The SoapBoxers

After several weeks off for the holidays, I am establishing my goals for the year 2011. These are not resolutions, those are far too easy to break or forget about sometime around the first of May. The goals that I wish to identify involve writing and getting the written word distributed to as many people as possible. I truly believe that our culture is enlivened through writing, bringing the past into focus, exploring the myriad of possibilities and eventually guiding the development of the future. Fiction or not, reality or fantasy, all written works stir imagination and thought.

With that in mind, I am embarking the recording of my first full length novel, now a full year old and no longer being edited. I should have that effort completed by spring. I am going to complete my second novel by the end of summer. I will participate again in the National Novel Writing Month in November. These are three very ambitious goals for one year. I hope that all of the aspiring writers out there establish similar challenging goals.

In addition to my own personal work, I have the opportunity to assist in the distribution of a pair of existing books. The chance to review and offer judgment on another author’s works is both exhilarating and daunting. The books that I am referring to were written by Brett Garrett. They are studies of the Celtic knots carved into crosses and other stone in the British Isles. Both of these books are available for sale as hard copy books at the Hyrax Publications store  under the printed books section (you can always access the store via the tab in the navigation menu).

The first volume, Celtic Knots: Exploring with J Romilly Allen, Method and Matrix, explores the stones and crosses in Wales. Brett systematically models the various knots, to validate and compare them. There are several designs that are repeated across many stones while others are unique. The models expose the fact that the knots are not a single thread, but can be two, three or even more. Additionally, all of the knots can be ‘tied’ using cordage, suggesting that the stone renditions are a more durable representation of knotting practiced on an every day basis.

This volume is beautifully annotated with color graphics and pictures taken by the author. It was originally published in 2007 and has only a limited number of copies available.

The second volume, Celtic Knots with & beyond J Romilly Allen, contains all of the technical information of the first volume expanded to include stone work from Scotland, Ireland and England. The additional works re-emphasize the original premise and provide additional beautiful examples of the art of Celtic knotting.

This volume is printed in a larger format and is in shades of grey (keeping the cost down). More models and more photographs fill the additional space. Both works take the study of these stone artifacts beyond the conclusions of the 1950s. The reality of the stones is explored separate from modern mysticism, allowing the systematic discovery of the purpose and meaning of the knots and possibly bringing us closer to the people who carved them.

Since Knotting is a highly visual art, an audio version of the books does not seem feasible for now, however, Brett will be making her models and various knot work available in electronic format in the near future.

[Kosmo’s note: This is the first time Hyrax Publications will be involved in the sale of printed books, although the store has offered eBooks (fiction and non-fiction) and audio books for quite some time.  At some point in the future, we may work with other authors who are seeking a place to sell their books.  While Brett Garrett’s books can be found other places on the internet, I think you’ll find our prices quite competitive.  A glance at Amazon finds Celtic Knots: Exploring with J Romilly Allen, Method and Matrix priced at $104.44 for a new copy and $49.50 for a used copy this morning … compare that the the $29.98 cost at our store.]

Officially I am on vacation until next year. Reality is that I will be going into my office at least two mornings this week to make sure deliveries are made and plans for next year are complete. With the actual time I will have off before Christmas, I will be attempting to spread Christmas Cheer. The best way that I know to do that is through charity.

Charity comes in many forms. I will be donating to various causes with new clothes and toys and food. I will be donating usable items that my family does not use or need any more to various organizations (Good Will, St. Vincent DePaul, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled Veterans, to name just a few – yes I do have that much stuff to give away as I have two kids in college and one in high school). I will be making monetary donations all around town (Salvation Army is the most visible). I will also be making cookies for my office, the office my wife works at, a couple of schools, my boy scout troop and a couple of churches.

The great thing about charity is that it makes you feel much better than the actual cost of anything you give away and charity can be in the form of volunteering (through your church, synagogue or mosque or through an organization like the United Way) which costs nothing but time.

Now, I give away most of the cookies I make for two reasons, actually. I really enjoy making them, but as many of you have seen from my other articles, I have trouble keeping my weight under control. So in being charitable, I also protect myself from myself.

The great thing about charity is that it makes you feel much better than the actual cost of anything you give away and charity can be in the form of volunteering (through your church, synagogue or mosque or through and organization like the United Way) which costs nothing but time.

To keep myself organized this year, I compiled the recipes of my favorite recipes. Most of these recipes have been modified over time to meet the taste preferences of my family (such as substituting crushed graham crackers for nut coatings since my sister has a nut allergy). I am providing a copy of that compilation (it is only 6 pages and 11 recipes) to Kosmo to distribute to any of our readers who want it. I encourage you to keep writing, be charitable and spread the calories.

Download Martin’s cookie recipes (PDF)

Last week, my column discussed the cold of the Midwest. I waxed poetic about the joys of winter and how much good comes from a cold spell of weather. Tonight, as I see the forecast for overnight and tomorrow, the poet in me is curling up and pretending to go to the tropics. We expect temperatures to drop to negative eleven before dawn with wind chill of negative thirty. I do believe that this is, in fact, cold enough.

The rural schools are already closing for tomorrow. The reasons range from broken water mains, insufficient heating, and wind chill dangers waiting for the bus. I am very supportive of such preemptory actions; safety of the children should be very high in the priorities of any school. I only wish I was still in school. I am fortunate to have a garage (unheated but still enclosed) so my start should not be that bad. I remember the days of living in an apartment and waiting for the car to warm up while scraping frost and ice from the windows. The coldest part of my day will be the walk in from the parking lot and the trip home at night.

I watched several football games in the comfort of my home. The games in New York and Pittsburgh were cold rain expecting snow later. The game in Chicago was all snow expecting the frigid cold that we are expecting to follow tonight.

Now all of this weather will pass. In the next week it should warm up enough to snow. The kids will like that, but driving in the frigid cold is much easier than driving in snow. I do enjoy the changes (here is the poet coming out again). This bitter cold will only make the warm up sweeter. The snow will be nice for Christmas. The best course for all of us in the path of winter storms is to remain safe. Unless you are properly prepared, stay in doors. Bad weather always provides a good opportunity to write, read, watch old movies and develop relationships. Even though it will be very cold, I will still enjoy it, and I hope you do, too.

Garrison Keillor once wrote that in Minnesota, people do not complain about the cold. You see, everyone can feel it, so why complain. I do not quite live in Minnesota, and my wife is a southern girl, so there is plenty of complaining in my house. I personally like the cold, all of the bugs die and you have a reason to stay snug in your house with a fire on the hearth and hot cocoa in your mug.

Today will be cold across most of the nation, with temperatures even tumbling in Texas and Florida. I live about 250 miles straight west of Chicago. We expect morning temperatures to be near single digits, with a wind chill near zero all day (Fahrenheit not Celsius). Although I sometimes walk to work, tomorrow will not be one of those days. I will, however, still brave the cold to go to a gym to work out.

I still have a positive attitude about winter. We have had our first snow fall, it was only about two inches and the streets are already cleared. The sky as been clear, so the sun is bright, making the scenery especially nice. This feeling will change by the time February rolls around. Eighty days of cold with increasing cloudiness makes thing dreary. I do not often suffer from cabin fever, but I know a lot of people who do.

The best solution to cold weather is to actually get out in it. Breathe deeply the clean air. Feel the cold penetrate where you have not covered sufficiently. Move around and, after experiencing nature to its fullest, retreat to the comfort of your home or office. A short experience of the harshness of the season will make the comforts that much more delectable.

A couple of years ago, I drove by a construction site about this time of year. It was cold with sleet coming down. I commented that I was glad not to have that job. My teenage son disagreed. What could be better than getting to work outside? Especially when working on something you could point at to say you had built it? I appreciate his enthusiasm. Those men and women do have something to hold on to. I still have my comfortable office, which I still will not trade. Perhaps that kind of enthusiasm wanes with age (and stiffness).

I know that several negative twenty degree days are ahead. We can only hope that they are not consecutive. The local weather forecaster has asked “Is it cold enough for you?” My answer is yes. I am so glad that I live in an age and country with modern conveniences such as central heating. Keep writing and stay warm.

I am at the point in my effort to write a novel in 30 days where I must admit defeat. The goal was 50,000 words during the month of November, I have only made it to just over 25,000 words. So why did I “fail”? I let other activities occupy my time. Some of these were unavoidable; family, work, and home. Others were just my lack of drive. I could probably analyze the amount of time I wasted on on-line games, watching TV and sleeping in. That kind of analysis is self defeating if you are writing for pleasure. I plan on continuing to work on my novel, hoping to have something for review in the spring. When writing, that is all you can do. Set goals for yourself, but keep going even if you do not meet those goals.

I am fortunate that I have a job that allows me enough actual relaxation time to write. If I had a job with a significant manual labor content, say, a longshoreman, I do not believe that I would have the opportunity to write very much; all of my relaxation time would be to recover my strength for the next shift. I hope each of you has an opportunity to write, it is such a great way to express your creativity with little or no cost.

My leisure time is sometimes augmented by job related travel. I am not much of a partier, so I have plenty of time after hours with no family responsibilities to dedicate to writing. That is the main reason I was able to make the 50,000 word contest last year. Next year I plan on trying again. My long term goal is to produce most of one novel every year as long as I can write. I am going to try to publish, eventually.

I hope at least some of you who were taking the Novel Writing Challenge were successful. Even if you were not, I hope that you had a good time trying. Remember to keep writing.

For those of you who have joined me in the adventure of writing a novel in one month, we are in the home stretch. Just 8 days left in November and the end of National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). We are more that two thirds of the way through the month, so if you are to succeed, you need to be more that two thirds cone with your goal of 50,000 words or at about 36,500 words. I personally am well short of that mark, coming in at about 25,000 words.

My recovery plan is alone time over the next few days to really write. Remember to achieve the goal, you work does not have to be a complete novel, it just needs to be words written down towards your novel. Last year, when I actually succeeded, it took me an additional three months and independent reviewers to get my work to a point that I would consider “done”. I am currently working on cover art and saving money to actually publish my work on paper. I will release electronic and audio versions at the same time. So this year, I have to get back into that writing groove.

One of the things I did this year was to change my genre. This was to change my comfort zone and expand my field of ideas. Although it did help me with new ideas, it has not helped me actually capture words at any better rate. Last year I was traveling a lot, so I had idle time in the evenings. This year is filled with family (which is a good thing) so not so much time is available.

I have mentioned in previous postings the support of the sponsor of this writing event. Within the National Novel Writing community, there are groups that you can join. Perhaps next year, I along with other contributors to theSoapBoxers.com and our faithful readers could create and join a group. We could call Other:SoapBoxer. That is a plan for the future.

Right now, I am interested in how others are doing in their attempts at writing. Even if you are not taking on the challenge of writing a novel in a month, what are you working on? How is it going? Do you have any advice for people trying the same thing? What got you going on writing? What has prevented you from writing? The questions could fill a whole page. My interest is somewhat selfish. I have found that listening to others describing anything they are attempting will provide me with new fodder for stories. I do not steel ideas; I am just looking for triggers.

For instance, Kosmo wrote a piece earlier this month about a non-functioning speedometer in his car. The repair shop had to uncover a different problem before the speedometer could be fixed. Taking the idea of car troubles, specifically with a speedometer, you could have a so many different stories. In a mystery, you could explore who was responsible, and why. In an adventure, you could trace the hero’s actions as he is trapped with a broken vehicle in an unknown location. Make it science fiction, and you have alien technology causing the failure. Romance could be a who meets who because of the car. And so on…

Regardless of what you want to write or what you think your skills are, since you are reading this posting you have access to a computer and can capture any of your ideas. If you are concerned about someone reading your work, you do not have to publish. If you want criticism, there are plenty of people who can look at your work and provide insight. In the end, my advice is always, keep on writing.

What do you do when you hit a writing block?

Well actually, I haven’t run into a writing block, I have simply not been writing during the effort to write a novel during the month of November. For this article, let’s pretend that I am sharing the problems of not knowing what to write.

First you must find a trigger. It could be something as simple as standing up and looking out the window. Who knows what you will see. It could be your character walking past, or the exact weather you need to describe. Get up and have something to eat. Maybe the people in your story need to eat as well.

If that does not work, perhaps you need a longer break. Take a walk, go shopping or go see a movie. I would suggest avoiding TV or surfing the web as these activities really chew up valuable time, while a movie or walk have definite ending points.

If you are still stuck, try a different writing event. Throw together a quick blog of anything you are working on. If you don’t have anywhere else to post, paste it as a response to my posting.

There is always a topic that you like to talk about, convert that into writing, just to keep the words coming. Eventually, you will drift back to the story that you want to finish.

I still recommend establishing deadlines for yourself, both to keep yourself honest and to drive towards completion. You can use events line National Novel Writing Month, or a short story completion. You may want to make a holiday or birthday as the deadline, especially if you want you story to be a present to a friend or family member. All that we write provides insight and entertainment. Keep writing even if you do not want so show anyone else your work.

The writing frenzy continues.  If you are participating in the National Novel Writing Month, we have entered the second week.  You should be at about 13,000 words.  I have fallen pretty far behind having just crested 6,000 words.  The goal is to write as much as possible, getting to the 50,000 word count by the end of November is the challenge.

If you did start writing on November first, you should be well into your story.  Even if you do not have a full outline, try to capture at least some interesting event.  If events are eluding you, try some descriptive paragraphs.  Describe one of you characters, what he wears, what her physical characteristics are, what his dream are, what she is feeling.  Short on characters?  Describe the location, the surroundings, from weather to decorations, anything to put some body behind the story.

My current effort is a science fiction story.  I just have chunks of stuff.  I have done some character development for a few of my characters.  I have described the space ship in petty good detail.  I have even done some premonition work, describing what their goal is.  I still do not have a complete outline.  I have a couple of climaxes sketched out, but no conclusion.

As I commented last week, it is hard to set aside time to write.  My Saturday was taken up helping a friend reroof his garage.  Weeknights are taken up with helping my kids with homework, housework and paying attention to my wife.  I am pretty excited about writing at the 50% rate that I have accomplished.  I hope that some of our readers are doing better.

If you are just writing down any ideas you have, you can get a lot written.  I can capture between 500 and 800 words an hour.  That is words that make any sense at all.  So two hours a night should be all I need to put aside.  My problem is that I want to concentrate on this one story, and I just can not seem to get two hours to write.  Tonight (Sunday) I have a chance.  I am writing this article first, then back to writing the novel.  I would love to be able to report that I have completed the challenge again when we get to November 30^th, but again, my goal is to write and encourage you to write.

And we are off!

Today is the first day of November, and that makes it the first day of National Novel Writing Month. The goal is 50,000 words towards a novel captured over the thirty days of November. So how do you start? If you want to be part of the official challenge, then visit NaNoWriMo.org. Create an account and start writing. That site is filled with helpful suggestions and provides a word count tool as well as goodies if you succeed.

There are many parts of writing to address, and there is no specific order to do them in. Each writer will find this or her own comfort zone. What is the type of story (short story or novel), genre (romance, adventure, science fiction, historic), characters and title? Sometimes choosing one item creates one of the others. Choosing a genre, say adventure, drives character names such as Rock or Hunter. You may not even know what kind of story you are writing until you get into it. Last year, I ended up with a romance, definitely not what I started with.

This year, I am attempting a science fiction effort. I have a good idea about character names and personalities from ideas I have had in the past. Now I have to put those personalities together. I do not have a complete plot idea, just a rough outline in my head.

Now the idea is not to get a complete novel written, although that would be great. The idea is to write. The distractions will be significant. There is work, family, an election and all of the other every day events that keep us from writing. So the true challenge is to push all of this aside and write. I don’t suggest sacrificing your career or ignoring your children, on the contrary, use your specialties to make your story more complete, talk to you kids about what you are writing, they may ask the questions that give you your breakthrough. Every experience can lead to an idea.

I do not just encourage you to write, I also encourage you to let us know how you are doing right here on TheSoapBoxers.com. The only limitation is to remember that this is a family friendly site.

50,000 words is about 1667 words per day. Good luck!

It is almost November, and we all know what that means, National Novel Writing Month. I guess you thought I was going to writes something about the election. I figure with all of the writers on this site (except Johnny and Bob, thank you both so much) having voiced their political opinions over the last few weeks, enough had been said already. I want to focus on writing.

I started this column last year as I embarked on my first attempt at writing a complete novel. The fine people at NaNoWriMo.org help me with a challenge and various on line support activities. There are also local gatherings at coffee shops to put real faces and bodies on the messages. I was successful last year for many reasons, none more important than that I was on a significant amount of travel, two weeks at a time away from my family. When I try this year, I will have the challenges of every day life impacting my ability to perform.

The goal of National Novel Writing Month is not actually to write a compete novel, although that may be a happy outcome. The goal is to write down 5000 words that are conceivably part of a larger story or novel. The challenge is to achieve this goal in a single month, November 1 through November 30. No fair grabbing an old story that you already had several thousand word complete on. The reward is writing, and if you succeed, some nice icon gifts for your book, your facebook page and a certificate to always remember your achievement.

As with last year, I plan on tracking my progress here at TheSoapBoxers.com. I will encourage all of our readers to write, and maybe even share some of their effort. Unlike last year, I will focus on what I am doing to write, not a blow by blow of the story line.

So the question is, will you “elect” to join me on this adventure? You do not have to write, but I always encourage people to do so. You can just ride the journey with me and anyone else who is willing to share in the odyssey.

A few months ago, I pledged to embark on a different journey. I was going to set up my computer on a treadmill table so that I could walk my way across this great land of ours as I wrote this column or watched television. Although I did set up the table for a short while, my progress was so slow that I never had enough success to write about it. The treadmill and table took up so much room in out family room that my wife asked me to move it to the basement. Out of sight, out of mind, and the experiment came to an end. This writing pledge will not suffer the same fate. I may succeed or I may fail, but I will undertake the effort for the full month.

When I made the cross country treadmill pledge, I had several helpful exchanges with Evan about ways of adding physical activity to our otherwise stationary work lives. As a result of those discussions, I will be investing in an under desk peddle systems. I will cycle my way through the day as I sit at my desk, reading, writing, phoning, texting and doing all the things we do at work that cause the day to pass with little or no physical motion.

So, go to NaNoWriMo.org tonight and join up and in seven days let your ideas flow. Catch them all, sting them together and who knows what you will end up with.