If you love stories about ghosts, dragons and aliens, come in.
Author: Nicole Luttrell
I'm a speculative fiction writer. That means I write about dragons, ghosts and spaceships. Sometimes I write about the ghosts of dragons on spaceships.
Welcome to week two of our why Star Trek works series. This week, we’re talking about Next Generation.
Full disclosure, I have a soft spot for this series. It’s the one I watched with my grandmother when I was a little nerdling. So I might be biased when I say that this is the best Star Trek ever. But I also think I’m critical enough to judge the show honestly. After all, we’re harder on the things we love than anything else.
Taking place 78 years after the original series, the show included a fancier more advanced Enterprise with an entirely new cast. The mission remained the same. To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before!
The show aired from September 28th, 1987 to May 23rd, 1994. Since then, there hasn’t been a time when reruns haven’t been available on tv somewhere.
I’d like to say the popularity of the show was just because the characters were great. They were great, after all. But it goes so much deeper than that.
To start, the show was intelligent. Not so much in the science, most of that was bullshit. It was the creative writing that had to be smart. The show was working within a world that had already been established by the original series. They could make some changes, blame them on advancements. But some things they were just stuck with.
It would have been easier to just make it an extension of the original series. But they went past that and did it well. Picard is a different kind of captain than Kirk. Dr. Crusher is a world away from Bones. While the positions remained the same, the people who inhabited them were wildly different.
Another thing that stayed the same, aside from the mission, was the lesson of inclusion and equality. It’s one of the first times we see an enemy race become allies in the Klingons. While sometimes the relationship is strained, they aren’t volatile. Over and over we’ll see this trend. Even into Picard, where we see the Borg become friends. But we’ll talk about that later.
One thing I appreciated about Next Generation is the willingness to pivot. When something wasn’t working, they tried to fix it. One great example is Wesley Crusher. His character was an irritating pain in the ass. Mouthy, smarmy. He thinks he’s smarter than everyone around him. Spoiler, he’s not.
Wesley got taken down a peg when he goes off to school and messes up, hard. He becomes a better person after that and a better character. This decision was made after a huge wave of fan hate directed at the kid.
Brag in the comments if you know what he’s drinking.
(Will Wheaton, by the way, is the actor who played Wesley. He’s an adorable cat dad who makes me smile on Twitter all the time.)
Finally, let’s talk about the comedy of the show. It wasn’t overall a laugh riot. It has some of the darker episodes of anything I’ve ever seen.
There are four lights. If you don’t get that, look it up. Then watch the episode and cry.
Somehow they manage to blend this with some really funny things. Like Data’s cat, Spot. Spot the cat hates everyone. No one can take care of this little monster. She put Riker in the medical ward. Even Worf is scared of this fluffy orange cat. Oh, and in case you don’t know, she doesn’t have a single spot on her.
The whole crew would shred you if you hurt this cat.
Hilarious.
There are so many lessons a writer can learn from Next Generation. I’m just going to give you a bullet list below.
-Don’t be afraid to be funny, even in a serious series.
-Let your characters be wrong sometimes.
-Think out your storylines in advance.
-At the same time, don’t be afraid to pivot.
I hope you’re having as much fun with this series as I am. Next week we’ll be talking about Star Trek, Voyager.
I grew up watching Star Trek, Next Generation with my grandma. It’s pretty mainstream now, but back then Star Trek was a niche show. A nerd show.
But being a nerd is cool now, so screw that. And now Star Trek’s got so much love it can’t handle it. I could be a bitter hipster about that. I mean, I liked Star Trek before it was cool. Or, I could just appreciate that everyone loves Star Trek.
Third option. I could revisit Star Trek as a writer and see why it works. I like option three.
Of course, I couldn’t possibly talk about all things Star Trek in one post. So over the next few weeks, we’re going to look at all of the different Star Trek shows, starting with the original series and ending with Picard.
Today, we’re starting with the original series. Why does it work?
Let’s start with the fact that it probably shouldn’t work. I mean, it was kind of a mess. The budget was garbage, the special effects were terrible, the costumes looked tragic.
But it does work. The series ran from September of 1966 to June of 1969. This means that the whole series started and finished seventeen years before I was born. And yet I can tell you Kirk’s last words.
Oh my.
No, not the way Sulu says it.
We’re going to break this down, but I can sum up in three words why Star Trek worked so well. Why it has survived well into the 21st century and will hopefully be around for a lot longer.
It was fearless.
Okay, it could get away with being fearless. No one expected the show to succeed. So it was working with little to no budget and a bunch of actors no one had ever heard of before. So, it could get away with anything.
There’s a great quote by Lorne Michaels that I live my life by. The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30.
Well, someone must have told Roddenberry that quote. Because let me tell you, Star Trek went on because it was 11:30. This lead to some hilarious moments. Like the tribble incident.
On the off chance you don’t know this story, man are you in for a treat.
In the iconic episode, Trouble with Tribbles, there’s a scene where Kirk opens a hatch and is just showered with the fuzzy little things. If you look closely, or hell not that closely, you can see the shadow of a stagehand shoveling the tribbles through the hatch.
Okay, so what is there to learn from this? Who wants to go into the world with their shirt untucked, so to speak? Why would you want to put work out there when it’s not ready?
Well, is it not ready? Or do you just feel not ready?
Let me tell you something, from my heart to yours. You are never, ever going to feel ready. Your book, tv show, podcast, movie script, is never going to feel ready. It’s never going to match up with the flawless project in your head because how could anything ever be that perfect?
So, because we have to assume that nothing will ever be ready, we have to go on because it’s time. Because it’s 11:30, or we’ve revised the damn thing so much we’re sick of looking at it, or we’ve had it sitting on our desk for years. Does that mean sometimes we’re going to see hands throwing tribbles out of the hatch? Yeah, of course. But the alternative is never sending anything out. Pick one.
Here’s the other way Star Trek was fearless. And it’s arguably a bigger deal. Star Trek wasn’t afraid of doing things that were taboo at the time. Like having a Russian man and an Asian man as officers. Like having a black woman as an officer.
Like having the first interracial kiss in American history on television.
In an episode called Plato’s Stepchildren, Kirk and Uhura share a passionate kiss. Funny story about this kiss, aside from it being the first one of its kind in America. The producers were worried about it, so they wanted to film the scene a few ways. Shatner agreed but then proceeded to intentionally fuck up every single take that didn’t include the kiss until they’d run out of time and had to use the scene as it was written.
That’s right. Shatner decided to be a dick to force social change. Good use of bad behavior.
Not all the episodes worked, that’s for sure. The ones that missed, missed hard. But the episodes that work, work amazingly well. They work so well that they’re still working to this day.
See you next week when we’ll be talking about Next Generation.
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Spoiler Warning: It is all but impossible to talk about Wandavision without some serious spoilers. So if you haven’t seen it yet and you plan to, click away and come back later. You have been warned.
Speaking of a spoiler warning, funny story. The darling husband and I had been planning to watch Wandavision but we hadn’t quite gotten to it yet. Then, we were watching Youtube and stumbled on an Honest Trailor for Wandavision. Normally we watch those right away. But there was a giant spoiler warning at the beginning. This prompted us to watch it, finally.
And man, the twists in this!
So, now that you’ve been fully warned, let’s talk about why Wandavision works.
First off, I don’t know that Wandavision would have worked for people who aren’t old-school tv fans like me. A lot of the fun from the first few episodes comes from the constant references to older shows. I Love Lucy, Dick Van Dyke, The Brady Bunch, Bewitched. This was pure nostalgia and it worked so, so well.
Worked into that, though, are some eerie moments. Right from the start, we see that not everything is how it should be in this picturesque little world. The first episode could have been an episode of Bewitched, except for the man who almost dies at their kitchen table.
It’s so dark a moment, then everyone goes back to what they were doing like nothing ever happened. This is done perfectly. It almost makes the audience feel like they might not have seen what they thought they saw.
Another thing that worked well in this show was the depth it gave to two Avengers who weren’t as well know. I mean, I know Wanda. I know all about House of M, and the epic No More Mutants moment. But from the movies, not so much. Wandavision gives us a chance to see both of them in a new light. In a crisis, in joy. We see more of Wanda’s background. It fleshes them out, makes them real people. And this is something that these characters needed.
Finally, I appreciated that this story didn’t have a fully happy ending. But, if you read House of M, you kind of knew that. Wanda has to make a torturous decision. She has to give up everything she’s ever wanted to do what’s right.
It’s hard, it’s heartbreaking, and it needed to happen.
Let’s be real here for a second. It’s just us writers here. Some stories have happy endings, and they should. Like every single Adam Sandler movie. Stupid happy. Some stories don’t have a happy ending. Just like life doesn’t always have a happy ending. Old Dan and Little Ann died in Where The Red Fern Grows. The Baudelaire children never find their parents or their friends. And Wanda doesn’t get to have her perfect Pleasantville family. Because if that’s how those stories ended, then they wouldn’t matter as much.
Now, all that being said, there is one reason why Wandavision doesn’t work.
If you haven’t seen The Avengers movies, this story isn’t going to make any damned sense to you at all.
Part of that is the feature, not the bug. The Marvel Universe is supposed to be all one big story. Every character’s tale fitting into the next one’s, like puzzle pieces. You have to see it all to see the big picture. But that’s daunting for someone new, who hasn’t been watching from the start.
This is a flaw of the whole Marvel setup, in my opinion. If you’re going to get into the story, you’ve got a ton of watching to do. That’s great if you want to do it. But if you just want to dip your toe in, then this amount of material might just scare you off.
I have this problem. It’s a little embarrassing, but I want to get better. And I thought maybe it might be a problem some of you have too.
I have a weird problem taking advice from people younger than me. It makes me feel uncomfortable, as though I’m failing somehow.
Yes, I’m aware this is incredibly narrow-minded of me. Especially because I’ve been on the receiving end of the abuse that kind of mindset can cause.
Back when I first started this blog, I was the manager of a shoe store. And I had an assistant manager who was a bit older than me. She was in her forties and I was in my twenties. She got hired a few days before me, as a part-timer when I was hired as an assistant. When I became manager, she was my obvious choice for assistant.
Well, she wasn’t really. I shouldn’t have done that. Because she never missed a chance to make me feel like I was screwing everything up.
Spoiler, I wasn’t. I had the job because I had years of retail experience and management experience by then. I was qualified for the job, she wasn’t. But that wasn’t enough to knock that chip off her shoulder.
Alright, I didn’t tell you all that just to complain. I did it mainly to point out that I should know better. And if I don’t learn from the experiences in my youth then I’m a garbage person.
I don’t want to be a garbage person. So, here are four reasons why I’m trying to listen to younger people.
So many young artists are just killing it
I follow several people younger than me on Youtube. Caitlin’s Corner, Amanda Rachel Lee and Temi. They are all inspiring, upbeat, helpful women who are creating great content. They also happen to all be younger than me.
This doesn’t stop their videos from being a bright spot in my week. And they’re far from the only ones. Artists, writers, singers, online business people are all out there doing great work in their twenties. And I don’t want to miss out on that work.
They have different life experience
Let’s go back to my example from the shoe store. I was qualified to be the manager over my older assistant because I had led a different life and made different decisions. Those decisions meant that, despite my age, I was more qualified for the job.
What kind of asshole would I have to be to not realize that other people have that same experience? While I was working retail and writing books, Amanda Rachel Lee was learning to design bullet journals. Of course, she can teach me a thing or thirty-seven about them. Temi was devoting herself to improving her art. She can draw like no one I’ve ever seen.
We have got to value the experiences of others and the lessons they’ve learned from them. That’s why it’s so great that we’re all different. I can learn from them, and others can learn from me and all the effort I’ve poured into being a writer.
They have the experience of their elders to build on
Let me tell you another story. When I was growing up my grandma was good with computers. I mean, for the time. She taught me to use her old pc. She taught me to go online, access things in DOS, all that. So, when I started using computers myself, I had that foundation to build on. I didn’t need to learn it all again, so I could go steps farther.
Every generation has the experiences and lessons of the ones who have gone before them. There are lessons they don’t have to learn. I didn’t have to sort out how to use DOS, I was told how. So, I could put that time into going further.
The same can be said for younger people. They don’t have to reinvent the wheel, they’ve got it. They have time to discover and tackle new problems. Then, reach back and help us with those.
I wanted to be listened to when I was younger
Scratch that. I want to be listened to right now. I’m only thirty-four, turning thirty-five in June. I think I have things to teach people older than me. And I know for sure that I did when I was younger. So, of course, other people can teach me. And if I want to be a better person, as I always do, I need to be willing to learn.
So what do you think? What lessons have you learned from people younger than you? Let us know in the comments.
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Money is something most writers have a sticky relationship with. We’re artists, we don’t do this for the money. But we need money to, you know, live. We have day jobs until we make enough money writing to sustain us full-time. If we ever make enough money writing.
Then, there’s spending money on writing itself. Now, you don’t need to spend much money at all to write. But to get projects finished, published or in front of people’s faces might be a very different situation.
The problem is that money spent on writing is like money spent on anything else. Some things are a good investment, and some are little better than setting your precious dollar bills on fire.
Today I’m going to go over some of the best and worst ways I’ve spent money on my writing. This is a personal list based on my own experiences. What worked for me might not for you, and vice versa. If you’ve had different experiences, please let us know in the comments.
The worst ways I’ve spent money on writing
Let’s start with the obvious item. Unless you enjoy pretty stationary, you don’t need to buy it to write. I’d caution you against buying a pretty notebook for your rough drafts. Your rough draft is going to be just that, rough. It’s not going to help you write freely of garbage if you’re doing it in a plush leather-bound notebook. I might be biased, though, since I’ve literally burned rough drafts before.
Another thing I don’t spend money on anymore is contest fees. This might be up for debate, but I just don’t do it. At least, not yet. It’s a And if you’re going to pay to be in a contest, make sure you do your research. Some, like the ones hosted by Writer’s Digest, are perfectly legit. Some are run by heaps of steaming trash masquerading as people who are only there to steal your hard-earned money. Even if they are legit, though, paying for a contest is kind of like buying a lottery ticket.
Here’s something that I thought would be a bigger help than it was. It’s something that sadly ate up a ton of money throughout my career. It’s advertising. I have tried to advertise my books on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Amazon. None of these have ever produced enough sales to make them worth my time and money. Can’t say I didn’t try.
Finally, I have a complex one. I put a ton of physical copies of my books, thinking I’d be able to hand-sell them. Then, I didn’t. I had a bunch of events lined up. Then I had to cancel them. Then covid happened and now I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to schedule any more events. So that’s a lot of money sitting in my house staring at me. Don’t order copies of your book unless you know what the hell you’re going to do with them.
The best ways I’ve spent money on writing
I’d like to start here with something that I pay for every single month, my Dabble subscription. This isn’t sponsored, I just love them. Dabble is my word processing software. It’s the one I’m working on right now. It’s not so important that you subscribe to this exact software. It’s just important that you have one that you enjoy and that fits your needs. Good writing software has been worth every penny to me.
Another thing I spend money on that I consider worth it is my WordPress site. It allows me to do a lot more fine-tuning, get ad info, and all sorts of fun things. It also gives me options to personalize the look of my site. I plan to do a full website remodel later this year. I’ll consider this upgrade invaluable then.
One thing I’ve put a decent amount of money into is having my self-published works edited. My goodness, this is expensive. But it’s a must if you’re not going with a publisher. Even if you have to save up a while before you get this done, don’t publish without it. You just don’t know how much better your work will be afterwords.
Despite my feelings about fancy notebooks, I do invest money in tools I use and I love. Like the felt tip pens that I write with. Actually, it’s just those. I can use any old notebook to write rough drafts (so long as it’s college ruled). But these pens are a must, even if they’re a dollar a pen. Having something that I can hold comfortably and that works so well for me is worth it.
Finally, I cannot emphasize enough that I’ve never bought a book about writing that I regretted. On Writing, Dase Macabre, Save the Cat. Everything that Natalie Goldberg has ever written. Every one of them taught me something different and I value all of them. I honestly never think a book is a bad investment.
Except maybe Twilight.
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No post this week, guys. Please enjoy this short story instead.
I know a lot of witches these days are real out in the open about it. They go online and share spells like recipes, post pictures of their alters. There’s about a hundred Facebook groups for witches. That’s great and all, really. I’m super happy for everyone who can be so open with their craft.
That isn’t me. I mean, I would love for it to be me, don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t have any problem getting right out there with the rest of them, openly buying sage at the farmer’s market and filling my home with witchy goodness.
I have a calling, that’s the problem. You see, I was abandoned by my mother when I was four. There was a man, but it’s a cop out to say that was why. There was a bottle, and that was always the reason.
But I don’t waste a lot of time worrying about her. I was adopted by my uncle, a great witch and a great man. Only problem was, he was in Japan at the time. While he hustled to get himself back to the states and start the adoption process, I was in foster care.
And this foster lady, man, she was the best. She was the absolute best person I have ever, and I mean ever known. Her name was Birdie, and she just scooped me up and took me right into her home. Because of her, I was able to stay safe, happy and cared for until Uncle Howard was able to come get me.
Birdie passed on a few years ago. I could never thank her enough for what she did for me, though I sure tried while she was alive. When she started getting sick, she started getting me involved in the foster care program. And, I mean, what was I going to do, say no?
But I’ll tell you right now, no one lets you be a foster mom if you’re a witch. Even Uncle Howard didn’t tell them he was a witch until they were all done checking up on him.
“I know it’s not fair,” he explained to me. “But lots of things aren’t fair. The mundanes just aren’t in a position to understand. Our eyes are open farther than theirs, so we must be wiser. Especially if you’ve got to adopt a child. My lord, is that a struggle. Those people will criticize you for wearing the wrong color socks.”
So you can understand. My practice was in the closet, my alter and tools literally in the tiny closet of my bedroom. But so help me, I was going to be a force for good in children’s lives.
And so it’s gone for years, until a few weeks ago. When I got a call late in the afternoon about a little boy.
“His mother was in a terrible car accident, and didn’t make it. He was at his sitter’s for a few days, but of course they can’t keep him forever,” explained Esther, one of the better caseworkers. Some of them were far too aggressive, dropping children off who had no business being away from loving parents. Esther was never that sort. She just didn’t seem to have an ounce of emotion in her except for disdain. I swear, I’ve never seen the woman smile, not once.
“Bring him right over,” I said, casting a look at my kitchen counter. I had been intending to put together a honey jar spell, but that wasn’t happening now. I made a dash to get things put away and picked up, lighting a candle in the living room for strength as I went.
Soon enough Esther was there, with a little boy with dark hair, a crop of freckles, and a look of distance in his eyes.
“This is Douglas,” Esther said, handing me a suitcase of the boy’s things. “Douglas, this is Wendy. She’s going to be looking after you for a little while.”
The boy, Douglas, looked me up and down. I gave him the smile I’ve done my best to master over the years. It’s not too happy, since of course most kids aren’t here under good circumstances. But it was, I hope, comforting.
“Come on in, Douglas. We’ll get you all settled,” I said, holding my hand out to him. He took it.
Some kids are a handful right from the start, loud and screaming. They’re scared, and they react like animals backed into a corner.
Some, like Douglas, are silent as a tomb. Those are the ones who worry me. Sadness and grief are a poison. We’ve got to draw them out, suck them away from flesh and soul before they start to rot.
I know.
Esther nodded. “I’ll give you a call tomorrow,” she said, and reached out to shake my hand with her own gloved one. What a weird woman.
With Esther gone, I closed the door, and started the business of tending to Douglas. He was standing very still in the middle of my living room, looking around. “Want to see your room?” I asked. He nodded, but still said nothing.
Even if he was silent, he was agreeable. We put away his things, a few changes of clothes and some toys. Tucked in the front of his suitcase was a stack of origami paper. This was a surprise. Even more of a surprise was when he snatched the stack away before I could touch it and set it reverently by his bed.
“Do you do origami?” I asked. “Like paper folding?”
He nodded. Apparently that was all the interaction we were going to have for awhile.
It was a quiet afternoon that melted into evening. Douglas was sort of like a very polite, very obedient ghost. He sat in his room until I asked him to help me with dinner. Then he ate well enough, and sat on the couch to watch tv with me. We watched a movie, and he didn’t say a word.
After a shower I got Douglas into bed. “I want you to know that you’re going to be safe here for as long as you need to be,” I said. “And you can talk to me about anything. Trust me, you can’t tell me anything weirder than I’ve heard before.”
Douglas nodded, his dinner plate eyes never leaving my face.
“I was in foster care when I was little,” I said.
Still, nothing.
“Okay, well let me know if you need anything. My bedroom is just on the other side of the living room. Sleep well.”
He nodded, and pulled the covers up to his chin.
I left the door open just a crack, and left the living room light on. I was feeling off kilter. I know it was only the first night. I also knew that healing whatever was broken in him wasn’t really my job. My job was to keep him safe, well fed and cared for until the state figured out where he was going.
Still, he was so sad. He hadn’t been abandoned by a distant mother. His mother, who had presumably loved him very much, had died.
Feeling uncomfortable to the point of itchiness, I decided there was nothing for it but to do a quick cleansing. I grabbed my palo santo, and started cleansing. With a twist of my finger I sent the smoke through the whole apartment, except Douglas’s room. I didn’t normally use magic to move smoke, but I didn’t want him to hear me walking all around the place. It might make him nervous.
A few minutes after I started, though, Douglas popped his head out of the door. He looked around, as though excited.
I tucked the burning wood behind my back. “Just lighting some incense. Sorry, does it bother you?”
His face deflated. Slowly he shook his head, and went back into his room.
I have a habit on the first day I have a new kid of waking up and getting them to help me put together breakfast. It’s not just food, even waffles with strawberries and chocolate chips, that gets a kid to warm up to me. It’s the act of cooking together.
When I approached the bedroom door, I didn’t hear anything. I gave a little knock, having learned better a long time ago than to just throw open a door.
But after waiting a few minutes, I didn’t hear anything. Worried, I opened the door.
Douglas was sitting in the middle of the room, and I saw why he’d had all of the origami paper. It was scattered around him, some folded into pieces and some waiting to be touched. He must have been up all night, playing with it. And as I opened the door, the air was full of paper birds. Cranes, blue jays, any sort of bird that could be folded into paper, fluttering around Douglas’s head.
How had I not sensed it?
At the sight of me, Douglas dropped the birds. They all fell onto the ground with soft, pattering sounds. He looked at me, terrified.
“It’s okay,” I said, kneeling down. “It’s okay. You’re a witch, aren’t you?”
Still, Douglas said nothing. His eyes looked like they might pop right out of his head, looking at me.
“Don’t be afraid, I am too.” The words popped out of my mouth before I even knew I was going to say them. But as the words were out now, I couldn’t take them back. So I decided to prove myself instead. I lifted the closest bird to me in the air, and fluttered it around him. I even got it close enough to peck his nose.
To my surprise and relief, he laughed.
Then, he spoke. “I thought my mom was here last night. I thought I could smell her.”
“The palo santo,” I said. “I was cleansing the house.”
He nodded. “She’s not gonna come get me, is she? I really miss her.”
“No, Douglas, I’m sorry. She’s gone. But you can talk to her.”
Carefully I gathered the young witch in my arms. We went out, and collected things that reminded him of his mother.
A sample of the perfume she wore.
A leaf from the park they’d played at together.
A stone from the driveway of the dental office she’d worked at.
All of these things we put on my alter together, and we lit a candle. “Now,” I said, “she can hear you. Go ahead and talk to her.”
I stepped away, letting him have some privacy.
There was a knock on the door before he was finished. I went to see who it was, and felt my chest tighten.
It was Esther. And the closet that held my alter was wide open, with Douglas perched in front of it.
There was nothing else for it, I couldn’t very well pretend I wasn’t hope. So I opened the door.
Esther stepped in, looking around. “Good afternoon. I brought some of Douglas’s clothes. Where is he?”
“He’s, um,” I stammered, but she’d already brushed past me. And right into my room.
There sat Douglas, giggling. He had a paper crane floating in front of him. “I’m getting really good at them,” he said.
“I, I can explain what’s going on,” I said, rushing behind her.
“Explain what?” Esther asked. She turned to me, and smiled. For the first time, I noticed a gold chain around her neck. It led to a tiny, moon pendant.
“If you have anything to explain, it’s what took you so long. Young lady, how many witches did I need to send into your house before you started teaching them the right way?”
And just like that, Douglas and I were out of the broom closet.
And then it was April, and then it was Spring. And then it was poetry month and a prose writer tried to clumsily sound poetic.
I love poetry the way a child loves a cat. I don’t understand it, but I know that I love it.
Poetry is an art form more prose authors should consider practicing. Not because I think we’d be particularly good at it. But because understanding words in that way will help any writing. A poet considers each word carefully to invoke the emotion of a moment. They take wordplay to a whole new level.
That being said, I was listening to an episode of Writing Excuses that gave me a question I do not have an answer for.
What is poetry?
I’d like to say it’s like porn. I know it when I see it. But that seems like an oversimplification and a lazy joke beside.
I’d advise all of you to listen to that episode, as they answer the question better than I ever could.
Anyway, here’s a list of ways you can celebrate Poetry Month. I hope you enjoy them.
Read your favorite poems and share them on social media.
I do this all the time, but this is the month for it. Poems are the perfect thing to share on social media. They’re short, they convey emotions and experiences. And they’re much better than celebrity gossip and fights with strangers.
Write some of your poetry, even if it’s bad.
Especially if it’s bad. Poetry is a way to express yourself. It’s a way to give a voice to things you might not know how to say. It’s a way to commemorate a moment, a feeling. So even if it’s bad, it’s art. And the world never has enough art.
Look into word art.
Since we’re talking about art, let’s discuss word art. Think micro-fiction or a poem paired with some awesome visual art. This is a really fun thing to create, layering creative methods on top of each other. Using one to elevate the other. I love it. If you’ve never tried it, you should. You might love it too.
Learn about a new form of poetry.
There are so many kinds of poetry, it’s sort of staggering. One that I love is found poetry, the method of finding a poem within a page of pre-written prose. But there are so many other forms. And this is the month to learn about a new one.
So what do you think? How are you celebrating Poetry Month? What’s your favorite poetry form? Let us know in the comments below.
Beverly Cleary died yesterday and a part of my childhood died with her.
Cleary was the author of some of the greatest books for children ever written. She wrote Socks, a book I used to read, finish, then start reading again. She wrote the Mouse and The Motorcycle trilogy, featuring Ralph. If you’ve never read them, they’re a fun time.
Most importantly, though, for me, was Ramona. Beverly Cleary wrote Ramona, and in doing so she changed how I saw the world.
Ramona is a scrappy kid. She’s always done her own thing, and her thing isn’t always the best. She had stringy brown hair, like me. She had scuffed-up knees and stains on her school dresses. The worst thing in her life was having to wear ugly second-hand rain boots. When her dad lost his job and decides to go back to school, her mom goes to work.
Ramona wasn’t anything like the characters in other kids’ books and shows. But she was very much like me.
Much like Ramona, I was a stringy-haired little girl who didn’t always get the world. When Ramona draws cattails on her Q’s, I remember getting in trouble for doodling loops all along my practice papers. When she squeezes out all the toothpaste in the tube or takes just one bite out of every apple in a bin, I want to do those things. Even though as an adult who understands money, those things make me want to cringe. Wasting a whole tube of toothpaste, when they’re not cheap!
Ramona was awkward, messy, loud, selfish. She was a pain in the ass. But so was I as a kid. We all are. And too often as kids we’re left wondering what it was we did that has everyone so mad.
There are a million real moments in these books. Some are awful but relatable. Like when Henry’s grandmother is fine taking the money to watch Ramona but doesn’t seem to care for actually watching her. These sorts of moments make the good times all the better. Like when Ramona finally learns to ride her bike, with the ribbon laced through the spokes to create a bright red circle when she rides.
One scene that comes back to me over and over is this. Ramona’s had a hard day. When she gets home, she finds that her mother’s had one too. Her mother says they should go out for burgers for dinner. This is the light at the end of the tunnel for Ramona. She has a vision of sitting in a snug booth with her family, enjoying hot fries and bubbly soda.
Then her dad comes home, and he’s been laid off.
There’s no way the family can go out for burgers. So, instead, the parents make do and make pancakes.
And you know what? I’ve been there. I’ve been there as a kid who has to settle for pancakes after a hard day. And I’ve been there as the adult who’s just happy they were able to scrape together some kind of dinner after a hard day. It’s life.
What Ramona did was tell me I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t bad, or wrong. I was just human. We’re all just humans.
Thank you for that, Ms. Cleary. Thank you for giving me books full of struggles and joys that I could see myself reflected in. Thank you for brightening my childhood and giving me the tools to handle adulthood. Thank you for giving the world Ramona, Ralph, Socks, Henry Huggins and Ribsy. Thank you for every time I found one of your books in a second-hand store, battered but whole. Thank you for every moment I spent reading them laying out on the grass, or in my childhood bedrooms.
At over 100 years old, we couldn’t have asked you to stay. You’ve earned your rest. May we carry your torch.
A little while ago I shared a list of my favorite bullet journal collections to keep my sanity and my plants. When I did so, I also promised a list of my everyday pages. Pages that I set up for the month and week that allow me to keep track of my projects, due dates, house and everything else I need to keep track of.
Well, folks, today is that day. We’re going to be looking at my monthly pages, what function they serve, and what sort of planning goes into them.
They’re not pretty, and most of them aren’t unique. But they are lifesavers. I know I lived before I had a bullet journal. I just don’t know how.
The first thing I put in is a cover page. It is 100% not necessary and serves no other purpose but designating the start of the month. I just happen to think they’re nice. And, since part of the reason I bullet journal is to have fun with drawing and scrapbooking, this is one place for it to shine.
Next comes the calendar. Now, a lot of bullet journalers like to use a layout that resembles a full monthly calendar. I like the traditional vertical layout with one line per day. This gives me plenty of space to write down any appointments or events for the day. I can also put in big satisfying lines for things like vacations. Finally, I keep track of the days of the week on one side, and the moon cycles on the other. Everything I need to know about a month is in one place.
Next, I have a three-month overview. This is nothing big. It’s just a mini calendar with a little list of appointments and events happening that month. On the far right of that page, I write down a rough idea of things I think I’ll be working on that month. This is in no way set in stone, just an estimate.
Next comes my social media tracker. If you’re not an online business person or content provider, you might not need these. But if you are, you do. I keep track of all the social media places I post and check off if I’ve posted that day. I use the same page to track when I’m posting anything anywhere. This includes blog posts here, on Patreon, on Haunted MTL, any episodes of Off The Bone, guest posts. If I have a piece coming out anytime that month, it’s on this page.
After that, I have a space for check-in dates. This is a half-page spread because it’s just a few questions. How much money did I make this week? How much did I spend? What’s my overall number for the month? Easy enough.
The other half of the page I use for blog post ideas. As I think of things I want to write about, I write them down. So when I’m making the next month’s social media page and I’m stuck for a post idea, I’ve got a well of them.
Next comes my mood tracker. This is the same as any other mood tracker you’ve seen all over the internet. I have some bit of blank artwork that is slowly filled in as the month progresses. I think it helps to see how my emotions are fluctuating. And it makes me take a moment and think about them. I tend to be very in the moment and not contemplate how I felt about something. So this makes me question how I felt, overall, in a day.
After that comes the monthly goal page. Pretty self-explanatory. This is where I write down all my goals for the month. At the bottom, I like to write a little motivational quote. But that’s not necessary.
Now, here’s a fun one. I set up a best moments and wins page. This is where I’ll record moments or drawings that represent things that happened during the month that were just awesome. For instance, in March my mother-in-law got her covid vaccine, I sold two short stories, we went to Phipps Conservatory, and I made some personal tea blends. Below you can see how I memorialized each of these things. I love building this page every month. It also helps to remind me that even hard months have good moments.
Now, it’s time to talk about money. First up, we have the abundance tracker. I keep track of how much money I made in every way that I make money. It helps me see where my abundance is coming from.
Now, let’s talk about where it’s going. The next spread is an envelope budget one. It’s not a pure envelope budget because I don’t take out cash. But I do separate my money into specific categories and try to keep spending to those categories within that budget.
At the start of the month, I make a budget based on my paycheck and bill due dates. This helps me figure out what paycheck is going to be bill heavy, and which one I can save a little more from.
Finally, I track my savings goals. I like to do a good old-fashioned bar graph for each goal.
Once the month is set up, it’s time for a weekly spread. There are lots of ways to do this, but I like to keep it pretty simple. I just list out each day of the week, any events I have planned, and a to-do list. I also like to keep a list of things I can make for dinner with what’s in the house.
So that’s it. That’s all the pages I used in my monthly setup. What about you? Do you use any I didn’t have on the list? Let us know in the comments.
(A note about the graphics used in this post. I love making all my bullet journal pages look like a scrapbook. But you don’t need to do that for bullet journals to be a great tool. Please don’t let the artwork overshadow the planning. Also, all of these photos have been highly edited. )
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you’re not as old as you think you are and people older than you want you to shut the hell up.
This has been said with love, as someone who complains too often about being in her mid-thirties.
(It’s my fault I feel old, by the way. I watch all these creators on YouTube who are in their twenties. They’re all great, inspiring women who make me feel like a crone.)
But I’m not old. And even if I was, I’m still not too old to learn new things.
All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I’m learning a new way to write.
This year I launched a true-crime podcast called Off The Bone with the amazing Boxhuman. I’m getting ready to launch a fiction podcast sometime this year. In creating these new podcasts, I’ve learned to write a different way. I’ve learned to write content that’s meant to be heard instead of read.
It kind of astounds me how different it is to write this way. I don’t know why this should be so shocking. It’s a totally different medium. But I think if I’d realized how different it was going to be, how alien it would feel, I might have chickened out.
If you’re considering starting a podcast, let me share with you what I’ve learned. Here are four things to consider when writing to be heard.
Are you talking over people’s heads?
I’m not a big fan of talking down to people or thinking I’m smarter than others. I’m not. That being said, sometimes my word choice is, well, unusual.
If I’m writing a blog post or book that doesn’t matter so much. If a reader doesn’t know the word I used, they can look it up. But if someone’s listening to a podcast, they don’t have as much time to stop and look up some archaic weird word I used. The same can be said for concepts or references unless I’m going to take the time to stop and explain them.
Now, I’m not saying you should assume people won’t know what you’re talking about. I’m also not suggesting that challenging people with new concepts is a bad idea. But we all have topics and theories that we know a stupid amount about. Like, more than most people do and anyone needs to. Maybe that’s why you’re doing a podcast to start with. Maybe the whole point is to explain more about the life cycle of kiwi birds. But if you’re just quickly referencing some obscure thing like everyone knows what you mean, that’s going to throw some people off. You’re going to lose listeners. So don’t go over people’s heads. If you’re talking about something complex or not commonly understood, take a few seconds to make sure everyone’s on the same page. Or at least in the same book.
How do your sentences sound?
Sentence structure is one of the real nut and bolts parts of grammar that I don’t always pay as much attention to as I should. Usually when I’m writing it’s to tell a story or entertainingly convey information. The smaller the piece, the more I pay attention to sentence structure, though. I also pay more attention to word usage and flow to convey an emotion.
When you’re writing a script to read out loud, though, you want to keep in mind that you are going to have to actually read it out loud. And it needs to sound a certain way.
Do yourself a favor, and read your entire script out loud as part of your editing process. Some sentences look and feel just fine on the page, but sound clunky and soulless when spoken.
Are you droning on?
Remember earlier when we talked about not talking over people’s heads? Please, for the love of Benji don’t use this as an excuse to drone on.
Yes, the point of most podcasts is to talk at length about a certain topic. But that doesn’t mean you need to over-explain.
Let’s say I’m writing a podcast about HH Holmes. (Which I did). Do I want to talk about how he put people down a body chute to his basement to ‘play’ with the corpses? (Not like that, you pervert.) Oh yeah, that’s the kind of content a listener is there for. Do I need to go into a lengthy explanation of how the chute was built? Probably not. Maybe I want to toss in a little bit of info, but a ton is not needed.
How’s your pacing?
Honestly, a lot of this advice comes down to this one factor. Is your pacing entertaining? Are you giving information in an informative way without bludgeoning someone with facts they can’t absorb?
This goes for fiction, too. Info dumping isn’t a great idea in a book. It’s even worse in a podcast. If you go into an info dump on the page, at least the reader can go back over it a couple of times if they need to soak it all in. But people listen to podcasts most often when they’re doing other things. I listen to them while I edit, wash dishes, schedule social media, or any of the other less glamorous parts of writing. (It’s not all prancing through a mental playground, folks. Writing is work. Work worth doing, the best work there is, but still work.)
The point is, if someone’s listening to your podcast while driving to the grocery store and you info dump on them, they’re not going to retain half of what you just said. And if they didn’t retain it, you might as well have not wasted anyone’s time by saying it.
So what do you think? What should writers keep in mind while writing a script to be read? And, as a bonus, what’s your favorite podcast? Let us know in the comments below.
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