. The Dream's godmother will be actress Marcia Gay Harding, and all the cruise line bigwigs will be on board.
I will be writing about the occasion, and posting pictures from the event on my blog. I hope to get some of it up by Thursday evening but that will depend on if there's Internet on the ship. Otherwise I'll have stuff up on Saturday.
The Carnival Dream is supposed to have some cool new features, like a water park, so I can't wait to see it.
On the file cabinet next to my desk is a pile of loose notebook pages covered in my scribbled notes from the Poisoned Pen virtual conference several weeks ago. I took lots of notes during several online video and audio sessions -- all good stuff, important stuff, stuff I should know and take to heart in order to be a better writer.
But what am I supposed to do with these notes? Do I try to read and re-read them until I have my notes memorized? Do I stick them into a folder and file them away until the day I realize my file cabinets are too full and throw everything away?
How do I retain all this knowledge others have imparted to me in an orderly way, that I can refer back to?
I have the same question about all sentences I underline in books. For instance, I'm reading On Writing by Stephen King right now and I've underlined a lot! All well and good, I know I've read something good and so I underline it but now what? Tomorrow I'll have forgotten what I underlined? So how can I retain that knowledge?
I've been thinking that one idea would be to buy a notebook and transcribe all my notes, and all the underlined passages into the notebook. First of all, transcribing is a great way of reinforcing information. At least for me, when I re-write things I'm more apt to remember them.
I like this idea but then I think to myself, I'm going notebook crazy. I've already got one notebook that I write all my daily gratitude lists in (and I've got lots and lots of old notebooks with old gratitude lists on my bedroom bookshelf), plus I have another notebook for keeping track of my freelance and contract writing -- articles, hours, pay, etc.
Now I'm going to add a third notebook to the pile?
Oh, and actually I've got two other notebooks lying around that I use for taking notes when I'm doing interviews for articles or taking notes when I go to events. Those notebooks get smaller and smaller over time as I tear pages out.
But still, that means I'll now have five notebooks on my desk.
Oh wait! I've got another notebook tucked into a hanging file divider with essential facts about my characters and story ideas.
So that's six notebooks.
Is that crazy? Is that too many?
Do you use notebooks for keeping track of your life and/or work? What's in your notebooks?
I've just started reading Stephen King's book On Writing, which he wrote partly as a memoir and partly as a book about writing. I'm only on page 32 and I'm already blown away by his mastery of written language.
For any of you wanting to reach out and smack me with a loud "Duh," I've never really read Stephen King before, as I'm not into horror. I know I read the short stories upon which The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me were based, but that was a long time ago, when I didn't really pay attention to the words and structure an author used, just the story.
So, as I was saying, I'm blown away. His choice of words leave me speechless and breathless with jealousy.
Let me give you an example. He writes about being stung by a wasp when he was about two years old. "The pain was brilliant, like a poisonous inspiration." I don't know about you, but I get an immediate sense of what his pain must have been like. And to put poisonous and inspiration together, I think is just genius.
I think I can safely say I never would have put those words together. It just wouldn't have occurred to me. Not only is it genius, it's poetic.
It's funny because I think most people, well literary snobs anyway, think of truly great writing as being done only by authors who write high-brow literary fiction. But I think a truly great writer is able to immediately evoke an image or a feeling in an explosive manner in which its impossible for the reader not to see or feel what's being written about. A truly great writer pulls his or her reader into the story, making it just as real as everyday life.
People read Stephen King to get a thrill, a real sense of fear that keeps them from turning the lights out when they go to bed. Only a truly great author could accomplish that.
I find reading On Writing to be both enjoyable because it's always a treat to read great writing, but also depressing because I know that even if I were to practice and work on my writing skills for the next 50 years I don't think I'd ever be as good as Stephen King. Sometimes it makes me want to put the book down, delete my unfinished manuscript and give up writing. Just go back to being a voracious reader who appreciates good books.
I doubt that's what Stephen King had in mind when he wrote this book though. I don't think he wants to discourage anyone, but instead inspire us. I find it amusing that I think, in part, he wanted this book to show his readers that he's really just like everyone else -- puts his pants on one leg at a time, he says in the book. But just the way he tells us he's like everyone else already sets him apart from everyone else. But again, I don't think that's what he really intended.
As I continue reading, and I will read this book through to the end no matter how much I want to throw it away in despair, I will try to keep in mind that he wants me to be inspired, not discouraged. I will try to pull out whatever insights I can and if I can apply even a one-hundredth of what he has to say to my writing, I will be a better writer for it.
But I still can't get over just how good he is. Maybe I should pick up one of his fiction books. Any suggestions?
Have you ever read an author who just blew you away? Someone's who's mastery of words, or characters or plot left you wondering how they got to be so good?
When life is going really wrong, there is always something to be thankful for. At least that's what I tell myself even when I'm at my most depressed. Not only do I tell myself that but I force myself to write a list (at least five or six items strong) of things I'm thankful for. Believe it or not, it makes a difference.
As part of my morning routine, ever single day, I write a gratitude list. The idea was introduced to me by a friend who is very into self-improvement and I'm extremely grateful to her (ha ha) for bringing this important activity into my life. Waking up and being grateful very early on in my day helps me to get the day off to a positive start, no matter what else is going on around me.
Now, I won't lie and say it erases all the bad shit. It doesn't, it just helps me deal with it better. Nor, is it particularly easy on bad days. I often struggle to find something to be grateful for and I often resort to what I call comfort gratitudes such as "I am grateful for a warm sweater on a cold day," or "I am grateful for the soft comfort of fleece." They may be minor things, but when everything seems to be bad, it's nice to have a few good things.
On days when I'm in a good mood, gratitude lists really get my juices flowing and I'm more productive. They also help me to be accountable to myself. I like writing in my gratitude notebook, "I am grateful for 1000 words written yesterday," so I keep that in mind when I feel like pushing the computer away and blowing off writing for a day. I don't want to disappoint myself; I want something to be proud of the next morning when I write my gratitude list.
Gratitude lists can be small or long, about physical things or emotional, about day to day stuff or life issues, whatever you feel grateful for on any given day.
Here's my Gratitude list for yesterday:
I am grateful for five days junk food sober. I am grateful for spending time with my sister and niece yesterday. I am grateful for this day to finish my sixth article for my publishing outlet. I am grateful for time alone in the apartment today to knock items off my to-do list. I am grateful for the support of friends and family. I am grateful for a well of patience within me. I am grateful for a good night's sleep last night. I am grateful for discovering and re-discovering music I like. I am grateful for $15, for a mystery review I wrote, towards the 40th birthday safari trip I'm planning.
The winner of the October raffle is ALR. He won a hardcover copy of the new book "Sand Sharks" by Margaret Maron.
November's raffle will be for an advance uncorrected proof of Lisa Bork's debut mystery "For Better, For Murder." You can read my review of the book as it appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine here. To enter, you just need to leave a comment on my blog at some point during the month of November.
I've been working on an article for a publication about the psychology of selling. It's been very interesting. I'm amazed at all the ways psychology plays a part in the sales process, and in communication in general. And even more amazed at the ways we can manipulate (which is not necessarily a bad thing) language to be more effective communicators.
For example, all people experience the world through their senses, and most people are more oriented toward one sense than another. In the US most people are either auditory based or visually based. By listening to people speak you can actually determine which one they are and then when you communicate with them you can choose your words so that you're more likely to make a connection with that person and get your message heard.
For instance, a person who is auditory will say things like "I hear what you're saying," or "That sounds good to me." And a person who is visual might say "Let's see what we can do," or "That looks good to me."
There are relatively few feeling (or kinesthetic) people in the US. But they would say things like "I sense this is going to work out," "This feels right to me," or "That's a real weight off my shoulders."
So once you identified which sense a person most identifies with you can use "their" language to communicate more effectively with them. So if you want to get a visually oriented person to really understand what you're telling them, you should say "I'm going to paint you a picture." for an auditory person, you'd say "I'm going to tell you something."
All these phrases are tricks of the sales trade and can increase a salesperson's success. As I've been writing the article, I've been thinking how great would it be if there were similar tricks for written language. But unfortunately, as far as I know, there aren't. Because there's no way to pinpoint who your readers are, and the truth is your readers are most likely going to be all types.
However, what a writer can do is make their characters one or the other and have them talk consistently in that manner. If you change it up so that one character is visual and another auditory, each character is going to connect with some of your readers.
The character that uses a lot of visual language will resonate with your visually oriented readers. And the character that speaks in auditory words will resonate with your auditory oriented readers. And throw in a kinesthetic character, so that the few feeling oriented readers will have someone to connect with as well.
Carnival Cruise Line's newest, and largest, ship the Carnival Dream made its US debut yesterday in New York City. In a laid-back ceremony designed to be fun, since Carnival is the "fun ship" cruise line, guests were treated to a performance of hip-hop acrobatic troupe "Fun Force" and entertained by Carnival's blogging senior cruise director John Heald. Finally, ship godmother Marcia Gay Harden swung an official Yankee bat, signed by A-Rod himself, at a larger-than-life champagne replica, thereby christening The Carnival Dream.
