Monday, February 09, 2009
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To Make a Difference I’ve wanted to make a difference in the world since I was a child. I had no idea what kind of difference. I just wanted to help make people have better lives and be happy. Around the age of five I started trying to save a groundhog’s life by telling stories about him. The idea was to give reasons why Grandpa couldn’t kill him. Grandpa encouraged the stories especially when family and friends were all there. It was my first attempt to make a difference in the world. As I grew up, I saw classmates go hungry and cold. My heart ached when other children were teased. I both did my share of teasing and suffered my share of teasing. Am I stronger for it? I have no idea. I watched others strike out at classmates just for the attention. In my heart, I knew there was something wrong with this. Something needed to change. I felt like it was my responsibility yet I was often befuddled about the situation. I wrote stories about my classmates casting everyone as needing saved from the bad guys based in large part on the way I saw schoolchildren interacting. In my stories the schoolchildren faced a common enemy and had to become friends to survive. Throughout high school I wrote stories about teen issues like drug abuse, drinking, suicide and teenage pregnancy. I wanted “adults” to understand teens and children were human beings as well as for my classmates and I to avoid making bad decisions. I went through a bit of a self righteous period during this time. In college, I studied Psychology and Corrections and Juvenile Services determined to keep juvenile delinquents form becoming adult criminals. I wanted to show abused and neglected children and teens they had the power to change their lives. While still in college I worked in a foster treatment home. My job was to give the foster parent a break by helping care for the foster children. This allowed the foster parent to attend to household chores and spend time with his own children. Dealing with two children who’d suffered abuses that broke my heart gave me a glimpse into how difficult correcting inflicted damage could be. These children understood contact of any kind differently than any child I’d ever known. After college I worked in a home for teens with behavioral problems. The job was frustrating. I felt my hands were tied. We were basically housing the teens until they could be someone else’s problem instead of trying to make a difference in their lives that would create productive members of society. In the six months I worked in the home, I became disheartened. I began to believe making a difference – a true and lasting difference – was idealistic rather than realistic. The theories I’d learned in college didn’t apply. It all seemed hopeless and pointless. My determination to help faltered. Even though I gave up on making a difference as I’d once envisioned it, I continued to write story lines that explored issues I cared about. I tried to move away from exploring issues in my writing to make my work more commercial. My work suffered. I felt untrue to myself, and it showed. The issues most on my mind would work themselves into my writing even when I tried to avoid them. Projects with no issue exploration quickly ceased to hold my interest. I’ve come to understand that my writing needs to have the potential to make a difference in the world – or at least in someone’s life. Over the years I’ve realized that people can make a difference. Most of the time those changes are small, but they add up. Things are guaranteed to stay the same if no one tries to change them, so it’s important for each person to put forth an effort. The effort can be through one’s life, through a hobby, through one’s career, or through volunteer work. The important thing is to examine one’s talents and skills to discover the best way to make a contribution to society. Then use those talents and skills to make the world just a little better than before. I’m exploring using the written word to make a difference in the world on my new blog, Write with TLC |
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
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Winning Essay Update My winning essay is now available on the StarStyle Be the Star You Are! newsletter. Read it here! |
Thursday, January 29, 2009
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My Essay Won! Last fall I sent participated in a contest to choose the topics for the 5th Annual Be the Star You Are! Essay Contest. All three topics chosen for the contest were ones I sent in. |
Friday, January 23, 2009
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Catch Phrases Our society is filled with catch phrases. We’ve all had friends, family, and possibly even enemies who always say something. We may find it endearing, irritating, or amusing when we hear someone say their catch phrase. |
Sticking with the theme of how writers can use words to address issues in our world, I recently entered an essay contest where the topics were:
Women from around the World: Understanding the similarities and differences of the role of women in various cultures.
Journaling Your Way to a Better Life: How writing fears, moments of gratitude, and aspirations can help a person achieve goals in life.
How has reading changed your life? What book was most influential in your life? Why?
In full disclosure, I also submitted the winning topics for this contest in the Pick a Topic contest.
When the time came to write an essay for the contest, I chose the first topic and wrote about the first time I visited my husband’s family in the Middle East. My essay, Common Values, tied for first place. My words were chosen to show the similarities between our cultures and to emphasize that we should place more importance on our similarities than our differences. You can read the essay in the StarStyle Be the Star You Are! newsletter.
The only way we can come together in this world is to begin to see what we have in common and to see how our differences can be strengths instead of weaknesses.
When we use our words for the betterment of the human experience, we serve not only ourselves but the world.
I encourage you to use your words to make a difference in someone’s life today!
I’ve spent the last month and a half since starting my blog trying to decide which direction I want to take with it. There are so many facets to who I am as well as why and what I write. In the end, it seems I always come back to the same thing. I write because I love to use words to influence the world for the better. What is “the better”? Some may say my “better” is idealistic or even unrealistic, but if we don’t try we can never change the injustices of the world. I’m not starting a political blog, but my topics may border on or even embrace political issues if the word is used in its broadest possible form.
I often write fiction that explores issues facing the world. I write from personal experience and personal observation. I’m influenced by the world in which I live, the people with whom I have contact, the books I read, and my imagination. I prefer to write fiction but lately have been writing quite a bit of nonfiction. I tire easily of people who look at tradition as the only way and are heavily critical of anyone who doesn’t follow the same path he or she followed. I tire of arguing about whether or not the choices someone else makes for his or her life or his or her career are right. Who am I to tell anyone else how to life or conduct a career? I can share my experience and my knowledge, but in the end, what you do is your decision. I will try to remember that even when I feel adamently about something.
I tend to be blunt, but luckily I’m not easily offended, so feel free to return my bluntness. I’d rather know exactly where you stand than for us to put on false faces because it’s the expected thing. Now, I’m not talking about rudeness or cruelty. I don’t tolerate racism, sexism, or intolerance of other beliefs. Personal attacks or plain meanness are the easiest way to get banned from this blog.
I plan to bring in guest bloggers to talk about the craft of writing and the business of writing. I will likely ask some guest bloggers to talk about issues that are near and dear to their hearts. And, what they have to say won’t always agree with me - at least I hope it won’t. I enjoy a good debate.
Writers are some of the most knowledgeable people around. Good writers put a lot of research into their books, even fiction.
So let’s start this journey together to explore the issues we face, to discuss how we can keep the entertainment in our stories while writing about the issues of the world, and what the written word means to each of us and to the future of the world.
And, always, write with a little TLC.