Tag: wordpress

Writer’s Quote Wednesday – Ralph Ellison

For today’s episode of Silver Threading’s Writer’s Quote Wednesday my pick is from another one of my favorite authors, Ralph Ellison:

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Woa, that picture came out wayy too big, but I digress 🙂

“By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.”

– Ralph Ellison

So I love this quote, such wonderful advice about the importance of a writing identity as it is seen through the eyes of others. While you may know this within yourself (and I hope that you do) I think it’s also important to understand, as a writer, that it’s not just about you. The readers and even critics of your work play an important part in the molding and shaping of it as well. When someone who is not closely knit to you, not just a family friend or relative but a devoted reader, when he or she affirms who you are as a writer it isn’t to say you are dependent on that affirmation, it means you have properly communicated your message over to the reader. In a way it reminds me of Blog Awards. One of the most positive things about them, especially when different people nominate you for the same award, is that they prove that you have succeeded in communicating your blogging identity over to your readers. If your purpose was to create a creative blog for instance and you received a Creative Blog Award, it means you were successful in conveying that over to your readers, even if it’s just one person who gets it.

About The Author:

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Ralph Ellison was born on March 1, 1914 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and studied music before moving to New York City and working as a writer. In his book of essays Shadow and Act, Ellison described himself and several of his friends growing up as “young Renaissance Men, people who looked to culture and intellectualism as a source of identity”. Ellison took up the cornet at the age of 8 and years later, as a trumpeter, attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, where he studied music with his eye on becoming a symphony composer. I was first introduced to Ellison’s work while attending Chicago State University and reading his bestselling novel Invisible Man for one of my English classes, which he published in 1952, and was hooked ever since. Ellison’s unfinished novel Juneteenth was published posthumously in 1999.

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And that’s it for Writer’s Quote Wednesday. Be sure to click the picture (or the links) to find out how you can join the fun. 🙂

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The Writer in Me: TV

A Supernatural Meme that has nothing to do with this post
A Supernatural Meme that has nothing to do with this post

Does the writer in you get in the way of certain normal activities? Do you react differently in certain situations because of how you analyze the writing in it? Maybe you used to read books strictly for entertainment, but now you can’t stop noticing run-on sentences and comma splices. Well, maybe that’s more along the lines of the Grammatical Geeks (of which I happen to not be one of them, for those of you who’ve counted all of my grammatical mistakes in the first two sentences of this post) but you get the point. For instance, watching movies is not just about watching movies anymore. I don’t know about you, but TV means so much more now than entertainment on a number of levels. One of those levels is writing. When I sit down to watch a good TV show or movie, one thing I notice is how well (or poorly) the writer outlined a scene. Sure the director and actors play a major role, but I’m also looking at how the story was written, what was left out, and why. Its kinda weird I’ll admit. I’m probably the only person who yells at the screen:

“What? That doesn’t even make any sense. Who wrote this?”

On occasion I do blame the actors but mostly for me its the writers. I mean, don’t say Sara hates the color red and then have her skipping down the street in red platforms. And please don’t overdue the dialogue. The second season of American Horror Story almost lost me, way too much talking going on between the head guy of the catholic mental institution and the demonically possessed Nun (yea, forgot both their names). That season just seemed to be a lot slower than the first one. The writer in me therefore sought to mentally ask the writer what happened. Supernatural on the other hand is totally awesome when it comes to dialogue. I love the conversations between Sam and Dean, the humor that is incorporated into the story, and the carrying out of the roles by the actors. Speaking of awesome, when a TV show is excellent the writer again gets all of my praise. It rarely occurs to me that the actors merely improvised or that the director deleted a scene. In the end, I just can’t help the writers eye. But believe it or not this actually helps me in my own writing. When I write, I like to picture it playing out like a movie. I figure if I picture the story unfolding like a movie, chances are I’ll critique it with the same level of attention. Nope,. doesn’t always work but I still do it. In the same way, when I watch TV shows or movies I sometimes see it as a manuscript. I mean, someone had to write it first… write?

Summer Smells

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I love the smell of summer. Though you really can’t experience it until the sun starts to set and darkness sets in. Right now the sun is overtaking any whiff of delicacy in the air with its blazing heat, so you’d have to wait a while to experience what I mean. It has to be the perfect mixture of cool and warm mixed in a giant bowl called your backyard. I would describe it like freshly cut grass or the new growth of leaves on tree branches. Or maybe we can associate it with the smell of a coming rain. These aren’t very good descriptions. I know I have not enticed your creative mind to the extent of sight. I know you have not tasted the air of freshness melting on your tongue and all, but I have no other way to describe it aside from these basic examples. Besides, how does one explain the fragrance of life? Sometimes you can see a flower pouring all of its insides out, and cracking shells; shedding the once imperfect exterior to one more fitting for the season. Its growth is in many ways like our own. On first sight it looks like total destruction, and there is no gold at the end of the rainbow, at least not until we have weathered the storm. Always the hard stuff first, pain, suffering, tears, loneliness, doubt. I imagine it is a difficult process too for the flower. So much work to be done and change to endure early on. Only when it has shed its old casing do we begin to see the pretty pinks and reds of softer petals peek out from under the new coat of skin, see the dazzling beauty of what it has now become, and taste of the fresh smells of life.

Why I Reblog

Some of you have probably noticed a new trend on The PBS Blog. Other than my obviously awesome posts (lol), I have been doing a lot more re-blogs lately. So I thought it would be a great idea to list why. While some blogs are completely made up of re blogs and others only do it sparingly, I have recently began to enjoy re-blogging others. I know some people think it’s a cop-out, but there are actually some of us out there who genuinely love doing it and truthfully, it’s not because we want to draw more attention to our own blogs. One thing I’ve noticed is that my blog gets the least attention from re-blogs. So, why do I do it? Here’s why:

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1. Its fun to share other peoples work. It gives my readers a larger range of content outside my own perspective. I also love the feeling I get from helping to promote other blogs.

2. Its an easier way to network from my phone when I’m out and about. I can still be reachable and extend my hand even when I’m not near the PC. I was able to, believe it or not, type this out on my phone, save it as a draft, and publish it later on my PC. A great routine for those with super busy schedules. Draft it out on that smart phone (it’s supposed to be smart right??), save, and publish.

3. Some information is just too important to keep to myself. Re blogs is a great way to share marketing and promotion ideas, tips, DIY, recipes, funny articles, lists, etc.

4. Its an easy way to provide my readers with content when I don’t have much to say myself. It also introduces them to other blogs. Like I said, sounds like a cop-out I know, but when you look at it, not from the perspective of views for your own blog, but from the perspective of helping someone else blog get views, then it’s a really good thing because your readers are still getting that content even if their eyes are glued to someone else wall. The point is to help someone else like you would want them to help you.

And finally, it’s fun. Which I already said but I think I’ll say it again just so you know this is not some marketing scheme or tactic to get more views, I actually enjoy re-blogging (although to a certain extent. This blog isn’t made up, obviously, of complete re-blogs).

So, why do you re-blog? Feel free to share!