An Open Letter to “I”SIS.  Not my work, and I’m not Muslim, but I approve of the message with all my heart.

Oh, yeah.  June is Gay Pride month.  As a proud ally in the fight for equal love, I’m hoping I can encourage all of you to support gay marriage and equal treatment for same sex couples in adoptions, employment and life in general.

Remember how I like food?  It’s kind of my thing.  But it is not just me.  Food is a really important part of every country.

So for today, let’s free write about the most popular food in your country.  What does it taste like?  Why is it so popular?  Most important, how does your main character feel about it?

I mean honestly, who’s not going to love a blog with a name like that, right?  Marketing Creativity is yet another amazing blog about creative business and how to rock it.  It’s for people like you and me, but it’s also for anyone who wants to start their own business in the creative field.  And let’s be honest, no matter what kind of business you’re talking about, there’s going to be a whole lot of creativity.  You’re building something brand new, after all.

Now, if you read Check This Out every week, I’m sure you’ve noticed a trend.  I follow a lot of creative business people.  There’s a reason, I’m a business woman.  Not one that makes any money, but hey, baby steps.  But you might be asking yourself, what’s the difference?  Why do I read so many different blogs about the exact same topic?  Well, each one is a little different.  Marketing Creativity, well, it’s right there in the title.  This site helps me learn about marketing in a not sleazy way.

You know what I mean.  There are helpful marketing strategies, and then there are evil, annoying marketing strategies.  Now, my basic business model is give a lot of advice and tips for nothing at all + eventually make some tools for a little bit of money if I think it’s something that will help you and I would buy myself + write fiction e-books that I sell myself and pray like hell people like.  Ethical business practices are kind of a must with that sort of model, when the focus is on helping you.  So when I do marketing, it needs to be not sleazy.

It also needs to not be annoying.  Like I mentioned, I’m on a lot of blogs.  They all, all, have ads.  I have ads, look at the links on the right hand side.  But there are some sites that I’m just not going to anymore, because they’ve got pop ups that I have to click away before I can read, or ads in between the paragraphs of the post.  Marketing Creativity has helped me lean there is a world of difference between the two.

Three blog posts to see-

• Handle The Haters In Three Easy Steps
• 5 Surprising Reasons Customers Aren’t Buying
• 5 Steps to Staying on Track in Creative Business

And if you don’t think you’ve got to think about marketing, consider this; even if you get your book traditionally published, chances are your publisher won’t do a lot of marketing on your behalf.  It might still fall to you, the writer, to market your book on social media and your author website.  So check out Marketing Creativity, and be ready to sell your work when the time comes.

So, some of you might have noticed that around January, my name changed.  You might have guessed that it was because I got married.  Let me tell you, changing my name across all social media was a huge pain in the ass.  I am still seeing my maiden name popping up in a few places.  Hopefully I’ll have it eradicated soon.

I didn’t think about this decision a lot until I was listening to a podcast from All Indie Writers.  The host, Jennifer Mattern, was talking about branding yourself as a writer, when she mentioned that this name that we knew her by was her maiden name.  She didn’t go by her married name in her public life.

Now, before I go any farther, I am not, in any way saying that that’s a bad thing.  I just realized that it was a choice that she’d made, and it was a choice that I made.

My maiden name was something that I associate with my past.  And my past is not so great.  I’ve got three published pieces under Nicole Ford, and a whole lot of emotional baggage.

Luttrell is a name I chose when I agreed to marry my husband.  It’s his, but now it’s mine, too.  Anything I publish from now on, even down to the posts here on Paper Beats World, will have that name on it.  Nicole Luttrell.  It represents the creation of a family I chose, of a future I chose, and a life I chose.  (Que Let it Go here.)  It represents my present, and my future.  It wasn’t a choice made from some patriarchal guilt.  It is me, declaring myself to be a different person than the one I was years before.  I love that.

So, about the writing, which is what you come here to hear about, after all.

Things That Rocked This Week-

• My blog feed has been blowing up with some great inspirational pieces from some amazing entrepreneurial ladies.  ByRegina, Elle & Co, Tipsy Writer, I’ve been loving them all.  And I’ve got so many new ideas, I’m having a hard time deciding what to work on next.
• I got the opportunity to join in with Tipsy Writer’s weekly twitter chat, and meet some awesome new creative people.  It’s every Tuesday at 8:30, and if you’re not already following her on twitter, go do it now.
• I am pumping out some awesome short fiction, and I am ready to get back in the game.  Glimmer Train’s deadline for the quarter is coming up on May 31, and I think my piece should be ready in time.

Things I’m looking forward to this week-

• This is the week of editing.  I’ve got some pieces I’ve got to take a red pen to, and that’s always satisfying.
• Still plugging away at the fourth draft of Broken Patterns.  But my lovely hubby installed Drop Box on everything we own, so I can share it with him as I’m writing, being my own live in editor as he is.
• I am very close to finishing the prep work for the super fantastic surprise I have for you all in August!  Are you curious yet?  I can not wait to tell you all about it.  It’s like waiting to give my kids their Christmas presents, I swear.
• I’ve got some time put aside this week to work on your special gift this month.  It’s something new, something I’ve never done before, and I’m a little anxious, not gonna lie.

What’s going on in your world this week?  Let me know in the comment section below!

Oh, wow, it’s the last day? I know we’ve only been doing this for a month, but somehow it still feels like the end of the school year, you know? I’m so excited to hear that we’re going to be doing this again in the summer.

So anyway, a post about my prized possession.

Hard to say, honestly. I’ve got my tablet that I depend on for writing, the day job and everything in between. Then there’s my massive collection of books, that I love.

Then, there is my bag. My writing bag. I bought it a year after I moved out of my mothers house. It’s an LL Bean bag, and it was $50.00. I have never spent so much money on something for myself that wasn’t electronic, and I’d never spent so much on myself before that. It’s canvas, and has a strap with real leather attachments and it made me feel very grown up. I’ve been carrying it ever since. I used to use it as a diaper bag. When my daughter was big enough to walk, but not big enough to walk the whole way home, I would put her on top of it, and carry her home. When she outgrew that, I covered the top portion in geek pins.

This bag was one of the first things I ever earned with money I bought that was big. It matters to me, and it still does.

But that’s not the most important thing.

The most important thing in my house is a ratty, old paperback copy of Bag of Bones by Steven King. It’s a good story. If you’ve never read it, you should. But it’s what it represents to me that matters more.

When I was sixteen, I sold my first piece of writing, a poem. It paid ten dollars, on Paypal. I’d earned money before, washing dishes and cleaning. But this was the first time I’d ever been paid for my work, my real work. That paperback books is important to me, because it represents the first time someone valued my writing enough to pay me for it.

This has been so much fun, guys. I’ve loved meeting so many of you, and I loved seeing some really great new blogs. Don’t be strangers.

The Neighbor Lady

The world always seemed like a less than sturdy place to Addison. He never really found that, day by day, anything stayed very constant. The jobs his mom went to were always changing, right along with the men she brought home. Some were nice and some weren’t, both jobs and men, but none lasted very long. The friends he made, what few he could make at his dark and sort of dangerous school, came and went. When they went it was often to juvenile hall, or the special school for kids with problems. One girl had gone to live with her aunt, and no one would tell Addison why, or why she came back a year later, seeming sad.
The neighbors came and went too. No one moved to this end of town because they wanted to, and they got out as soon as they could.
Except for Mrs. Pauley. She’d been there a long time before Addison and his mom had moved there. According to some of the kids he’d met the first week there, they were all gone now, she’d always been there. Addison didn’t really see much of her. Sometimes he’d see Mr. Pauley putter around the garden, but then he died and wasn’t there anymore. Her sons had come around a lot for a month or so after that.  One of them showed up with a moving truck, and Addison was sure that Mrs. Pauley would be leaving then. The final constant in his little life, shattered.
But she hadn’t left. Instead, she’d had a very loud shouting match with her son right in front of the building. “The presumption!” she screamed, “To think that you can just drag me out of my home, because you think I can’t be trusted left alone to my own devices! I am your mother, Anthony, and I took care of you for twenty two years! I guess I can take care of myself for just as long as I want to hold on!”
“Ma, don’t I know you took care of me for twenty two years!” the son named Anthony yelled while Addison watched from his bedroom window. “That’s why you ought to let me take care of you, now!”
Addison didn’t know what sort of reaction Anthony had wanted from that, but the one he got was for his mother to break a dish over his head. Word must have gotten around to the other five brothers, because none of them dared try that trick.
So old Mrs. Pauley stayed, while the only other constant was the pusher on the corner. Addison like this pusher. He wouldn’t sell to kids, and he didn’t harass the girls as much as the last one. Addison hoped he stuck around for awhile, but he didn’t think he would.
Time passed. Mom got a new job, then a new boyfriend. The new boyfriend soon resulted in the loss of the new job. The loss of the job soon resulted in the loss of the boyfriend. It didn’t seem to matter much to Mom, and it sure didn’t matter to Addison. He hadn’t even bothered to remember the man’s name.
The new pusher stuck around. He was there the night the cops showed up at Mrs. Pauley’s place.
Addison was outside, covering the cement steps with chalk. The rain would come and wash it away in the night, but that was the one thing Addison didn’t mind changing, because he could make it all new again once the cement dried.
The officers came, and Addison knew there was trouble when he saw Mrs. Hubbard with them. “The old bitch,” was what his mom called the woman who owned the whole block, including the buildings that Addison and Mrs. Pauley lived in.
He watched as Mrs. Hubbard marched up to the door, looking very much like she thought well of herself in her fake pearls and cheap cardigans, and hammered on the door.
Mrs. Pauley answered. She, Addison thought, really did look like she had reason to think well of herself, though Addison had never thought of it that way before. Perhaps it was just the stark comparison between the two women. Mrs. Pauly stood straight, wearing a sweater and slacks that were no double older than Addison himself, but so well cared for, so as to not need replacing with money that Mrs. Pauley would have preferred to spend on her children.
“Can I help you?” Mrs. Pauley asked, clasping her hands together in front of her.
“Don’t act like you didn’t know we were coming,” Mrs. Hubbard snapped, shaking her head. “You haven’t paid your rent in three months. I send you letters telling you that this was coming.”
“I told you, I have to wait for Mr. Pauley’s life insurance,” Mrs. Pauley said. “I don’t have any money until then.”
Mrs. Hubbard crossed her arms over her cheap cardigan. “I’m sorry, but that’s not my problem. Everyone’s got bills. I’ve got taxes to pay on this building, and I’ve got to pay for the upkeep.”
“But you’ve never spent a dime on the upkeep of this place, not since the day you inherited it from your mother.” Mrs. Pauley said. “And she never paid a dime for the upkeep since the day my husband and I move in. When the pipes burst in the winter, my husband fixed them, and paid for the supplies. When that crazy man upstairs shot through the wall, my husband patched the hole for you.”
“I never asked him to do that,” Mrs. Hubbard said, but she looked a little pink.
“No,” Mrs. Pauley said, standing taller that Addison would have thought her five feet would allow. “You didn’t have to. I didn’t think I would have to ask you for some patience now.”
Mrs. Hubbard seemed to swell up. She turned to the officers, and said, “Aren’t you going to do your jobs?”
An officer tipped his hat to Mrs. Pauley. “I hate to do this, Ma’am, but she’s within her rights. You ignored the letters she sent, and she’s got them registered. I’m going to have to ask you to come with us.”
“But this is my home,” Mrs. Pauley said, “It’s always been my home.”
One of the officers set a hand on her arm. It wasn’t a stern hand, but it was insistent. It seemed to say that he would be as gentle about doing his job as Mrs. Pauley allowed him to be.
“Hold up,” the pusher called from the sidewalk, and ran over to them.
Addison held his breath, and the officers put their hands on their pistols. The pusher held his hands up, and walked up the stairs. “Grab my wallet out of my back pocket,” he said to one of the officers. The man did so, flipped it open, nodded, and handed it back to the pusher.
“Mrs. Hubbard, I think you need to give Mrs. Pauley some time,” the pusher said. “In fact, if you don’t want anyone to know about some of the ‘tenets’ you keep in the the rooms above your bar, the ones who seem to have a lot of guests who only stay for an hour every night, you should wait just as long as it takes her, Madam.”
Mrs. Hubbard blushed. Addison smiled, and went inside.
Not much was constant in Addison’s neighborhood. Just the pusher on the corner, and Mrs. Pauley.