Words in Crisis

SLXLThis is the era of information overload, a time when the marketplace of ideas is so crowded only certain ideas manage to be heard: The most outrageous, the most offensive, the most affirming of one's world view, whether that world vThere are too many words.

 

This is the era of information overload, a time when the marketplace of ideas is so crowded only certain ideas manage to be heard: The most outrageous, the most offensive, the most affirming of one's world view, whether that world view is accurate or not.

Words seduce us into buying products to fix imaginary problems of being human. Words pummel us into submission. Words separate us into "us" and "them" so thoroughly, wordsmiths from Russia affected the 2016 US presidential campaign through social media, something we had never thought possible.

But words may be the only things we have. What else will contradict the messages that the beauty industry feeds us to shrink, de-wrinkle, and beef up? What else will convey the feelings we have about our friends, who are beleagured by the negative of social media? 

Love will not trump hate without words, because we can't hug our friend halfway across the country. Humanitarian progress will not be made without words, because words communicate actions  Words create a culture; words create a bridge between culture.

Words are important. We must fight to be heard

 

 

 

 

Question for my blog readers

Would you like me to keep this site as a mirror to the current Wix site where my blog now resides?

Please post an answer.

New Post on Wix

I'm going to keep doing this so you can find my new home! There's a new post on:

https://lleachie.wixsite.com/website

More about the move.

I want to attract attention. Not because I'm an attention hog, although I love it when people pay attention to me, but because I want people to read my works. Why else would I post them on my writing blog or on Wattpad? (Note: I am currently hosting a selection of short stories from the Archetype universe at Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/lleachie is the address.)

In the marketplace of ideas, I'm told, things have to look pretty. It's a long way from the days when I wrote poetry in my notebook in pencil and tore out the pages to show my eighth grade teacher. (I still have those pages. They're barely readable.) 

Toward that end, I made this much prettier and more readable blog. I will be doing the same thing here, and there is also a link to the old Blogger file above (At the top, under the header, labeled "Blogger" in case there are old favorites you want to read.

So, I hope this entry is seeing you all well and happy, and I really want you to become a frequent visitor to this site, and to have others join you. And please talk back! I really want to hear from you.

 Again, you can now find me on https://lleachie.wixsite.com/website, and I hope you will follow me there and make me a happy writer!

IMPORTANT!! I'm MOVING! Immediately!!

I will be moving to a new website for my blog with a better look and feel, starting tomorrow. You will be able to access the old writings on this blog, and I will be able to eventually post some of the old creative stuff on that site, but this site will not be updated after today.

My new blog is at:
https://lleachie.wixsite.com/website

Come visit me in my new site!

The World Needs

The motto of NaNoWriMo is, as I have shared before, "The world needs your novel".

I have doubted that, since the world hasn't yet published my novel. There's so many novels out there, however, that the world can't see my novel.  Too many people write, too many people get rejected because they're not guaranteed in the current fashion -- I may not be good at writing, but being rejected by the current agent process won't tell me if I'm good.

I have an acquaintance who's my role model -- when a project doesn't catch fire, he tries something else. He doesn't have to deal with the huge time commitment of novel-writing, so it's not quite the same. But I watch him keep trying and learning, and the story it makes is totally fascinating.

I am working to model his persistence. Nobody's representing me? I seek out small press and publish my least sellable works on Wattpad. These aren't likely to make me the "It" person at writers' conventions, but I find hierarchies of fame tiring.

The world needs my perseverance.
The world needs my compassion.
The world needs my struggle.
The world needs my love.
The world needs my optimisn.


If you want to help -- WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE A BETA READER?
This means you take on a manuscript and read it, making notes on parts you liked or didn't like about it, places that you felt needed more description, more action, etc. I would like us to work through Mythos, which has been rejected once but is the first of a series I'd like to publish.

If you want to be a Beta reader (I need at least 3) please email me (soon!) at:

My email address

Potential

More than anything, I think the thing that inspires me when it comes to writing is the potential a story has. The potential to be read or heard, the potential to speak to someone's condition, the potential to make someone laugh.

This is more important to me that simply writing for the joy of it. For me, the joy is from a human interacting with the humanity of my stories. My love of stories predates my love of writing, coming from a family where both sides excelled in their kind of stories. My dad's family told hunting stories with a sense of slapstick and absurdity, except for the Native American tale about sacred white deer disguised as something my Grandfather had witnessed. My mother's family loved wordplay, and very often my grandmother served as the "straight guy" a la vaudeville who would set up the play on words.

When I write characters, I want to bring them home for dinner and have a dinner party. When I write themes, I ask myself if they will entwine into my readers' lives and change them. When I write plots, I think of my family stories and how they walked me into surprising places.

It's good for me to think about why I write.

The situation is that I don't have much patience. Much perseverance, but not much patience. Oh, well, I forgot to get that when I grew up. I'm trying new things now, like maybe small press even though I will be lucky to get 100 readers, and Wattpad, which is the massive marketplace of ideas with no curator.

Find me on Wattpad -- you have to subscribe, but it's free. Read my story collection as it develops. Say hi. Feel moved to interact with me.

Wattpad

And if you want to write me? lleachie AT gmail.com