Kirst's WRITING Page

The Tuesday Ten is a wonderful writing and design tool that helps stimulate creativity via lists of 10 things that relate to writing, etc. The page calls these "Prompts for Your Pen." This week's Tuesday Ten asks you to list 10 topics you will not discuss and why. If you click for new ideas, it will generate suggestions like "list the toys you loved as a child," or "describe 10 funny or frustrating signs you have encountered."

A Daily Guide to Creativity and New Ideas is a fabulous blog full of ideas to seed your creativity within! Some current blog entry titles here include "I Break Writer's Block With Translation," "The One Line Limitation," "William S. Burrough's Writing Secrets," "10 Ways to Prevent Writer's Block," "The Seinfeld Secret of Productivity," "Do Your Worst Creativity Tip," "Cute is Hard..." This is a good site to check into when you need to jump start some creativity.

Some Writing Retreats: Hedgebrook Cottages for Women Writers (free writing residencies in Washington state) * Soapstone Retreat for Women Writers (founded by Ursula LeGuin, in Oregon) * Helene Wurlitzer Foundation (composers and writers live in casitas in this Tao, NM retreat) * Places For Writers

WRITING MAGAZINES/BOOKS/ETC.

Writer's Digest Magazine

How To Write An Engaging Article
Everyone has their own unique style and method of writing, just as painters or actors have distinct styles. So I can only speak of my own writing techniques. But I thought I would outline some basics that I think make a good article. A unique angle is important to a story, as well as proper spelling of names, links that actually work, and correct factual data. But organization is the most time consuming aspect of writing for me. A poorly organized article is the main damper I experience when reading many articles in Indy Media, for instance. If you cannot tell what relevance different components of the story have to one another, something is wrong. People perhaps think writing is just about regurgitating some facts down on paper. But it is in the presentation of those facts and opinions, much as it is in the display of fine food at a catered event, that makes an article palatable or not. It is in the presentation, as if it were a stage event, and in writing, I see rough drafts as rehearsals, and the final published piece as the performance. (Read more...)

Zine Culture: Brilliance Under the Radar
I love zine culture. Yet often when I say that, people ask what a "zine" is. A zine is a self-published, independent magazine, basically. Often they are odd sizes. Zines are characteristically unconcerned with a glossy presentation, often handwritten, and xeroxed. A typical zine is made by xeroxing paper and folding it in half, then stapling the middle. Very often the originals are made by cutting and pasting paper on paper, not on computers. There is a homemade charm to zines. People ask me where I get zines. I get them all over, now that I know what I am looking for. There are zinesters all over the place, leaving little pockets of creativity in the corners of the city for people to stumble upon. I find them stashed amongst announcements in book stores, at news stands, and at record stores. People mail zines to me to review, I go to zine events and collect them there, and I mail zines I find to my friends in other places and they mail zines they find to me. I have zines from all over the world in my collection now. (Read more...)

Women Writers in Alternative Media Using Male Pseudonyms
"Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.
"Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said, with a short laugh. "My name means the shape I am and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape." - Lewis Carroll

I have a knack for choosing male-dominated career paths by accident. I was a street performer at an early age, which is absolutely a male-dominated sport. Then I was a comedian, and again, performed in male-controlled venues with predominantly male acts. I was most often sandwiched between male acts many deep, both before and after me, wherever I performed, from hippie fairs in Eugene to gay comedy clubs in San Francisco. I went to law school where I learned what men did the last few hundred years. And now I have moved to political writing. And once again, approximately 95% of the editors I work with, are male. And almost all the articles that surround my articles are written by men, most often, as well. Look at wherever you are reading this article right now. Unless the editor was especially savvy (just kidding), there is a good probability that the two articles before this one, and the two after it also, are written by men, not women. Maybe this week will be the big exception, but that has pretty much been the rule the two years I have been writing. (Read more...)

Kirsten Anderberg. All rights reserved. For permission to reprint/publish, please contact Kirsten at kirstena@resist.ca.

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