How Melania May Have Cinched the Writer Vote

Writers are a tough voting block to get.

We, by trade, move in single file. We socialize seldom. We need so much alone time that solitary confinement sounds like a great vacation spot to get work done.

We don't fit into any identity political box.

Our race, gender, sexual preference vary too wildly to be included in the groups who exclude. We rarely even include each other. Winning Ohio would be easier. Sink your advertising dollars there.

You can't reach us with empty promises wrapped in pithy phrases because we are the creators of pithy phrases. Or hope to be. But ones with more imagination. Less processed ingredients.

What we do get, however, are the struggles only writers understand: like having your written work attacked. Melania Trump, along with however many staff writers contributed, reviewed, or offered direction, made a mistake. A writer's mistake. I may not be able to relate to her wardrobe, but I can understand being human. And then getting pounced publicly for it.

I live in that unforgiving village. I've seen the torches and pitchforks.

It may have been a block of text posted for inspiration. Or a possible direction. Along with dozens of others. Have you ever seen a writer's draft file? It's a hot mess. It's the summation of every possible thought, idea, factoid, quote, or inspiration for a quote needed for this speech or any other speech until the end of time.

It's a junk drawer of ideas.

Add multiple hands and it's a junk room.

Then you start the cutting/rewriting/rearranging process, which may or may not include reconfiguring the drawer itself. It's a bloody business. Not one for the squeamish or those with better things to do than stare for hours into the distance in a trancelike state.

As a writer, missing the easy fix is something I've done myself. I've probably done it in this blog. (Crap. I can't see it, but I'm sure I have.) I've simply been spared the limelight of a national stage. So I get what she might be going through. The frustration at working so hard, stressing over every minutia, and still getting one area wrong. And believing that one area will be all anyone will remember.

Ah, unlikely.

For Melania, this will be old news in...oh...another half hour or so. Her white dress, however, will be selling for weeks.

And, on the scale of important issues in the world, well...this isn't one. We have a country facing tough days and tougher ahead. Even if her subjects and verbs disagree from now until November, we have more important discordant issues to discuss.

So, thanks Melania. Thanks for taking a walk in my shoes since my back would never want me walking in yours.

Just keep writing. It's the best any humans who dare to write can ever do.

PS
For additional insight on how the plagiarism mistake could have occurred, the Dilbert creator Scott Adams offers up a quick, f-bomb laden explanation. There's the language warning for you.

The 5 Necessary Elements to Captivating Writing (Hint: at least 3 get overlooked.)

Goodreads asks lots of great questions. Some I answer seriously. The latest question was, "What's your advice for aspiring writers?" and I wanted to share my response, incase it can help you love your writing and love writing more. 

In a nutshell, this is the be all end all of advice. And it isn't only for aspiring writers, it's for all writers. Everywhere. In every phase. A great reminder that, when we write, we write with a burden. And it requires all of what we are. 

Here's my Goodreads answer:

Open your senses.  

Really open them. Take some menthol to the nasal passages. Smear some wasabi on your tongue. Walk into a fabric store and touch everything, but wash your hands first.

Experience your life through your senses. Pay attention to them. Pause when you hear a train whistle. Look at the details of a painting that you've seen a hundred times before. Stare at it again. Look for the things you missed. Scrutinize the paint strokes. Focus on the canvas fibers. Invision the artist's vision take shape, stroke by stroke. 

And then restrategize. 

Shuffle them up. Use senses in a situation that don't relate. What did that painting smell like? Was that wasabi a pasty, tired green or was the green vibrant with life? Did the menthol taste like biting into an avalanche? 

Okay, skip that last one. That could be toxic. 

When you write, you are the gateway for your reader to experience your story. You and you alone can do that for them. Otherwise, they are limited. They cannot smell, taste, touch, hear, or see your story. For all practical purposes, they are void of all five senses and cannot stimulate them except through you. 

You are their surrogate. Feel for them. Smell for them. Listen for what only you can hear and describe it. Go out there and eat that menthol.

Again, you probably shouldn't do that. 

Homework, if you want some:

When we tell a story, we often share our emotions, our thoughts, a few visuals, and that's where it ends. We leave a lot of flavor on the table that could be added. Next time you sit down to write a story,  as an exercise, focus on one sense, like hearing. Think about the scene: What do you hear? Focus on that sound. Is it alone? Does it have company? Is it why we - or, for fiction, our characters - feel and think what we do? What affect does the sound have on the emotion of that moment? Tell your reader what you hear as if they've never heard a sound of any kind before. 

And when you do, send it to me in the comments! Because I want to hear it, too. 

Do you work for free?

Agencies often do. Creatives frequently do. It's become nearly standard practice for companies to request free creative work. Ode to the dreaded RFP.

In the advertising/marketing world, free work is called "spec," possibly because it sounds more legit than "free." How did this start? I have no clue. But here's one agency's take on what working on "spec" would look like for the rest of the world.

PS: This agency no longer does spec work.



Tell me again how spec is legit?

The Life and Times of a Logo. And how it taught me hope.

Logos aren't bad. They're just drawn that way.

Mine was only an internal image. Placed there by a designer friend of mine. Fed by my own spoiled greed. Wanted for the sake of want. Like domesticating a tiger with a diamond collar. Because I can. Because I wish. Because it would be fun to pat and publicize.

But I didn't want to feed it or be fed to it.

The logo was for branding. To burn a mark into the hide of my devious future career plans (are there any other kind?). It would be my pet, since my landlord won't let me have one.

After months of working either with an illustrator or to find an illustrator, I still had nothing but doodles in my head and scratches on my paper. I couldn't get what was in my mind's eye out of my mind's eye and into a jpeg.

I only draw stick people. Sick stick people. It's a gift.

One day, after venting my frustration over the phone to my mother, she responded with, "I've just drawn something. Can I mail it to you?"

I suggested a snapshot sent via text (it's faster) but, otherwise, it was on its way.

What I didn't expect was something I'd actually like. She's brilliantly talented, but not as an illustrator. She raises fruits and vegetables, bees and children. She cooks like Mozart played. She does not draw.

She sent this:

And I loved it.

She took her idea and sent it to my brother to flesh it out.

He sent this:

And my love grew.

I took his drawing to some designer friends of mine for their thoughts.

They sent this:

And the love was eternal.

After all my frustration, dead ends, angst, and the occasional grabbing of a curl attached to my head and yanking bluntly, the answer came from a source I wouldn't have even considered: my Mom. Who isn't an illustrator. Who put the wheels in motion. After drawing out a sketch. On a scrap piece of paper. In roughly 90 seconds or less.

Hope, when it comes, may approach from the one direction you aren't looking.

So you fail a little.

Downton Abbey is "crookedly beautiful", it said. It was a reader's comment at the end of a writer/friend's blog about the BBC mini-series.

"Crookedly beautiful." I nearly did a face palm. "That's so spot on. Not a Pulitzer description, by any means, but still great. I wish I came up with phraseology like that. Why can't I think of stuff like that? Huh? Why?"

Then I looked at the poster's name. And it was from me. From a year ago. So then I felt arrogant or creepy or perversely both. I also didn't see the brilliance of the phrase any longer.

 Recently, a couple of very loyal, supportive, and far too compassionate friends asked me why I hadn't been blogging lately. Well....that's a long story. Let's call it a case of over-stimulation. My life underwent far too much change, far too many challenges, far too everything, and, for a writer, processing takes time. We think. A lot. Not really about anything of value, worth, financial gain, or community betterment. Just thoughts like, "Why didn't I ever learn skateboarding? I might have really loved it," or "That guy at the next table reminds me of a classmate who use to sit behind me in History and braid my hair. I think he ended up in jail."

Stuff like that.

 Past all the mental muckety-muck, however, comes the real question: aren't you ever going to put yourself out there and write your own stuff?

Most of the time, when I review my past blogs or books or columns or grocery lists, all I can think is, "Crap, crap, all crap." When I'm tired of using that word, I usually call it, "kacke", which means "crap" in German, "meirda", which means "crap" in Spanish, and "crop", which is saying "crap" but with a British accent.

But as one of my very loyal, supportive, and far too compassionate friends pointed out, "Writers are never satisfied with their work." Then she followed that up by yelling at me in a very loyal, supportive, and far too compassionate way.

 It's that way for every creative, I think. Maybe everyone, too, no matter your industry or field. First, you second guess yourself. Second, you go back to why you create/produce/perform/do in the first place.

As an artist recently asked me, "Is it me? Do I just not have the talent?" This guy has so much artistic talent oozing out of his pores he's going to get a case of adult-onset acne. It isn't him. It's just the process. This is how life is played: with failure and disappointment and beauty all mixed in until you can't separate them.

 Creating is about trying and bombing, winning but mostly losing. It's about skinned knees and black eyes, a chipped tooth and a stubbed toe. Finally, you get a pat on the back and you can't stop idiotically grinning. For that one moment, the pain never existed.

After that, you start all over again and get a skinned knee and a black eye, a chipped tooth and a stubbed toe. But you start. You just start. That's how you create. It's how you find your artistic voice. It's also how you live. If you dare.

What does that mean for me? For my writing? Not sure yet. I'm still thinking about learning to skateboard.

Boxed in? Box your way out.

He "strode defiantly" past the protesters.

Did Dominique Strauss-Kahn walk? No, he strode. Did he curve his neck downward with contriteness until his forehead greeted the pavement ahead? Not unless he's double jointed. Or remorseful. I doubt both.

No, he strode defiantly.

What Strauss-Kahn did was walk with defiance and whatever physical attributes that entails - a level head, a sweatless brow, eyes that connect and linger with others. That's what we can guess by the reporter's description of his shame stride into court this week. It's not a poor choice of words. Most likely, not even inaccurate.

Only safe.

That's how I would describe most news writing - safe. Or dull. (Po'tae'ta, Po'tata)

In 1996, when I entered the reporting business, the time spent avoiding the words you COULDN'T use took more time than using the words you COULD. Anything frivolous or lacy, anything with a curve or a color, a word that bent a little on the ends and flared in the middle, a description not summed up in two words, was simply not done.

I know this because I tried it. And was clearly instructed never to do it again.

When you wrote news, you wrote according to a format. Even according to a rhythm. We were punching out the equivalent of the monotone broadcast anchor, the timber of their voice raising and lowering on cue.

We couldn't speak with boredom. So we wrote it.

That was my second experience of having my writing and creativity boxed in. English class was my first.

Dry reporting is probably assumed to be classic. Old school. Born of generations of newspaper men. This is the way men did it back in the day. (Hitch up belt. Spit something out side of mouth.)

That's a bit of a misnomer. In my pre-Internet days as a reporter, I toiled and fidgeted in the badly lit back room of my local library, while going through reams of microfiche from 1901 and on. Take it from me, reporting in the beginning came in technicolor narration.

No wonder newspapers use to make a profit.

Reading the news then was an experience of the senses, even the ones you want to forget. You heard the heated words, dabbed at the perspiration, smelled the gun powder, and eyed the library trash can after discovering a decomposing corpse.

Old school journalism was storytelling at it's most intricate and alive. You breathed the surroundings in, even if - had you really been there - you would have been holding your nose.

Too often our stories don't reek or rile, don't whirl and spin, don't cling like fog to our pores or metal to our mouths. They don't engage our senses. We can peruse them so quickly they barely engage our minds.

Now, international politicians accused of sexual assault are reported to have "strode defiantly",
- not with an obstinate push to their feet as if warring against a crushing gale of negative opinion
- not with the stoic expression of a bloodthirsty matador snapping his cape in provocation
- not with the silent roar of a salivating carnal creature refusing capture
- not void of perspiration over the brow, on the lip, or under the arm
- not as determined as death.

Whatever description fits. Whatever takes the reader along. Whatever has us rushing to find library trash cans. Whatever.

Just more.

Just not safe.

I'm not saying boxes are always bad. They're great to store old trophies and move things. In writing, a short duration can even teach a writer how to follow rules, how to focus, how to streamline, how to summarize, and how to beat against a table with your left hand while typing with your right.

All boxes, however, need exit doors with ergonomic knobs. If you are trapped inside one, break down the door. Throw in a description that draws the reader in, teases them in the ribs, tickles their ears, and throws them off their scanning stride. Don't be afraid to create a scene that tilts their head or bites their tongue.

Reading was never meant to be safe.