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Have you fallen into a black hole of office debris and battled to rise above the clutter, rather than drown before you can finish writing that opus to the literary world? Did you accidentally come across that reference book that the library made you pay for when you didn’t remember having ever seen it?

What about that brownie that disappeared from your desk three weeks ago that you accused your five year old of absconding with? Does any of this sound familiar?

If not, you’re either fanatically organized, blessed beyond measure, or not a writer.

This past year I’ve been trying desperately to keep my office area organized and easily accessible. With my life in constant flux at the moment, keeping my work space organized is becoming a nightmare. Living in limbo, as we are, doesn’t make for a well-ordered life.

Take my desk, please! I’ve lost control of it. When we moved into the apartment complex a couple of years ago, I didn’t have a desk. To remedy the situation, I purchased an eight foot Formica countertop at the local home improvement center and added six thick table legs with mounting brackets. The unit is sturdy, easily cleaned, and can be disassembled when necessity demands a move to another location.

Plenty of work space is provided for computer, layout work, bins of office supplies, etc. What more could I want? Two—2-drawer file cabinets nestle nicely beneath, within easy reach from my desk chair. So handy. A large trash can has a home where I can toss odds and ends for later removal. The printer caddy, all-in-one printing machine and bookshelf table resides perpendicular to the computer end. Great set-up, don’t you think?

I thought so, too. A few weeks after installation and working appreciation, that fantastic work area became a catch all for everything that entered the room; library books disappeared under current working project files, mail, magazines, minor office supplies, brochures, you-name-it. When frustration during a hunt for materials became too much for me, organization blazed with flames fanned by a clean-up whirlwind.

Except when we were on our country tour during the winter of 2010-11, I’ve fought this Battle of the Debris every couple of months since creating this work space. Ask any of my writing buddies. They’ve heard about my efforts on a few occasions.

This week’s clean-up effort, I’ve decided, will be my last. I discovered black mold growing up the outside corner wall of my closet. I think I found the cause for our continuous allergy problems.

Maintenance is tracking down the problem outside before developing a real solution. I’m learning patience today. In the meantime, everything stored in that end of the closet clutters the living room and the rest of my bedroom.

You ask “What does that have to do with organizing your office?” I answer “Everything!” I’ve finally arrived at that point where I can no longer ignore the clutter, no longer blame work/life circumstances, and no longer believe that I’m actually not hoarding useless “stuff.”

The campaign to permanently organize my office life began with the removal of all those boxes from the closet. This morning I went through the first set of bagged debris and boxed minutiae, sorting out that for which I had no need. Everything not needed for my file cabinets, but necessary to keep, will g

Today’s entrée is a set of exercises meant to help the writer shift perspective and get those creative muscles flexed and toned.

These small forays into new territory will, hopefully, help you gain in your battle with daily wordsmithing. Are you ready? Here goes.

Circumvent the cliché. While Little Johnny can’t read, does that mean that Little Jill has educational challenges as well? If all of your eggs are in one basket, will they all break when that basket is dropped?

We live with hackneyed and cliché phrases every day. They speak to the simplistic and real metaphors of our lives. That’s the reason they still hang around our necks like a broad-winged bird descended from a pterodactyl.

Take each of the following adages/sayings/clichés and devise three ways of saying the same thing, with the same semantics. Make each new “saying” as fresh as possible.

1. Rolling stones gather no moss.
2. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
3. The right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.

Recast old characters in new roles. Most people can hear a line of dialogue or see one frame of a favorite movie and give you the name of the characters involved. Like favorite books, the stories that flow across a screen at the theaters make a place for themselves in our mental storage lockers, waiting for future review.

The following exercise is meant to help the writer change well-worn paths carved out by characters we know well and as an exploration of possibilities for such characters that wouldn’t otherwise be tackled.

1. Most adults over the age of 35 will probably remember the character name “Maverick” as Tom Cruise’s character from Top Gun. The exercise is to recast this character as a “Cowboy,” complete with name. If it helps, picture TC when you’re putting together an action scene in the old/new west. Only one scene is necessary to write, but if a full story evolves from this exercise, so much the better.
2. C. S. Lewis’s character of Lucy in “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” presents us with a sweet child of remarkable resolve and steel spine when faced with adversity. Yet her complex personality allows for uncommon loyalty, self-doubt, and approval-seeking behavior.

Recast Lucy’s character, complete with name, as an adult. Place her in a           romance where finding her soul mate and an unforeseen future is the goal           of the scene. This will b

Many years ago, while at university, one of my professors required that his students write their own obituary. He told us that by writing our obits, we would begin to truly appreciate ourselves and others as individual human beings with innate worth and lasting value. He also said that until we stood back and looked at ourselves as a stranger would see us, we could never really know who we are.

Like most college students, we went along with the program as outlined and did as we’d been instructed. The lesson had interesting consequences for me along the way. I doubt any of us ever forgot what we learned from it.

Trying to look at your image in the mirror, as a stranger would, isn’t an easy task. Self-perception is always influenced by experience and what others have told you of their observations and expectations for you. The physical aspects that have always seemed flawed, or perfect, or questionable are your first impressions.

When you go past the physical to past experience, deeds, and failures with their requisite successes, you dwell on those bits that were less than perfect, less than desirable. Accepting the flawed episodes from a past that can’t be changed is a timely process. Without that acceptance, the successes ring as hollow and lifeless. Small indiscretions overpower small kindnesses. Praise is mitigated by remembered slights. And the cycle continues.

The act of writing one’s personal obituary allows for reflection on the overall picture of a person’s life—yours. The fact is that an obituary is merely a personal profile. It places the person within the framework of their own history.

Family and friends come to the foreground, along with major accomplishments within the person’s life. It’s not concerned with failures, but with successes, relationships, and contributions. It concentrates on those areas of one’s life that reflect the spirit and philosophy of the person.

The amount of detail held within the paragraphs that encompass a person’s life story depends on the purpose of the writer. Make no mistake; the obituary is a telling of a person’s profile or life story in miniature. It can celebrate that life, magnify it, examine it, whatever the writer wishes to convey. It can also bring to light the otherwise unknown deeds of a person, secrets held by those who knew her best.

By the time I finished my assignment, I’d reaffirmed several key points about myself. I’d come away with an acknowledgement of those relationships which mattered the most to me and knew why they did so. My failures up to that point had been assessed and laid to rest. I’d owned all of them, some for the first time, and they could no longer haunt me.

Successes, some of them never properly acknowledged, came to the foreground. I’d never before thought of those times I’d been in a rescue situation as successes. My actions had been necessary to keep another from greater harm. I’d not categorized them as anything other than being in the right place at the right time.

The exercise became a kind of “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario. When approached that way, failures meant nothing, had no value. Only successes counted, and few, if any, of those for me had anything to do with money or personal gain.<

Many years ago, while at university, one of my professors required that his students write their own obituary. He told us that by writing our obits, we would begin to truly appreciate ourselves and others as individual human beings with innate worth and lasting value. He also said that until we stood back and looked at ourselves as a stranger would see us, we could never really know who we are.

Like most college students, we went along with the program as outlined and did as we’d been instructed. The lesson had interesting consequences for me along the way. I doubt any of us ever forgot what we learned from it.

Trying to look at your image in the mirror, as a stranger would, isn’t an easy task. Self-perception is always influenced by experience and what others have told you of their observations and expectations for you. The physical aspects that have always seemed flawed, or perfect, or questionable are your first impressions.

When you go past the physical to past experience, deeds, and failures with their requisite successes, you dwell on those bits that were less than perfect, less than desirable. Accepting the flawed episodes from a past that can’t be changed is a timely process. Without that acceptance, the successes ring as hollow and lifeless. Small indiscretions overpower small kindnesses. Praise is mitigated by remembered slights. And the cycle continues.

The act of writing one’s personal obituary allows for reflection on the overall picture of a person’s life—yours. The fact is that an obituary is merely a personal profile. It places the person within the framework of their own history.

Family and friends come to the foreground, along with major accomplishments within the person’s life. It’s not concerned with failures, but with successes, relationships, and contributions. It concentrates on those areas of one’s life that reflect the spirit and philosophy of the person.

The amount of detail held within the paragraphs that encompass a person’s life story depends on the purpose of the writer. Make no mistake; the obituary is a telling of a person’s profile or life story in miniature. It can celebrate that life, magnify it, examine it, whatever the writer wishes to convey. It can also bring to light the otherwise unknown deeds of a person, secrets held by those who knew her best.

By the time I finished my assignment, I’d reaffirmed several key points about myself. I’d come away with an acknowledgement of those relationships which mattered the most to me and knew why they did so. My failures up to that point had been assessed and laid to rest. I’d owned all of them, some for the first time, and they could no longer haunt me.

Successes, some of them never properly acknowledged, came to the foreground. I’d never before thought of those times I’d been in a rescue situation as successes. My actions had been necessary to keep another from greater harm. I’d not categorized them as anything other than being in the right place at the right time.

The exercise became a kind of “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario. When approached that way, failures meant nothing, had no value. Only successes counted, and few, if any, of those for me had anything to do with money or personal gain.<

My friends wonder if I’ve lost my mind. I have so many projects on the boards at the moment that it will take six months of dedicated work to get the pile whittled down to a convenient size. No matter; I’ll never get bored.

During our workout yesterday, I threw out a suggestion for Sister and our workout partner. All three of us ladies rank in the senior set and workout three times a week together. We’d all began a nutrition journey a couple of months ago to improve our health, lose weight, and get fit. And we enjoy doing it together.

My suggestion created another book project, one that Sis and I have thought about for a long time. Enter our friend, who creates her masterpieces in the kitchen. Yep! You guessed it; a cook book.

Call me insane, but this is something that can be fun and done with others. Joint efforts usually make for great experiences.

I’ve never done a cook book before. I seldom do recipes for friends and family. Even so, after our discussion, we had the table of contents, the introduction, the recipe categories, and three creative cooks who’ve just been put on a new nutrition plan for life. Sis is our photographer for the project, too.

What better way to expand our horizons on this food journey than to write a cookbook of our favorite creations that draw from those foods we’re allowed to have?

Keys to the Recipes

Our mutual nutrition plan allows only Stevia FOS as our sweetener. On very rare occasions honey can be substituted in small amounts, or dark molasses. Anything using white flour, sugar/sugar substitutes—other than the above, or regular potatoes is verboten. The plan, which is used for pre-diabetics or diabetics in crisis, uses a low glycemic index approach to food.

Taking the restrictions in mind, as well as those foods required by the plan on a daily basis, we began cooking differently and thinking about food in a more mindful way.

Case in point: of fast foods, the only one we’ve found that actually doesn’t trip the alarm meter on this plan is Taco Bells’ hard-shell taco, supreme or not.

Whole grains, which include brown rice, quinoa, amaranth, millet and a few others, can be used without fear. Whole grain flour from this list is usable, too. And don’t forget the legumes. They constitute a major part of the plan, along with Greek yogurt, nuts, and seeds.

Everything we eat now–with rare exemptions–are unprocessed foods; organic where we can get them. We’ve pulled away from the artificial, chemically supported pre-processed foods.

Why a Cook Book?

As I said, Sis and I have been thinking about writing one for a few years; ever since we began making our own tasty egg rolls and stuffed wantons. At that t

This is just a short blurb for those who comment, or think they do, on this blog.

If you have an account through Bresnan or Optimum servers, I can guarantee that my spam filter will flush your comments each day. And while I’d like to take the time to personally filter all the spam that comes through each day, I don’t have the extra time to waste on it.

I like getting comments, especially to questions that I ask of my readers. One of the frequent questions I receive is if the one commenting can quote me on their blog.

Let me answer that question this way. I certainly don’t mind being quoted or having an excerpt of one of my posts highlighted on someone else’s blog. Understand going in, though, that doing so requires citation for my work. No free rides here.

All material of mine, whether here or on one of my other blogs, is subject to copyright laws. Those who infringe upon those laws are guilty of theft.

That being said, I appreciate pingbacks, trackbacks, and feedback on my posts. I enjoy knowing when I’ve written something that someone else appreciates, enjoys, or sees as beneficial.

Later today, I’ll have another post on writing for the month. Until then, a bientot.

Claudsy

This is just a short blurb for those who comment, or think they do, on this blog.

If you have an account through Bresnan or Optimum servers, I can guarantee that my spam filter will flush your comments each day. And while I’d like to take the time to personally filter all the spam that comes through each day, I don’t have the extra time to waste on it.

I like getting comments, especially to questions that I ask of my readers. One of the frequent questions I receive is if the one commenting can quote me on their blog.

Let me answer that question this way. I certainly don’t mind being quoted or having an excerpt of one of my posts highlighted on someone else’s blog. Understand going in, though, that doing so requires citation for my work. No free rides here.

All material of mine, whether here or on one of my other blogs, is subject to copyright laws. Those who infringe upon those laws are guilty of theft.

That being said, I appreciate pingbacks, trackbacks, and feedback on my posts. I enjoy knowing when I’ve written something that someone else appreciates, enjoys, or sees as beneficial.

Later today, I’ll have another post on writing for the month. Until then, a bientot.

Claudsy

Everyone knows how the internet has changed the American scene, as well as that of the rest of the world.

Students aren’t at the mercy of expensive literary searches at university anymore. Research is finished in half the time and is a more efficiently selective process. High school students can reap major rewards by having so much more educational information at their fingertips than ever before.

At the same time, the average person has the ability and wherewithal to generate blogs about nearly every subject known to man.

The Good

There are people with agendas out there, and there are lovely people who’re just trying to make it from day to day, surviving the onslaught of the modern age. And within all of these people there seems to be a surging desire to communicate with others about their lives, their ideas, and their aspirations.

A wife and mother can talk about her day and her frustrations with thousands of other moms around the world and gain solace in the knowledge that she’s not alone.

Kids can vent about how angst-filled their lives are, connecting with others who also feel the need to rip everyone around them. They can also find help and counseling online that they can’t find at home for various reasons.

And while all that “help” goes on, others are providing the stimulus for some already in-crisis kids to end their existence rather than face another day in the trenches.

The Bad/Down Side

The debate rages about limits on personal exposure and personal privacy. Entire volumes have appeared on all of these topics, both online and off. Writers don’t have to go any further than their desk to have enough material to span their lifetimes. Some of it is well-done, some dreadful, but always having a point.

As a writer, I watch news feeds each day, looking for tidbits to use for stories, articles, exploration, etc. Each day I shake my head in wonderment as I peruse the latest and greatest in the world of news. I wonder if everyone has gone totally insane, considering episodes like the one on the American Airlines flight this morning from Dallas to Chicago.

Soon I come to another story about a car costing nearly $300,000 that visited Harry Potter’s world and came away with his invisibility cloak. Yes, an invisible car is cool. We’ve had those kinds of military planes for a long time, but why would a person need one? The price tag along would make the car for the wealthy only. Do those going without adequate food on the table need another reason to resent those who’re living large?

There was the one about Coke and Pepsi changing their recipes to eliminate a particular chemical. I ask myself how long they’ve known about potential problems with that chemical and why they waited for a whistle-blower to press the issue.

We are bombarded with news 24/7 on CNN and other broadcast networks. We can’t escape from it, what with all the apps for phones now and hand-held computers. Dick Tracy watches/communicators are already on the market. How much more news do we need to fi

Everyone knows how the internet has changed the American scene, as well as that of the rest of the world.

Students aren’t at the mercy of expensive literary searches at university anymore. Research is finished in half the time and is a more efficiently selective process. High school students can reap major rewards by having so much more educational information at their fingertips than ever before.

At the same time, the average person has the ability and wherewithal to generate blogs about nearly every subject known to man.

The Good

There are people with agendas out there, and there are lovely people who’re just trying to make it from day to day, surviving the onslaught of the modern age. And within all of these people there seems to be a surging desire to communicate with others about their lives, their ideas, and their aspirations.

A wife and mother can talk about her day and her frustrations with thousands of other moms around the world and gain solace in the knowledge that she’s not alone.

Kids can vent about how angst-filled their lives are, connecting with others who also feel the need to rip everyone around them. They can also find help and counseling online that they can’t find at home for various reasons.

And while all that “help” goes on, others are providing the stimulus for some already in-crisis kids to end their existence rather than face another day in the trenches.

The Bad/Down Side

The debate rages about limits on personal exposure and personal privacy. Entire volumes have appeared on all of these topics, both online and off. Writers don’t have to go any further than their desk to have enough material to span their lifetimes. Some of it is well-done, some dreadful, but always having a point.

As a writer, I watch news feeds each day, looking for tidbits to use for stories, articles, exploration, etc. Each day I shake my head in wonderment as I peruse the latest and greatest in the world of news. I wonder if everyone has gone totally insane, considering episodes like the one on the American Airlines flight this morning from Dallas to Chicago.

Soon I come to another story about a car costing nearly $300,000 that visited Harry Potter’s world and came away with his invisibility cloak. Yes, an invisible car is cool. We’ve had those kinds of military planes for a long time, but why would a person need one? The price tag along would make the car for the wealthy only. Do those going without adequate food on the table need another reason to resent those who’re living large?

There was the one about Coke and Pepsi changing their recipes to eliminate a particular chemical. I ask myself how long they’ve known about potential problems with that chemical and why they waited for a whistle-blower to press the issue.

We are bombarded with news 24/7 on CNN and other broadcast networks. We can’t escape from it, what with all the apps for phones now and hand-held computers. Dick Tracy watches/communicators are already on the market. How much more news do we need to fi

Starting any project can be daunting or exhilarating. If you’re interested in a topic, go for it. Do an article or a story.

Research must be done for either direction. If a story is in the offing, the research might be as simple as researching the type of setting planned for your character’s use. Locale is important and you want to get it right the first time around.

Before you put away that interest in locale, look at the broader picture of that real-world setting. Does the town have unique properties to boast? Are there any gripping crimes in its past. How about outlaws? What about famous people from the locale? Hundreds of questions could be asked about the place, each of which could give answers that could spark more new projects for your delight.

How so? Let me give you some examples pulled from the news. Remember, the audience defines the angle as much as the subject’s facts.

Each of the following headlines was found on Yahoo! News this morning. Each has the potential to provide several articles/stories for the writer who has learned to change angles when presented with a small bit of information. Addition research might be necessary, but it doesn’t have to arduous. Few common articles require in-depth digging.

     1.  “Biggest solar storm in years hits, so far so good”–This headline could lead a writer into many directions.

Article for children—how solar activity affects weather and communications on Earth.

Science Article for adults/children (depending on language and depth of information)—Explanation of how the balance of Earth’s magnetic field is affected by solar flares and storms.

Article for communications mag—what is the exact culprit within a solar storm that disrupts communication satellites?

Article for electronics mag—what steps can be taken with today’s technology to safeguard sensitive electronic equipment?

Article for news mag—how vulnerable is military electronics systems and communications to extreme solar activity and what is the likelihood of future disaster?

Science Fiction Urban Fantasy/other world stories using the scientific data about how solar flares work and what they can mean to a planet/population.

     2.  “Johnny Depp’s Cool New Tonto in ‘The Lone Ranger”—this is one to have fun with.

Article for entertainment mag about Depp’s past forays into character development.

Article for teens/adults about Tonto as an icon and how it’s remembered by an entire generation of Americans

Article about the constant revising, retelling, refilming of old movies and TV shows rather than developing unique, fresh material/stories.

Use the premise of the Lone Ranger story to create a new story for children/adults. Star Wars did very well, if you’ll remember. Luke was the Lone Ranger, after all.

     3.