Shopping For Murder is a great way to bring your POV to life.
In downtown Detroit a flashing green light alerts the curious passersby that The Little Murder Shop accepts Master Card and Visa. Most of its traffic comes in after midnight, some to creep in with the flickering shadows so they can't be seen, and some rush in anxious to relieve the tossing and turning of yet another sleepless night.
At this point your POV may be just weighing the options but as s/he pauses in the doorway the smell of blood reaches out like the chains of hell. They are feverish with desire to get the foul deed done, and concerned with eliminating the certainty of getting caught. You have brought your POV to this doorway to capture (on paper) the thoughts and passions that boil in the cauldron of murder.
Your POV glances quickly over the aisles, wondering where to start -- Weapons? Or Opportunity? What motive drives him to be here? What strengths tempt her? What weakness must be guarded against at all costs? Guttering candles beckon your POV move deeper into the shadows of black commerce. S/He pushes a spider web aside and hurries down the aisle marked only by a grinning skull.
The hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you click on the title and follow your POV into the Little Murder Shop.
Is Psychology a Science?
Is Psychology a Science?
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
All theories - scientific or not - start with a problem. They aim to solve it by proving that what appears to be "problematic" is not. They re-state the conundrum, or introduce new data, new variables, a new classification, or new organizing principles. They incorporate the problem in a larger body of knowledge, or in a conjecture ("solution"). They explain why we thought we had an issue on our hands - and how it can be avoided, vitiated, or resolved.
Scientific theories invite constant criticism and revision. They yield new problems. They are proven erroneous and are replaced by new models which offer better explanations and a more profound sense of understanding - often by solving these new problems. From time to time, the successor theories constitute a break with everything known and done till then. These seismic convulsions are known as "paradigm shifts".
Contrary to widespread opinion - even among scientists - science is not only about "facts". It is not merely about quantifying, measuring, describing, classifying, and organizing "things" (entities). It is not even concerned with finding out the "truth".
Science is about providing us with concepts, explanations, and predictions (collectively known as "theories") and thus endowing us with a sense of understanding of our world.
Scientific theories are allegorical or metaphoric. They revolve around symbols and theoretical constructs, concepts and substantive assumptions, axioms and hypotheses - most of which can never, even in principle, be computed, observed, quantified, measured, or correlated with the world "out there".
By appealing to our imagination, scientific theories reveal what David Deutsch calls "the fabric of reality".
Like any other system of knowledge, science has its fanatics, heretics, and deviants.
Instrumentalists, for instance, insist that scientific theories should be concerned exclusively with predicting the outcomes of appropriately designed experiments. Their explanatory powers are of no consequence. Positivists ascribe meaning only to statements that deal with observables and observations.
Instrumentalists and positivists ignore the fact that predictions are derived from models, narratives, and organizing principles. In short: it is the theory's explanatory dimensions that determine which experiments are relevant and which are not. Forecasts - and experiments - that are not embedded in an understanding of the world (in an explanation) do not constitute science.
Granted, predictions and experiments are crucial to the growth of scientific knowledge and the winnowing out of erroneous or inadequate theories. But they are not the only mechanisms of natural selection. There are other criteria that help us decide whether to adopt and place confidence in a scientific theory or not. Is the theory aesthetic (parsimonious), logical, does it provide a reasonable explanation and, thus, does it further our understanding of the world?
David Deutsch in "The Fabric of Reality" (p. 11):
"... (I)t is hard to give a precise definition of 'explanation' or 'understanding'. Roughly speaking, they are about 'why' rather than 'what'; about the inner workings of things; about how things really are, not just how they appear to be; about what must be so, rather than what merely happens to be so; about laws of nature rather than rules of thumb. They are also about coherence, elegance, and simplicity, as opposed to arbitrariness and complexity ..."
Reductionists and emergentists ignore the existence of a hierarchy of scientific theories and meta-languages. They believe - and it is an article of faith, not of science - that complex phenomena (such as the human mind) can be reduced to simple ones (such as the physics and chemistry of the brain). Furthermore, to them the act of reduction is, in itself, an explanation and a form of pertinent understanding. Human thought, fantasy, imagination, and emotions are nothing but electric currents and spurts of chemicals in the brain, they say.
Holists, on the other hand, refuse to consider the possibility that some higher-level phenomena can, indeed, be fully reduced to base components and primitive interactions. They ignore the fact that reductionism sometimes does provide explanations and understanding. The properties of water, for instance, do spring forth from its chemical and physical composition and from the interactions between its constituent atoms and subatomic particles.
Still, there is a general agreement that scientific theories must be abstract (independent of specific time or place), intersubjectively explicit (contain detailed descriptions of the subject matter in unambiguous terms), logically rigorous (make use of logical systems shared and accepted by the practitioners in the field), empirically relevant (correspond to results of empirical research), useful (in describing and/or explaining the world), and provide typologies and predictions.
A scientific theory should resort to primitive (atomic) terminology and all its complex (derived) terms and concepts should be defined in these indivisible terms. It should offer a map unequivocally and consistently connecting operational definitions to theoretical concepts.
Operational definitions that connect to the same theoretical concept should not contradict each other (be negatively correlated). They should yield agreement on measurement conducted independently by trained experimenters. But investigation of the theory of its implication can proceed even without quantification.
Theoretical concepts need not necessarily be measurable or quantifiable or observable. But a scientific theory should afford at least four levels of quantification of its operational and theoretical definitions of concepts: nominal (labeling), ordinal (ranking), interval and ratio.
As we said, scientific theories are not confined to quantified definitions or to a classificatory apparatus. To qualify as scientific they must contain statements about relationships (mostly causal) between concepts - empirically-supported laws and/or propositions (statements derived from axioms).
Philosophers like Carl Hempel and Ernest Nagel regard a theory as scientific if it is hypothetico-deductive. To them, scientific theories are sets of inter-related laws. We know that they are inter-related because a minimum number of axioms and hypotheses yield, in an inexorable deductive sequence, everything else known in the field the theory pertains to.
Explanation is about retrodiction - using the laws to show how things happened. Prediction is using the laws to show how things will happen. Understanding is explanation and prediction combined.
William Whewell augmented this somewhat simplistic point of view with his principle of "consilience of inductions". Often, he observed, inductive explanations of disparate phenomena are unexpectedly traced to one underlying cause. This is what scientific theorizing is about - finding the common source of the apparently separate.
This omnipotent view of the scientific endeavor competes with a more modest, semantic school of philosophy of science.
Many theories - especially ones with breadth, width, and profundity, such as Darwin's theory of evolution - are not deductively integrated and are very difficult to test (falsify) conclusively. Their predictions are either scant or ambiguous.
Scientific theories, goes the semantic view, are amalgams of models of reality. These are empirically meaningful only inasmuch as they are empirically (directly and therefore semantically) applicable to a limited area. A typical scientific theory is not constructed with explanatory and predictive aims in mind. Quite the opposite: the choice of models incorporated in it dictates its ultimate success in explaining the Universe and predicting the outcomes of experiments.
Are psychological theories scientific theories by any definition (prescriptive or descriptive)?
Hardly.
First, we must distinguish between psychological theories and the way that some of them are applied (psychotherapy and psychological plots). Psychological plots are the narratives co-authored by the therapist and the patient during psychotherapy. These narratives are the outcomes of applying psychological theories and models to the patient's specific circumstances.
Psychological plots amount to storytelling - but they are still instances of the psychological theories used. The instances of theoretical concepts in concrete situations form part of every theory. Actually, the only way to test psychological theories - with their dearth of measurable entities and concepts - is by examining such instances (plots).
Storytelling has been with us since the days of campfire and besieging wild animals. It serves a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (predictability and justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce new or additional theories and so on.
We are all endowed with a sense of wonder. The world around us in inexplicable, baffling in its diversity and myriad forms. We experience an urge to organize it, to "explain the wonder away", to order it so that we know what to expect next (predict). These are the essentials of survival. But while we have been successful at imposing our mind on the outside world - we have been much less successful when we tried to explain and comprehend our internal universe and our behavior.
Psychology is not an exact science, nor can it ever be. This is because its "raw material" (humans and their behavior as individuals and en masse) is not exact. It will never yield natural laws or universal constants (like in physics). Experimentation in the field is constrained by legal and ethical rules. Humans tend to be opinionated, develop resistance, and become self-conscious when observed.
The relationship between the structure and functioning of our (ephemeral) mind, the structure and modes of operation of our (physical) brain, and the structure and conduct of the outside world have been a matter for heated debate for millennia.
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought:
One camp identify the substrate (brain) with its product (mind). Some of these scholars postulate the existence of a lattice of preconceived, born, categorical knowledge about the universe - the vessels into which we pour our experience and which mould it.
Others within this group regard the mind as a black box. While it is possible in principle to know its input and output, it is impossible, again in principle, to understand its internal functioning and management of information. To describe this input-output mechanism, Pavlov coined the word "conditioning", Watson adopted it and invented "behaviorism", Skinner came up with "reinforcement".
Epiphenomenologists (proponents of theories of emergent phenomena) regard the mind as the by-product of the complexity of the brain's "hardware" and "wiring". But all of them ignore the psychophysical question: what IS the mind and HOW is it linked to the brain?
The other camp assumes the airs of "scientific" and "positivist" thinking. It speculates that the mind (whether a physical entity, an epiphenomenon, a non-physical principle of organization, or the result of introspection) has a structure and a limited set of functions. It is argued that a "mind owner's manual" could be composed, replete with engineering and maintenance instructions. It proffers a dynamics of the psyche.
The most prominent of these "psychodynamists" was, of course, Freud. Though his disciples (Adler, Horney, the object-relations lot) diverged wildly from his initial theories, they all shared his belief in the need to "scientify" and objectify psychology.
Freud, a medical doctor by profession (neurologist) - preceded by another M.D., Josef Breuer - put forth a theory regarding the structure of the mind and its mechanics: (suppressed) energies and (reactive) forces. Flow charts were provided together with a method of analysis, a mathematical physics of the mind.
Many hold all psychodynamic theories to be a mirage. An essential part is missing, they observe: the ability to test the hypotheses, which derive from these "theories". Though very convincing and, surprisingly, possessed of great explanatory powers, being non-verifiable and non-falsifiable as they are - psychodynamic models of the mind cannot be deemed to possess the redeeming features of scientific theories.
Deciding between the two camps was and is a crucial matter. Consider the clash - however repressed - between psychiatry and psychology. The former regards "mental disorders" as euphemisms - it acknowledges only the reality of brain dysfunctions (such as biochemical or electric imbalances) and of hereditary factors. The latter (psychology) implicitly assumes that something exists (the "mind", the "psyche") which cannot be reduced to hardware or to wiring diagrams. Talk therapy is aimed at that something and supposedly interacts with it.
But perhaps the distinction is artificial.
Perhaps the mind is simply the way we experience our brains. Endowed with the gift (or curse) of introspection, we experience a duality, a split, constantly being both observer and observed. Moreover, talk therapy involves TALKING - which is the transfer of energy from one brain to another through the air. This is a directed, specifically formed energy, intended to trigger certain circuits in the recipient brain. It should come as no surprise if it were to be discovered that talk therapy has clear physiological effects upon the brain of the patient (blood volume, electrical activity, discharge and absorption of hormones, etc.).
All this would be doubly true if the mind were, indeed, only an emergent phenomenon of the complex brain - two sides of the same coin.
Psychological theories of the mind are metaphors of the mind. They are fables and myths, narratives, stories, hypotheses, conjunctures. They play (exceedingly) important roles in the psychotherapeutic setting - but not in the laboratory. Their form is artistic, not rigorous, not testable, less structured than theories in the natural sciences. The language used is polyvalent, rich, effusive, ambiguous, evocative, and fuzzy - in short, metaphorical. These theories are suffused with value judgments, preferences, fears, post facto and ad hoc constructions. None of this has methodological, systematic, analytic and predictive merits.
Still, the theories in psychology are powerful instruments, admirable constructs, and they satisfy important needs to explain and understand ourselves, our interactions with others, and with our environment.
The attainment of peace of mind is a need, which was neglected by Maslow in his famous hierarchy. People sometimes sacrifice material wealth and welfare, resist temptations, forgo opportunities, and risk their lives - in order to secure it. There is, in other words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis. It is the fulfillment of this overwhelming need that psychological theories cater to. In this, they are no different to other collective narratives (myths, for instance).
Still, psychology is desperately trying to maintain contact with reality and to be thought of as a scientific discipline. It employs observation and measurement and organizes the results, often presenting them in the language of mathematics. In some quarters, these practices lends it an air of credibility and rigorousness. Others snidely regard the as an elaborate camouflage and a sham. Psychology, they insist, is a pseudo-science. It has the trappings of science but not its substance.
Worse still, while historical narratives are rigid and immutable, the application of psychological theories (in the form of psychotherapy) is "tailored" and "customized" to the circumstances of each and every patient (client). The user or consumer is incorporated in the resulting narrative as the main hero (or anti-hero). This flexible "production line" seems to be the result of an age of increasing individualism.
True, the "language units" (large chunks of denotates and connotates) used in psychology and psychotherapy are one and the same, regardless of the identity of the patient and his therapist. In psychoanalysis, the analyst is likely to always employ the tripartite structure (Id, Ego, Superego). But these are merely the language elements and need not be confused with the idiosyncratic plots that are weaved in every encounter. Each client, each person, and his own, unique, irreplicable, plot.
To qualify as a "psychological" (both meaningful and instrumental) plot, the narrative, offered to the patient by the therapist, must be:
1.. All-inclusive (anamnetic) - It must encompass, integrate and incorporate all the facts known about the protagonist. 2.. Coherent - It must be chronological, structured and causal. 3.. Consistent - Self-consistent (its subplots cannot contradict one another or go against the grain of the main plot) and consistent with the observed phenomena (both those related to the protagonist and those pertaining to the rest of the universe). 4.. Logically compatible - It must not violate the laws of logic both internally (the plot must abide by some internally imposed logic) and externally (the Aristotelian logic which is applicable to the observable world). 5.. Insightful (diagnostic) - It must inspire in the client a sense of awe and astonishment which is the result of seeing something familiar in a new light or the result of seeing a pattern emerging out of a big body of data. The insights must constitute the inevitable conclusion of the logic, the language, and of the unfolding of the plot. 6.. Aesthetic - The plot must be both plausible and "right", beautiful, not cumbersome, not awkward, not discontinuous, smooth, parsimonious, simple, and so on. 7.. Parsimonious - The plot must employ the minimum numbers of assumptions and entities in order to satisfy all the above conditions. 8.. Explanatory - The plot must explain the behavior of other characters in the plot, the hero's decisions and behavior, why events developed the way they did. 9.. Predictive (prognostic) - The plot must possess the ability to predict future events, the future behavior of the hero and of other meaningful figures and the inner emotional and cognitive dynamics. 10.. Therapeutic - With the power to induce change, encourage functionality, make the patient happier and more content with himself (ego-syntony), with others, and with his circumstances. 11.. Imposing - The plot must be regarded by the client as the preferable organizing principle of his life's events and a torch to guide him in the dark (vade mecum). 12.. Elastic - The plot must possess the intrinsic abilities to self organize, reorganize, give room to emerging order, accommodate new data comfortably, and react flexibly to attacks from within and from without.
In all these respects, a psychological plot is a theory in disguise. Scientific theories satisfy most of the above conditions as well. But this apparent identity is flawed. The important elements of testability, verifiability, refutability, falsifiability, and repeatability - are all largely missing from psychological theories and plots. No experiment could be designed to test the statements within the plot, to establish their truth-value and, thus, to convert them to theorems or hypotheses in a theory.
There are four reasons to account for this inability to test and prove (or falsify) psychological theories:
1.. Ethical - Experiments would have to be conducted, involving the patient and others. To achieve the necessary result, the subjects will have to be ignorant of the reasons for the experiments and their aims. Sometimes even the very performance of an experiment will have to remain a secret (double blind experiments). Some experiments may involve unpleasant or even traumatic experiences. This is ethically unacceptable. 2.. The Psychological Uncertainty Principle - The initial state of a human subject in an experiment is usually fully established. But both treatment and experimentation influence the subject and render this knowledge irrelevant. The very processes of measurement and observation influence the human subject and transform him or her - as do life's circumstances and vicissitudes. 3.. Uniqueness - Psychological experiments are, therefore, bound to be unique, unrepeatable, cannot be replicated elsewhere and at other times even when they are conducted with the SAME subjects. This is because the subjects are never the same due to the aforementioned psychological uncertainty principle. Repeating the experiments with other subjects adversely affects the scientific value of the results. 4.. The undergeneration of testable hypotheses - Psychology does not generate a sufficient number of hypotheses, which can be subjected to scientific testing. This has to do with the fabulous (=storytelling) nature of psychology.
***
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
All theories - scientific or not - start with a problem. They aim to solve it by proving that what appears to be "problematic" is not. They re-state the conundrum, or introduce new data, new variables, a new classification, or new organizing principles. They incorporate the problem in a larger body of knowledge, or in a conjecture ("solution"). They explain why we thought we had an issue on our hands - and how it can be avoided, vitiated, or resolved.
Scientific theories invite constant criticism and revision. They yield new problems. They are proven erroneous and are replaced by new models which offer better explanations and a more profound sense of understanding - often by solving these new problems. From time to time, the successor theories constitute a break with everything known and done till then. These seismic convulsions are known as "paradigm shifts".
Contrary to widespread opinion - even among scientists - science is not only about "facts". It is not merely about quantifying, measuring, describing, classifying, and organizing "things" (entities). It is not even concerned with finding out the "truth".
Science is about providing us with concepts, explanations, and predictions (collectively known as "theories") and thus endowing us with a sense of understanding of our world.
Scientific theories are allegorical or metaphoric. They revolve around symbols and theoretical constructs, concepts and substantive assumptions, axioms and hypotheses - most of which can never, even in principle, be computed, observed, quantified, measured, or correlated with the world "out there".
By appealing to our imagination, scientific theories reveal what David Deutsch calls "the fabric of reality".
Like any other system of knowledge, science has its fanatics, heretics, and deviants.
Instrumentalists, for instance, insist that scientific theories should be concerned exclusively with predicting the outcomes of appropriately designed experiments. Their explanatory powers are of no consequence. Positivists ascribe meaning only to statements that deal with observables and observations.
Instrumentalists and positivists ignore the fact that predictions are derived from models, narratives, and organizing principles. In short: it is the theory's explanatory dimensions that determine which experiments are relevant and which are not. Forecasts - and experiments - that are not embedded in an understanding of the world (in an explanation) do not constitute science.
Granted, predictions and experiments are crucial to the growth of scientific knowledge and the winnowing out of erroneous or inadequate theories. But they are not the only mechanisms of natural selection. There are other criteria that help us decide whether to adopt and place confidence in a scientific theory or not. Is the theory aesthetic (parsimonious), logical, does it provide a reasonable explanation and, thus, does it further our understanding of the world?
David Deutsch in "The Fabric of Reality" (p. 11):
"... (I)t is hard to give a precise definition of 'explanation' or 'understanding'. Roughly speaking, they are about 'why' rather than 'what'; about the inner workings of things; about how things really are, not just how they appear to be; about what must be so, rather than what merely happens to be so; about laws of nature rather than rules of thumb. They are also about coherence, elegance, and simplicity, as opposed to arbitrariness and complexity ..."
Reductionists and emergentists ignore the existence of a hierarchy of scientific theories and meta-languages. They believe - and it is an article of faith, not of science - that complex phenomena (such as the human mind) can be reduced to simple ones (such as the physics and chemistry of the brain). Furthermore, to them the act of reduction is, in itself, an explanation and a form of pertinent understanding. Human thought, fantasy, imagination, and emotions are nothing but electric currents and spurts of chemicals in the brain, they say.
Holists, on the other hand, refuse to consider the possibility that some higher-level phenomena can, indeed, be fully reduced to base components and primitive interactions. They ignore the fact that reductionism sometimes does provide explanations and understanding. The properties of water, for instance, do spring forth from its chemical and physical composition and from the interactions between its constituent atoms and subatomic particles.
Still, there is a general agreement that scientific theories must be abstract (independent of specific time or place), intersubjectively explicit (contain detailed descriptions of the subject matter in unambiguous terms), logically rigorous (make use of logical systems shared and accepted by the practitioners in the field), empirically relevant (correspond to results of empirical research), useful (in describing and/or explaining the world), and provide typologies and predictions.
A scientific theory should resort to primitive (atomic) terminology and all its complex (derived) terms and concepts should be defined in these indivisible terms. It should offer a map unequivocally and consistently connecting operational definitions to theoretical concepts.
Operational definitions that connect to the same theoretical concept should not contradict each other (be negatively correlated). They should yield agreement on measurement conducted independently by trained experimenters. But investigation of the theory of its implication can proceed even without quantification.
Theoretical concepts need not necessarily be measurable or quantifiable or observable. But a scientific theory should afford at least four levels of quantification of its operational and theoretical definitions of concepts: nominal (labeling), ordinal (ranking), interval and ratio.
As we said, scientific theories are not confined to quantified definitions or to a classificatory apparatus. To qualify as scientific they must contain statements about relationships (mostly causal) between concepts - empirically-supported laws and/or propositions (statements derived from axioms).
Philosophers like Carl Hempel and Ernest Nagel regard a theory as scientific if it is hypothetico-deductive. To them, scientific theories are sets of inter-related laws. We know that they are inter-related because a minimum number of axioms and hypotheses yield, in an inexorable deductive sequence, everything else known in the field the theory pertains to.
Explanation is about retrodiction - using the laws to show how things happened. Prediction is using the laws to show how things will happen. Understanding is explanation and prediction combined.
William Whewell augmented this somewhat simplistic point of view with his principle of "consilience of inductions". Often, he observed, inductive explanations of disparate phenomena are unexpectedly traced to one underlying cause. This is what scientific theorizing is about - finding the common source of the apparently separate.
This omnipotent view of the scientific endeavor competes with a more modest, semantic school of philosophy of science.
Many theories - especially ones with breadth, width, and profundity, such as Darwin's theory of evolution - are not deductively integrated and are very difficult to test (falsify) conclusively. Their predictions are either scant or ambiguous.
Scientific theories, goes the semantic view, are amalgams of models of reality. These are empirically meaningful only inasmuch as they are empirically (directly and therefore semantically) applicable to a limited area. A typical scientific theory is not constructed with explanatory and predictive aims in mind. Quite the opposite: the choice of models incorporated in it dictates its ultimate success in explaining the Universe and predicting the outcomes of experiments.
Are psychological theories scientific theories by any definition (prescriptive or descriptive)?
Hardly.
First, we must distinguish between psychological theories and the way that some of them are applied (psychotherapy and psychological plots). Psychological plots are the narratives co-authored by the therapist and the patient during psychotherapy. These narratives are the outcomes of applying psychological theories and models to the patient's specific circumstances.
Psychological plots amount to storytelling - but they are still instances of the psychological theories used. The instances of theoretical concepts in concrete situations form part of every theory. Actually, the only way to test psychological theories - with their dearth of measurable entities and concepts - is by examining such instances (plots).
Storytelling has been with us since the days of campfire and besieging wild animals. It serves a number of important functions: amelioration of fears, communication of vital information (regarding survival tactics and the characteristics of animals, for instance), the satisfaction of a sense of order (predictability and justice), the development of the ability to hypothesize, predict and introduce new or additional theories and so on.
We are all endowed with a sense of wonder. The world around us in inexplicable, baffling in its diversity and myriad forms. We experience an urge to organize it, to "explain the wonder away", to order it so that we know what to expect next (predict). These are the essentials of survival. But while we have been successful at imposing our mind on the outside world - we have been much less successful when we tried to explain and comprehend our internal universe and our behavior.
Psychology is not an exact science, nor can it ever be. This is because its "raw material" (humans and their behavior as individuals and en masse) is not exact. It will never yield natural laws or universal constants (like in physics). Experimentation in the field is constrained by legal and ethical rules. Humans tend to be opinionated, develop resistance, and become self-conscious when observed.
The relationship between the structure and functioning of our (ephemeral) mind, the structure and modes of operation of our (physical) brain, and the structure and conduct of the outside world have been a matter for heated debate for millennia.
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought:
One camp identify the substrate (brain) with its product (mind). Some of these scholars postulate the existence of a lattice of preconceived, born, categorical knowledge about the universe - the vessels into which we pour our experience and which mould it.
Others within this group regard the mind as a black box. While it is possible in principle to know its input and output, it is impossible, again in principle, to understand its internal functioning and management of information. To describe this input-output mechanism, Pavlov coined the word "conditioning", Watson adopted it and invented "behaviorism", Skinner came up with "reinforcement".
Epiphenomenologists (proponents of theories of emergent phenomena) regard the mind as the by-product of the complexity of the brain's "hardware" and "wiring". But all of them ignore the psychophysical question: what IS the mind and HOW is it linked to the brain?
The other camp assumes the airs of "scientific" and "positivist" thinking. It speculates that the mind (whether a physical entity, an epiphenomenon, a non-physical principle of organization, or the result of introspection) has a structure and a limited set of functions. It is argued that a "mind owner's manual" could be composed, replete with engineering and maintenance instructions. It proffers a dynamics of the psyche.
The most prominent of these "psychodynamists" was, of course, Freud. Though his disciples (Adler, Horney, the object-relations lot) diverged wildly from his initial theories, they all shared his belief in the need to "scientify" and objectify psychology.
Freud, a medical doctor by profession (neurologist) - preceded by another M.D., Josef Breuer - put forth a theory regarding the structure of the mind and its mechanics: (suppressed) energies and (reactive) forces. Flow charts were provided together with a method of analysis, a mathematical physics of the mind.
Many hold all psychodynamic theories to be a mirage. An essential part is missing, they observe: the ability to test the hypotheses, which derive from these "theories". Though very convincing and, surprisingly, possessed of great explanatory powers, being non-verifiable and non-falsifiable as they are - psychodynamic models of the mind cannot be deemed to possess the redeeming features of scientific theories.
Deciding between the two camps was and is a crucial matter. Consider the clash - however repressed - between psychiatry and psychology. The former regards "mental disorders" as euphemisms - it acknowledges only the reality of brain dysfunctions (such as biochemical or electric imbalances) and of hereditary factors. The latter (psychology) implicitly assumes that something exists (the "mind", the "psyche") which cannot be reduced to hardware or to wiring diagrams. Talk therapy is aimed at that something and supposedly interacts with it.
But perhaps the distinction is artificial.
Perhaps the mind is simply the way we experience our brains. Endowed with the gift (or curse) of introspection, we experience a duality, a split, constantly being both observer and observed. Moreover, talk therapy involves TALKING - which is the transfer of energy from one brain to another through the air. This is a directed, specifically formed energy, intended to trigger certain circuits in the recipient brain. It should come as no surprise if it were to be discovered that talk therapy has clear physiological effects upon the brain of the patient (blood volume, electrical activity, discharge and absorption of hormones, etc.).
All this would be doubly true if the mind were, indeed, only an emergent phenomenon of the complex brain - two sides of the same coin.
Psychological theories of the mind are metaphors of the mind. They are fables and myths, narratives, stories, hypotheses, conjunctures. They play (exceedingly) important roles in the psychotherapeutic setting - but not in the laboratory. Their form is artistic, not rigorous, not testable, less structured than theories in the natural sciences. The language used is polyvalent, rich, effusive, ambiguous, evocative, and fuzzy - in short, metaphorical. These theories are suffused with value judgments, preferences, fears, post facto and ad hoc constructions. None of this has methodological, systematic, analytic and predictive merits.
Still, the theories in psychology are powerful instruments, admirable constructs, and they satisfy important needs to explain and understand ourselves, our interactions with others, and with our environment.
The attainment of peace of mind is a need, which was neglected by Maslow in his famous hierarchy. People sometimes sacrifice material wealth and welfare, resist temptations, forgo opportunities, and risk their lives - in order to secure it. There is, in other words, a preference of inner equilibrium over homeostasis. It is the fulfillment of this overwhelming need that psychological theories cater to. In this, they are no different to other collective narratives (myths, for instance).
Still, psychology is desperately trying to maintain contact with reality and to be thought of as a scientific discipline. It employs observation and measurement and organizes the results, often presenting them in the language of mathematics. In some quarters, these practices lends it an air of credibility and rigorousness. Others snidely regard the as an elaborate camouflage and a sham. Psychology, they insist, is a pseudo-science. It has the trappings of science but not its substance.
Worse still, while historical narratives are rigid and immutable, the application of psychological theories (in the form of psychotherapy) is "tailored" and "customized" to the circumstances of each and every patient (client). The user or consumer is incorporated in the resulting narrative as the main hero (or anti-hero). This flexible "production line" seems to be the result of an age of increasing individualism.
True, the "language units" (large chunks of denotates and connotates) used in psychology and psychotherapy are one and the same, regardless of the identity of the patient and his therapist. In psychoanalysis, the analyst is likely to always employ the tripartite structure (Id, Ego, Superego). But these are merely the language elements and need not be confused with the idiosyncratic plots that are weaved in every encounter. Each client, each person, and his own, unique, irreplicable, plot.
To qualify as a "psychological" (both meaningful and instrumental) plot, the narrative, offered to the patient by the therapist, must be:
1.. All-inclusive (anamnetic) - It must encompass, integrate and incorporate all the facts known about the protagonist. 2.. Coherent - It must be chronological, structured and causal. 3.. Consistent - Self-consistent (its subplots cannot contradict one another or go against the grain of the main plot) and consistent with the observed phenomena (both those related to the protagonist and those pertaining to the rest of the universe). 4.. Logically compatible - It must not violate the laws of logic both internally (the plot must abide by some internally imposed logic) and externally (the Aristotelian logic which is applicable to the observable world). 5.. Insightful (diagnostic) - It must inspire in the client a sense of awe and astonishment which is the result of seeing something familiar in a new light or the result of seeing a pattern emerging out of a big body of data. The insights must constitute the inevitable conclusion of the logic, the language, and of the unfolding of the plot. 6.. Aesthetic - The plot must be both plausible and "right", beautiful, not cumbersome, not awkward, not discontinuous, smooth, parsimonious, simple, and so on. 7.. Parsimonious - The plot must employ the minimum numbers of assumptions and entities in order to satisfy all the above conditions. 8.. Explanatory - The plot must explain the behavior of other characters in the plot, the hero's decisions and behavior, why events developed the way they did. 9.. Predictive (prognostic) - The plot must possess the ability to predict future events, the future behavior of the hero and of other meaningful figures and the inner emotional and cognitive dynamics. 10.. Therapeutic - With the power to induce change, encourage functionality, make the patient happier and more content with himself (ego-syntony), with others, and with his circumstances. 11.. Imposing - The plot must be regarded by the client as the preferable organizing principle of his life's events and a torch to guide him in the dark (vade mecum). 12.. Elastic - The plot must possess the intrinsic abilities to self organize, reorganize, give room to emerging order, accommodate new data comfortably, and react flexibly to attacks from within and from without.
In all these respects, a psychological plot is a theory in disguise. Scientific theories satisfy most of the above conditions as well. But this apparent identity is flawed. The important elements of testability, verifiability, refutability, falsifiability, and repeatability - are all largely missing from psychological theories and plots. No experiment could be designed to test the statements within the plot, to establish their truth-value and, thus, to convert them to theorems or hypotheses in a theory.
There are four reasons to account for this inability to test and prove (or falsify) psychological theories:
1.. Ethical - Experiments would have to be conducted, involving the patient and others. To achieve the necessary result, the subjects will have to be ignorant of the reasons for the experiments and their aims. Sometimes even the very performance of an experiment will have to remain a secret (double blind experiments). Some experiments may involve unpleasant or even traumatic experiences. This is ethically unacceptable. 2.. The Psychological Uncertainty Principle - The initial state of a human subject in an experiment is usually fully established. But both treatment and experimentation influence the subject and render this knowledge irrelevant. The very processes of measurement and observation influence the human subject and transform him or her - as do life's circumstances and vicissitudes. 3.. Uniqueness - Psychological experiments are, therefore, bound to be unique, unrepeatable, cannot be replicated elsewhere and at other times even when they are conducted with the SAME subjects. This is because the subjects are never the same due to the aforementioned psychological uncertainty principle. Repeating the experiments with other subjects adversely affects the scientific value of the results. 4.. The undergeneration of testable hypotheses - Psychology does not generate a sufficient number of hypotheses, which can be subjected to scientific testing. This has to do with the fabulous (=storytelling) nature of psychology.
In a way, psychology has affinity with some private languages. It is a form of art and, as such, is self-sufficient and self-contained. If structural, internal constraints are met - a statement is deemed true even if it does not satisfy external scientific requirements. So, what are psychological theories and plots good for? They are the instruments used in the procedures which induce peace of mind (even happiness) in the client. This is done with the help of a few embedded mechanisms:
1.. The Organizing Principle - Psychological plots offer the client an organizing principle, a sense of order, meaningfulness, and justice, an inexorable drive toward well defined (though, perhaps, hidden) goals, the feeling of being part of a whole. They strive to answer the "why's" and "how's" of life. They are dialogic. The client asks: "why am I (suffering from a syndrome) and how (can I successfully tackle it)". Then, the plot is spun: "you are like this not because the world is whimsically cruel but because your parents mistreated you when you were very young, or because a person important to you died, or was taken away from you when you were still impressionable, or because you were sexually abused and so on". The client is becalmed by the very fact that there is an explanation to that which until now monstrously taunted and haunted him, that he is not the plaything of vicious Gods, that there is a culprit (focusing his diffuse anger). His belief in the existence of order and justice and their administration by some supreme, transcendental principle is restored. This sense of "law and order" is further enhanced when the plot yields predictions which come true (either because they are self-fulfilling or because some real, underlying "law" has been discovered).
2.. The Integrative Principle - The client is offered, through the plot, access to the innermost, hitherto inaccessible, recesses of his mind. He feels that he is being reintegrated, that "things fall into place". In psychodynamic terms, the energy is released to do productive and positive work, rather than to induce distorted and destructive forces.
3.. The Purgatory Principle - In most cases, the client feels sinful, debased, inhuman, decrepit, corrupting, guilty, punishable, hateful, alienated, strange, mocked and so on. The plot offers him absolution. The client's suffering expurgates, cleanses, absolves, and atones for his sins and handicaps. A feeling of hard won achievement accompanies a successful plot. The client sheds layers of functional, adaptive stratagems rendered dysfunctional and maladaptive. This is inordinately painful. The client feels dangerously naked, precariously exposed. He then assimilates the plot offered to him, thus enjoying the benefits emanating from the previous two principles and only then does he develop new mechanisms of coping. Therapy is a mental crucifixion and resurrection and atonement for the patient's sins. It is a religious experience. Psychological theories and plots are in the role of the scriptures from which solace and consolation can be always gleaned.
1.. The Organizing Principle - Psychological plots offer the client an organizing principle, a sense of order, meaningfulness, and justice, an inexorable drive toward well defined (though, perhaps, hidden) goals, the feeling of being part of a whole. They strive to answer the "why's" and "how's" of life. They are dialogic. The client asks: "why am I (suffering from a syndrome) and how (can I successfully tackle it)". Then, the plot is spun: "you are like this not because the world is whimsically cruel but because your parents mistreated you when you were very young, or because a person important to you died, or was taken away from you when you were still impressionable, or because you were sexually abused and so on". The client is becalmed by the very fact that there is an explanation to that which until now monstrously taunted and haunted him, that he is not the plaything of vicious Gods, that there is a culprit (focusing his diffuse anger). His belief in the existence of order and justice and their administration by some supreme, transcendental principle is restored. This sense of "law and order" is further enhanced when the plot yields predictions which come true (either because they are self-fulfilling or because some real, underlying "law" has been discovered).
2.. The Integrative Principle - The client is offered, through the plot, access to the innermost, hitherto inaccessible, recesses of his mind. He feels that he is being reintegrated, that "things fall into place". In psychodynamic terms, the energy is released to do productive and positive work, rather than to induce distorted and destructive forces.
3.. The Purgatory Principle - In most cases, the client feels sinful, debased, inhuman, decrepit, corrupting, guilty, punishable, hateful, alienated, strange, mocked and so on. The plot offers him absolution. The client's suffering expurgates, cleanses, absolves, and atones for his sins and handicaps. A feeling of hard won achievement accompanies a successful plot. The client sheds layers of functional, adaptive stratagems rendered dysfunctional and maladaptive. This is inordinately painful. The client feels dangerously naked, precariously exposed. He then assimilates the plot offered to him, thus enjoying the benefits emanating from the previous two principles and only then does he develop new mechanisms of coping. Therapy is a mental crucifixion and resurrection and atonement for the patient's sins. It is a religious experience. Psychological theories and plots are in the role of the scriptures from which solace and consolation can be always gleaned.
***
**
*
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician, Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
Apostrophes, a gentle introduction
Apostrophes are a common source of confusion for many writers. They needn't be, though, and this easy-to-follow article will help you to use them properly. Let's start with a very simple explanation of what a noun is. (Don't worry, this will be the only jargon in the entire article. I promise.)
A NOUN is a word that stands for a person or thing. Examples include "dog", "Tim", "love", "house" and "Ireland".
SINGULAR NOUNS stand for a single person or thing; for example, "chair".
PLURAL NOUNS stand for several people or things; for example, "chairs".
A NOUN is a word that stands for a person or thing. Examples include "dog", "Tim", "love", "house" and "Ireland".
SINGULAR NOUNS stand for a single person or thing; for example, "chair".
PLURAL NOUNS stand for several people or things; for example, "chairs".
Sometimes my heart Breathes on Paper
Sometimes My Heart Breathes on Paper © 2004 Julie Jordan Scott"Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."Charles DickensSometimes my heart breathes on paper.It pours stuff out that I didn't even know was there, way deep down in the bottom of the well, feelings and colors and sounds and tastes and wretched memories tumble forth.I sometimes get embarrassed by the volume or the pitch or the vulnerable place I put myself -apparently voluntarily only it doesn't feel like I am the one doing the volunteering."Why did you have to go and do that!" my inner critic mocks. "You went and made a fool of yourself again. Why can't you just be satisfied with being like everyone else?"Sometimes my inner critic looks remarkably like my eldest brother. Sometimes my inner critic looks like Miss Pizarro, my third grade teacher. Sometimes my inner critic looks exactly like my reflection in the mirror when I wake up after an unsatisfying sleep.I have learned to gently hush the harshness of my critic because when my heart breathes on the paper, magic happens. I connect to the divine. I move effortlessly through history, space and time by listening to the rhythmic pulses of my heart, the responding woooosh of the blood through my veins as it celebrates, rejoicing "I will keep beating, yes, I will take care of you, yes - I love you."Long ago William Woodsworth wrote the words, "Fill the paper with the breathings of your heart" and his breathings have now reached across the ages to your breathings and your heart. He climbed over and past his critic, through his failures and successes, celebrated the rhythmic pulses and responding wooosh to be a part of your life today. His legacy remains beyond the words alone.Maxwell Anderson wrote: "If you practice an art, be proud of it and make it proud of you. It will fill your heart. "Yes, Mr. Anderson, it will fill your heart. And if we are especially blessed, it will fill the hearts of others as well.Pulse by pulse, breath by breath, yes by yes, word by word.
Article Source: Spin a Silver Dollar
Writer and Success Coach Julie Jordan Scott announces a new way for you to inspire, encourage, nourish, applaud, energize and activate your writing muse.... 42 Days of Writing Passionately -The Fr*e*e International Writing Workshop: Register now www.5passions.com/42daysofwritingpassionately.html
Article Source: Spin a Silver Dollar
Writer and Success Coach Julie Jordan Scott announces a new way for you to inspire, encourage, nourish, applaud, energize and activate your writing muse.... 42 Days of Writing Passionately -The Fr*e*e International Writing Workshop: Register now www.5passions.com/42daysofwritingpassionately.html
How To Write An Article for the Web
Most web-marketing experts tout the power of articles for their ability to create inbound links and enhanced credibility for websites.
But what they don't tell you is... how the heck do you write an article? You need two important elements for a great article: something to say and the means to say it. First let's discuss "something to say", otherwise known as content.
It is impossible to write something of interest to others without good, meaty content. Content comes from your interests and experiences. To generate content you need to look at yourself and your life in a new way. Look for situations in your day which "hit home" in some way.
If you are intrigued, frustrated, thrilled, challenged or otherwise awakened, then pursue the topic in greater depth. As you work and play, have an extra mental circuit running which observes your life. Let's pretend this circuit is a separate person, the Observer.
Now when you go along your way, occasionally become the Observer and try to cultivate a new point of view. The Observer is not mired in your day-to-day struggles. Instead, the Observer watches you struggling, with clear unemotional vision yet with humor and an interest in patterns and themes. Becoming the Observer will help you discover the interesting parts of your life which you can then bring to your reader. You can develop your golden nuggets of experience further by expressing them aloud to others (or even just to yourself). Through verbalization, you will find additional points of view and experiences of others to enrich your topic. Then, research your topic by word-searching on your favorite search engine.
Click the Title for the full, complete article.
But what they don't tell you is... how the heck do you write an article? You need two important elements for a great article: something to say and the means to say it. First let's discuss "something to say", otherwise known as content.
It is impossible to write something of interest to others without good, meaty content. Content comes from your interests and experiences. To generate content you need to look at yourself and your life in a new way. Look for situations in your day which "hit home" in some way.
If you are intrigued, frustrated, thrilled, challenged or otherwise awakened, then pursue the topic in greater depth. As you work and play, have an extra mental circuit running which observes your life. Let's pretend this circuit is a separate person, the Observer.
Now when you go along your way, occasionally become the Observer and try to cultivate a new point of view. The Observer is not mired in your day-to-day struggles. Instead, the Observer watches you struggling, with clear unemotional vision yet with humor and an interest in patterns and themes. Becoming the Observer will help you discover the interesting parts of your life which you can then bring to your reader. You can develop your golden nuggets of experience further by expressing them aloud to others (or even just to yourself). Through verbalization, you will find additional points of view and experiences of others to enrich your topic. Then, research your topic by word-searching on your favorite search engine.
Click the Title for the full, complete article.
Know the Cocoa Tree
If the day ever comes you want to include a cocoa tree in one of your books or stories, here is the information you need to make you knowledge look real.
Cocoa trees can grow as tall as fifty feet although they are usually kept pruned and kept much shorter to make it easier to harvest the cocoa bean pods.
The trees reach their maximum productivity when they are thirty to forty years old. A cocoa tree will live approximately sixty years.
The bean pods grow directly off the trunk and thicker main branches of the tree, not off the leaves as many people think. This is because the pods are heavy. The fragile leaf systems of the tree couldn’t support the weight of the pods.
A cocoa tree can have up to one hundred thousand baby-pink and white blossoms every year. The blossoms have no scent. The leaves of the tree vary in color. Young leaves can be pale green, lavender, or purple in color. Mature leaves are dark green. The pods start out green but turn yellow or red when ripe, depending on what type of cocoa tree it is.
There are two main types of cocoa trees. There is the native Central American cocoa tree called the Criollo, and a type called Forastero which is grown mostly in West Africa and Brazil. The Forastero trees produces approximately ninety percent of the world’s crop of cocoa beans. The beans from the Criollo are more expensive and are used in high quality chocolate.
Cocoa trees like shade so other tropical trees such as banana trees are planted right next to the cocoa trees. These larger trees that provide shade for the cocoa trees are often called “cocoa mother trees.”
The cocoa trees start producing cocoa bean pods after three or four years and continue producing pods for approximately another thirty five years. In most areas, harvesting of the cocoa pods is done twice a year. Ripe pods are approximately eight inches long and three to four inches in diameter. The ripe pods are cut by hand in order to protect the younger pods that are still ripening.
After the pods are cut from the tree they are taken to a fermenting area. There the pods are split open to reveal the pulp and cocoa beans. There are up to forty cocoa beans in every pod. The pulp and beans are scooped out of the pod, placed on banana leaves that are usually laid on the ground (fermenting is also done in baskets and also in large sloping boxes), and then covered with more banana leaves. The pods are left to ferment for several days.
As the beans ferment they lose some of their bitterness and change from a lavender or white color to brown. The fermenting process is important because that is when the beans take on the chocolate taste we are accustomed to. During the fermenting process the beans lose some of their moisture. By the time the beans are ready to be packed in bags for shipping, the moisture content in them is somewhere around five to seven percent.
Dorrie Ruplinger is the publisher of http://www.chocolateistheanswer.com which provides information and resources about Door County Wisconsin parks.
Cocoa trees can grow as tall as fifty feet although they are usually kept pruned and kept much shorter to make it easier to harvest the cocoa bean pods.
The trees reach their maximum productivity when they are thirty to forty years old. A cocoa tree will live approximately sixty years.
The bean pods grow directly off the trunk and thicker main branches of the tree, not off the leaves as many people think. This is because the pods are heavy. The fragile leaf systems of the tree couldn’t support the weight of the pods.
A cocoa tree can have up to one hundred thousand baby-pink and white blossoms every year. The blossoms have no scent. The leaves of the tree vary in color. Young leaves can be pale green, lavender, or purple in color. Mature leaves are dark green. The pods start out green but turn yellow or red when ripe, depending on what type of cocoa tree it is.
There are two main types of cocoa trees. There is the native Central American cocoa tree called the Criollo, and a type called Forastero which is grown mostly in West Africa and Brazil. The Forastero trees produces approximately ninety percent of the world’s crop of cocoa beans. The beans from the Criollo are more expensive and are used in high quality chocolate.
Cocoa trees like shade so other tropical trees such as banana trees are planted right next to the cocoa trees. These larger trees that provide shade for the cocoa trees are often called “cocoa mother trees.”
The cocoa trees start producing cocoa bean pods after three or four years and continue producing pods for approximately another thirty five years. In most areas, harvesting of the cocoa pods is done twice a year. Ripe pods are approximately eight inches long and three to four inches in diameter. The ripe pods are cut by hand in order to protect the younger pods that are still ripening.
After the pods are cut from the tree they are taken to a fermenting area. There the pods are split open to reveal the pulp and cocoa beans. There are up to forty cocoa beans in every pod. The pulp and beans are scooped out of the pod, placed on banana leaves that are usually laid on the ground (fermenting is also done in baskets and also in large sloping boxes), and then covered with more banana leaves. The pods are left to ferment for several days.
As the beans ferment they lose some of their bitterness and change from a lavender or white color to brown. The fermenting process is important because that is when the beans take on the chocolate taste we are accustomed to. During the fermenting process the beans lose some of their moisture. By the time the beans are ready to be packed in bags for shipping, the moisture content in them is somewhere around five to seven percent.
Dorrie Ruplinger is the publisher of http://www.chocolateistheanswer.com which provides information and resources about Door County Wisconsin parks.
The Published Novelist, Nine Essential Qualities
So what does it actually take to make it as a selling writer? And beyond that, what does it take to ride out the tough spots in a highly competitive field?
These are questions I get asked on a regular basis from readers, as well as people who are just plain curious about someone who chooses to sit alone for hours at a time, creating characters and whole lives out of thin air. Admittedly, they’re good questions. Following are nine qualities I believe are important in someone who wants to write novels for a living and make it a lasting career.
1. An absolute, bordering on abnormal, love of books.
We book fiends are easy to spot. We’re the ones who make several trips a week to Barnes & Noble --yes, we like the coffee, but we’re really there for the books. We peruse the new fiction titles with the same gleam in our eyes miners must have had when sifting for gold. Panning our findings for new authors whose stories might, just might, live up to those we’ve labeled our favorites. There’s always the possibility we’ll find a diamond somewhere in there. And when we do, it reinforces our determination to find another.
2. An absolute love of writing.
That is, a true appreciation for the stringing together of individual words to paint a picture for a reader, a picture that conveys our vision of the world as it is or as we would like it to be.
I wrote my first story at age nine on my mama’s old manual typewriter. I still remember how it felt to finish it, the thrill of stacking up the pages that were visible evidence of the mini-world I had created.
>From my earliest memories, I wanted to write stories that did for someone else what my favorites did for me. Show me another world. Bring to life people I’d be thrilled to know.
But how could someone like me be a writer? In my mind, writers were on par with neurosurgeons and physics professors, something way beyond reach for a small-town girl like me.
It wasn’t until I was a junior at Virginia Tech majoring in English that I admitted to myself this was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books. Farfetched as it sounded. I think for a long time I didn’t tell anyone. It just seemed too preposterous, as if they would laugh at the idea, and with good reason. I started my first manuscript while I was in college, longhand in a dark blue spiral ring notebook. It was set on an island somewhere, and I’m sure I would now find it all but unreadable, even though at the time, it was invaluable to me, proof that I could put a story on paper.
3. The desire to be the best writer you can be.
If you’re just starting out, give yourself permission to learn how to write without the pressure of thinking about getting published. When I wrote that first manuscript in college, my goal was to get published. I not only wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a published writer. From where I stand now, I wish I had approached the whole process from the angle of doing whatever I could to learn how to tell the best story I possibly could. I felt I had to prove myself, and it seemed to me then that publication was the ultimate proof that I could write.
If I could start over again, I would take a step back from the pressure I put on myself to sell and concentrate solely on learning how to tell my story in a way that would make it hard for a reader to put it down.
4. A need to surround yourself with positive writers and lovers of books.
If you get involved in a critique group, make sure it is one where the objective is to encourage and improve. Not tear down and belittle. There are people out there who are not careful with their words, who in a two minute diatribe can rip apart months and months of work and completely deflate a writer of all confidence.
Can you tell I’m speaking from experience?
It is so very important to make sure you are on the same page with your critique partners. Maybe even come up with a list of guidelines for the group. Discuss the things you are looking for in a critique.
If you’re in a writing class, make sure it is one where the above objectives are primary.
This is not to say that you only want to show your work to people who will tell you you’re the best thing since Fitzgerald and Faulkner. It is to say that there is constructive criticism, which we should all be willing and eager to seek out. And there is destructive criticism, which can completely destroy a writer’s vision and belief in herself.
5. The will to make a place in your life for writing.
This sounds obvious enough. But there are all sorts of reasons not to write. The mortgage needs to be paid. The children need to eat. Pesky little everyday responsibilities like these.
Seriously, I’ve gone through all sorts of changes in my life, but the one thing I’ve always done is find a time to write that works for me, regardless of what else is going on. When I was in college, I wrote after classes for a certain amount of time each day. When I got out of college and went to work for a law firm, I got up at four a.m. and wrote before going to the office. When I became a mother, I started writing before my children got up in the morning and also during their nap. The point is to give your writing a regular time slot. It’s the every day exercising of your writing muscle that will develop your skills and define your voice.
6. The determination to never let yourself believe you’re there.
Once you’ve sold that first novel, it’s tempting to tell yourself you’ve arrived, that it will be clear sailing from here on. Not quite how it worked for me. There is always room to grow. I try with every book to do something different than I’ve done before. Force myself to stretch in some way. Try something I previously thought was beyond my ability. It’s amazing what we can dredge up from inside ourselves if we make our goal being the best we can be with every book.
7. The commitment to figure out what your process is.
After selling my first book, I went through a period of not being able to sell a second. I sold my first novel as a complete manuscript. That book was a story of my heart, and I wrote it as I saw it. When my publisher asked to see something else, I submitted a couple of proposals that were rejected. And I figured out somewhere along the way that I needed to get a good portion of the story down before I let someone else see it.
I do sell on proposal now. But I write a chunk of the book before I write the synopsis. This is how I learn what is going to happen in the story. This is my process. I know this about myself now, and while it is tempting to show my editor something at a much earlier stage, I try very hard to refrain from doing so.
Figure out what your process is and don’t veer from it.
8. The ability to protect your gift.
Publishing is a tough business. An incredible number of people want to be writers. The competition to sell is intense.
When I had difficulty selling my second and third books, I began to wonder if I had what it took. I realize now how fragile my confidence was then and that I took those rejections as validation that I didn’t really have what it took to be a writer. By the time I finally sold that second book, I was experiencing all the symptoms of burnout. It was an extremely dark time in my life, and I walked away from writing under the assumption that it would never again be a part of me.
I didn’t write for two years. The desire to do so began to trickle back eventually, until I finally got up the courage to pull out my laptop and begin a story. I wrote the complete book the same way I had written my first published novel. Told the story as I saw it without letting anyone else inside my vision. I sold that book, John Riley’s Girl, and it won the 2005 Rita Award for best long contemporary. This award was more meaningful to me than I can say. I wrote this book because I love to write. After a two-year period of burnout, I was given another chance. I no longer see the well of creativity inside me as an infinite thing that I can draw and draw from, but, instead, as something that can and will dry up and go away if I am not careful to protect it.
9. The ability to step back and refill the well.
Find things that replenish your spirit. Take a vacation and do not allow yourself to write, but simply to absorb the world around you.
Read, read, read. Read great books. Don’t read mediocre books unless you want to be a mediocre writer. Strive for excellence and seek out excellence. And hopefully, your love affair with writing books will be a long and lasting one.
Inglath Cooper is the RITA Award-winning author of six published novels. Her books focus on the dynamics of relationships, those between a man and a woman, mother and daughter, sisters, friends. Her stories are often peopled with characters who reflect the values and traditions of the small Virginia town where she grew up. To read about her latest release, please visit her website at http://www.inglathcooper.com.
These are questions I get asked on a regular basis from readers, as well as people who are just plain curious about someone who chooses to sit alone for hours at a time, creating characters and whole lives out of thin air. Admittedly, they’re good questions. Following are nine qualities I believe are important in someone who wants to write novels for a living and make it a lasting career.
1. An absolute, bordering on abnormal, love of books.
We book fiends are easy to spot. We’re the ones who make several trips a week to Barnes & Noble --yes, we like the coffee, but we’re really there for the books. We peruse the new fiction titles with the same gleam in our eyes miners must have had when sifting for gold. Panning our findings for new authors whose stories might, just might, live up to those we’ve labeled our favorites. There’s always the possibility we’ll find a diamond somewhere in there. And when we do, it reinforces our determination to find another.
2. An absolute love of writing.
That is, a true appreciation for the stringing together of individual words to paint a picture for a reader, a picture that conveys our vision of the world as it is or as we would like it to be.
I wrote my first story at age nine on my mama’s old manual typewriter. I still remember how it felt to finish it, the thrill of stacking up the pages that were visible evidence of the mini-world I had created.
>From my earliest memories, I wanted to write stories that did for someone else what my favorites did for me. Show me another world. Bring to life people I’d be thrilled to know.
But how could someone like me be a writer? In my mind, writers were on par with neurosurgeons and physics professors, something way beyond reach for a small-town girl like me.
It wasn’t until I was a junior at Virginia Tech majoring in English that I admitted to myself this was what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to write books. Farfetched as it sounded. I think for a long time I didn’t tell anyone. It just seemed too preposterous, as if they would laugh at the idea, and with good reason. I started my first manuscript while I was in college, longhand in a dark blue spiral ring notebook. It was set on an island somewhere, and I’m sure I would now find it all but unreadable, even though at the time, it was invaluable to me, proof that I could put a story on paper.
3. The desire to be the best writer you can be.
If you’re just starting out, give yourself permission to learn how to write without the pressure of thinking about getting published. When I wrote that first manuscript in college, my goal was to get published. I not only wanted to be a writer. I wanted to be a published writer. From where I stand now, I wish I had approached the whole process from the angle of doing whatever I could to learn how to tell the best story I possibly could. I felt I had to prove myself, and it seemed to me then that publication was the ultimate proof that I could write.
If I could start over again, I would take a step back from the pressure I put on myself to sell and concentrate solely on learning how to tell my story in a way that would make it hard for a reader to put it down.
4. A need to surround yourself with positive writers and lovers of books.
If you get involved in a critique group, make sure it is one where the objective is to encourage and improve. Not tear down and belittle. There are people out there who are not careful with their words, who in a two minute diatribe can rip apart months and months of work and completely deflate a writer of all confidence.
Can you tell I’m speaking from experience?
It is so very important to make sure you are on the same page with your critique partners. Maybe even come up with a list of guidelines for the group. Discuss the things you are looking for in a critique.
If you’re in a writing class, make sure it is one where the above objectives are primary.
This is not to say that you only want to show your work to people who will tell you you’re the best thing since Fitzgerald and Faulkner. It is to say that there is constructive criticism, which we should all be willing and eager to seek out. And there is destructive criticism, which can completely destroy a writer’s vision and belief in herself.
5. The will to make a place in your life for writing.
This sounds obvious enough. But there are all sorts of reasons not to write. The mortgage needs to be paid. The children need to eat. Pesky little everyday responsibilities like these.
Seriously, I’ve gone through all sorts of changes in my life, but the one thing I’ve always done is find a time to write that works for me, regardless of what else is going on. When I was in college, I wrote after classes for a certain amount of time each day. When I got out of college and went to work for a law firm, I got up at four a.m. and wrote before going to the office. When I became a mother, I started writing before my children got up in the morning and also during their nap. The point is to give your writing a regular time slot. It’s the every day exercising of your writing muscle that will develop your skills and define your voice.
6. The determination to never let yourself believe you’re there.
Once you’ve sold that first novel, it’s tempting to tell yourself you’ve arrived, that it will be clear sailing from here on. Not quite how it worked for me. There is always room to grow. I try with every book to do something different than I’ve done before. Force myself to stretch in some way. Try something I previously thought was beyond my ability. It’s amazing what we can dredge up from inside ourselves if we make our goal being the best we can be with every book.
7. The commitment to figure out what your process is.
After selling my first book, I went through a period of not being able to sell a second. I sold my first novel as a complete manuscript. That book was a story of my heart, and I wrote it as I saw it. When my publisher asked to see something else, I submitted a couple of proposals that were rejected. And I figured out somewhere along the way that I needed to get a good portion of the story down before I let someone else see it.
I do sell on proposal now. But I write a chunk of the book before I write the synopsis. This is how I learn what is going to happen in the story. This is my process. I know this about myself now, and while it is tempting to show my editor something at a much earlier stage, I try very hard to refrain from doing so.
Figure out what your process is and don’t veer from it.
8. The ability to protect your gift.
Publishing is a tough business. An incredible number of people want to be writers. The competition to sell is intense.
When I had difficulty selling my second and third books, I began to wonder if I had what it took. I realize now how fragile my confidence was then and that I took those rejections as validation that I didn’t really have what it took to be a writer. By the time I finally sold that second book, I was experiencing all the symptoms of burnout. It was an extremely dark time in my life, and I walked away from writing under the assumption that it would never again be a part of me.
I didn’t write for two years. The desire to do so began to trickle back eventually, until I finally got up the courage to pull out my laptop and begin a story. I wrote the complete book the same way I had written my first published novel. Told the story as I saw it without letting anyone else inside my vision. I sold that book, John Riley’s Girl, and it won the 2005 Rita Award for best long contemporary. This award was more meaningful to me than I can say. I wrote this book because I love to write. After a two-year period of burnout, I was given another chance. I no longer see the well of creativity inside me as an infinite thing that I can draw and draw from, but, instead, as something that can and will dry up and go away if I am not careful to protect it.
9. The ability to step back and refill the well.
Find things that replenish your spirit. Take a vacation and do not allow yourself to write, but simply to absorb the world around you.
Read, read, read. Read great books. Don’t read mediocre books unless you want to be a mediocre writer. Strive for excellence and seek out excellence. And hopefully, your love affair with writing books will be a long and lasting one.
Inglath Cooper is the RITA Award-winning author of six published novels. Her books focus on the dynamics of relationships, those between a man and a woman, mother and daughter, sisters, friends. Her stories are often peopled with characters who reflect the values and traditions of the small Virginia town where she grew up. To read about her latest release, please visit her website at http://www.inglathcooper.com.
Many Writers, One Clear Voice
Imagine creating your first book, one on which hangs the future of your company-and maybe even the industry you love. Imagine you have a publishing contract, five editors, a eighty contributing authors, hundreds of draft pages, a deadline in five weeks and a growing fear that the book you intended to create is nowhere in sight!
Such was the plight of Jane Deuber, one of the founders of the Direct Selling Women's Alliance, in May 2004. She had described her vision for the book to all the authors and editors, but the content they were sending her was consistent in only one way: it didn't measure up!
She gave me a chance to edit one of the submissions. When she read my version, she gasped, "Why, this is easy to read!" Yes, I had designed a style that delivered the value of her vision. But the more impressive trick was yet to come: describing that style to the other editors in enough detail that they could duplicate it.
To do this, I wrote a style guide.
Guardian of the Brand Voice
Cruising around the Internet, perhaps you've noticed that different sites convey different attitudes: Yahoo is rambunctious, Google is quirky, and Microsoft is all buttoned up. With hundreds of writers producing tens of thousands of pages online, how does a corporation ensure that its brand voice permeates every paragraph?
It writes a style guide.
Do you need a style guide?
I think so.
Before you write any content, you need to design a style that delivers the value of your vision in a way that helps your audience achieve its goals as quickly (or as entertainingly) as possible within its limitations. Even when you are working by yourself, writing is easier when you design the style first instead of working it out as you go along.
When you're working with other writers, the style guide is an indispensable tool for discussing options and achieving consensus before anyone writes anything-giving everyone the chance to write it right the first time, which is always the cheapest way.
When you're working with subject matter experts who may or may not know how to write, a good style guide is your ticket to delegating the entire cleanup to a contract editor. Describe your style design in detail, and you'll find the editors at E-Lance in heartfelt competition for your business because you've clearly defined what they need to do to be successful.
So What's In a Style Guide?
For every information product, my style guide covers these topics:
Information Architecture. This lays out the highways and byways the reader can follow to get to the information she's looking for. When you're designing a book, it's the table of contents, index, and cross-references. When you're designing a Web site, it's the navigation bars, buttons, links, and search function. When you're designing something really big like an enterprise product rollout, it's the kinds of documents (quick start guide, handbook, training workbook, frequently-asked questions) and the order in which the customer encounters and reads them for the most productive experience.
Information Design. This determines what the reader experiences when she finds what she's looking for: how the headings are formatted, how the paragraphs are structured, how lists and tables fit in. In the corporate world, the heading and body fonts are typically decided by marketing department as part of the brand image. When you're working solo, you can further your own image by choosing your own fonts.
Editorial Design. This describes the elements that give your style its attitude: the preferred voice, word choices, punctuation, and capitalization-potentially an immense domain! So start by citing authorities you trust, like the Chicago Manual of Style and the Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary. Then your style guide only has to cover where your style varies from these standards.
Exceptions. No matter how carefully I plan my guides, at least one corner case always pops up to defy me. Make a list of exceptions so that all contributors can handle them correctly. You'll need the reminders yourself if you have to take a break from the project long enough to cloud your memory.
Getting Started with Style
* If you're a young writer, start looking for these style elements in the content you read. Notice how they affect your reading experience.
* If you're an intermediate writer, improve your productivity by designing an appropriate style before you start writing.
* If you're a senior writer, start discussing these topics with your clients and coworkers, build some consensus, and document the results. Then take advantage by using it either as a teaching tool for young writers or as a job description for contract editors. Either way, you'll find it easier and more cost-effective to delegate and share the load.
* If you're a marketer determined to convey the unique qualities of your brand, endorse the creation of a company style guide and support the effort needed to enforce it in all communications. Stop missing all those little chances to convey your brand's values and to create the unique feelings you want your customer to have about your brand-they add up to a big opportunity!
Copyright: © 2005 Susan Raab, Content Wheel
Award-winning writer Susan Raab is the creative force behind hundreds of business titles, bringing the Power of Clear to corporations and small publishers. For FR*EE articles and writing tips, visit http://www.ContentWheel.com.
Such was the plight of Jane Deuber, one of the founders of the Direct Selling Women's Alliance, in May 2004. She had described her vision for the book to all the authors and editors, but the content they were sending her was consistent in only one way: it didn't measure up!
She gave me a chance to edit one of the submissions. When she read my version, she gasped, "Why, this is easy to read!" Yes, I had designed a style that delivered the value of her vision. But the more impressive trick was yet to come: describing that style to the other editors in enough detail that they could duplicate it.
To do this, I wrote a style guide.
Guardian of the Brand Voice
Cruising around the Internet, perhaps you've noticed that different sites convey different attitudes: Yahoo is rambunctious, Google is quirky, and Microsoft is all buttoned up. With hundreds of writers producing tens of thousands of pages online, how does a corporation ensure that its brand voice permeates every paragraph?
It writes a style guide.
Do you need a style guide?
I think so.
Before you write any content, you need to design a style that delivers the value of your vision in a way that helps your audience achieve its goals as quickly (or as entertainingly) as possible within its limitations. Even when you are working by yourself, writing is easier when you design the style first instead of working it out as you go along.
When you're working with other writers, the style guide is an indispensable tool for discussing options and achieving consensus before anyone writes anything-giving everyone the chance to write it right the first time, which is always the cheapest way.
When you're working with subject matter experts who may or may not know how to write, a good style guide is your ticket to delegating the entire cleanup to a contract editor. Describe your style design in detail, and you'll find the editors at E-Lance in heartfelt competition for your business because you've clearly defined what they need to do to be successful.
So What's In a Style Guide?
For every information product, my style guide covers these topics:
Information Architecture. This lays out the highways and byways the reader can follow to get to the information she's looking for. When you're designing a book, it's the table of contents, index, and cross-references. When you're designing a Web site, it's the navigation bars, buttons, links, and search function. When you're designing something really big like an enterprise product rollout, it's the kinds of documents (quick start guide, handbook, training workbook, frequently-asked questions) and the order in which the customer encounters and reads them for the most productive experience.
Information Design. This determines what the reader experiences when she finds what she's looking for: how the headings are formatted, how the paragraphs are structured, how lists and tables fit in. In the corporate world, the heading and body fonts are typically decided by marketing department as part of the brand image. When you're working solo, you can further your own image by choosing your own fonts.
Editorial Design. This describes the elements that give your style its attitude: the preferred voice, word choices, punctuation, and capitalization-potentially an immense domain! So start by citing authorities you trust, like the Chicago Manual of Style and the Merriam Webster Collegiate dictionary. Then your style guide only has to cover where your style varies from these standards.
Exceptions. No matter how carefully I plan my guides, at least one corner case always pops up to defy me. Make a list of exceptions so that all contributors can handle them correctly. You'll need the reminders yourself if you have to take a break from the project long enough to cloud your memory.
Getting Started with Style
* If you're a young writer, start looking for these style elements in the content you read. Notice how they affect your reading experience.
* If you're an intermediate writer, improve your productivity by designing an appropriate style before you start writing.
* If you're a senior writer, start discussing these topics with your clients and coworkers, build some consensus, and document the results. Then take advantage by using it either as a teaching tool for young writers or as a job description for contract editors. Either way, you'll find it easier and more cost-effective to delegate and share the load.
* If you're a marketer determined to convey the unique qualities of your brand, endorse the creation of a company style guide and support the effort needed to enforce it in all communications. Stop missing all those little chances to convey your brand's values and to create the unique feelings you want your customer to have about your brand-they add up to a big opportunity!
Copyright: © 2005 Susan Raab, Content Wheel
Award-winning writer Susan Raab is the creative force behind hundreds of business titles, bringing the Power of Clear to corporations and small publishers. For FR*EE articles and writing tips, visit http://www.ContentWheel.com.
Writing a KNOCKOUT Query Letter
A query letter is one or two pages written in the format of a formal business letter. It should be brief, and it should pique the interest of any publishing executive who reads it.
After all, if you can't sell a single individual on the merits of your book, why should a publishing house believe you can sell to an audience of thousands or millions? If you want some inside secrets to crafting a perfect, attention-grabbing query letter, then you've come to the right place.
The Right Approach
Point #1: Approach The Right Publisher: This seems obvious, but you wouldn't believe the number of writers who make this mistake. Be certain that the publisher you choose to contact is in the business of publishing your genre. If you write fantasy novels, then don't send a query letter to the editor of a computer manual publisher. It will be thrown in the trash without a second look. The best way to find the right publisher is to find books similar to your own and open them. Who is the publisher of each book? Does one particular publisher's name keep turning up? If so, that's the one you want to contact.
The Right Editor
Point #2: Selling To The Right Person: Never mail a query letter addressed to "Editor" or "To Whom It May Concern". Such a letter is destined for the "slush pile," and eventually, the trashcan. Once you've identified your ideal publisher, consult a book such as the latest edition of Jeff Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents (most libraries or large bookstores will have it). The book will provide a page or two of information on the publisher in question, including the name and contact information of the person to whom all queries should be directed. Usually, this is an executive or managing editor. Address the query letter to that specific person and make sure to use the correct gender and spelling when using their name.
Click on the title to read the other 1,214 word article.
After all, if you can't sell a single individual on the merits of your book, why should a publishing house believe you can sell to an audience of thousands or millions? If you want some inside secrets to crafting a perfect, attention-grabbing query letter, then you've come to the right place.
The Right Approach
Point #1: Approach The Right Publisher: This seems obvious, but you wouldn't believe the number of writers who make this mistake. Be certain that the publisher you choose to contact is in the business of publishing your genre. If you write fantasy novels, then don't send a query letter to the editor of a computer manual publisher. It will be thrown in the trash without a second look. The best way to find the right publisher is to find books similar to your own and open them. Who is the publisher of each book? Does one particular publisher's name keep turning up? If so, that's the one you want to contact.
The Right Editor
Point #2: Selling To The Right Person: Never mail a query letter addressed to "Editor" or "To Whom It May Concern". Such a letter is destined for the "slush pile," and eventually, the trashcan. Once you've identified your ideal publisher, consult a book such as the latest edition of Jeff Herman's Writer's Guide to Book Editors, Publishers, and Literary Agents (most libraries or large bookstores will have it). The book will provide a page or two of information on the publisher in question, including the name and contact information of the person to whom all queries should be directed. Usually, this is an executive or managing editor. Address the query letter to that specific person and make sure to use the correct gender and spelling when using their name.
Click on the title to read the other 1,214 word article.
It’s Good To Be A New Writer: Breaking The Myth That Experience Is Everything
There’s a rumor out there in the publishing world that an editor won’t even look at the work of a new writer.
It might be true for certain types of writing, but after interviewing hundreds of editors, I’ve found that most are more open to new writers than you might think. And there are a few major benefits to being a new writer too. So before you spend too much time trying to work out how you can appear to be a published professional writer when you’re not, consider taking advantage of your current position as a newcomer.
What are the advantages?
Here are four positive points of being a new writer that will help you get work - and they all come direct from editors.
1. It’s Easier to Impress Editor says… “I really don’t mind new writers at all. If you’re new and act professionally, I’m usually willing to give you a go. I’d suggest that new writers just be honest about who they are. If I get a fairly good article by a new writer, I’ll be impressed. To me, that’s my chance to discover new talent. That’s when I’ll contact the writer and try to help them. If I get a fairly good article by a new writer pretending to be an experienced writer, I will probably just issue a standard rejection.” -Evelyn, Magazine Editor If you claim to be a professional and experienced writer, an editor is likely to expect a lot. That means it will take a lot to really impress them. Even a good article might not be enough to get their attention. But if you tell the truth and admit that you’re a new writer, it takes a lot less to impress. A new writer with a professional approach is something special – just sending a professional quality submission might even be enough to impress.
2. There’s Room to Grow Editor says… “When I get a good article from a new writer, I’m always very happy. Why? Because new writers with the right skills and attitude are wonderful for our magazine. They can be shaped to suit our style, they listen to instructions, they usually have a positive attitude. That’s the kind of writer I like to take on and mentor.” –Stephanie, Magazine Editor If an editor knows that you’re a new writer, you’re giving them the chance to spot new talent. If you’re new and right for their publication, you might be taken in and mentored until you suit their style. The same isn’t likely to happen if the editor thinks that you’re experienced. Instead of looking at your work and thinking that it shows potential, they’ll be assuming it’s the best that you can do.
3. Anything Else, And You Risk Losing Their Interest Editor says… “I would tell writers to be careful if they’re going to exaggerate. I know everyone does it on resumes. But if someone claims to have been a writer for twenty years and is pitching my low-paying mag, I’m going to wonder two things. First, I’m going to wonder if they’re lying. Second, I’m going to wonder why they’re not working for a higher paying magazine if they really have that much experience. If they’re not lying, then I have to assume that they’re just a bad writer. Either way, it doesn’t look good for them.” - Danielle, Magazine Editor If you’re a new writer, you need to be targeting the right kinds of markets. And if you are targeting small markets, claiming years of experience is only going to make editors suspicious.
4. Attitude Matters Editor says… “It’s simple. Many seasoned writers pitching me have a bit of an attitude, a hint of suspicion, and often a streak of boredom. Fresh writers pitching me tend to have nothing but positive energy and enthusiasm. I’ll take the enthusiastic writer, please.” –Sam, Editor
If you can’t go in with experience, go in with enthusiasm. That might be the big advantage that gets you the job.
About the Author: Shelley Ann Wake is the editor of 30 Clips in 30 Days: A Crash Course in Getting Published. This practical guide has successfully launched hundreds of freelance writing careers in record time. Link: http://www.writingstuff.com/books1.html
It might be true for certain types of writing, but after interviewing hundreds of editors, I’ve found that most are more open to new writers than you might think. And there are a few major benefits to being a new writer too. So before you spend too much time trying to work out how you can appear to be a published professional writer when you’re not, consider taking advantage of your current position as a newcomer.
What are the advantages?
Here are four positive points of being a new writer that will help you get work - and they all come direct from editors.
1. It’s Easier to Impress Editor says… “I really don’t mind new writers at all. If you’re new and act professionally, I’m usually willing to give you a go. I’d suggest that new writers just be honest about who they are. If I get a fairly good article by a new writer, I’ll be impressed. To me, that’s my chance to discover new talent. That’s when I’ll contact the writer and try to help them. If I get a fairly good article by a new writer pretending to be an experienced writer, I will probably just issue a standard rejection.” -Evelyn, Magazine Editor If you claim to be a professional and experienced writer, an editor is likely to expect a lot. That means it will take a lot to really impress them. Even a good article might not be enough to get their attention. But if you tell the truth and admit that you’re a new writer, it takes a lot less to impress. A new writer with a professional approach is something special – just sending a professional quality submission might even be enough to impress.
2. There’s Room to Grow Editor says… “When I get a good article from a new writer, I’m always very happy. Why? Because new writers with the right skills and attitude are wonderful for our magazine. They can be shaped to suit our style, they listen to instructions, they usually have a positive attitude. That’s the kind of writer I like to take on and mentor.” –Stephanie, Magazine Editor If an editor knows that you’re a new writer, you’re giving them the chance to spot new talent. If you’re new and right for their publication, you might be taken in and mentored until you suit their style. The same isn’t likely to happen if the editor thinks that you’re experienced. Instead of looking at your work and thinking that it shows potential, they’ll be assuming it’s the best that you can do.
3. Anything Else, And You Risk Losing Their Interest Editor says… “I would tell writers to be careful if they’re going to exaggerate. I know everyone does it on resumes. But if someone claims to have been a writer for twenty years and is pitching my low-paying mag, I’m going to wonder two things. First, I’m going to wonder if they’re lying. Second, I’m going to wonder why they’re not working for a higher paying magazine if they really have that much experience. If they’re not lying, then I have to assume that they’re just a bad writer. Either way, it doesn’t look good for them.” - Danielle, Magazine Editor If you’re a new writer, you need to be targeting the right kinds of markets. And if you are targeting small markets, claiming years of experience is only going to make editors suspicious.
4. Attitude Matters Editor says… “It’s simple. Many seasoned writers pitching me have a bit of an attitude, a hint of suspicion, and often a streak of boredom. Fresh writers pitching me tend to have nothing but positive energy and enthusiasm. I’ll take the enthusiastic writer, please.” –Sam, Editor
If you can’t go in with experience, go in with enthusiasm. That might be the big advantage that gets you the job.
About the Author: Shelley Ann Wake is the editor of 30 Clips in 30 Days: A Crash Course in Getting Published. This practical guide has successfully launched hundreds of freelance writing careers in record time. Link: http://www.writingstuff.com/books1.html
How To Get Your Book Reviewed by the RIGHT Magazine Editor
In one of my past magazine jobs my office was next to that of the book editor. He would get boxes and boxes of books daily. There was a separate room devoted to storing these books, but that still didn't keep them from piling up in his office. Whenever he returned from vacation he practically had to use a bulldozer to get his door open!
You see the problem, right? How do you get your book noticed, let alone reviewed, when it is just one among stacks of books in an editor's office? Here are a few tips to help you map out a winning strategy.
1. Determine which magazines are the best for reaching your target market.
As you plan to market your book, decide first who your ideal reader is. Is it a 35-year-old urban professional man? Is it a stay-at-home mom who lives in the Midwest? Is it female college graduates who also happen to be sports fanatics?
Once you decide who you're targeting, ask yourself: What magazines does my ideal reader read? Those will be the magazines you'll focus on. That way, you won't waste time and money pursuing dozens of magazines which, even if they did review your book, wouldn't give you much in terms of gaining readership.
With my novel we focused on magazines with large female audiences. Ideally you should be doing this a few months before your book comes out because the goal here is to either write a story for the magazine or get interviewed in the magazine, and have the article appear before or just as your book is published.
2. Find out what the editors need.
When you have chosen the magazines, buy them and read them.
Do they have a certain writing style? What kinds of articles appear in the magazine again and again? If you can, write, email or call the features editor and find out what kinds of stories the magazine is looking for. You'll have more success if you can fill the editorial holes the magazine is already working on.
3. Let an editor know what you have to offer.Start sending query letters to get article assignments. If you have a particular expertise, you can let an editor know that you're available for interviews if they ever need an expert on a particular subject.
Often an editor will assign a story to a writer and give them a few possible interviewees to help them get started. I contacted editors at Essence a full year before my book came out to let them know that I was working as a personal and career coach. Within a few weeks I began getting calls from reporters to interview me for working mom stories for Essence.
4. Mention your book or get it mentioned.
When your article gets published, make sure you get the little italicized blurb at the end that says that you are "a writer whose next book, The Best Book in the World, will be published this month by Big Press, Inc." You get the idea. If you are being interviewed for an article, chances are they won't have room to mention your book but you should still tell the reporter about it anyway.
You can even ask them to put it in their notes.
As the story gets discussed in meetings, someone might say "Did you know she also wrote a book?" This builds awareness.
5. Check in with your contacts, but don't pester them.
Once your book is sent out for review, you can call or email to make sure that the editor got the book, but leave it at that. You've done all you can. I've never met the book editor at Essence, but when I heard that he was aware of my novel I was totally psyched. I kept my fingers crossed after that. You can see the review here.
One last note: Some magazines and newspapers don't review self published books. Find out beforehand so you can make your efforts elsewhere if that's necessary.
© 2005 Sophfronia Scott
Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is "The Book Sistah" TM.
Get her FREE REPORT, "The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published" and her FREE online writing and publishing tips at www.TheBookSistah.com
You see the problem, right? How do you get your book noticed, let alone reviewed, when it is just one among stacks of books in an editor's office? Here are a few tips to help you map out a winning strategy.
1. Determine which magazines are the best for reaching your target market.
As you plan to market your book, decide first who your ideal reader is. Is it a 35-year-old urban professional man? Is it a stay-at-home mom who lives in the Midwest? Is it female college graduates who also happen to be sports fanatics?
Once you decide who you're targeting, ask yourself: What magazines does my ideal reader read? Those will be the magazines you'll focus on. That way, you won't waste time and money pursuing dozens of magazines which, even if they did review your book, wouldn't give you much in terms of gaining readership.
With my novel we focused on magazines with large female audiences. Ideally you should be doing this a few months before your book comes out because the goal here is to either write a story for the magazine or get interviewed in the magazine, and have the article appear before or just as your book is published.
2. Find out what the editors need.
When you have chosen the magazines, buy them and read them.
Do they have a certain writing style? What kinds of articles appear in the magazine again and again? If you can, write, email or call the features editor and find out what kinds of stories the magazine is looking for. You'll have more success if you can fill the editorial holes the magazine is already working on.
3. Let an editor know what you have to offer.Start sending query letters to get article assignments. If you have a particular expertise, you can let an editor know that you're available for interviews if they ever need an expert on a particular subject.
Often an editor will assign a story to a writer and give them a few possible interviewees to help them get started. I contacted editors at Essence a full year before my book came out to let them know that I was working as a personal and career coach. Within a few weeks I began getting calls from reporters to interview me for working mom stories for Essence.
4. Mention your book or get it mentioned.
When your article gets published, make sure you get the little italicized blurb at the end that says that you are "a writer whose next book, The Best Book in the World, will be published this month by Big Press, Inc." You get the idea. If you are being interviewed for an article, chances are they won't have room to mention your book but you should still tell the reporter about it anyway.
You can even ask them to put it in their notes.
As the story gets discussed in meetings, someone might say "Did you know she also wrote a book?" This builds awareness.
5. Check in with your contacts, but don't pester them.
Once your book is sent out for review, you can call or email to make sure that the editor got the book, but leave it at that. You've done all you can. I've never met the book editor at Essence, but when I heard that he was aware of my novel I was totally psyched. I kept my fingers crossed after that. You can see the review here.
One last note: Some magazines and newspapers don't review self published books. Find out beforehand so you can make your efforts elsewhere if that's necessary.
© 2005 Sophfronia Scott
Author and Writing Coach Sophfronia Scott is "The Book Sistah" TM.
Get her FREE REPORT, "The 5 Big Mistakes Most Writers Make When Trying to Get Published" and her FREE online writing and publishing tips at www.TheBookSistah.com
Man-made diamonds sparkle with potential
In technology, the diamond is a dream material. It can make computers run at speeds that would melt the innards of today's computers. Manufactured diamonds could help make lasers of extreme power. The material could allow a cellphone to fit into a watch and iPods to store 10,000 movies, not just 10,000 songs. Diamonds could mean frictionless medical replacement joints. Or coatings — perhaps for cars — that never scratch or wear out.
Scientists have known about the possibilities for years. But they've been held back because mined diamonds are too expensive and too rare. And they're hard to form into wafers and shapes that would be most useful in products.
Manufacturing changes that. It's like the difference between having to wait for lightning to start a fire vs. knowing how to start it by hand.
"I'm just so completely awed by this technology," says Sonia Arrisonof tech analysis group Pacific Research Institute. "Basically, anything that relies on computing power will accelerate."
Arno Penzias, a venture capitalist and Nobel Prize winner for physics, says, "This diamond-fabrication story marks a high-profile milestone on an amazing scientific journey."
"We can't begin to see all the things that can happen because single diamond crystals can be made," says Apollo co-founder Robert Linares, elegant and slim in a golf shirt, slacks and loafers as he sits at the two plastic folding tables that make up Apollo's low-budget conference room. "We are only at the beginning."
Click on the title to finish reading this absolutely fascinating story.
Scientists have known about the possibilities for years. But they've been held back because mined diamonds are too expensive and too rare. And they're hard to form into wafers and shapes that would be most useful in products.
Manufacturing changes that. It's like the difference between having to wait for lightning to start a fire vs. knowing how to start it by hand.
"I'm just so completely awed by this technology," says Sonia Arrisonof tech analysis group Pacific Research Institute. "Basically, anything that relies on computing power will accelerate."
Arno Penzias, a venture capitalist and Nobel Prize winner for physics, says, "This diamond-fabrication story marks a high-profile milestone on an amazing scientific journey."
"We can't begin to see all the things that can happen because single diamond crystals can be made," says Apollo co-founder Robert Linares, elegant and slim in a golf shirt, slacks and loafers as he sits at the two plastic folding tables that make up Apollo's low-budget conference room. "We are only at the beginning."
Click on the title to finish reading this absolutely fascinating story.
New Site Builder
I've downloaded and tested a new site builder software package known as NVU. This is WYSIWYG quite similar to Front Page, Dreamweaver and others. The learning curve is excellent for me. The finished product is even better than I've been producing.
The price for Windows and Macs users is FREE, which impressed me most highly. Also, this is Open Source so you can (hopefully speaking) rebuild it to your own specifications.
CSS and Java comes with the package. Forms and tables are a snap. You can edit on the fly, or host your files on your computer. The fonts and format font tools are really neat.
Click on the title and get your own copy to evaluate.
Lin Stone
http://www.talewins.com/LinStone.htm
http://www.SpinaSilverDollar.com/
The price for Windows and Macs users is FREE, which impressed me most highly. Also, this is Open Source so you can (hopefully speaking) rebuild it to your own specifications.
CSS and Java comes with the package. Forms and tables are a snap. You can edit on the fly, or host your files on your computer. The fonts and format font tools are really neat.
Click on the title and get your own copy to evaluate.
Lin Stone
http://www.talewins.com/LinStone.htm
http://www.SpinaSilverDollar.com/
With All Due Respect
There are two kinds of men in this world; men like my Dad and men like George W. Davis.
Daddy struggled for years for recognition. George has it thrust upon him almost daily.
Daddy invented the dual headlight system and almost got put in jail over it. George invented necklaces by stringing ticks on a strand of metal; he was written up in the papers and put on national television. Daddy had to pay a fine to stay out of jail, George made thousands of dollars per week until he ran out of volunteers to go get the ticks for him.
Daddy split his lunch with a beggar for two years. Not only did his generosity go unnoticed, one day he had no lunch to share and the beggar brought out a double portion to eat in front of Daddy. George had a wife that did Christmas charity work for six years and nobody ever said a word about it. George showed up for less than an hour of service, and it was written up in the papers -- plus he received a letter of commendation from the charity heads.
There were many, many other instances of similarities between what my Dad did and what George did, with equally opposite results every time.
Now, before you go off shaking your head and mumbling about it not being fair and nobody ever gives you a chance either, let me share MY ratiocinations with you.
Daddy had invented the dual headlight system and went down the road flashing them off and on -- just showing off to people in the car how great they worked. And yes, they were great. Furthermore, he attracted attention of the powers that be. In fact, he was pulled over by the Highway Patrol before he'd gone ten miles. The officer began softly enough, but Daddy made a confrontation out of it immediately. "You wouldn't have pulled Henry Ford over for inventing dual headlights!"
George decided that the one thing his area had more of than anything else was ticks, and what could you do with ticks but String them Up! Well, he got to playing around and he did string them up. Very casually he mentioned to a few people that he was stringing ticks up. By the time a reporter got there George actually had a necklace to show off. He didn't say how great an idea it was to string them up, mostly because he didn't think it was. But the reporter assured him it was a good story and set about to make something of the creation. Before you knew it, George was on television.
Is there a lesson to learn there in that comparison?
Yes.
To make Daddy's invention a success let's go back to the moment he vehemently denounced the Highway Patrolman with "You wouldn't have pulled Henry Ford over for inventing dual headlights!" and ask ourselves, how would Henry Ford have announced HIS invention?
Why the answer is obvious, Henry Ford would have held a press conference to show off his new invention. He would have had facts and figures ready to hand and perhaps a working model that reporters could personally try to pierce the darkness with.
Then there's the matter of dress at the time of meeting the press. Daddy was in his tattered, greasy overalls, and George was in his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and tie. Put these two side by side in an exhibition and which one are YOU going to listen to first? Now tell me it isn't fair! The world is generally fair; it usually treats those people it meets with the same respect that individual gives to the world.
You don't get on the good side of Highway Patrolmen OR reporters by denouncing them.
Editors are the same way. Handwritten story material is not going to grab the attention of editors anywhere. Type it out, block it up, and send it to them as if you respected their courteous expectations. Press releases should receive the same dedication to catering to expectations. Give it to them the way that makes them smile, not snarl. You'll find the world is a whole lot more fair when you meet the world on its terms.
the end
Lin Stone is an author, writer and photographer living in Mena Arkansas among the gentle mountains known as Ouachita. He writes about adventures and he writes about the peaceable things of this world for Share Your State. In his spare time Lin writes copy for American Insurance Depot. You can have immediate, and free, reading of many more pieces when you send your little surfer scooting to Lin's home page at http://www.talewins.com/StoneSoup.htm where he keeps stirring up more good things for the soul.
Daddy struggled for years for recognition. George has it thrust upon him almost daily.
Daddy invented the dual headlight system and almost got put in jail over it. George invented necklaces by stringing ticks on a strand of metal; he was written up in the papers and put on national television. Daddy had to pay a fine to stay out of jail, George made thousands of dollars per week until he ran out of volunteers to go get the ticks for him.
Daddy split his lunch with a beggar for two years. Not only did his generosity go unnoticed, one day he had no lunch to share and the beggar brought out a double portion to eat in front of Daddy. George had a wife that did Christmas charity work for six years and nobody ever said a word about it. George showed up for less than an hour of service, and it was written up in the papers -- plus he received a letter of commendation from the charity heads.
There were many, many other instances of similarities between what my Dad did and what George did, with equally opposite results every time.
Now, before you go off shaking your head and mumbling about it not being fair and nobody ever gives you a chance either, let me share MY ratiocinations with you.
Daddy had invented the dual headlight system and went down the road flashing them off and on -- just showing off to people in the car how great they worked. And yes, they were great. Furthermore, he attracted attention of the powers that be. In fact, he was pulled over by the Highway Patrol before he'd gone ten miles. The officer began softly enough, but Daddy made a confrontation out of it immediately. "You wouldn't have pulled Henry Ford over for inventing dual headlights!"
George decided that the one thing his area had more of than anything else was ticks, and what could you do with ticks but String them Up! Well, he got to playing around and he did string them up. Very casually he mentioned to a few people that he was stringing ticks up. By the time a reporter got there George actually had a necklace to show off. He didn't say how great an idea it was to string them up, mostly because he didn't think it was. But the reporter assured him it was a good story and set about to make something of the creation. Before you knew it, George was on television.
Is there a lesson to learn there in that comparison?
Yes.
To make Daddy's invention a success let's go back to the moment he vehemently denounced the Highway Patrolman with "You wouldn't have pulled Henry Ford over for inventing dual headlights!" and ask ourselves, how would Henry Ford have announced HIS invention?
Why the answer is obvious, Henry Ford would have held a press conference to show off his new invention. He would have had facts and figures ready to hand and perhaps a working model that reporters could personally try to pierce the darkness with.
Then there's the matter of dress at the time of meeting the press. Daddy was in his tattered, greasy overalls, and George was in his Sunday-go-to-meeting suit and tie. Put these two side by side in an exhibition and which one are YOU going to listen to first? Now tell me it isn't fair! The world is generally fair; it usually treats those people it meets with the same respect that individual gives to the world.
You don't get on the good side of Highway Patrolmen OR reporters by denouncing them.
Editors are the same way. Handwritten story material is not going to grab the attention of editors anywhere. Type it out, block it up, and send it to them as if you respected their courteous expectations. Press releases should receive the same dedication to catering to expectations. Give it to them the way that makes them smile, not snarl. You'll find the world is a whole lot more fair when you meet the world on its terms.
the end
Lin Stone is an author, writer and photographer living in Mena Arkansas among the gentle mountains known as Ouachita. He writes about adventures and he writes about the peaceable things of this world for Share Your State. In his spare time Lin writes copy for American Insurance Depot. You can have immediate, and free, reading of many more pieces when you send your little surfer scooting to Lin's home page at http://www.talewins.com/StoneSoup.htm where he keeps stirring up more good things for the soul.
The Essays Now Depot
The Essays Now Depot: "An essay is much like the traditional talking circle of the Navajo, but with only one speaker. An essay doesn't have to prove anything, it doesn't even have to be new; it does have to be honest. The object of an essay is to share, to share thought, feelings, observations with the reader. Essays as a genre have been with us for nearly 2 centuries. The essays of Francis Bacon are probably the most famous historic examples we have. Ralph Waldo Emerson perfected the elastic form and gave it life. "
Using Blogs To Make Money
I remember that it was not that long ago that I did not know what a blog was or what one was for. Now blogs are everywhere and anyone with a computer and Internet access may be writing one. If you are new to this whole blog phenomenon let me explain a little about what a blog is.
Blog's got their name from combining two words Web log to make one word, "blog". For most people, blogs started out as something like an online diary for friends and relatives to read. Instead of going to the trouble of sending out individual emails to all of your friends and relatives to let them know how things are going in your life, you could simply write a blog for all of them to view. This way everyone could know all of the interesting developments in your personal life and you could save time and energy by not writing to everyone individually.
This was the origin of blogs. Oh how far we have come since then.
Blogs then grew into marketing devices, ways to get revenge, and methods of raising awareness on important issues. Some of the more famous blogs are ones written by current disgruntled employees of large corporations. These large corporations, such as Microsoft, have been scrambling to deal with the bad public relations created by these blogs written by angry employees.
There are many ways that you can set up a blog. Whether you want to use a blog for professional or personal reasons you can find a service to help you out. Many companies have been scrambling to create blogging software for consumers.
However, there are also many blogging sites that will let you use their software for free. Of course, the software that you have to pay for comes with many added features that the free blogging software does not include.
Online businesses are beginning to realize the impact that a blog can have on their business and the number of people that they can get visiting their websites. Blogs generate new text on a regular basis, depending on how often you update it, which helps in search engine rankings.
The major search engines such as Google and Yahoo give higher rankings to websites that have regularly updated content. Blogs make this happen in a very simple manner. The only trick to all of this is to make sure that your blog is directly accessible from your homepage. This is a rather simple process of changing some of the HTML coding.
By using a blog to add new content on a regular basis saves you the trouble of redesigning your entire website every time you want to add content. It would not be realistic to go in to your website a few times a week and change the content because it is so much work. However, a blog will accomplish this for you in a matter of minutes.
Some website owners have taken the blogs even further and incorporated keyword densities into their blogs. This further aids the websites search engine rankings and helps to drive more potential customers to the website.
As you can see, having a blog on your website can offer a great deal of benefits. In addition to the fact that you can increase your search engine rankings with a blog, many people may come back to visit your site on a regular basis just to see what new information you have to offer them by way of your blog.
For example, if your blog offers weekly updates on what is new in your product or service line, a potential customer may be interested but does not make a purchase today. Then this potential customer returns in a week to read your blog and continues to do so until he or she reads something in your blog that convinces he or she to go ahead and make the purchase.
Blogs are very versatile marketing tools. You can update your blog with industry news, news about your particular company, new product offerings, or new services that you are providing. Any of these methods, or a combination of them, can be extremely effective in closing a sale on a potential customer who is sitting on the fence.
No matter how you choose to employ blogs to improve your website, always be sure that you have connected your blog to your website in an easy to read and easy to find format. Link your blog to your homepage so that visitors do not have to search for it.
If you can customize your blog template to look just like the rest of your website, then your visitors can move between your blog and your website with the feeling that they have not left one to enter the other.
Blogs have grown enormously over the past year and all indications are that they will only continue to grow. Blogs are more than a passing Internet fad; they are successful business tools that are already being utilized by many successful webmasters.
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Trey Pennewell is part of the BloggerSupport.com/ technical team. If you need help configuring your blog or matching your blog design to your website's design, please review our programs.
Trey is also a ghost writer at ThePhantomWriters.com . On September 5, 2005, TPW had more than 50 Pre-Written ghosted articles available for purchase on a wide variety of topics.
Make Money with Your Short Stories
Copyright 2005
by Jeremy M. Hoover
.
.
Recently, someone rated my “Online Book Marketing” article a 2 out of 5.
by Jeremy M. Hoover
.
.
Recently, someone rated my “Online Book Marketing” article a 2 out of 5.
That person apparently didn’t like the article. My guess is that he or she was turned off by the marketing angle. Writers write; they don’t sell. Some writers even view the concept of selling or marketing their work as somehow inherently wrong..
That’s fine. But unless you get a lucky break from a huge publishing house you will probably not go far with book sales unless you are willing to roll up your sleeves and do some serious marketing..
There are many ways you can market your writing and build a readership online. But you should also start thinking about your writing differently. For example, instead of trying to write and sell one book of short stories or one novel, why not break it into separate small books (each one a short story or two) or sell your novel as a serialized version—a new chapter or two every month? (Eventually you can sell this material in a physical book.).
The logic of my suggestion is this: Suppose you have a newsletter group of 7000 readers who love your writing. Each month you write a new short story set (including four stories), group of poems, or collection of essays that you sell as a PDF ebook. You publicize this to your newsletter group, including a free sample with your newsletter, and sell the set for $4 as an instant download..
Now, suppose only 10% of your readership buys your new ebook each month. 700 readers x $4 = $2800 each month! And don’t forget—you are constantly adding new readers to your group..
The secret to success here is to build a readership group through a free e-newsletter, and sell your writing to that group (your fan base) month after month. This is how you grow a strong, solid readership that will buy your books when you publish them in physical form, because they have bought your books when you sold them in digital form. And you made a decent living in the meantime..
Jeremy M. Hoover helps you market your books online. Contact him at jeremyhoover AT gmail.com or at hiswebsite, http://jhooverwebcopy.com/bookmarketing.htm .
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