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There are tons of books on the market that instruct us on how to make more money, spend less of it, and where to stash what we haven’t spent. Like many, spending and saving has more than one meaning for me. We all must decide how much, where and when money comes into the picture and what we mean by money.

Monetary worth is often measured by $ saved in bank accounts. There are other measures as well, and other types of banks. A person can save herself from a variety of situations, circumstances, and disasters. She can save her energies for special occasions, and so on. Euphemisms abound regarding saving.

In today’s catch-as-catch-can world of finance, saving money in banks is getting harder to do. The meaning of “saving money” has shifted to refer as much to buying for less as is does “squirrelling away cash.” For those who’re trying to make it in the publishing business, demands on the wallet is as constant as those for any other self-employed entrepreneur. Most of us have a “day” job to make it through.

Ingenious writers and other artists work smarter to make gains. Payment for a job doesn’t have to go in the bank. For many beginners, and those who have a few sales under their belts, barter has become a mainstay of payment.

An artist, in one example, has her eye on a specific gallery to display her work. Such displays cost the artist money. The gallery has no Facebook account. She offers to trade her knowledge of the web for display space in the gallery. Each side gets rewarded for the deal.

At the same time, she can offer to advertise the gallery on her own website, FB account, and other outlets, for framing her work in the gallery. The gallery owner spends nothing for the advertising and minimal cost for the framing he performs already. The artist gets everything she wants: exposure in a smaller, but good gallery and free framing.

The same type of arrangement can be used by a writer. The writer goes to a small company that has something she wants. She offers to do some work for them in exchange for whatever product the company provides. They strike a bargain and do a short contract for the job; she will write two professional short (form) business letters for the company; they give her the product—let’s say wheel alignment on her car.

Use the cashless jobs to build your resume. If you know of an organization that has decided to create a newsletter for its members and friends, offer to assist or to do it for them. The project gives you practice in something you might not have done before. It could also land you a job writing the newsletter on a regular basis. At that point you could talk compensation. If you don’t get paid, you still have another skill credit and client on your resume.

What if your child’s school needs help creating a small play for the fourth graders? Are you able to stretch your abilities to help with that project? Have you ever tried to write a children’s play? You might be very good at it, and there are opportunities for sales of such plays on the market. Practice on the school’s project, grab a resume credit and see what the future holds later.

How about developing the types of puzzles, mazes, and games that fascinate

How does your main character arrive? Does she pop into the mind, complete with secrets, aspirations, and whimsy? Or, do you have to sit down and get out your character building blocks to begin construction on the kind of character you want to deal with for however long it takes you to write an entire story?

Each type of character has possibilities for the writer. Think of the yourself as a casting director. A movie is being planned inside your mind and needs a cast to people the sets that are built to show/tell the story.

Cast of Characters: Primary figures

• Heroine—late twenties, had to leave college during junior year due to family crisis, didn’t finished education, works at local veterinarian’s office as a vet tech rather than the physician she wanted to be.
• Male lead—perhaps late twenties/early thirties, civil engineer, rugged and cocky in looks and attitude, considers heroine interesting but not worth the trouble of getting to know better—he has secrets hiding behind his eyes.
• Female support character—high school classmate, Miss Popularity, divorced socialite in town, waging intimacy war with male lead, has always looked down on heroine.
• Villain—possible murderer, keeping police baffled and jumping through hoops as she/he kills off various townspeople for no apparent reason, leaves too many conflicting clues as if playing cat and mouse with cops.
• Police detective—has known heroine all her life, used to date her in high school, pallbearer at her father’s funeral, struggling to stay in control of murder case even when he knows he’s over his head on this one, rethinking his career choice.
• Setting—rural town, population 12,000, Midwest locale, farming and college town.

With this list of pivotal characters, you can begin to build both plot and character studies. You must decide which to pursue first. For our purposes here, concentrate on characters.

Building a character takes planning. How would you tackle the heroine? When you close your eyes and think about this character, what do you see? How tall is she? What kind of clothing does she typically wear? What color is her hair? Keep thinking about her. Write down what you envision about this person. Listen to her voice, her speech patterns, and her quirks of expression. Have you learned her name yet?

Take a moment to meet her. Shake her hand. Is it callused, soft, long and lean, or square and pudgy? Do you join her at a table at the local diner?

What kind of people are in the diner and what is their behavior like? Is there a feeling of camaraderie among the locals, one of friendship or tension? Do you feel comfortable within this group? If so, describe what you feel as you sit at the table with the heroine.

Do this ceremonial meet and greet with each of your new characters. Find your place among them. Develop a rapport with these people that you’ll be working with for a while in the future.

The story’s setting is a character as well. You noticed it on the casting list. Setting is the biggest and can be the most complex of your characters. Take the time to get familiar with it. Learn so mu

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.<

Every writer knows what “feast or famine” refers to. For those who don’t, I define the phrase to mean “having more commissioned work than you’re comfortable with or having work that no one wants to buy.”

Of course, it could also translate as “Having tons of work that sits unwanted on your hard drive or not having any fresh ideas for new stories/articles/essays, etc.”

Take your pick; it all comes down to work.

I’m in a different definition slot. I have tons of work sitting on the hard drive that I haven’t yet submitted. (That marketing feat is being rectified, but on a malingerer’s schedule.) At the same time, I have too many ideas for new work to be written. I also have few jobs coming into my financial cache right now.

Couple all of that with doing three blogs on a regular basis, another that needs to get back onto a regular basis, four social networks aside from Facebook and you can see that time is precise to me.

On my work board at the moment I have: two YA fantasies that share a back burner, one women’s mystery novel, three books of poetry, and four books about my road trip last winter (all in various stages of planning/work).

I’m also taking two writing courses. Once in a while I take an afternoon off just to decompress and get away from the house. I still feel guilty about that.

In the near future, I expect to receive the first of many acceptances for work that’s already been submitted. I’m trying to use optimism here. Don’t rain on my parade. I have the right to anticipate paying gigs, too.

Feast or famine is a constant within a writer’s life, if the laments echoing across the internet from writers in various genres are to be believed. Obviously, I’ve joined the ranks and hadn’t paid attention while the process took hold. I really must pay more attention.

Several weeks ago, I vowed to make a determined effort to polish and submit at least two stories/poems/essays/articles, etc. each week. I’ve begun the process of whittling down my backlog of waiting work. Within the daily work allowance, time began taking on a sense of scarcity. Scheduling became paramount to allow for everything to fit into a day’s time allotment.

Scheduling continues to flaunt its capricious nature. I have trouble with dictating time slots for LIFE. I need some of that, too.

My goals have been stated before and remain staunchly rigid. I will overcome this creeping nightmare labeled “Feast or Famine.” In the meantime, I’ll pull on my muck boots and keep working on my hard drive’s groaning board. The entrees are getting out of hand again.

Every writer knows what “feast or famine” refers to. For those who don’t, I define the phrase to mean “having more commissioned work than you’re comfortable with or having work that no one wants to buy.”

Of course, it could also translate as “Having tons of work that sits unwanted on your hard drive or not having any fresh ideas for new stories/articles/essays, etc.”

Take your pick; it all comes down to work.

I’m in a different definition slot. I have tons of work sitting on the hard drive that I haven’t yet submitted. (That marketing feat is being rectified, but on a malingerer’s schedule.) At the same time, I have too many ideas for new work to be written. I also have few jobs coming into my financial cache right now.

Couple all of that with doing three blogs on a regular basis, another that needs to get back onto a regular basis, four social networks aside from Facebook and you can see that time is precise to me.

On my work board at the moment I have: two YA fantasies that share a back burner, one women’s mystery novel, three books of poetry, and four books about my road trip last winter (all in various stages of planning/work).

I’m also taking two writing courses. Once in a while I take an afternoon off just to decompress and get away from the house. I still feel guilty about that.

In the near future, I expect to receive the first of many acceptances for work that’s already been submitted. I’m trying to use optimism here. Don’t rain on my parade. I have the right to anticipate paying gigs, too.

Feast or famine is a constant within a writer’s life, if the laments echoing across the internet from writers in various genres are to be believed. Obviously, I’ve joined the ranks and hadn’t paid attention while the process took hold. I really must pay more attention.

Several weeks ago, I vowed to make a determined effort to polish and submit at least two stories/poems/essays/articles, etc. each week. I’ve begun the process of whittling down my backlog of waiting work. Within the daily work allowance, time began taking on a sense of scarcity. Scheduling became paramount to allow for everything to fit into a day’s time allotment.

Scheduling continues to flaunt its capricious nature. I have trouble with dictating time slots for LIFE. I need some of that, too.

My goals have been stated before and remain staunchly rigid. I will overcome this creeping nightmare labeled “Feast or Famine.” In the meantime, I’ll pull on my muck boots and keep working on my hard drive’s groaning board. The entrees are getting out of hand again.

Does every writer, regardless of genre, have an urge to dabble in poetry? Does the ebb and flow of syllabic rhythm entice the essayist to pay more attention to the lyricism of her own work? Is there a true difference between the cadence of a lovely line of poetry and a well-crafted sentence that leads the reader into the first paragraph of a novel?

Brooks Landon, non-fiction writer and professor at the University of Iowa, believes that all writing can benefit from understanding how sentences operate. He says:

“Sentences are shaped by specific context and driven by specific purpose, so no rules or mechanical protocols can prepare us for the infinite number of tasks our sentences must accomplish.”

By the time I got through half of his course, I understood his meaning. I could no longer look at something written and see only the story that the words conveyed. Suddenly I noticed the length of sentences, the patterns used in assembling them, and the syntax of each segment comprising them.

I also understood that poetry, for all of its forms and eccentricities, was no different from prose in its syntax and overall structure. I’ll give you an example. A couple of years ago, I wrote a small piece of creative non-fiction for specific audience. I then translated that piece into poetry, just to see if the piece suffered any ill-effects. You tell me whether I succeeded in making both versions work.

The creative non-fiction piece goes like this:

THE MOONLIGHT DANCE

Moonlight flows across the lawn’s clear center, chasing larger shadows and forming a stage with spotlight. Rustling sounds emerge from the right, loud enough to grab the attention of a watcher. Into the spotlight amble four ebony bodies. Each sports a broad white stripe.

The largest of the troupe leads the single line of dancers into position. They pause. Noses rise to sniff the cool night air. Tongues flick in and out to taste that same air.

Faint chattering escapes young throats.

Chorus dancers, small and new, follow the lead of the diva, their mother. One faint command releases them for movement. Slow revolutions begin counter-clockwise.

One. Two. Three. The line pauses.

Each nose rises to sniff the air. Tongues flick out to taste. Another faint command comes from the leader.

Again they move.

The diva pivots in place to face the line. Each small dancer echoes the movement. Slow revolutions clockwise.

One. Two. Three. The line pauses.

The command voice changes to a more enticing note. The ritual is repeated by the troupe. Counter-clockwise followed by clockwise. After three full ritual dances, the troupe stops as precisely as it began.

A low crooning issues from the diva to her dancers, and they amble off into the shadows to disappear into the night. The watcher stands entranced and questioning. Why did they dance? Had anyone else ever seen such skunk behavior?

The poetic form came out as follows:

MOONLIGH

Does every writer, regardless of genre, have an urge to dabble in poetry? Does the ebb and flow of syllabic rhythm entice the essayist to pay more attention to the lyricism of her own work? Is there a true difference between the cadence of a lovely line of poetry and a well-crafted sentence that leads the reader into the first paragraph of a novel?

Brooks Landon, non-fiction writer and professor at the University of Iowa, believes that all writing can benefit from understanding how sentences operate. He says:

“Sentences are shaped by specific context and driven by specific purpose, so no rules or mechanical protocols can prepare us for the infinite number of tasks our sentences must accomplish.”

By the time I got through half of his course, I understood his meaning. I could no longer look at something written and see only the story that the words conveyed. Suddenly I noticed the length of sentences, the patterns used in assembling them, and the syntax of each segment comprising them.

I also understood that poetry, for all of its forms and eccentricities, was no different from prose in its syntax and overall structure. I’ll give you an example. A couple of years ago, I wrote a small piece of creative non-fiction for specific audience. I then translated that piece into poetry, just to see if the piece suffered any ill-effects. You tell me whether I succeeded in making both versions work.

The creative non-fiction piece goes like this:

THE MOONLIGHT DANCE

Moonlight flows across the lawn’s clear center, chasing larger shadows and forming a stage with spotlight. Rustling sounds emerge from the right, loud enough to grab the attention of a watcher. Into the spotlight amble four ebony bodies. Each sports a broad white stripe.

The largest of the troupe leads the single line of dancers into position. They pause. Noses rise to sniff the cool night air. Tongues flick in and out to taste that same air.

Faint chattering escapes young throats.

Chorus dancers, small and new, follow the lead of the diva, their mother. One faint command releases them for movement. Slow revolutions begin counter-clockwise.

One. Two. Three. The line pauses.

Each nose rises to sniff the air. Tongues flick out to taste. Another faint command comes from the leader.

Again they move.

The diva pivots in place to face the line. Each small dancer echoes the movement. Slow revolutions clockwise.

One. Two. Three. The line pauses.

The command voice changes to a more enticing note. The ritual is repeated by the troupe. Counter-clockwise followed by clockwise. After three full ritual dances, the troupe stops as precisely as it began.

A low crooning issues from the diva to her dancers, and they amble off into the shadows to disappear into the night. The watcher stands entranced and questioning. Why did they dance? Had anyone else ever seen such skunk behavior?

The poetic form came out as follows:

MOONLIGH

The Olympics have torch bearers who run through the streets, flaming torch held high, expressing sublime joy or intense nobility as they run. Marathon participants run for a variety of reasons, many of which express that same joy or nobility. Ordinary family members don’t do much running at all, unless one counts errands and an extracurricular shuttle service.

Throughout my growing up years, carrying a torch meant something other than its current connotation. We carried a torch for a movie star or the girl/boy at school. We carried the torch of freedom in our citizenship and moral fiber. It’s a wonder the town didn’t burn to the ground with all of those flames being held up for all to see.

Few of us got to see an Olympic torch during the fifties. Even our own Student Olympics during elementary school didn’t have a torch. Television brought the Olympic Games to average households every four years during the sixties, which is where I first saw them. Of course, the opening ceremonies, with torch-bearer and Olympic Flame weren’t as long or elaborate then as they are now. Drama and spectacle arrived during the early eighties. Leave it to Hollywood.

All of this brings us to carrying the family torch. Each family has an invisible one, though the flames may be for different purposes. For some that torch stands for pride of place within society. For others it represents the family triumph over poverty and disadvantage. Torches for those prideful of family traditions of church, home, and military honor cut across all strata of society. These are all family torches; the ones that children take from their parents, along the line of ancestral heritage.

Torches smolder at times. They can exhibit rebellion over family roots as much as the opposite. They can glow with remembered suffering from a historical past before bursting into raging flame. While each is sparked by one or more family aspect, only an individual can carry one and that for personal reasons.

People can find a family torch inside themselves, if they look for it. They can discover the personal reason for raising an arm to support that tapered torch. At some point, they must either acknowledge acceptance of “duty” or reject it and seek another.

Each of us has a choice as to which torch we carry for our family. Considering how broad the definition has become for “family,” we should marvel at how many torches one person can juggle at any given time. The reasons and purposes of torches have broadened as well.

At the end of the day, the person needs to ask herself, “Which torch did I choose today?” and “Should I choose to bear that flaming burden tomorrow?”