The Corner Desk
Tips from Topaz Cove Creations
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For most of us it seems incredible that we have reached November and are more or less in one piece. It has been such a difficult year for the country, especially for those still dealing with unemployment and unending uncertainty in the job market. It is hoped that things will indeed turn around next year, that those without skills can obtain needed training, and that those highly skilled workers who've had no luck finding employment can again work with dignity by using the years they've already invested in making themselves marketable. It's all well and good to say that within a couple of years, older workers, for example, will be in high demand since there are madly insufficient numbers of younger workers coming along behind the baby boomer generation. But out-of-work people must have work and work that pays well now, not just in two or three years. As others have said regarding our highest ranking problem in this nation, "It's still the economy!"
That said, we do have a great deal to be thankful for at this season, including our heightened awareness of our freedoms and how diligently they must be guarded against enemies without and within. We cannot throw away what our forebears sacrificed in order to preserve for us this land that we enjoy. We must always remember the debt of gratitude we owe the old ones, great-great-great-great-great-grandmas and grandpas and beyond.
Contents
Monthly Tips:
Monthly lifestyle tip
Conference News
Technical Writing Tip of the Month
The decision to set up a website
If you're a technical writer, and maybe even if you're not, you can benefit from a website (or web site, Web site, etc., depending on your reference sources). First, you will need to answer the question: Why do I want a website? Only you can answer that, as sometimes it's an ego trip that can cost you dearly. But one good reason is to have a portfolio online where you can direct prospective employers. This is especially helpful for writers and graphic illustrators. Use a little caution with what you post, if this is the reason you created the site. Maybe you want the employer to think you're a wild one and maybe you don't. Also, if you have a business and want to expand it, an online presence can be very helpful. (Marketing that site is an entirely separate subject that will require a lot of research and work on your part or your marketing manager's. Think carefully before you jump in.)
If you feel you lack the skills to set up a website, you'll need to hire a web designer to set it up for you and perhaps to maintain it. But if you're willing to expend some time and effort, you can learn enough basics to do it yourself, eventually saving money. A couple of semesters at night school, along with some self-study, can get you going. You need some basic knowledge of HTML and experience with a WYSIWYG* editor, even if the purists turn up their noses at anything other than straight coding in HTML. You can also code in MS Notepad® once you learn HTML. However, most WYSIWYG editors come with templates that can get you up and running quickly. Once a site expands, however, it will require regular maintenance that can be downright time consuming! You'll need to budget sufficient hours.
You will need to decide where to host the site. Your ISP generally offers a free website of 2 or 3 MB in size, sufficient for family or hobby sites. But if you intend to look professional, you need a professional address. Sign up with someone like www.hostway.com. It's worth the modest to moderate cost and their service is great.
Another important question and its partner are: Why should a person visit my site? What's in it for them? Unless you're just storing your portfolio online and visitors will only find it if you expressly tell them where it is, you need to give something back in exchange for the person's time and effort.
- * Pronounced Whiz-e-Wig and meaning What You See Is What You Get. With certain contrary software packages that shall remain nameless, this may be amended to WYSIOP, What You See Is One Possibility.
DISCOVERIES
A Journey Through Life
available now from www.buybooksontheweb.com.
Also available at www.barnesandnoble.com
and www.amazon.com and
through your bricks 'n mortar bookstores!
Click here to read an excerpt from the latest review of DISCOVERIES from www.rebeccasreads.com! And please, visit www.amazon.com and post your own review of DISCOVERIES. 1. It's quite easy. 2. You don't have to use your full name. 3. It will really help! Thank you very much.
Writing Tip of the Month
Submitting a manuscript
You've read sample copies of the magazines where you want to send the story or article, poem or essay. You've studied Writer's Market, even if you had to sit at the library for a couple of hours. You know about including a sassy — SASE: self-addressed stamped (new, not beat-up) envelope — and not to ever, ever send your only copy of the manuscript. Now, what else?
"Else" includes: typing the manuscript on a good electric typewriter, or using a good laser or inkjet printer (no dot matrix, no handwritten material); formatting the margins correctly (1" on all sides); putting your name and address in the top left corner, word count in the top right; and typing the title and byline 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down the first page. The title of the manuscript and the author's name should also appear at the top of each page following. If the manuscript gets dropped in the middle of an overflowing publisher's office or falls out of an editor's briefcase as she hauls work home to do every night and every weekend, it may not otherwise get re-associated with the first page. Page numbers belong at the bottom, or with the title at the top of each page. You don't need to number the first page.
The contents of the manuscript should be the best you can possibly produce at that time, which means you've revised it several times, if not twenty, before submitting it. But if you're a perfectionist, you will never publish anything!!! Nothing will ever seem finished to you.
That revision should include not only straightening out plot problems, or inconsistencies in hair color, name or age of characters and so forth, but typographical and more serious errors. Never send out a manuscript that hasn't been proofread by someone who understands the rules of grammar and knows how to spell, preferably someone educated, for whom English, or whatever language is used, is their first language. Just be aware that the ability to speak a language well does not mean written proficiency in it. Never, and I mean, never, send out a sloppy manuscript to "make the editor earn her money"! She or he will not read past the first couple of paragraphs, if that. Not unless they've been struck by moonbeams the night before. You are the author. You are trying to sell or at least publish your work. It is your responsibility to send it out well-dressed, not looking as though it is a starving waif who has rummaged in the thrift box on her way to school.
What Shall I Write? Personal Letters for All Occasions
Book on CD available now! Trade paperback with flexible binding will be on sale by the end of November, 2002. Shortly after that, both editions will be available through www.amazon.com
Lifestyle Tip of the Month
Should we complain about our problems and challenges?
I'm no expert on coping, though I've had plenty of opportunities to practice just that with our own trials and tribulations. Sometimes the banal response from others has been as cold-fish as it can get: "Well, that's life, you just have to deal with it!" or "I only want to hear your good news from now on!" I think they're afraid that our problems are somehow contagious and that if they push us away, they won't catch whatever dread disease it is that's causing all our troubles. Yet some day they will feel alone and cast off by the world and will be begging the people they shunned to understand their predicament and to send some consolation, even help, their way. We soon learn who really cares about us.
In the meantime, what is our responsibility, what should our attitude be? Of course, there will always be someone worse off than us at any given time and it improves our perspective on life not only to remember that, but to offer whatever assistance we can to them. When we haven't shared our good fortune, even our widow's mite, we can't expect others to alleviate our misfortunes when they come our way. However, the fact that someone else is suffering more than us, doesn't invalidate our own pain. Not in the slightest does it lessen the personal agonies we may be enduring. But it is a joyful distraction to reach out and do something positive for someone else (human or animal) who is hungry, tired, ill, discouraged or the victim of crime. We must also realize that everyone is different in their capacity to endure suffering. A walk through fire for some is practically a cakewalk for others. We are here on earth to shore each other up, not to make each other feel like sissies.
One of the first and most important responses to someone else's heartbreak is to acknowledge it for what it is -- heartbreak, agony, nightmare -- or all rolled into one sometimes! We need to sympathize with them for gosh sakes! And if we can empathize because we've been through it all or something similar, so much the better. But let something kind and caring come out of our mouths, something in addition to platitudes. After that, we need to get in and get our hands dirty. WE can help the victims if we live nearby, send a few dollars if we don't. But otherwise, let's offer to take their dog to the vet, wash their car, shovel the snow from their driveway, run the vacuum cleaner, stand in line at the post office for them, clean the filter on their fishpond. There's no end to the practical, genuine help we can offer, and it must be done without ulterior motive.
At times we or the other person may be more stressed than we can bear without medical help. There's prescription medicine available and I would encourage anyone suffering to ask their doctor for a referral to a specialist, if he/she is not well-versed enough in its use to prescribe it. It is past time for the stigma attached to mental suffering to be cast aside. Mental suffering is very real.
None of us know what's coming down the pike, so we cannot criticize those who are reeling from the curve balls that life throws us. When the road heaves up and down instead of leading flat and straight ahead, we simply don't know when it will be our turn, when we will fail to duck fast enough, when we will indeed complain about our problems and challenges.
Create your own T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and more at www.cafepress.com
To
purchase T-shirts, sweatshirts, mugs and more fun stuff, related to DISCOVERIES
A Journey Through
Life, and What Shall I Write? Personal Letters for All Occasions, visit
www.cafeshops.com/topazcoveplus
Writer's Conferences
Check out the SCBWI website for details on many fun and helpful professional events for children's writers and illustrators.
For an extensive list of other upcoming writer's conferences and workshops worldwide, visit the following website: http://writing.shawguides.com/ The Shaw Guides main website at www.shawguides.com has many other kinds of conferences and workshops listed.
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© 2002 Shirley Ann Parker. All rights reserved.
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