Joyful Jubilant Learning

Time to rhyme and learn

While we are celebrating our digital learning here at JJL, April is also being celebrated as National Poetry Month in the United States.

• Did you have a Poem in Your Pocket on April 17th?
• Have you explored your calendar for any poetry events taking place locally?
• Have you read any good poems recently?

Yes, I recognize that there are those amongst us who would respond: "by definition, there is no such thing as a good poem". Alas, you do not fully understand what you are missing.

The opportunity to write with some restrictions and focus comes in many forms. One is via a theme. One is via the format.

Hence, a sherku which is my variation, really an extension of haiku.

sherku: defined

focus your writing, say it
all concentrated in just
nineteen syllables

This month I am working on a series of sherku on the stops along the Franklin Line. I ride the rails twice most days, I know the stops by heart but do I know much about what is at each stop? No, hence a little speculation and a little learning ensue on this series, along with a healthy dose of fun.

For the stops I knew very little of, I used Google and Wikipedia for some research. For example, I learned that the land next to Ruggles Station was the site of the South End Grounds where the old Boston Braves baseball team played. These are the Braves that now play in Atlanta.

Franklin Line: Ruggles Station

The old Braves outfield at the
South End Grounds is a
Parking garage at Ruggles

My posting on Steve's 2 Cents about this series got picked up by UniversalHub, a collection of Boston blogs. It inspired commuter-rail limericks. Wow!

I have long admire the work of Limerick Savant so I went back to my trusty companions (Google and Wikipedia) to learn more more about limericks. I read about the story of the limerick challenge that took place amongst some newspapers back in 1924.

This series of limericks first appeared in a June 14, 1924 edition of a Nantucket newspaper. It all began when the Princeton Tiger revived the then well-known limerick printed first below and the Chicago Tribune answered with the second limerick. The New York Exchange went one step further with the third rhyme, and the Pawtucket Times took over from there.

Click through to read the limericks here

As I grew up in Pawtucket (yes, really), I needed no further inspiration:

There once was a lad from Pawtucket
who now had to rhyme with suck it
but he did not dare
as he did not swear
so he found a way to duck it

Writing Tools

Do you think Princess Diana had the ability to slip into an ordinary blouse and pair of jeans and make those clothes look stunning?  Perhaps enough to even launch a fashion?  And how mystifying that women throughout the world could put on the same clothes and for some reason not elicit a similar reaction.

What Princess Di did to clothes, Roy Peter Clark does to words.  The man slips into a few paragraphs and sounds as elegant as Di looked.  You or I might be able to convey a similar message, but for some reason it just doesn't sound as clear and to the point.

Would you like your writing to sound more clear and to the point?  Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools will help you to do just that. 

To gain the most from Roy's work, one must enter into the mindset of a carpenter or other tradesman who works with tools.  Roy divides his sage and wisdom into four tool boxes:

1. Nuts and bolts: strategies for making meaning at the word, sentence and paragraph levels.
2. Special effects: tools of economy, clarity, originality and persuasion.
3. Blueprints: ways of organizing and building stories and reports.
4. Useful habits: routines for living a life of productive writing.

Each of Roy's fifty chapters represents a writing tool.  In chapter fifty, Roy tells us to build a writing workbench to keep our tools in. As someone with a great reverence for tools, I so appreciate Roy's approach.  Techniques to improve our writing are to be cherished and oiled and polished and stored in velvet lined mahogany drawers.

In chapter forty-eight, Roy tells us how his collection of books on writing falls into two categories.  One category is like Elements of Style and the other is like Bird by Bird.  This struck a chord of connection to my own collection.  It's the same.  But more importantly it illustrates an undertone to Writing Tools.  Writing Tools is like Elements of Style and Bird by Bird. It will help us with the nuts and bolts of writing while opening our minds to the stories of our lives, and to those we've yet to live.

This might be one of my favorite tools:

Good writers turn stories into workshops, intense moments of learning in which they advance their craft.  I learned more about reporting and telling stories from "Three Little Words" than from any other writing experience of my life.  I'm still learning from it.  Bit I did not learn how much I learned until I stumbled on a strategy I've turned into a tool: I write a mission statement for each story.

Writing down your mission turns your vague hopes into language. By writing about your writing, you learn what you need to learn.

The difference between how Princess Diana electrified folks with the clothes she wore and how Roy Peter Clark brushes strokes of clarity with words is that throughout eternity, there will never be another Princess Di.  Roy gives us the tools to craft and build stories.  He gives us hope too.  Though we may never write with such elegance, it is possible.

Dave Rothacker

What do you look for in a Book Review?---Redux

re·dux (rē-dŭks') ~ adj.
Brought back; returned. Used postpositively

What do you look for in a Book Review? was a posting I had done for us here at JJL about a year ago as we prepared for A Love Affair with Books then. My intention was to help our contributing authors write the best review possible for you, our JJL readers.

You were wonderful about responding, and your comments there stimulated great conversation among us both on the blog and behind the scenes. The authors truly appreciated it, and so I'd like to ask you if now, a year later, we could add to the discussion.

I am going to close the comments on this posting and point you there in the archives, so we can continue there with the benefit of what was already shared: There was some priceless stuff there, starting right off the bat with Rich G. Please add your thoughts. Comment there, and...

Tell us: What do you look for in a Book Review?

 

By the way, it is not too late to sign up and be one of our ALAWB 2008 reviewers!

Get the details here; Review a book, Win a book! and share your aloha within your love of reading.

~ Rosa Say for Joyful Jubilant Learning

Join me in a Playful Post: Give and Receive

I want some playful volunteers to create a community post on giving and receiving one sentence at a time.

• Do you want to receive and give in writing?
• Join me in a playful post that will begin next Monday December 10th.
• If I get early volunteers we might start sooner but I will be out of town from Thursday to Sunday.

• It will be a synthesis of improvisation built upon giving and receiving. I will write the first line of the post then we will take turns one at a time adding a sentence.You can let me know you will play along by sending me an email: dzinger@shaw.ca

• I will gather email addresses and we will have the post make the rounds a few times. Everyone will be cc’d on the post but we will follow an order for the creation of the post.

• The first line will be: I receive what I give.

• Then the next person will add only one more sentence building upon this and pass it on.We receive someone else’s writing and give our contribution for the next person to receive. Anyone who joins in will be sent the post in order and be asked to add a line then pass the post on.

Our  guidelines will be:

• Build upon what is offered by others.
• You can only add one sentence.
• Give the best you can.
• Make previous contribution look good.
• Avoid any negation of what was already said
• Have fun
• Let’s see what we can do.
• All contributors will be acknowledged as authors of the post.

We will work on it for a few days (I would like about 30 sentences if possible) and then post it here. I think this will be a playful experiment where we write about giving and receiving while actually giving and receiving.Come join me...this won't be a life sentence...just each of us collaborating one sentence at a time.

• Photo Credit: Fill in the blank by http://flickr.com/photos/cdm/51747860/

• Join in by dropping me a quick note: dzinger@shaw.ca.

Blog Action Day 2007: Can we help you Get Involved?

What will you be learning this weekend? You can start getting involved there!

As Monk At Work Adam Kayce had coached us during our recent Make A Difference forum, learning increases our contribution:

I believe learning has a strong tie to contribution. We are like hoses — put a little in, get a little out. But crank up the input, and you start blasting out the other end.

When you’re absorbing knowledge, cultivating wisdom, and conscious of the growth in your life, you can’t help but shower the fruits of your learning on the world around you, sharing what's inside you to make a difference in other's lives. And that’s the essence of contribution.

~ Adam Kayce, contributing to our JJL Forum

I just did some research to help me put the finishing touches on the post I have queued up on Managing with Aloha Coaching for Blog Action Day this coming Monday. In the process, I learned quite a bit from a local website called Hawaii’s Energy Future. Surrounded by a vastness of sea as we are in the islands, I was fascinated with the innovations they call our future, like Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, Wave Energy, Sea Water Air Conditioning, and Hydrogen Power, as hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe ... so much to learn!

So much we can still do. For instance, according to Hawaiian Electric (the company which provides electricity to 95% of the state's 1.2 million residents) “Hawai‘i has the potential to achieve 500 megawatts of added electricity from renewable sources in the next 5 to 10 years. That’s more than triple the amount we have now.”

So I started thinking about all of our readers here at Joyful Jubilant Learning (for learning is what you do too!) who may not have a blog of their own, and would like to participate with an essay about the environment this Monday:
Let us help you publish it!

Do some research.
Learn more about what you can do for the environment.

If you decide to write something up, email it to the JJL Community mailbox, and we will publish it here for you on Monday (please include your full name, for we do not publish anonymous articles here).

Be a part of Blog Action Day.

Make it personal, like Joanna has been coaching us.

Here is a video clip (less than a minute long) on what is happening:

Read more on the events surrounding Blog Action Day at The Action Blog.
~ Post author: Rosa Say

What I Learned From Writing Online: It DOES make a difference

Preface: This is an entry for Robert Hzurek’s September writing project, hosted by Middle Zone Musings. I have showcased Robert’s monthly efforts here before, and will likely continue to do so, for he has our magic, magnetic word in them – learning!

There seems to be a kind of convergence brewing in our blogging communities: Here at JJL we have focused our September Forum on Making A Difference. Over on Great Circle, Pete Aldin and company are going to War. Many bloggers are gearing up for Blog Action Day on October 15th. Then last week, this came from Robert Hzurek: Don’t Just Sit There, Change Something!

“So, your challenge, should you decide to accept it, is to a) make a change (big or small, no matter - as long it gets you out of a comfort zone), then b) write about your experience (sure, maybe you just started, but so what?) So, just tell me about what you did, why you did it, and what happened; you know, that sort of thing.”

What does it all mean?

This convergence I refer to seems to be a restlessness, a need for all this reading and writing we do to mean something – a difference, a call for change, for real and tangible action as opposed to just gathering ideas, writing posts or essays about them, and then … nothing beyond yet another round of essays for another month ... another theme ... another march of days spent writing about more ideas unfulfilled.

Well, this is what I have learned: Stuff does happen offline, and in the “real world” because of triggers that were written online, catapulting someone to action. Real stuff, meaningful to someone. Just because you don’t always hear back about it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

You have to write for the possibility.

When you write something online, whether in a guest posting, or within a comment, bravely willing to share, and give voice to your ideas, stuff happens.

How do I know? Two ways;

What you learn from writing a book

I've been reading a few authors recently who've highlighted how much they've learned from writing a book about their business or area of expertise.  One was the interview here between Rosa and Danny Meyer.  Now there was lots of food for thought in this interview (excuse the pun) but I was particularly struck by one of his comments, on what he'd learned from writing his book.  He says:

The discipline it took for me to sit down and write Setting the Table forced me to give language and words to those ideas which had always been obvious to me, but maybe not as evident to others.  Telling stories and drawing conclusions has allowed me to do a much, much better job of teaching and not expecting my colleagues to be mind readers!

I came across a description of a similar experience by leadership author Kevin Eikenberry.  He's writing today at Middle Zone Musings about what he learned from writing his book.  This is one of the points that he draws out:

I learned how to clarify my leadership values and beliefs. It is one thing to consult and training on things, writing them down is a more rigorous process than either of those other pursuits. Writing forces focus and drives clarity on what you really mean.

Interesting, isn't it?  He's clear that he knows much more about his subject as a result of writing a book about it than he did before.  All of this started me thinking about something else I'd been reading about this recently - you know that nagging feeling when you remember some words or ideas but can't quite remember where? - anyway, then it came to me that it was reminiscent of what Rosa had written about learning from the writing of 'Managing with Aloha'.  What she describes is a very deep, profound even, sense of connection with who she is and what she's about that arose out of writing the book:

The writing of Managing with Aloha was a defining moment in my life. At face value, it celebrated a very long career in management and leadership, succinctly creating this “Hawaiian sensibility for worthwhile work” that has become my mission and has built a very successful business for me. Beneath that face value however, Managing with Aloha exposed me to see the all of me; it has been a crucible part of my own Nānā i ke kumu process, that process in which we “look to our source” and become more self-aware of the whole of who we are

I haven't written this kind of book (yet).  The one book that I have written is on a different tack entirely - a description of short walks on the Isle of Skye.  I suppose looking back what I learned - over and above the lessons of ridiculous amounts of hard work and negligible financial reward - was the importance, to me, of a sense of place and how writing can strengthen that sense of connection.  Looking forward I can see great possibilities for learning more about what I know and what I do - when I get the time, energy and motivation to write the first book about it.

But seeing as I'm in such great company I thought I'd ask the question: what have you learned from writing your book? 

If this has been asked and answered here already - forgive me - and point me to the links - it's a great way of recycling some great content!

---

Post author: Joanna Young is a writing coach who loves to learn about writing as well as write about learning...She writes both Coaching Wizardry and Confident Writing, with some recent reflections there on The ingredients of confident writing.

You can read the three authors talking about the experience of writing their books here:

Danny Meyer talking to Rosa Say on Joyful Jubilant Learning
Kevin Eikenberry talking to Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings
Rosa Say reflecting on Managing with Aloha at Talking Story

Writers Cramp - tossing out all the old rules and expectations

I love to write. I have always tinkered away with words and writing. I can still remember when I was a young girl, sitting in my room at my desk with a nib-ink pen (my Father has generously given me one of his old ones - OK, maybe I begged...) practicing the way letters and words looked and felt as I guided the ink onto the page.

A blank piece of paper was an invitation to join the dance of creativity and expression. 

These days, I still need the feeling of ink on paper when I am not sure what it is I am trying to say. There is no way better for me to bypass my brain than by streaming my writing straight from heart to paper via hand and ink.

Today, as I cleaned my house, I was thinking about writing and my internal editor. And how, some days, doubts beset me and I second guess all my writings. 

I can lie in bed at night, before I fall asleep, and write brilliant things!  You know, sparkling, witty, funny even! Great stuff. But when I wake in the morning, it’s gone. I cannot even remember the topic I was writing on… only that feeling of the words flowing, soaring, jumping and running with glee.

Sometimes, looking for inspiration, I will go to my feed reader and start reading the latest posts on blogs I admire. Only then my inner demons come out in full force and tell me, quietly so no-one else can hear, that I could never write like that. 

Then there are all those half-written things – some in word documents, some in my myriad notebooks, and others as draft blog posts.

I will write something, and know that it is not quite there yet. That I need time and distance to work out exactly what it was I was trying to say. This morning I clicked on to a fairly old draft of a post… which I really liked. I worked on it for a while, refining and crafting an ending… and then realised that the title and premise of the article wasn’t where it had ended up.  It wasn’t really what I wanted to say at all… 

Why does that happen?

I left it to come back later, too frustrated with myself to continue. 

Then I read this! Joanna, one of our newest contributors to JJL, has put it so well, hasn’t she?

I wonder what would happen if we threw all these old ideas about good writing out of the window?  If we decided to come up with our own definitions of what good writing, confident writing looked like?

And I realised – one of those deep, oh wow, realisations – that I was trying too hard. 

That is why, when I am lying in bed, snugly warm and in that relaxed, drowsy place before sleep, I can write brilliantly in my head.  I’m relaxed, I’m me – no judgements, no editing, no expectations.

So from now on I am not going to try to save the world. I am walking away from expectations of brilliance. I am learning that who I am is, well, who I am. 

I am not going to try to impress the socks off you all by being the best writer in the world. You’re going to get me.

All me, and nothing but me. SHMG. 

For I have finally learned I have nothing else to give…

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Post author Karen Wallace believes that writing about the lessons she's learned not only helps to cement the learning for her, but may one day help others in their quest for a calmer, simpler life.

Unlearn the rules to write with confidence

The unlearning challenge at JJL has got me thinking about the things we need to unlearn in order to write with confidence.   (Confident Writing is the theme of one of my blogs, something I aspire to myself, but also want to encourage and inspire in other people.)  I think there are two types of barrier that we need to break down, two sets of rules and ideas that we need to unlearn.

1. Beliefs about what good writing is

People can get hung up on what they think "good" writing looks like.  This might be something that they've learned at school or university.  Perhaps they've been told it's something they're not "good" at.  Perhaps they've been told they're good at one form of writing (an essay) but not another (something creative).  Often they have an idea that "good" writing means writing in a particular style or being able to write a certain something: a poem, a play or a novel.

2. Grammar rules

It's easy to get overly hung up on the importance of grammar rules.  Yes, there are some mistakes that you might make (we all make) that can make you look dumb.  But in all honesty these are few and far between.  If you're willing to take responsibility for your writing you can learn which ones you're likely to make, which ones you find hard, which ones are likely to trip you up and work out strategies for getting round them.  Find sources of help that work for you: a simple writing guide, a spell-checker, a friend.

And there are some rules that we can happily throw out of the window all together.  Sentences without verbs.  Not starting a sentence with "and" or "but" (or "not").  Avoiding sentences that end up with "for" or "with", even when those are just the words, just the pattern and rhythm that you've been looking for.

You get my drift.  In fact I think there might be a whole new theme here that I could add to my blog:-)

I wonder what would happen if we threw all these old ideas about good writing out of the window?  If we decided to come up with our own definitions of what good writing, confident writing looked like?  Here are some of the things that would be on my list - and there isn't a grammar rule in sight:

• Writing from the heart
• Writing with integrity
• Writing with good intention
• Writing with your reader in mind
• Writing with rapport
• Writing with spirit
• Writing with aloha (thanks, Rosa, for teaching me this)
• Writing with all your senses
• Writing with gratitude
• Writing with clarity
• Writing with power
• Writing with impact

What words would you add to this new definition of good writing? 
What rules and beliefs do you need to unlearn to help you achieve it?

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Post author: Joanna Young is a life coach and writer who lives in Edinburgh, and she writes both Coaching Wizardry and Confident Writing. Her most recent article for Confident Writing coaches, How do you know when you've got to the point.

The setting of the sails

Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote this beautiful poem in 1916

But to every mind there openeth,
A way, and way, and away,
A high soul climbs the highway,
And the low soul gropes the low,
And in between on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.

But to every man there openeth,
A high way and a low,
And every mind decideth,
The way his soul shall go.

One ship sails East,
And another West,
By the self-same winds that blow,
'Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales,
That tells the way we go.

Like the winds of the sea
Are the waves of time,
As we journey along through life,
'Tis the set of the soul,
That determines the goal,
And not the calm or the strife.

Living a life of simplicity is a deliberate setting of the sails. Everything around us screams "more...more!" Enough is never enough. The gales of discontentment whip all around us all the time. In these gale force winds, we can set the sails to the ways of simplicity. We can set our soul to the priorities we have established. Practically, we choose to live within simplicity directed choices; we choose to live within its definition of "enough".

To not properly set the sails or the soul, we quickly find ourselves unable to be at rest within, unable to enter the deep, silent recesses of our hearts, where the best messages are communicated.

Let's learn to set the sails (reorder our private world) toward the ways simplicity. It's not the gales after all!

This Year You Write Your Novel

This Year You Write Your Novel is the title of an article written by Walter Mosley for the August 2007 issue of O the Oprah Magazine, and it’s terrific. Unfortunately it did not make the online edition of the issue, and if you are an aspiring writer, I encourage you to head out to the nearest newsstand and grab your copy. Mosley is the author of 23 novels, and so I trust he knows what he’s talking about.

Essentially Mosley gives us advice we have all heard before, and that is, “The first thing you have to know about writing is that it is something you must do every day,” however hearing it before does not necessarily mean those who would be published are doing it! There is a picture of Mosely with the article, in which the expression on his face is pretty classic; it is one of “why am I wasting my time with this, either you’re gonna write or you’re not. Your choice, your result.”

However there was something about the article that really appealed to me, and maybe it was his sincerity and willingness to write it despite his look of resignation in that picture, a photo which may not have even been his choice. The writer’s mind can motivate, manipulate, and manufacture, but there are these other times in which the writer’s spirit takes over his voice, and as a reader you just know, “there is something here … can I possibly listen well enough?”

Early on, Mosley does mention this;

“… a novel is larger than your head (or conscious mind). The connections, moods, metaphors, and experiences that you call up while writing will come from a place deep inside you. Sometimes, you will wonder who wrote those words. Sometimes you will be swept up by a fevered passion relating a convoluted journey through your protagonist’s ragged heart. These moments are when you have connected to some deep place within you, a place that harbors the zeal that made you want to write to begin with.”

I will share just one more snippet; I previously wrote here about unlearning hesitancy and reticence, and so it very well may be that this connection is what locked me into the whole article. So if you like, read it in a bookstore somewhere to see if you really want to make the purchase —I know there are some guys out there who think of buying an issue of Oprah’s magazine to be like buying a box of tampons for their wives (not Dave Rothacker! Dave, I can’t find that article you wrote about reading the O Magazine ... send us back there?) —However I’m willing to wager that if there is a wannabe writer in you you’ll make the purchase so you can do something similar to what I did: Tear it out carefully, and put it at the place I write my morning pages, where that picture of Mosley will stare at me and ask, “well, are you gonna write or not?”

Learning how to write without restraint

“Self-restraint is what makes it possible for society to exist. We refrain, most of the time, from expressing our rage and lust. Most of us do not steal or murder or rape. Many words come into our minds that we never utter—even when we’re alone. We imagine terrible deeds but push them out of our thoughts before they’ve had a chance to emerge fully.

Almost all adult human beings are emotionally restrained. Our closest friends, our coworkers, and our families never know the brutal and deviant urges and furies that reside in our breasts.

This restraint is a good thing.

The writer, however, must loosen the bonds that have held her back all these years. Sexual lust, hate for her own children, the desire to taste the blood of her enemy —all these things and many more must, at times, crowd the writer’s mind.

Your protagonist, for instance, may at a certain moment despise his mother. “She stinks of red wine and urine,” he thinks, “And she looks like a shriveled, pitted prune.”

This is an unpleasant sentiment, to be sure. But does it bring your hero’s character into focus? This is the only question that’s important.”
~ Walter Mosley

So what do you think, will you be trying the bookstore? Turns out this magazine piece is taken from a book Mosley wrote with the same name … This Year You Write Your Novel has been published by Little, Brown and Company. This must be one of the most unassuming jacket covers I have ever seen, or a marketing testament to the power Mosley has in name alone?

This is not the photo in the magazine, however I thought I would save you the trouble of googling to look for one! Click on the image for source, credit, and caption.

~ Rosa Say

Learn from the Master: Blog for 1 Person

The "Master" you learn from is you.
The "1 Person" you blog for is you.

If you are a blogger, a writer, (or want to be) or keep a journal (or have been wanting to), this post is for you.

The Blog as Journal

I've been keeping a personal journal using TypePad, and it's become a terrific multi-purpose tool for me. It's been working out so well, I felt I had to share it with you as a suggestion to try. In fact, I have had this draft sitting here since this past May because my results were almost immediate, but then I kept doing it instead of blogging about it, and the draft scrolled down my posting page until it totally disappeared from view --- I had forgotten it was here until I told Joanna Young about it today within a comment at Confident Writing.

Joanna had started the conversation while reflecting on her recent "blogging holiday;"

"One of the things that you can do while taking a blogging holiday is take stock of the way that you read, and write, and comment and engage in this activity we call 'blogging.'"

She talks about routine, addiction, time, writing, focus, and purpose; great thoughts you can reflect on with her too. To save you from re-reading my comment there...

Back in mid-May, I created a brand new blog and simply called it "bJournal." It is password protected and not public, and I initially started it because after a lifetime of paper and then Word doc journals, I wanted to tag my morning pages and other private journaling with categories and keywords so I could better find those flashes of inspiration that can come from stream of consciousness writing.

Well it has turned out to be one of the best writing ideas I have ever had. I now use it for all my blog writing: The "noise" and private stuff stays there, and what is worth sharing and I think worth the value of my readers' attention moves to one of my "real" blog draft fields to be slept on and then edited in a more online-worthy voice of the Mea Ho'okipa. Blogging is very addictive, and what bJournal has done is satisfy the fix, while serving its digital archiving purposes for me, with the cleaning up of my act a true bonus.

I have had a goal to be a better commenter within the blog community and not an "airy fairy" one, and I now find I am putting comment drafts in bJournal too if I want to curb my first impulse in its writing and return to the blog later.

Now I will be the first to admit that there are times I cannot resist sharing the noise. This is a work in progress!

There is another thought that comes to mind with this.

Who is the "Master" and just how many blogging tools do you need?

Web-based Writing as Top-Shelf Toolbox

My dad used to say that the best tool in his beloved Craftsman toolbox was the box itself. (He meant the portable one you carry around with you - not the mega he-man garage models.)

He felt that there must have been some divine intervention in the mind of the guy who took it from prototype to its red stainless steel goodness, for the space between the top shelf and the cover when it latched shut most effortlessly, perfectly defined which tools any respectable common sense handyman would use most often, readily accessible to him. Far as Dad could see,

To use more than that; irrelevant and uncertain tinkering.

To skip using what was there in nearly every job; you're rushing and may have missed something.

When it came time to allow my brothers the learning privilege of using his precious tools, he'd simply open the cover, wait for them to make their choice for the job at hand, and then teach them based on the tool they chose, grilling them on why they did so.

I have now been blogging for three years, and TypePad is my Craftsman. There are twelve blogs on my TypePad dashboard, some public, some private, some mine, some hosted for clients, some at the invitation of others to guest author. I don't really think of them as for blogging; they are for writing as my craft.

The lesson I've been thinking most about these days, is another one from my Dad, about how there were times he just knew that an older once-cherished tool had to slip a drawer down to make room for a newer one, or just maybe, it had to be left in the garage.

Related posts: From the JJL Archives

• We all have magical powers. We call those magical powers ‘writing.’ The magic is within the written word.
• A Guide to Writing Well; this is a must for your del.icio.us tagging with writing how-to.
• Write to Learn; Slow, Steady, Sure. We need to keep learning connections intact, no matter what wizardry technology cooks up next, if we are to continually mentor new generations of lifelong learners. 9 very thoughtful comments in this conversation.

Advice from Starbucker: I offer this advice to someone reading this who's thinking about blogging - go to one of those services like Blogger, register, sit in front of your computer, and start pouring some of your life experiences onto the screen.  At worst, it's therapy. At best, it's a whole new wonderful world.
Read the rest here: How Do I Blog Thee? Let Me Start at the Beginning

We all have magical powers

We call those magical powers ‘writing.’ The magic is within the written word.

What author doesn’t wish they had written a phenomenon like Harry Potter?

The financial success would certainly be sweet, mostly because what it buys for you is the financial freedom to have a literary life, one where you can shut everything else out and simply write to your heart’s content. I daresay most authors will tell you they do not envy Ms. Rowling’s fame, for such things get too intrusive.

However the phenomenon is more than the financial freedom; it is the accomplishment of having Harry Potter become a household name, one that creates conversations and sends the mind on fanciful journeys of imagination. The phenomenon all authors surely yearn for, is that their words have had an impact; it is knowing that what you have written can so positively inspire.

As I sheepishly admitted to David Zinger in another conversation here, “I’m the odd duck who has never read a single Harry Potter book or seen any of the films,” and therefore, the character names and plot twists are pretty unfamiliar to me. Yet here I am, writing about it.

I have watched the entire circus that surrounds each book release with fascination, for that ‘circus’ is such a study in what drives human interest, and I can’t help but wonder about the “wisdom of crowds” in one moment and the story of lemmings in the next. It tells us so much about how people will choose to spend their time, convenience be damned, and why they want what they want. It makes us wonder why people aren’t as driven to work on real life itself, versus besieging Rowling with letters pleading she never allows the fantasy to end.

LONDON — Outside Waterstone's book shop in tourist-filled Piccadilly Circus, a woman in her 20s slept soundly on the sidewalk, her witch's hat covering her tired eyes.

A young girl dressed as a Victorian nurse chewed on candy and chatted with others eagerly waiting outside the store. And at the front of the growing line, a 16-year-old from the Netherlands held a sign addressed to spectators: "Only $2 for staring," it said.

A woman from Michigan and her two daughters were camped farther down the line. They booked a hotel across the street to make sure they would not miss the bookstore party.

"I love the waiting and anticipating, of guessing what is going to occur," said Margie McCloy. "Sharing this with my girls is what is most magical to me."

"I'll miss the spectacle," interrupted Chellie Carr, McCloy's youngest daughter. "No Harry Potter fan will ever experience this after this book."

The great irony here is that personally, I still have very little desire to read a Harry Potter book. I’m sure I would if one were given to me, however the book dollars I spend go to a wide array of other choices that will always trump fantasy. Yet I can tell you without any doubt whatsoever that my story would be different if my own children were younger in 1997 when the first Harry Potter book was published, for they were then past the age of contentedly sitting and allowing me to read to them. Like me, they were making other choices in bookstores. However they were not beyond other fascinations … remember furbies? I have one of those stories of what I went through to get my daughter a pure white one, and my son a pure black one during one frantic Christmas season …

I agree with the sentiment in this editorial in The Herald Bulletin, and I also cheer for what J.K. Rowling has achieved, however I also know the editor is wrong;

Whether you are a fan of the best-selling series in book history, a lover of the spine-tingling movie adventures or a die-hard Potter hater, it doesn’t matter. What J.K. Rowling has done for reading is something we may never see again in our lifetime. Her creation of Harry, Hermione, Ron and all the magical creatures in between have recreated a powerful lust for books.

Rowling may just have magical powers herself.

Look at how many people she has brought together. Kids have in-depth conversations about Potter books with adults. And adults talk back. Brothers and sisters bond over the adventures. Grandparents find something in common with their grandkids.

Type in “Harry Potter” on the Web. Thousands upon thousands of sites pop up: blogs, bookstores, Web sites. It’s like we are all in this giant Potter book club together.

Where will people be tonight and Saturday? At bookstores and at libraries, celebrating. The characters will come to life with costume contests and trivia games. Then, when the book is distributed, fans will stay up all night and read. The thirst for knowledge is exhilarating.

Kids will be hunkered down under the covers with flashlights all night tonight, and parents won’t mind a bit. Chances are the adults are secretly reading in their rooms, too.

Thank you, Rowling, for your gift — for getting us to turn off our video games, computers and TVs and read again.

This is the part I know to be wrong: What J.K. Rowling has done for reading is something we may never see again in our lifetime.

To all you writers out there, keep reading and keep writing. Rowling’s magic can continue to happen, for we all have those very same magical powers.
~Rosa Say

Click on photos for credits.

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From the Joyful Jubilant Learning Archives:

• On the Road to Publication
• A Guide to Writing Well
• Write to Learn; Slow, Steady, Sure

Must-read blog for writers: Confident Writing by Joanna Young

Hospitality: Ripe for the Learning

Most people think of hospitality as a social grace, something you remember to do like mom taught you, when you know guests are coming to visit.

True hospitality is so much more.

In Hawai‘i our word for hospitality is ho‘okipa, and it is thought of as a value we share. Ho‘okipa is the value of the month for us on Talking Story, and I have invited our JJL contributing authors and other bloggers I admire to guest post, sharing their thoughts on hospitality. I asked that they share

...stories about great customer service, or

...about places they’ve traveled to which felt like home, or

...perhaps a story of meeting someone, in a time that started a special relationship in a unique way,

...or perhaps about the best first day they ever had at a new job or in a new neighborhood.

I asked that they write what they hope for in hospitality, or how they feel it can transform people, or simply to tell us why it’s a value so close to their heart.

They have done so magnificently, and I thought you’d all enjoy reading their essays. Come visit!

• By Deb Estep, author of Deb Inside:
  Ho'okipa Via The United States Postal Service
• By Lisa Haneberg, author of Management Craft:
  Build Energy then Go Where the Energy Is
• By Reg Adkins, author of Elemental Truths:
  Hospitality: Our Gatherings Seek to Meet a Need and
  Our Gatherings Nudge Us Toward Collaboration
• By Maria Palma, author of The Good Life:
  Hospitality: The Key to Peace on Earth
• By Dave Rothacker, author of Rothacker Reviews:
  Ho'okipa: A Mother's Love
• By April Groves, author of My Beautiful Chaos:
  Dissecting Hospitality
• By Joanna Young, author of Coaching Wizardry:
  Writer, reader, place: writing with ho'okipa
• and by me, Rosa Say: Hospitality and the Comforts of Home, with Company and Send that Blackberry to Solitary Confinement

If you’d like to join in the conversation, or in the writing, please do! Our talk story on Ho‘okipa continues through the month of July.

It started with this essay: Ho‘okipa, the Hospitality of Complete Giving

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from the JJL Archives:

Setting the Table, The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business, a book review.

What I Have Learned From Travel; Blooming

July 10 UPDATE:
Robert has posted the full list of entries at Middle Zone Musings - a wonderful 18 entries in all! I have also listed them in the extended section of this posting. Fringe benefit alert: Visiting them is also a great way to pick up the site feeds of those who would likely proclaim that writing is their Ho‘ohana (fulfilling work) … Robert’s group writing projects are proving to have a magnetic attraction!

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Preface; This is an entry for Robert Hruzek’s group writing project at Middle Zone Musings. Robert asks what we have learned from travel.

What I Have Learned From Travel; Blooming

When I first tell you what I feel I have learned from travel, your reaction may be, “Well sure, of course you learned that. Every person who travels learns the same thing. In fact, they know it before their travel even begins!”

Still, I’ll take that risk because I don’t believe it’s all that obvious, and I wish there were some sure-fire way to give everyone this learning;

Our world is a very, very big place of unlimited possibility.

You see, that unlimited possibility means that whoever you are, and whatever seemingly silly, preposterously huge dream you have, you can’t ever give up on the desire for it, even when it feels like you are stuck someplace with it burning a hole in your gut. There is always another place where you can try to make it get it to come true.

It may be around the corner,
it may be in the next town,
it may be on another island or another continent, but it is there.

Travel helps you get brave enough to cross that street,
or that interstate,
or that ocean to reach for that place where,
you eventually can arrive.

Travel unplants you when for some reason, you cannot “bloom where you are planted” as Mary Engelbreit made a licensing fortune in proclaiming. The ground may be much more fertile someplace else, and you shouldn’t rob yourself of the chance to find out. The unlimited possibility is not an “IF” but a “WHERE.”

Your ‘unplanting’ can, and probably will happen in several different ways. Travel is sensory goodness.

I believe in the profound teaching of in-person, tactile, and of-the-land sensory learning. It speaks to the spirit within us in a way that electronic and virtual learning can never duplicate. Those things are wonderful (and as you know, I sing their praises often), but my wish is that everyone could have both the in-person experience of travel and the virtual one.

As much as we love our islands, in Hawai‘i we call it “Rock Fever” when a person has not ventured across the Pacific Ocean to see, hear, feel, smell and touch the rest of the world at least once. It’s the kind of fever that makes you feel apathetic, lethargic, and all the other junky feelings that make you feel sick. Feeling sick is feeling less than whole, and I believe that not having traveled outside that confirming circle of comfort people call home will always keep you feeling less whole.

The world was created big, and you were created mobile.

I put in a LOT of miles, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I understand what a privilege it is that I can do so.

I love my Hawai‘i, I truly and quite fervently do. But I am glad she understands that I must leave her every so often so that when I return, I can be a better person for her. The world has a lot to teach me, and I have to travel to best learn her lessons. My goodness, there are so many of them!

And another thing: You can bloom while planted in more than one place.

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Related articles;

• Places, Feelings and Learning. Learning Serenity. This was written about a place-connected experience I had in Prescott, Arizona.
• The wonder of human artistry. If I did not travel, and bring my children with me, they would never know the artistry of Cirque du Soleil.
• Get the Most Out of Travel. I wrote this from a business perspective, while a guest author for Lifehack.org.

Pictures! This is what you could see if you came to my Hawai‘i! I would love to show her to you :-)

• A photo album: Hiking in Haleakala Crater on Maui

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Another way of looking at this, found on Flickr;

Commuters (NYC, June 2007)

Four rush-hour subway commuters on the downtown "A Train."
Two are tourists and two are die-hard New Yorkers.
Can you pick out who is who? Of course you can.

35 Learning Links, and more to come!

Wow, some early fireworks are going off around here!

This has been an unusually full writing and blogging time for me away from JJL, with much going on behind the scenes of tackling our Ho‘ohana for July (at Managing with Aloha), and a Ho‘okipa community forum this month (at Talking Story). However the collaborative synergy here at Joyful Jubilant Learning is still capturing my fascination.

This is a great example of a time when blogging gets a bit challenging, but supremely energizing; I feel like all my senses are on turbo-charge.

Sidebar: So guilty as charged ... I did not get to my every-Saturday posting for our JJL Learning Project #2 ... in light of this excitement, how 'bout we all work LP2 project-privately to the Saturday after 07-07-07? I promise you our strengths journey is not going away!

Listen, Laugh, Learn, Link, Love, Live, and Leap to Wonder

This morning I am helping with the early compilation of the 7 Wonders of Learning Page we’ve turned into a BHAG for 07-07-07, and it is blowing me away. In the event you are a Sunday web reader, I want to call your attention to it. Jump into it within whatever peace Sunday still holds for you, for believe me, you’ll want to get the head start.

I’m also posting this, realizing that those of you who are primarily feed-only readers may think it’s quiet here if you don’t click into the blog for the comments and compilation-page updates your RSS reader will miss.

What started as a fun game in anticipation of next Saturday’s 07-07-07 calendar page, is tapping into the best-memory of those who are very passionate about learning. I have taken all 28 learning links submitted, discovering why they are each contributor’s favored bookmarks, and I am feeling I have been given the most spectacular gift of human-valued knowledge. The remaining 7 were my contributions, and while I still feel great about my own learning links, I am also feeling more challenged to keep looking for more I can share from other teachers, coaches, and mentors!

These have been the first 5 submissions of 35 links, with a very special thank you to David Zinger, Karen Chung, Steve Sherlock, and Terry Starbucker for allowing us to get a head start on our goal: Once again, we’re at Day 7 of our countdown to collecting 777 submissions!

P.S. Numbers 1. and 34. are feel-good-all-over tear-jerkers :-)

What have you learned from the world of work?

At Middle Zone Musings, Robert Hruzek pulled together a group writing project asking this question, and he received 18 entries - great stuff;

What I Learned from…

…Working in a Bar, by Genesis at the At Home Mom Blog

…Unemployment, by Markk at My Opinions are Important

…Working at a Startup, by Alex at Brick Blogging

…Working for the Government, by Lillie Ammann at A Writer’s Words

…The World of Work, by Troy Worman at orbitnow!

…Writing at Work, by Joanna Young at Confident Writing

…a power-cut, by Karin at The Kiss Business Two

…Blogging on Real Estate, by Michael Chantrel at MortgageGuide101

…Roofing Houses, by Nic Darling at Marketing Neophyte

…an Unscheduled Trip to Cleveland, by Mike DeWitt at Spooky Action

…the Corporate World, by Laura Spencer at WritingThoughts

…My First Job, by Pete Aldin at Great Circle

…Work, by Bob Glaza at One Reader at a Time

…Working at a Larger Company, by Jim Estill at CEO Blog – Time Leadership

…Homer Simpson About Jobs, by Jacob Share at JobMob

…a School Student About Business and People, by Yvonne Russell at Grow Your Writing Business

…From Industrial Cleaning, by Benjamin Penfold-Marwick at Hello Internet

…a Manlift, by Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings

We know what a forum like this takes JJL Community, and how lucky we are to benefit from it too! I encourage you to share your mahalo with Robert and these other authors for their generosity in sharing their learning.

Now share yours! Some of these posts will no doubt entice you to do so; let's hear it.

From the JJL Archives: Learning Through Blog Forums

Photo Credit.

On the Road to Publication

In honor of JJL's Rapid Fire Learning series, here are a few things I learned about the speculative short fiction market this past month:

• Most responsive market for short speculative fiction: Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. This pulpy sci-fi/fantasy magazine is published in Australia in both print and electronic forms. The pay is only semi-pro at the moment, but the response time and feedback levels are fantastic. Writers can watch their stories' progress through the slush pile on the submission tracker, updated several times each week, and the slush process is explained in significant detail. Like most other reputable markets, ASIM buys stories up to 18 months in advance, so you won't get into print any sooner than you will with anyone else, but you will get that initial "no" or "maybe" sooner than with other magazines. And you'll have the added benefit of knowing just how far your story made it in the submission process.


• Worst reality check regarding the fiction market: even if my current submission at ASIM is published, I will get paid at most $80 and might not be in print for up to a year and a half. Breaking into the writing business is a slow process, and in the beginning the rewards are few and far between. Stories are often purchased over a year in advance, which makes for a whole lot of waiting before that first thrill of seeing your name in print, and the pay for novices ranges from mediocre to lousy. Books and royalties are the only way to make a living in the long run, and these also take up to two years to start paying off. If you want to be a career author, be prepared for a long road ahead.


• The good news for prospective authors: there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a clear path to reach it. Short stories, as little as they pay financially for a relatively unpublished writer, build a writer's reputation and publishing credits, which in turn helps pave the way for that first novel. Getting published in a reputable magazine proves several things to an agent and/or book publisher: it proves that you can write, that you can put together a coherent story, that you can present yourself in a professional manner, that you can persevere through the grueling lag times inherent to the publishing industry, and that you are serious about being a career author. Despite the low pay and the long wait times, getting those short stories published will ultimately help you sell that first book, which will launch you into a career that will ultimately pay off in a respectable salary as long as you keep producing decent work.

Long story short, don't give up. Don't be discouraged by the time it takes to get where you want to go. If you keep at it, you will get there.

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Author EM Sky eschewed a career in law in favor of her literary habit. She writes in the speculative fiction genre, both fantasy and science fiction, and she conscientiously maintains the many fine employees of the Peachtree City Starbucks in the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

A Guide to Writing Well

On Lifehack.org, Kyle Pott points us to a wonderful writer’s resource put together by Joshua Sowin of Fire & Knowledge. Introducing his resource, Sowin explains,

“This guide was mainly distilled from On Writing Well by William Zinsser and The Elements of Style by Strunk and White … My memory being stubborn and lazy, I compiled this so I could easily refresh myself on writing well.”

A Guide for Writing Well, at Fire & Knowledge

Well, there is nothing lazy about what Joshua Sowin has done for us with his compilation; this is a must for your del.icio.us tagging with writing how-to. As Kyle put it,

The article traverses industries, so whether you’re a novelist or a business analyst, there is some quality information to be gained from the article. The content is very detailed and provides many tips to help you improve your writing.