Poetica Magazine

Writing ideas don’t come by FedEx or stork. Almost all ideas, whether for fiction or nonfiction, spring from experience, observation or the experience and observation of others, that is reading, conversation and gossip. Fiction draws on still another source, imagination, when writers ask the question: What if?

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Some of my own essays draw on experience: At the age of twenty-two, I wed a photographer. From that marriage came an essay, THE IDEAL PHOTOGRAPHER, which tells how to turn a nice child into a successful photographer.

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When I took pictures myself, I realized I could not conform to the Cartier-Bresson model of a photographer, an invisible gray man who melted into the background. I was a woman, and women draw attention. That perception led to THE INVISIBLE GRAY GIRL.

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After the divorce, I traveled a good deal. My unfamiliarity with European sizes became the nugget of THE GIRL WITH THE 85 BRA.

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By entertaining friends, I learned that it was more important to have a gourmet kitchen than to be a gourmet cook. From this thought came the piece, HOW TO BE THE MOST SNOBBISH COOK IN TOWN. I also ate out a good deal, thus inspiring two essays, HOW TO READ A MENU and JOUSTING WITH A FRENCH WAITER.

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Some of my essays drew on observation: After reading Readers’ Digest I devised a parody, HOW TO BE HAPPY IN 93 SECONDS A DAY.

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Experience played no role in inspiring my essay, HOW TO GIVE THE PERFECT ORGY because I had attended only one orgy, and I was a wallflower. Neither did observation since I forgot to bring glasses and had only a fuzzy glimpse of a bed covered with writhing arms and legs. Reading came into play. The editors of women’s magazines ran instructions on how to do everything so I used the same approach with a bacchanal. From then on imagination dominated the picture.

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Some of my ideas for books and essays originated with reading: I read about the early French rulers of what is now Quebec running out of coins and paper money and using playing cards as a substitute. That became the first chapter of my children’s book, FROM CATTLE TO CREDIT CARDS.

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Conversation has always been helpful. A friend of two photographers remarked that whenever their toddler son took a tumble, he waited before picking himself up giving them time to focus and trip the shutter. This inspired THE GENTLE ART OF KIDNAPPING.

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Earlier, imagination or asking what-if was the culprit behind THE YEAR PROSTITUTION WENT PUBLIC, where a new MBA returns to her mother’s sex ranch and sets out to make the enterprise more profitable. She installs time clocks, uniforms for the prostitutes and blue sanitizing bands on the beds between customers. The business goes public and, after a while, it also goes bust.

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Writers won’t run out of ideas if only they remember to experience, observe, read and ask what if, or to put it more simply, live, look, read and imagine.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Carol Schwalberg, Guest Blogger

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Carol Schwalberg's stories, poetry, articles and essays have been published on all six continents. She lives with her husband in Santa Monica, California. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

“Dear sir or madam, would you read my book?

It took me years to write, won’t you take a look?”

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I have a serious case of writer’s block. Not the ordinary kind — I’m not struggling to find the perfect couplet to finish off a 14-line sonnet, nor am I wrestling with a plot-line that seems to have struck a dead-end. I’m not chalking up sleepless nights staring into the black abyss of an impending deadline. My block is not about any of these things.

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You see, I recently completed a novel, and now it is time to trot it out before the admiring world. Only ... to do that, I need an agent. And to get an agent, I need to compose (shudder) a query letter.

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This is where I’m stuck. That query letter is crucial, it overshadows the effort of writing the novel itself. If the agent can’t get through my query letter, she isn’t going to read my synopsis, let alone the first few chapters of my book. And she’ll never ask to see the entire manuscript.

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“This should be easy,” I tell myself. “You have a strong product — it’s controversial and current, it has convincing characters and a compelling plot. All you need to do is sell it.”

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This is what I tell myself. But it’s not working.

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Each evening I come home and sit before the keyboard, resolved that this will be the night. I’ll knock that query letter out and have it ready to send off to the scores of agents I’ve already researched. Oh, but first, let me check my e-mail. And Facebook. Oops, now it’s dinner time. And wait, here’s an article in the paper I really must read because it’s all about electronic books being the wave of the future. Look at the time! On second thought, too late to look, the time has flown. All right, this weekend, then — this weekend I’ll buckle my socks and get down to the business of writing that query letter.

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But before the weekend even arrives, it’s booked. There’ll be a show or a concert I absolutely must see, friends who want to go out to dinner, a jam session across the park, and how can I turn any of this down? I call it “gathering material”, because you never know how any of these experiences might turn up in your work, sooner or later. Your work that will never be published, because you will never find an agent for your book, because you never sat down and wrote that query letter.

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The Greeks had nine muses — but the muse I need is the muse of queries. And she refuses to sing. That’s the problem. I expect too much of her. A query letter is a business proposition, not an opera. A query should be straightforward and succinct. Perhaps John Lennon said it best — “Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?” Actually, he sang it, didn’t he?

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I’m beginning to think I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle. The challenge is not writing a query that will stand out -- it’s sending out a query often enough, to enough agents, that it will beat the odds. Any novel worth reading has likely been rejected hundreds of times. No matter how fine the book, no matter how compelling the query letter.

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In the end, persistence is what counts. Believe in your project so strongly that you can bear to see it fail, again and again. Each failure brings you one step closer to the goal.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Luther Jett, Guest Blogger

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W. Luther Jett is currently working to complete a query letter for his novel, And This I Know Is True. He has seen numerous poems published in various print and on-line journals. Some of his work can be seen at http://www.lutherjett.com . His blog is at http://lutherjett.livejournal.com/  – Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I write in the dark, comfortably supine, using pencils on unlined paper and my stomach for a desk. I write on spiral notebooks during the countless bus-rides I take because I do not drive. I write at the kitchen table, with ink-filled pens on beautiful stationery. I write at my personal computer  – and that is where FreeCell and e-mails do their best to distract me.

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My version of a paperless office is both my night-time dreaming, and the writing I do in my head when my eyes glaze over where it would be bad form to whip out a ballpoint. Sometimes these words do not get to the physical point, but as far as I am concerned, they’re written anyhow.

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I breathe because I write. I scrawl ideas on the margins of newspapers and the backs of envelopes and receipts.

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I write because I breathe. A letter, a poem, a haiku, or an opinion piece may be written on impulse, but I have to knuckle down for deadlines. Yet I have no “routine” as such; I would never be able to write one thousand words before breakfast.

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People fascinate me. Family, friends, and even perfect strangers often thinly disguise themselves and gate-crash my fiction. For non-fiction I have to keep half an eye on the libel laws. With Malta being such an insular place, this is especially pertinent.

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Credibility is something I treasure. I always get my information from the source. I do not like censorship; yet I do not like people showing that it exists by depicting gratuitous vulgarity, or sex, or violence that are bound to be censored, either.

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Sometimes, a column or a poem write themselves. I have never stumbled over the hackneyed writers’ block; perhaps that’s because I tend to procrastinate since I know I work best under pressure. So, if you want me to write for you, never say “no hurry”. I have always made deadlines (albeit sometimes with seconds to spare) come hell or high water, births and deaths, illness and travel.

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I’m a stickler for using the correct terminology; and since the phrase “editors reserve the right to edit for length or clarity” covers a multitude of their sins, this has given rise to many heated discussions. I have no beef with writers who insist upon being paid for every word they pen; but I am not averse to donating articles (or poems or puzzles) to publications of worthy causes, without being credited – since this would defeat the “donation” principle.

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My writing is eclectic; so I slant my work according to the demographics of the readership of each publication or site. I do insert a couple of “difficult” words in children’s stories in such a way that, even if they are not looked up (as I hope they will be) the tale will not lose anything. I try to get my values across in anything I write, be it a television critique column or an interview with a celebrity. I like puns, alliteration, and idioms. But unless the feature is deliberately meant to be over-the-top, I consciously ration myself not to risk losing the thrust of my piece. I have several dictionaries (some of them esoteric) and thesauruses, which I prefer to online versions.

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Therapy; a weapon; serious fun; a dais. Writing, to me, is all these, and more.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Tanja Cilia, Guest Blogger

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Tanja Cilia lives with her husband and three children on the  Mediterranean Island Republic of Malta. She is an Allied Newspapers (Malta) columnist, blogger, and features writer, and freelances for several print and online publications in Maltese and English. Contact her at tanjacilia@hotmail.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

When I tell people that I founded Ruminate, an arts and literary magazine, I often get blank stares and hear: “Umm…what is a literary magazine?” I realize everyone here is fairly literary folks, but I still think this is a great question—one worth asking and answering. Especially because, in my experience, many writers don’t know enough about the publications they are submitting to or the rich world in which these magazines exist. And getting published has everything to do with researching and understanding the publications out there!

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So, I usually tell this friend how the six hundred or so currently publishing US literary magazines make up a non-commercialized market of small or “little” magazines that promote a variety work and genres from both established and emerging writers. Each magazine typically has a specific mission or niche, like an environmental focus or one that only publishes writers only from the west coast (check for this mission in the tagline under the magazine title, on the masthead page, or the “about us” page on their website). They also have a small circulation—usually between five hundred and ten thousand, are often a nonprofit organization run by volunteer staff and maintained by donations and grants or affiliated with a university. They typically pay only in a subscription or contributor copies, although some of the larger and/or university-funded magazines pay anywhere from $5 to $30 per printed page. And, reputable magazines do not charge a reading fee for general submissions. Most do, however, charge an entry/reading fee for contests.

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The next question I often hear is, “Well, why do they matter?” This was a question we asked ourselves when starting Ruminate, and I think it is also very valid. I usually share how literary magazines provide an important opportunity for new writers to begin and establish a career, how it is easier to find a publisher for a manuscript of short stories or poetry if some of the work has already been published in literary magazines, and how they are one of the few places where experimental/boundary-pushing work or “no-name” authors may find a home. No literary magazine makes a “profit”—therefore, they don’t have to answer to advertisers or commercial marketing and can truly serve and foster the literary arts. What a gift!

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And on a more practical level, many great writers began their careers by first publishing in literary magazines, and most in the publishing world would agree that this is still true today. It is a tried and true process and agents and publishers will want to see that you have published work in reputable literary magazines. Also, many anthologies (such as The Best American Short Stories or The Best American Poetry) select work every year from literary magazines around the country.

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Now the most eager of folks might even ask where they can find our more about these fascinating publications. In which case I’d get their email address and promise to send them a list of resources (see below). And I’d also tell them that they should join the conversation—pick one literary magazine…and subscribe! And help ensure that this rich world of voices and words continues to thrive.

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Online Literary Magazine Resources

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Duotrope - searchable by genre, word count, payscale, response times, rejection rate, etc. 

New Pages - literary magazine database, magazine reviews, and calls for submissions.  

Poets and Writers Online - Lit magazine database searchable by genre with info on reading periods and editorial guidelines. 

Winning Writers - Primarily geared toward poets.

Lit List - Literary magazines, contests, and online litmags, allows you to “follow” your favorite literary mags.

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Print Resources (available in the reference section of most libraries):

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CLMP Literary Press and Magazine Directory - Detailed submission guidelines for online and print literary magazines and profiles of top publishers and journal editors.

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International Directory of Little Magazines & Small Presses - Full editorial information on both book and magazine publishers; 4,000 markets for writers to sell their work.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Brianna Van Dyke, Guest Blogger

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Brianna Van Dyke is the founder and editor-in-chief of Ruminate: Faith in Literature and Art. She recently completed her MA in English literature from Colorado State University where her thesis was on literary magazines. She has presented at numerous publishing and editing conferences and workshops across the country and last month spoke on a panel of small press and little magazine editors at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Writing. She lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, with her husband, two kids, and two dogs. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I was thrilled to pass calculus. Years of checking addition with subtraction, of scrutinizing multiplication through division, and of examining functions via the employment of inverse functions successfully guided me to a culmination of being able to verify integration by means of differentiation. Complimentary processes had brought me good outcomes in math.

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Analogously, reciprocal procedures brought me good outcomes in writing.

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Reading chapter books enabled me to write funky fables for my younger sister. Consuming poetry led me to structuring rudimentary verse for my third grade teacher. Perusing nonfiction caused me to create diatribes for the most cherished of my stuffed animals.

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As I passed in age from single to double digits, I read more and wrote more. Eventually, I learned enough to teach college-level literature, composition, communications, philosophy and sociology. My textual contributions became my research as presented at international conferences and my scholarly findings as provided in professional journals.

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Subsequently, my children introduced me to the palpable glop and the denizens of their pretend worlds. Whereas I made drafts of poems and essays and scribbled down a book or two, during those years I allowed and even encouraged my children’s insistence on attending to their ladybugs and gelatinous monsters to distract me from distributing my ideas.

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Later, when my husband and I returned to a religious way of life, moving first to a religious community and then to Israel, my teens wanted a translator, not a nature lover. The local universities wanted a Hebrew-speaking faculty member, not an adept Anglo. Rather than dwell on my role displacement, I wrote.

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First, I documented my acculturation process in The Jerusalem Post and shared spiritual poetry in Poetry Super Highway and The New Vilna Review. Shortly thereafter, I provided content for The Shiur Times, for Hamodia and for Mishpacha. Next, I blogged for Type-A Mom and became a columnist for The Mother Magazine. In short time, I was writing for dozens of venues.

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En route, I adopted a hibernaculum of imaginary hedgehogs. Those sulky muses spurred me to additionally compose speculative and literary fiction, to gyrate new poems, and to engender fresh essays. They insisted that I again habituate myself to ravenous reading, too.

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Consequently, beyond the hours I spent informally eating up essentially anonymous collections, individual bits by named newbies, or the latest and greatest particulars by established authors, I also professionally read fiction for Bewildering Stories, nonfiction for Notes and Grace Notes, and poetry for Sotto Voce. Moreover, I began publishing literary criticism at Tangent and began assessing texts within the auspices of a handful of writers’ circles. This immersion in “reverse rhetoric,” coupled with the feedback I was receiving, on my own work, from other writers and editors, helped me to become more disciplined and introduced me both to new skills and to new levels of old skills.

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I began to organize my raw ideas in electronic files, to keep track of strange, yet succulent words, and to salvage snippets of prose or poetics trimmed from work heading to market. I became more heedful of “describing” instead of “professing,” of differentiating among characters’ voices via both semantic and syntactical devices, and of employing the necessary steps for creating ostensibly seamless narrative. I credit this steeping of myself in the opposite processes of reading and writing for the sprouting of my work in hundreds of places.

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Other benefits I’ve derived from this type of verification include an increase in awards and an upsurge in media opportunities. This mathematics of writing recently generated a fiction honor from Strange Weird and Wonderful and a nomination, from The Shine Journal, for the Pushcart Prize, in the genre of poetry. What’s more, these complimentary operations are increasing the acceptance rate of my book-length projects. The existence of my newest compilation of essays, Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting proves how reliably this rechecking works.

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In the past, inverse operations helped me to succeed with calculus. Today, such processes help me to achieve through my words.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

KJ Hannah Greenberg, Guest Blogger

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Pushcart Prize nominee, KJ Hannah Greenberg's work has appeared in The Jerusalem Post, Mother Magazine and The New Vilna Review, among others. She has been an editor at Bewildering Stories and Sotto Voce and critic at Tangent. She is also the recipient of several writing awards, including a fiction honor from Strange, Weird and Wonderful. She is the author of Oblivious to the Obvious: Wishfully Mindful Parenting, which is available at French Creek Press and on Amazon.com. Please contact her at http://kjhannahgreenberg.net  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

In the first decade of the twentieth century, two sisters, Victoria and Vanessa Stephen, broke free of the Victorian/Edwardian stiffness and stuffiness of their upbringing in Kensington after the death of their famous father, literary critic Leslie Stephen. In their flat in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of Central London, they opened a salon. Writers, artists, economists, dancers and various others all congregated at 46 Gordon Square to exchange ideas and art and laughter and work.

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Eighty or so years later, I lived in London for a semester abroad, studying the Bloomsbury Group at the University of London and following their tracks all over the city and to their country home in Sussex. During the Blitz, the original flat in Bloomsbury was destroyed, but their country home in Lewes, which they called Charleston, remains. The Bloomsbury writers and artists made art in their home, and made art of their home.

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Rugs, walls, dishes, furniture – all made canvases for Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and others who became part of the Omega Workshop. They believed art need not be confined to museums or canvasses, nor to hidebound ideas of beauty.

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Leonard Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Roger Fry, Clive Bell, T.S. Eliot, E.M. Forster, Vita Sackville-West, Dora Carrington, Katherine Mansfield, Lydia Lopokova -- among others -- were all involved in some way with the Bloomsbury Group.

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In 2006, I bought a small cottage in the mountain town of Silver Cliff, Colorado, which I have turned into BloomsburyWest, a writer and artist retreat. The one-bedroom clapboard house, painted yellow and blue in tribute to Frieda Kahlo’s Blue House (another inspiration), was once home to miners back in the day when the town boasted opera and an enormous population dedicated to gouging silver out of the cliffs, which they did with great success. Around the time the future Virginia Woolf was creating new language for prose, an anonymous writer built the tiny cabin, which, eventually enlarged, would become BloomsburyWest.

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Now, its yellow and blue walls house writers, artists, musicians, readers and anyone needing to spend time in a quiet place of beauty. As a retreat, the cabin offers high-altitude sunlight and wooden floors but no TV and no Internet. A restored turn-of-the-century Baldwin graces the living room. Bookshelves contain the varied works of Bloomsbury artists in addition to critical and historical work about the Bloomsbury Group. A vintage manual typewriter collection also pleases the early-twentieth-centruy aficionado.

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Unlike Gordon Square or Charleston, my Bloomsbury is not a place for the creative ferment of many artists and writers at once, but rather the blossoming of one artist/writer at a time. In its three years of operation, BloomsburyWest has already helped shelter writers who have gone on to publish poetry volumes, essay collections, and songs/CDs.

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When not writing or creating at home, visitors have hiked the Sangre de Cristos, whose jagged peaks you can see from the living room windows. There’s rafting on the nearby Arkansas River, horseback riding at various ranches, and all sorts of seasonal delights available in the summer months.

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It's connected to the original Bloomsbury in the most essential way: it provides a safe haven for artists to pursue their art with low expenditure or even with a fellowship for artists-in-need. Because, to quote Woolf, everyone needs a room  of one's own.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Annie Dawid, Guest Blogger

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Annie Dawid is an English professor and director of creative writing for 15 years at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon. She is also a photographer and the founder of BloomsburyWest, a retreat for writers and artists. She is the author of three books: York Ferry, Lily in the Desert, and, her most recent, And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family, which won the 2007 Litchfield Award for Short Fiction. Her photographs have appeared in various literary magazines as well as in shows in Oregon and Colorado. She can be reached at www.anniedawid.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor 

As writers seeking fame or fortune, most of us picture ourselves taking a solo journey to our book signings and book tours. We imagine doing these things alone, reaping the awards alone. We don’t imagine working with partners or collaborators. That’s why it was such a surprise to me when a year ago, I began working with my writing partner/collaborator, Nancy Naigle. I knew from the moment I met Nancy Naigle that she was going to be a great friend. Optimistic and encouraging, she is a great support and a good motivator, something that comes into play in her job as a senior VP for the Bank of America.

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Over time, I got to know her better and we’ve been roommates on several occasions for a conference and a writing retreat. We became co-writers when she decided that a novel I’d written was too good to be shelved while I pursued other writing projects. Pushing me to work on Inkblot further, she put her strengths into our co-writing after suggesting that we try a joint venture.

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While my experience and abilities as a photojournalist deal with grammar and writing tightly, Nancy is strong on dialogue and discipline. She’s great at sending out manuscripts to contests where our work has been reviewed and given scores by agents and editors. Comments from judges have helped us fine-tune the novel to send out again. The name of the game in writing is to never give up. When you write with someone else, they can help you pick yourself up and dust yourself off when you get discouraged. There is a lot of contact between us in anything writing craft related. When I see interesting websites for writers or come across great networking twitter members, I pass them on to Nancy and she does the same. She is big on goal setting and having written for the newspaper for years, I am used to deadlines. We meet to plot and plan and Nancy makes timeline charts and moves sticky notes around to help us decide the order of action. Dividing up chapters to write initially, we lay down the bare bones for each section. Over time, we add to these chapters and fine tune them. There is always room for improvement in this process.

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If one writer has too much work to do in other areas, a partner can jump in and offer to work on the manuscript an extra amount of time. We have shared the writing of this novel, each of us bringing different abilities to the table. I think it’s a great blend of skills and a union that I feel was destined to happen. I am grateful for having met Nancy and feel fortunate to work with her.

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The last contest our co-written YA suspense novel, Inkblot, was entered in, our book came in 5th in competition against 26 novels. Four novels ranked as finalists and ours fell right beneath it in the number five slot. Taking the comments that judges made, we are tweaking it to submit again.

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It’s a win/win situation working with a writer whose dedication and drive matches your own. There’s a certain magic in it. In a way we feel like parents, sending our “baby” out into the world when queries or contest entries go out. I can’t wait to get started on book two in our Headline Hunters series - and neither can she.

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Thank you for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Phyllis Johnson, Guest Blogger

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Phyllis Johnson writes a weekly column for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Her work has also appeared in Tidewater Teacher magazine, The Sun, Woman's World, and Contempo magazine. She is the author of three books: Hot and Bothered by It, a book of midlife humor, Being Frank with Anne, a poetic interpretation of the Diary of Anne Frank, and Twelve is for More Than Doughnuts, a spiritual book of poems and essays. She is currently marketing Inkblot, a YA suspense novel co-written with Nancy Naigle. The mother of two daughters, she lives in Virginia with her husband and black lab, Maggie. Please visit her website: www.phyllisjohnson.net  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I spent several days worrying about this piece, unsure of what to write. I must admit to being a chronic procrastinator-and occasional ostrich. That is, if I can ignore a problem, it does not exist. This is probably why ostriches are not known for their productivity.

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So there I was, flagrantly avoiding my responsibilities, absently watching movies; choosing a book, reading a couple of pages then exchanging it for another, and surfing the web simply to bide time, bored yet unfocused.

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Then it occurred to me that this is what I should be writing about. After all, what writer hasn’t had writer’s block? Who, writer or otherwise, hasn’t procrastinated about something?

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So what is procrastination, really?

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My edition of Webster’s defines it as a verb meaning, “To delay, defer, prolong or postpone an action”. But dig deeper. Is it possible that procrastination is really the result of fear?

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As creative people, we possess groundbreaking thoughts, plans, ideas. And there is a great historical precedent of non-creative people scoffing at the things they can’t see the potential in. So when we procrastinate, when we do just about anything but what we’re supposed to even though we know if we don’t do it now we will miss the opportunity; is it because we are afraid of that precedent?

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After all, what if people carelessly berate this thing you’ve worked so hard on, that you’re so proud of, which you had such high hopes for? What if they tell you that you have no talent, it was silly to think you could do this, you aren’t creative or even interesting?

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Yes, it stings. Yes, you hate the person who called you that. Yes, you want to run out of the room to someplace safe and you can’t figure out any way to avoid embarrassment…

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The fear of rejection, of the letter listing the names of the contest winners you eagerly scan for your name even when you know that if you had won, they would have emailed you or sent a letter with only your name on it.

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Of the endless issues of literary magazines in the mail which didn’t accept your work but want you to subscribe to them anyway; which you read to see what sort of work they did print so maybe you can write something more like it for them to publish next time; all the while resenting the hell out of the chosen writers for their success.

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But we don’t stop, because we can’t. We have ink, not blood, in our veins. “I almost can’t help myself”, says Elizabeth Wurtzel in More, Now, Again: A Memoir of Addiction. “It is always such a struggle to sit down and focus…I will mop the floors with a sponge, on my hands and knees, if it means I can avoid writing. But I would surely have ended up writing about it…That’s the nightmare of my life: I hate writing, but I can’t help myself. It’s just what I do; it is what I love to do.”

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Sound familiar?

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I don’t possess a handy-dandy list of ways to stop you (or me) from procrastinating. Every artist has his own routine, his own schedule, his own insecurities to deal with, and no single system will work for everybody.

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But I do recommend the author SARK’s method of micromovements: Decide what the very first, smallest step is in completing your goal. In this case, it would be 1. Boot up computer. Good. Done. Keep going: 2.Open Word document.

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It may seem silly to think of “Take pen out of pencil cup” as a task, but crossing off even the littlest things on a list makes a person feel accomplished.

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Procrastinating at the eleventh hour is not a great idea. But procrastination doesn’t have to be The Enemy. It may just be a different state of mind, a hibernation, and just as necessary to the creative process.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Cafe, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jessica Goody, Guest Blogger

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Jessica Goody’s work has appeared in New York newspapers, anthologies such as Timepieces, Moonlight Café’s Poetry By Moonlight, and The Sun Magazine. She was a Featured Poetess of SpiralMuse.com. Her work ranges from poetry and song lyrics to short stories and children’s books. A dedicated environmentalist, she is interested in publishing a volume of poetry and a mystery novella. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I think receiving a toy typewriter as a child and reading Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl may have had a lot to do with my becoming a writer. Like millions of others, Anne’s diary left a real mark on my life. For Anne, writing was a way to reach beyond the secret walls that enclosed her. Wise beyond her years, she left behind a legacy of hope and encouragement in the face of danger.

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Upon reading her book, I tried to emulate her positive attitude and have only come to realize in recent days that she may have had more of an impact on me that I had acknowledged. As a young girl, what had me enthused was the fact that my middle name was Ann and I attended Holland Elementary school. Here was an Anne in another Holland. Visions of windmills, wooden shoes and tulips came to mind. Then, the visions of the atrocities and injustice rang loud. It haunted me and made me realize that I wanted her determination, compassion and courage.

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Like Anne, I had the same love of words and rhythm, something that developed when my dad read to me and my siblings every night, often from a poetry book. I still have the Child Craft book he read from.

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Anne loved celebrities, cutting and gluing their pictures to a wall. I came to appreciate acting and became an actress for the Discovery Channel, getting parts in FBI Files, New Detectives, Diagnosis Unknown and Psychic Investigator. It was another way I found myself in kinship with Anne’s mindset.

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When various forms of injustice bother me, I often think about Anne and her desire for world peace and equality. During the year of my book’s release, I contacted the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. I wanted my book to be posted at the Anne Frank Center in New York. I came in contact with Buddy Elias, Anne’s first cousin, who told me to send it to the Anne Frank Fonds in Switzerland. (Of which he is a CEO). After having it approved at both locations, I sent it to the center in New York where it is posted at the website bookstore. It is also archived at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. When I was in contact with Buddy, I had no idea he was Anne’s first cousin. He told me that Anne would have loved the book.

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Six months ago, I emailed Miep Gies and to my surprise, she emailed back. She requested copies of the book and CD, Being Frank with Anne. I excitedly sent them and heard from her. She expressed her gratitude for my having written the book. I was humbled beyond words. Now, at her recent passing, I am in awe of the fact that I had contact with a woman who risked her life to try and preserve the lives of others. That was truly admirable. God works in mysterious ways, somehow connecting me to Anne Frank, and allowing me to help continue her legacy.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Phyllis Johnson, Guest Blogger

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Phyllis Johnson writes a weekly column for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper. Her work has also appeared in Tidewater Teacher magazine, The Sun, Woman's World, and Contempo magazine. She is the author of three books: Hot and Bothered by It, a book of midlife humor, Being Frank with Anne, a poetic interpretation of the Diary of Anne Frank, and Twelve is for More Than Doughnuts, a spiritual book of poems and essays. She is currently marketing Inkblot, a YA suspense novel co-written with Nancy Naigle. The mother of two daughters, she lives in Virginia with her husband and black lab, Maggie. Please visit her website: www.phyllisjohnson.net. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

When I was six years old and confined to bed with the flu, I decided to write a novel. After writing a few pages and realizing I had to define the characters and construct a story line, I became totally exhausted. That was the end of my life as a fiction writer.

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I didn’t think of writing professionally until I attended the University of Pennsylvania where we had to write loads of term papers. While other students were taking no-doze drugs the night before their papers were due, I slept peacefully because my research papers were happily completed before the deadline. Turns out I loved to do the research and writing. Now I write reference and instructional books, most notably my book, Weddings, Dating, and Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including Royalty a book that has itself been used as a reference for countless student papers and is located in libraries in many countries.

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Most people think writers who work at home alone have plenty of time, that writers are always secretly watching television and "eating bonbons." I always do my writing at home because to avoid distractions. However, as soon at sit down to write, I get calls from friends, from companies that should be on my no-call list, and from doctors office assistants wanting me to confirm my appointments. I spend too much time looking for things.

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It shouldn’t be hard to find things; my writer’s study is essentially white - white walls with white furniture. Color therapists say white carries a full color light spectrum that resonates, energizes, and strengthens all organs of the body. I feel a sense of inspiration there that encourages me to write as the sun’s rays shine brightly through the long windows on both sides of my desk. On the walls are huge decorative acrylic paintings that display visible colors of the rainbow that always inspire hope to succeed in future writing endeavors.

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I research a lot because of the type of writing I do, but then I pile one research paper on top of another, ultimately unable to find the needed paper that's underneath. While working on the computer, I suddenly need technical computer support. Because it often comes from another country, the tech support person and I may have difficulty communicating with each other and that becomes another problem to be solved; another problem that keeps me from my writing.

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There are days when the mess is more compelling than the work, when I have to bless my mess in order to give myself permission to write. Conclusion: I don't have time to write. Yet I do.

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And when I’m done at the end of the day, I walk away from that white room, now dark, leaving my lonely Mac Pro, visions of its glowingly lit keyboard inspiring me to write.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog.

Carolyn Mordecai, Guest Blogger

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Carolyn Mordecai is the author of the books Weddings, Dating, and Love Customs of Cultures Worldwide, Including Royalty (winner of the Glyph Best Multicultural Award), Gourd Craft: Growing, Designing, and Decorating Ornamental and Hardshelled Gourds (Crown Publishers) and others. Her work has appeared in national women’s magazines, including Cosmopolitan. She has taught freelance writing courses at Allegheny Community College and at Pennsylvania State University. Visit her Amazon page. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor