Home > Biography > General Biography > Without a Fear of Words

Without a Fear of Words

List Price: $5.99

Save 5.0%

You Pay: $5.69

Want this eBook?Our eBook Library Software is required to purchase and download eBooks. Download it here.

Tell a Friend

Overview

Lazette Gifford, Managing Editor of Vision: A Resource for Writers (http://lazette.net/vision) and the owner/site administrator of Forward Motion for Writers (http://fmwriters.com ), presents a collection of essays on the philosophy and act of writing. The collection of short essays covers everything from accepting that you are a writer to setting goals, and from writing short stories to resurrecting older manuscripts. She also hopes to convey the joy she has found in writing and the enthusiasm that can help writers past the disappointment of plot lines that don't quite work and the inevitable rejections, while still maintaining their love of creating stories.

Editorial Reviews

Editorial Reviews for this product are not available at this time.

Author Information

Bio of Lazette Gifford

On the day Lazette was born The Muses wept, mostly because they knew that one of them would have no rest for a long time. The Graces, always anxious to be certain their poor cousins had enough to do, dropped off the notice themselves. When The Muses saw the snippets of the future, they quailed at the work ahead. The Graces smirked, and quickly left before they were coerced into a new little project like that one that had somehow mutated into the Renaissance. The most difficult decision remaining to The Muses turned out to be which of them would take up the challenge of the little insomniac with far too much imagination. When they turned to Aoede, she pointed out that a new age of music had barely begun, and she already had her hands full preparing Elvis and Ringo. Erato, Euterpe, and Terpsichore -- who had all been rather disdainful of Rock and Roll until now -- suddenly found a true and abiding interest in it, and threw themselves into the work with Aoede before someone suggested that one of them take the problem child. They thought Calliope, being the oldest might stand a chance, but she (rather too quickly, the others thought) pointed out that the age of Epic Poetry was in abeyance, and it would hardly be fair to start a baby along that path. They almost argued... but Calliope always had the last word. Epic poets were like that. Clio waved them away and went back to the proliferation of post-war historians, and the others decided maybe she had more than enough already. Melete and Mneme took their cues from Earato, Euepre and Terpischore and decided that history needed all the help it could get. And that left Melpomene, who began to wail as soon as they turned to her -- but then she, being the muse of Tragedy, tended to do that quite often anyway. When the others pressed her anyway, she began to panic until she spotted her sister, Polymnia, busy with quill and paper, and so immersed in her work that she never even noticed the ruckus around her. Melphomene rushed to her side and put a hand on Polymnia ' s shoulder. "What now " Polymnia demanded, looking at Mel with utter exasperation. "I ' m in the middle of a scene! Why is it I can ' t get two pages written without some interruption For the love of the Gods, don ' t you eight have anything better to do than bother me " "We have a problem," Calliope said, barely able to hide a malicious grin. She ' d been waiting for the moment to get even ever since prose replaced poetry as the favored form, and now she knew she had her chance. "We ' ve been handed a child who needs a muse. We ' re all so busy, Poly. Maybe you... " "Yes, yes, fine. Just put the name in with the others." And she went back to writing, and sealed the baby ' s fate, as well as those of several poor, unsuspecting keyboards.

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews available at this time. To add your review, Register or Sign In to your account using our free eBook Library Software.

Additional Info

Imprint

Double Dragon Publishing

Filesize

497.34 KB

Number of Pages

N/A

eBook ISBN

9781554041916

Excerpt from: Without a Fear of Words by Lazette Gifford

Over the last eight years I have found that I have a lot to say about writing. Most of this expression comes from being part of Forward Motion, a community of writers that now tops 5000 members. People at the site ask questions about writing and sometimes my ideas help them. It surprises me.

Four years ago I had this brilliant idea called Vision: A Resource for Writers. After the creation of the ezine, I started receiving great articles from a number of talented and wonderful writers. However, I still had to come up with even more ideas about writing and actually... well... write them.

What you find here are articles (most of them from Vision) on aspects of writing that have worked for me. These articles may not work for you, and you may not even agree with many of the things I say. Writers are not all one breed, after all, and what works for me will not work for every other writer.

There will be repetition of some ideas and themes that you'll find in many of the articles. Stop making excuses and just sit down and do the work plays an important part in my philosophy. So does writing for yourself, even if publication is the most important goal of your life. Writers face disappointment every time a story is rejected by a publisher. If you are not writing for yourself and for the love of writing, those early rejections can be the death knell to a career before it even gets started.

Writing for writers is an odd experience. Since I'm not a bestselling novelist or an award winning short story writer, many people tend to think my suggestions won t be helpful. However, in these articles I am most often writing about something I know very well and that s how to produce words.

I can t help you write good words. That s something you have to find within yourself, and no amount of teaching technique and rules will do it for you. Only writing can teach you to write well. It is an acquired art and it takes practice, just like playing music and painting. You can read all the work you want on technique, but you only get proficient by practice.

I can, however, encourage you to love the act of writing, and not to fear words that you write. Remember when you write that nothing is set in stone. Writers get to change, fix, delete and completely rewrite everything. You never need to fear that what you are writing isn t good enough.

The only story that can t be fixed is the one you never write.

And only you can write the stories you imagine.

So go and write. Have fun. Telling a story is a gift you have been given. Enjoy it just for itself. Being published is icing, but it doesn't mean the cake isn't sweet without it -- or that you don't have to learn to bake the cake before you can add the frosting.

The following articles are divided into three groups:

The Philosophy of Writing -- My personal philosophy about just sitting down and doing the work.

The Act of Writing -- Here you will find articles on everything from POV to clothing, government to weather.