A Meditation on Brautigan and His Work

by Eric Petersen
IWW Prose List administrator

I'm a big fan of the late, great Richard Brautigan. He was both a poet and a novelist, and his breakthrough novel, Trout Fishing In America, (which was mistakenly purchased by many 1960s squares who who thought it was a non-fiction book about trout fishing) first published in 1967, was both a counterculture classic and a literary milestone.

Brautigan's style was experimental, but not the least bit pretentious. In his novels, he eschewed traditional plotting, preferring stream-of-consciousness narration. Brautigan had a wacky sense of humor, too, which made his books a real hoot to read. While not exactly a comedy, Trout Fishing In America is one of the funniest novels you'll ever read, with chapter titles such as "The Kool-Aid Wino," "Trout Fishing In America Terrorists," "The Shipping Of Trout Fishing In America Shorty To Nelson Algren," and "The Mayonnaise Chapter."

Brautigan's follow-up to Trout Fishing In America was his 1968 novel, In Watermelon Sugar, another great counterculture novel. The narrator is a member of a commune called iDEATH. In this book, Brautigan continues the themes of existentialism and the search for enlightenment that began in Trout Fishing In America.

As a poet, Brautigan mixed lyricism with pathos and smarmy humor. My favorite of his poetry books is The Pill Versus The Springhill Mine Disaster. In 1967, Brautigan served as poet-in-residence at the California Institute of Technology.

In the 1970s, determined to prove that he wasn't just another hippie writer, Brautigan incorporated more straightforward narration into his writing, but his experimental style and wacky humor were still evident. My favorite novels from this period are The Hawkline Monster (1974) - a Western parody - and Dreaming Of Babylon (1977), a parody of the hard-boiled detective novels of the 1940s.

Even though he produced quality novels throughout the decade, as the 1970s came to an end, Richard Brautigan's popularity had waned. He committed suicide in 1984 at the age of 49. It came as no surprise to family and friends, as Brautigan had battled mental illness (schizophrenia and depression) and alcoholism for many years.

Houghton Mifflin published two compilation volumes of Brautigan's novels and poetry in 1989 and 1991, and Brautigan became popular again - with the disenchanted youth of the 1990s. There was even a news story about a young man in his late teens who legally changed his name to Trout Fishing In America - the name of Brautigan's most famous character!

Richard Brautigan was a truly unique writer with his own distinctive style and vision. His writings have inspired me and I know that they will continue to inspire others. As the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle said of his work:

"There is nothing like Richard Brautigan anywhere. Perhaps, when we are very old, people will write 'Brautigans' just as we now write novels. This man has invented a genre, a whole new shot, a thing needed, delightful, and right."

Writers Survival 5

Multi-published romance author Cait London has posted #5 of Writers Survival Guide at her blog, complete with intensive links.

Cait's website includes numerous other resources for writers of every level of experience.

A Prize Winning Title for only $795

The 2009-2014 World Outlook for 60-Milligram Containers of Fromage Frais (Paperback)


From the New York Times ...

" ... the book, geared to that slender segment of the population that both cares about dairy product cartons and is happy to spend hundreds of dollars to learn more about them, has just won an actual literary award. This is the Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year, sponsored by The Bookseller magazine."

The Road to Success

Diagnosis: Author Physician Turned To Writing to Heal Himself, Others

By Bob Thompson Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 16, 2009; C01 NASHVILLE Nearly two decades ago, when Abraham Verghese put his career as a physician on hold to try his hand at fiction, he knew he wanted to write an "epic medical novel." Beyond that, things were a little vague.

• Read the entire essay here.

On Being a Mid-List Author

My life on the mid-list
Published 02.03.09
By Cheris Hodges

"What I didn't know was that unless you're with a large publishing house, like a Random House, and your name is Dan Brown or Eric Jerome Dickey, you've got to do your own publicity."

Read the full article here.

Pick up the Feed on This One

An interesting blog about the art and craft of writing ...

• The Seekers: on the road to publication. Writing, contests, publication and everything in between.
  

Note this blog says it is based on a Christian perspective, but a good part of the writing advice can be applied to non-genre writing.

A Writer's Survival Guide

Multi-published genre author Cait London has posted an interesting and helpful "Writer's Survival Guide" on her blog in which she covers everything from Gmail to agent's blogs.

Read the article here.

An Interesting Essay on storySouth

The reference provided by Dawn Goldsmith, active blogger and multi-published writer.

Jason Sanford, fiction editor of storySouth ...

• The other day, a well-known author was presented with that oft-asked and irritating question, "What advice do you have for new writers?" Her reply: "Make sure what you have to say is worth reading, because our libraries are being filled up by minutia."
• According to industry statistics, more books than ever are being sold, but these massive sales numbers are being reached because of fewer and fewer authors.
• Stephen King. John Grisham. Nora Roberts. Forget everyone else.

Complete article here.

Making Money as a Writer

A long-time writer friend, Cait London, sent out word recently about another writer who has posted some great information about making money as a professional writer -- and what to do until a prospective writer can quit the day job.

From Stephanie Bond's website ...

If you're a commercial fiction writer looking for inspiration, browse the following articles Stephanie Bond wrote for the newsletter of her local writing organization, Georgia Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America.

Did Reinhold Niebuhr Really Write the "Serenity Prayer?"

Recently a friend on the Internet Writing Workshop smiled over a phrase describing how attentive people were during the Great Depression to the preservation of food resources. I suggested they used "Every part of the pig except the squeal."

"Did you make that up?" she asked.

I don't know. It sounds like me, but I take caution in claiming the description. That's why this story interests me. We writers, after all, are immersed in our culture.

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The prayer is now ubiquitous, on mugs and greeting cards and embroidered pillows, sometimes with Niebuhr’s name attached. But it is possible to find attributions ranging from Aristotle to St. Augustine to Francis of Assisi.

The precise origins of the Serenity Prayer have always been wrapped in a fog. Even in Niebuhr’s lifetime, his authorship was challenged. His response was typically modest. He was quoted in a magazine article in 1950 as saying: “Of course, it may have been spooking around for years, even centuries, but I don’t think so. I honestly do believe that I wrote it myself.”

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Read the complete article here in the July 11th, 2008 New York Times.
Serenity Prayer Stirs Up Doubt: Who Wrote It?
By Laurie Goodstein

Navel-gazing in Creative Nonfiction

The Internet Writing Workshop's Creative Nonfiction Discussion group presents a lively forum for learning more about the genre. (Want more information: click here.)

A back-and-forth over several weeks about a series of essays covered the (possible) element of narcissism in creative nonfiction. The discussion resulted in a blog post on BREVITY's blog -- Navel Gazing in Creative Nonfiction.

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• Be sure to scroll down and read the comments.

"It Ain't That Easy, but It Can Be Done"

A discussion began recently on the Writing list of The Internet Writing Workshop about the initial publications of famous writers before-they-were-famous.

Dawn Goldsmith, a writer whose essays appear regularly in The Christian Science Monitor, posted an interesting response.

I believe the way to publication is first: strong writing -- of course.

But also build your writing business. Network, market, learn to be a professional about all aspects of the writing business, know your markets and what they want, give them something they aren't finding elsewhere, be persistent. Associate with other professionals. Join organizations and do what it takes to establish contacts and links and friendships so that more and more people will know you and your work. Educate yourself. Never submit anything that isn't the best you can do. Don't slack, don't be lazy, don't fear to try something new or push yourself to grow and get better.

Take workshops. Meet and greet editors and those who can help promote your writings. I know this works for nonfiction and I feel certain it works for fiction. Target the markets you need to get your work seen. Find out what literary magazines the editors and publishers and agents read and watch for new talent. Find a mentor.

Join groups like IWW or writing groups so that you can help each other. It doesn't hurt if you have published authors in those groups who are willing to help you get your work seen. Enter contests -- those that will get your writing before editors, agents, and publishers.

And don't sell yourself short. Don't dream too small, either. If you have something that Playboy would publish -- submit it. I think that King's success in Playboy, etc. may have fit his style with that market. Find your niche and go after it. Stephen King had a new voice, a new style, a new genre -- he wrote what he felt the need to write and he did the best he knew how. I think the key really is to follow your own writing needs. Whatever you really want to say -- say it. And then find the market that wants it. The stories, the novels, the movies, the documentaries -- we remember the ones that moved outside of the mainstream or the norm and made a new statement.

To outline or not to outline, that is the question~

Who would think Stephen Hawking could help you be a better writer? Dave Swinford uses a scientific principle to explain how order and chaos can affect your writing.

Order and Chaos
by Dave Swinford

Do you outline? This was the question posed to a group of published novelists. Answers varied from the extremes of "I just try to write a minimum number of words each day, and I never know exactly what will appear when I begin to write," to "I always try to have an outline before I begin to write." However, even those who utilized an outline agreed that one had to be flexible. At some point in the process, characters might begin to assert their independence and simply refuse to follow the outline.

Most of these novelists have written and successfully published multiple novels, and there seemed to be unanimous agreement that characters often did become independent, refusing to behave as the author intended, and when this happened, the author needed to listen because more often than not, the characters were correct. Characters asserting their independence was a good thing. It often made for a stronger, more layered novel.

Stephen Hawking has said that the science of this 21st century will be the science of complexity. This new science asserts that if there is too much order, things become so stable that they become fixed and unchanging. If there is too much chaos, the lack of any stable framework means that nothing is reliable or firmly fixed. Thus, life can only exist at the balance point between order and chaos.

At the balance point, there is a reliable framework, a day-to-day flow of events that enables life to develop and thrive. There is a reasonable expectation that events will follow some stable and reliable patterns. Yet, there is enough chaos or uncertainty to provoke change, especially the sort of changes we think of as evolution.

In a sense, a thoroughly outlined novel may bee too stable and too fixed. It may lack a feeling of natural flow or of evolving in an organic manner. Perhaps the introduction of some chaos in the form of independent behavior on the part of certain characters may be a beneficial thing. It makes the novel more organic and more reflective of the natural tensions that generate life.

To have one's characters acting as an element of chaos may be a way in which our creative consciousness introduces aspects and depths that we never considered when mapping out and outlining the story. As those published novelists observed, this can improve a story. How this actually happens, the why of characters attaining independence, would, I think, provide a good topic for a future blog essay.

In the meantime, perhaps it will be enough to allow for a bit of chaos in your planning and execution of your next story.

For an introduction and basic tutorial on complexity, click here.

Thoughts on Experimental Fiction

A Short Essay
By Eric Petersen, IWW's Prose List Administrator

My first exposure to experimental writing was back in 1991 when I read William S. Burroughs' famous novel, Naked Lunch. I had heard about the book before, and just seen David Cronenberg's movie version. The movie was cool, but totally different from the book, which Cronenberg considered unfilmable as is. I disagree, but anyway...

Naked Lunch was first published in Paris in 1959. It was a scathing, surreal, satirical assault on Eisenhower's America, loaded with drug use, extreme violence, and bizarre, often disgusting hardcore sex scenes.

It's also one of the funniest and most brilliant books I've ever read. It's considered one of the most influential novels of all time. But, it's definitely not for all tastes. It's not a book you can "like." You either love it or you hate it. I love it.

Later, in 2001, a friend turned me onto Mark Danielweski. Before that, I enjoyed reading experimental works by John Barth, Kurt Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan. And let's not forget Jack Kerouac! I've also read almost everything William S. Burroughs wrote, not just Naked Lunch. I've learned a lot from all those writers.

One thing I've learned is that the best experimental writing has a method to its madness and doesn't bog the reader down in endless, pointless poetics, as though he were patronizing an art gallery that contained nothing but collages on its walls.

I have used some experimental writing in my own work. It can make one's writing fresh, but you must take care not to get carried away or you'll end up with an annoyingly pretentious result. I don't know if I could write a completely experimental novel, but I've always been intrigued with the idea of merging traditional narrative with experimental prose.

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• Experimental fiction at Amazon
• Experimental fiction at Barnes & Noble

What Writer's Read, and Why

An exchange of ... well, lists began a few days ago on The Internet Writing Workshop's discussion list, and soon evolved from "This is my favorite five books" list into a "This is why these books are favorites," which can give some insight into the art and craft of writing.

Here are a few of the more informative exchanges ...

Gene Schmidt said "Since no one else has mentioned them, let me put in a word for the short stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, which I regard as only one or two rungs down from the Bible. In fact, the story "Gimple the Fool" is as close to a truly transcendent religious experience as you can have reading fiction.

"Also, as someone who grew up reading Sgt. Rock comics and Mickey Spillane detective novels, I'm shocked to be saying this, but a couple of years ago I read Jane Austen for the first time and was blown away. I've read all her novels twice over now ... and I would rate Emma as her masterpiece.

"And getting around to American literature, Gatsby is the all time champ in my opinion, but A Farewell to Arms is probably the most moving novel I've ever read, and certainly the best war novel. Nor should we forget the pioneering hardboiled detective novels of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

"And the list goes on and on and on ... "

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My friend Diane Diekman wrote, "I agree with those who say they can't cut the list to five. Although I don't often reread books, here are eight that stay in my mind as favorites. I've listed many more here."

• Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (1847)
• Old Yeller - Fred Gipson (1956) - I first read this ten years ago, from the viewpoint of a writer. It's both a classic tale and an excellently crafted piece of writing.
• Mistress of Mellyn - Victoria Holt -This gothic romance from my youth started an interest in the genre that lasted many years. I read every Victoria Holt book I could find, and this remained the best.
• The Kent Family Chronicles - John Jakes - This 8-volume set provided a great lesson in American history. I enjoyed traveling with the Kent family throughout the country from the Revolutionary War through the Civil War.
• Brotherhood of War series (first 6 of 8 volumes) - W.E.B. Griffin - I learned a lot about Army history and society while following the adventures of these fictional soldiers.
• The Sense of Honor - James Webb - When I found this paperback, I was surprised to learn the former secretary of my Navy was a writer. And what a writer!
• Winds of War and War and Remembrance - Herman Wouk - It took me almost a year to read this three-volume set during my military travels. I felt like I'd lost a friend when I finished, and could no longer take Pug Henry's family along on trips.
• With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa - E.B. Sledge - I discovered this wonderful book in the Classics of Naval Literature series published by the Naval Institute Press in 1996. Combining the combat perspective of a PFC in the Marine Corps with the writing talent of his later years makes this book possibly the best ever written by an enlisted man fighting a war. It filled me with admiration and awe.

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Rick Bylina said "Ask me on another day, in another mood, in another setting, the list might be somewhat different, but these books will never be far from the top."

• IRONWEED. Incredibly strong first chapter that left me wondering where do we go from here. I like stories of redemption and forgiveness. That's why "Shawshank Redemption" is in my movie top ten.
• ATONEMENT. Subtle of language caught me, and I missed the twist and just had to read it again to see why and how I can do it in my stories.
• EMPIRE FALLS. The seamless weaving of numerous subplots to end up at the end right where the author wanted you to be.
• MADAME BOVARY. Brilliant character portrayal the nuances of her descent. (And I love Tim Allen's analysis on "Home Improvement" about who was the hero in the story.)
• SONS AND LOVERS. I was held to the last line of the story about the character's fate and whether he does or doesn't get on with his life. How do I do that in my stories? How do I get a reader to follow me along for hundreds of pages of character building subtleties.
• GONE WITH THE WIND. Epic portrayal of one woman's will to "survive" on her terms at all costs, including a probable decent into madness.
• THE POISONWOOD BIBLE. The odd setting, time, place, characters, and the POVs from everyone except the man character being portrayed.
• TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Count me as one of those who truly believes Truman Capote really wrote this. It is masterful in its portrayal of a man of conscious through the eyes of his daughter, showing the ugly nature of prejudice, and its unrelenting hold on people even when they know the truth. Besides, it had Robert Duvall as Boo.
• THE CATCHER IN THE RYE(read it at 17, 27, and 46 ... still resonates). Dated? Perhaps, but it still shows the outright manic thrust of a rebel without a clue. I wish to capture that frenetic energy, but as I age, I capture snoring old men waiting for their AARP magazines, teeth snoozing in wide mouth cups next to lazy boys with ejection seats because the fatted bellies don't allow the center of gravity to rise out of the seats when Matlock or reruns of Mayberry come on in the room with a big screen TV watched through eyes needing trifocals thick as coke bottles and hearing aids turned up high with the television sound loud enough to make airport managers complain about the noise interfering with pilots checking their engines.

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Celestine Stoltenberg, IWW Member, from Phoenix, Arizona also made a comprehensive post.

• 1. First off, I'll put the Bible on my list. I have read it from cover to cover more than once. I love the various people I read about, they are much more real and varied than in most Bible movies you see. I find the themes of love, redemption, faith and forgiveness both encouraging and challenging. The poetic parts (mostly Psalms) are often both raw and lyrical at the same time. I would love to write poetry like that. Within the Bible, my favorite stories are Deborah (from the book of Judges). Oh, the irony. The book of Ruth: one of my favorite love stories. The books of Samuel: the story of David's rise to kingship and his struggles throughout his life is varied and compelling. Keeps me turning pages. And the gospel of John. It was the first gospel I read, at the recommendation of a friend, so there is some sentimentality in that, but he includes some stories and details that I miss in the other books.
• 2 & 3. The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien and Watership Down by Richard Adams. I am lumping these together not because they are similar, per se, but because I enjoy them for largely the same reasons. The stories are compelling, rich in detail and exciting to read. The characters are varied and textured. I get very frustrated when I hear people say that the characters in LOTR are flat. What books were they reading? These characters struggle with indecision, doubt, insecurity, and fear, and all while pursuing seemingly impossible dreams. The writing is beautiful. Whenever I read these stories I see the details so clearly I feel like I am there. No movie will ever meet my expectations of these stories. These are books I read when I was young and decided then to read over and over. I've read each of these at least half a dozen times and every time I read them again I love them. I am also very impressed with how the authors create complete societies with their own mythology, history, cultures, etc.
• 4. The short stories of George R. R. Martin. Again, these stories are compelling, thought provoking, and stirring. When reading his stories I have gone through the full gamut of emotions: pity, disgust, anger, sadness and laughter (OK, I know that's not technically an emotion). And throughout the reading I am filled with a sense of awe at what this author can do. He's amazing. I want to be like him when I grow up (except a woman).
• 5. Wow. I'm not sure what to put in this spot because my books are all giving me these big puppy-dog eyes and saying "pick me, please." I have read all of Jane Austen's work ... and love it. Barbara Kingsolver -- amazing writer. Some of Amy Tan's work is breathtaking (some of it is just average). I've read To Kill a Mockingbird, Madame Bovary, and The Catcher in the Rye. They all hold special places in my heart. I agree with the person who mentioned The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I love Gene Wolfe and Ursula K. LeGuin. Charles Dickens & Tolstoy. J.K. Rowling & Douglas Adams.

I love stories. I love characters. I love watching the action unfold and anticipating what might happen next and being surprised by twists and turns. I love laughing out loud and crying out loud and shouting at the printed page because what has come out of someone's imagination has me, if only for a moment, believing it is real. I love beautiful language, words that flow into each other as naturally as water runs downhill seeking out the sea. I love powerful imagery that teaches me something new about myself and my world each time I encounter it. I love exploring themes and holding them up to my own life and experience, like trying on new clothes at the store. Is this me? Does it make me look fat?

Swearing in Science Fiction

One of the administrator emeritus, Dave Swinford, continues to participate in a chat list where science fiction writing is discussed.

"Well, what @$#Q@(!#@ difference does that make to me?" you ask.

Apparently someone commented about a new book, set several hundred years in the future, wherein the author constantly used the f-bomb as a crutch, enough so that it was distracting to her as a reader.

Another published author replied that most obscenities require commentary on sexual function, or if not, "on old bearded gods."

Dave wrote this short interesting essay in response, saying the ...

One might also consider how expletives are employed and why we use them as we do.

We live in a mountain resort community, and a couple of months ago during the ski season, my wife passed two young men, obviously tourists, who were exiting the store as she entered it. One of them said, "Would you look at that, Jack. This place is prettier than shit."

My wife nearly burst out laughing because she had never heard the "S" word used in that fashion. What the young man was trying to express were the feelings engendered by the view, by the tall connifers set against the snow-capped peaks. He wanted to somehow connote the intensity of his emotions, and that is usually why we resort to
expletives in speech and in our writing. To say, "That was damned stupid," somehow connotes more emotional intensity than saying, "That was very stupid" or "That was really stupid."

One of the challenges of building a fictional world that includes new or original expletives would be finding words that connoted for the reader this sense of heightened emotional intensity. Otherwise, you just have an unusual word that fails to evoke an emotional response from the reader. And to make the challenge more difficult, the meaning and emotional connotations must be implicit in the word's use and the context because the author cannot stop the story to define the word for the reader. Thus, most authors simply transfer established expletives to their world even when it's set on a different planet or far in the future.

The Eskimos have a great variety of words for "snow," each connoting a special aspect or condition of the snow. We, on the other hand, lack the words to effectively express the the vast continuum of emotions each of us is capable of feeling. To compensate, we resort to the use of expletives, idioms and slang.

This poses some interesting questions.

• If we had our fictional world include telepathy, would communications between telepaths include expletives, idioms or slang?
• Wouldn't telepaths be able to communicate all the subtleties of meaning, including the emotions with a single thought?
• And, how would an author relying on written words, manage to convey such layered communications to the reader?

The Process of Copy-Editing

Thoughts on the Process of Copy-Editing
by Gary Presley

I'm in process of reviewing a manuscript that has been vetted by a professional copy-editor, one in fact who worked as an intern at the university press that will publish my book.

Frankly, I never expected a copy-editor to change the style of syntax. Of course, proper grammar and syntax are a matter of intelligence and sophistication. And pride.

But if a copy-editor changes the style of syntax, the editor will be altering the voice of the writer.

Here is a specific example:

• The editor struck the ... "reaches out from self-absorption" and "contriving a fantasy," which represent both the way I think and speak. Of course, neither represent straightforward descriptions, but they illustrate my mindset.

In fact, the editor sometimes substituted far more prosaic, even colloquial descriptions. My friends on the IWW's NFICTION list know I always point out just used as a modifier is useless, and so I found myself noting on the manuscript that "I do not like and attempt not to use the word just as a modifier. A silly quirk, I know, but it is not my voice."

I'm surprised. I didn't expect that sort of modification of style, simply because my writing voice might use tangential references and obscure descriptions.

I should have known better. I once had a magazine editor change a sentence incorporating a personal declaration -- a heartfelt personal opinion -- into a wimpy opinion. Without asking ...

At least this time, I have input.

Writing for Children

A How-to Essay on Writing
by Margaret Hamill


You want to write for young children. You have an idea for a story, and you imagine it published in a magazine, maybe Highlights for Children, or Cricket. You see little kids listening with eyes wide, and mouths open as someone reads your story to them. This is a great goal. With effort, enthusiasm, skill, and persistence you may have a good chance of succeeding.


Here are a few things to remember as you prepare your manuscript:

Just as in stories for older readers, you must have an interesting plot and make your characters come alive on the page.

Include excitement, or tension, lots of dialogue, and plan a great ending to your story.

Consider the age of the child you are writing for, the reading level, and the current interests of children.

Does that sound difficult? It really isn't. Just remember what you liked to read when you were younger and try to create a similar story.

• What do children want in a story?

Children want action, mystery, humor, and excitement. They like to laugh, be surprised, and maybe just a little frightened. Touch their hearts with emotion, and tickle their funny bones with humor.

Give enough description to place them in the story, but no long paragraphs. You don't want them to toss the book aside out of boredom.

Finally, and this is very important, don't allow an adult to come into the story and solve the problems. Children like to identify with the main character, and be a part of the intrigue. They enjoy trying to solve the problems, or the mystery, as they read the story.

• What do editors want?

If you are writing fiction, remember its purpose is to entertain. Your story should start off with something to grab the reader and hold his interest. Editors often advise writers to discard their first page, or chapter, and begin further along in the story where things begin to get exciting.

Maybe you would rather write an article, or a true story, something exciting that others might like to hear about. There is a good market for non-fiction at this time. Editors are looking for interesting articles about science, animals, the environment, historical events and characters.

Kids are curious about the world around them, but the facts must be clothed in interesting wrappings. Avoid dull encyclopedia-like texts. Non-fiction for children should entertain as well as teach. Colorful pictures, or drawings, informative, well-written text, and current, fascinating subject matter will often sell your manuscript.

• Where do you get ideas for writing children’s stories and articles?

Look around you. Watch children. Notice what they talk about, what they wear, and what games they play. Focus on hot topics and current interests of kids in the age level you are writing for.

Search your own childhood. Did you have an interesting experience that would make a good story? You can fictionalize it, and change the facts and characters as you please. Your memory can be a vast storehouse of ideas.

Read children’s books--lots of children's books. Carry them out of the library by the armful. Discover which books children check out again and again.

Visit the bookstores. See what’s out there.

Talk with kids. Ask questions that require more than a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Listen to children talking among themselves. Notice how they put words together and what they talk about when they are at play.

Watch kid’s shows on television. Even the cartoons can give you ideas.

Carry a notebook and pencil so when the ideas come, you can write them down before you forget them.

• You've written your story or article. Now what?

When you have finished writing. Read your story out loud, maybe to a younger friend. Correct mistakes and make it as interesting and as neat as you can.

Search the markets to find just the right magazine for your type story. Look in the Writer's Market, in writer's magazines, and online for publishers.

Finally, prepare your story for the publisher. Be sure your manuscript is properly addressed to the correct editor. Type it double-spaced, with no misspelled words. Put your name, story title, and the page number on each page.

Create a cover letter introducing your story and include a paragraph about your writing experience, if any. Tell the editor why you think your story would fit in his magazine.

Prepare a self-addressed, stamped envelope for an acceptance from the editor, or for the return of your story.

Package everything in a sturdy envelope. Make sure you have enough postage on it. Drop the envelope in the nearest mailbox. You have taken that first important step toward publication.

Now the waiting begins. When that return envelope comes back it could contain an acceptance. If it happens to be a rejection, don't be discouraged. Be proud. You are a writer, and you believe in yourself.

Before you lose your nerve, repackage that precious manuscript and send it to the next publisher on your list. Remember Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell, was rejected about twenty five times before it finally was published, so there is hope for you.