Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label experience. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Spoiler Alert! Your Escape into Poetry

If you like reading some poetry of mine, then you will want to Like my Facebook page: Dawn Leslie Mullan.

And, visit my Authorsden! I rotate my poetry and articles on that site from something I just completed to what I am working on right this second.

And leave a review, I may just feature it on Undawnted! 

So there are ways to have your own personal spoiler alert, but you should really try buying a novel or chapbook.

The Sonoran Dawn --Poetry Spotlight is open and ready to receive your ebook order. 

Have a great and wonderful day!



Wednesday, December 28, 2016

A Writer’s Guide to Writing Well

Writing is not about putting pen to paper or fingers to keys; writing is about conveying a mood, thought, emotion, or message.

Since publishing houses have control of the writing process, writers have become complacent about their craft. These days are replete with buying services from editors, publishers, and even other writers. As seen by so many professionals in the field, writing has become an industry that feeds upon itself.

More precisely, writing has become an industry that feeds upon the labor and creativity of the individual writer. Editors, publishers, and others have a hand out to give a writer a helping hand. Writers are now the commodity and the customer, yet have no voice in the process of either.  

What are writers to do when faced with an industry of corporate rules and regulations? Is there any room for innovation? Or is creativity doomed in the formulaic sanitarium called publishing?  

Education and experience dispel a pay to play scheme any day of the week. There are a number of ways writers can become decisive participants in their chosen craft. Writers must shrug off the pressures of the corporate institutions and seek out their own voices.

When writers become self-reliant, opportunities arise while opportunists disappear. To avoid the pitfalls of vanity editors and publishers, writers must mature from a combination of factors. Education and experience are the best directions to cultivate these hidden and natural talents.

First education must be sought. Noncredit as well as credit courses are invaluable to a budding writer. When writers learn from others who have been or are currently in the industry, realizations of reality can erase the romanticism of making it big overnight. Writing takes work.

I remember taking a noncredit script writing course. This course was taught by a professional Hollywood script writer. She had written for popular and beloved sitcoms. What I learned from her experience created a love of dialogue that I use in my stories.

Credit courses in reading, academic writing, and creative writing are also worthwhile for writers. A good education is learning from the writers of different eras and understanding what makes their writing literature. Classes help writers learn how to quote and cite from sources. In addition, a writer can learn from the masters not only in their creative fiction but their critiques of fellow contemporaries. Creative writing is more than making a fictional world; it is also about seeing fiction through a discerning lense.

A final exam of Edgar Allan Poe became a reading, critique, and academic paper of him. Did you know he was a critical thinker and critic of other writers of his time? To understand a creative work means understanding the person behind the stories. I learned how Poe envisioned his craft and he in turn helped me envision the craft of writing. 

As I took more courses, my understanding of poetry had been increased from a small town limitation. After I read some poems from Marlowe, Shakespeare, and other masters, an indelible comprehension fostered the love of rhyme, prose, and the economy of words, which have molded my skills. My poetry writing improved as I have been published and received awards for my efforts.

Writing is more than words on a page. Books are great to learn the fundamentals of any subject, but learning through experience is a requirement beyond measure. Professional writer’s groups help writers to learn how to tell a story through the eyes of others. Others are who will be reading and reviewing the work that is produced so groups of amateur and professional writers to critique are important to a writer’s development.

As has been discussed, a writer needs educational opportunities to cultivate their craft:

-a critique group
-professional writing/poetry group
-credit courses
-noncredit courses
-exposure to professionals in the field

Writing is also about observing the world. When a writer sits in a coffee shop to watch how people interact, communicate, and use body language that act helps create vivid and three-dimensional vision of writing.  

Reading and writing go hand in hand, so a writer may want to read a book then see the movie version. In contrast, a writer will need to see a movie then read the novel. This mirroring effect helps create an articulation by understanding the alternate takes on storytelling. This comparison and contrast exhibits how prose and dialogue can be used as a help and hinder.  

Other opportunities to experience writing in the professions is by going to the theater. The theater provides a writer with mood, setting, dialogue, reaction, and audience participation. All reference points a writer needs to advance their craft and stories.

If a writer wants a well rounded educational experience then movies and stage plays are but the beginning of their journey. Introduce musical theater, opera, dance, orchestra, and variety shows in the mix of exposures as a writer needs those visual cues.

The world is a stage. The writer’s stage is their world. So the theater is the place to open up the world to the writer.

Experience lies in the beholder, so a writer should avail themselves to a multitude of complements:

-theater plays
-musicals
-operas
-dance (ballet, jazz, flamenco)
-musical performances (symphony, orchestra)
-variety shows

When a writer has absorbed different styles, information, and refinements, the writer becomes the conduit and not merely the object for stories, characters, setting, mood, and dialogue. A writer who has been exposed to opportunities will know their strengths and weaknesses. Then a writer has the ability to outline their goals and needed support mechanisms. A writer becomes an active participant in their career. That leaves a writer open to options without becoming the victim of them.

Writing has turned into a business for monetary gain with many avenues to pay for services that may or may not be advantageous to the writer. Writers with a sense of self will avoid the pitfalls of vanity editors and publishers. With education and experience, writers can evolve into a discerning creator who will only pay for services that elevate their skills.

Let a journey into the five senses begin a career in writing.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

Memory Lane

I have been updating my credentials on Sonoran Dawn Studios.

The books, courses, lectures, and other learning mechanisms I employed over the years were a lot lengthier than I had given myself credit for. 

In a word: wow! 

I am glad I availed myself to not only study but to travel. I have been to numerous historical locations, locations in general, as well as touched history. 

Different points of view is an important skill to have as a creator. I wish I could have done more before I became disabled but while I was healthy, at least I did not hide in my house. I lived. Moments of time, I experienced eras and cultures. I felt time.

So memory lane has really bolstered my passion for knowledge and experience. I hope that one day I can return to what I enjoyed: living out loud. 

For now, I will live to express. 

What have you done today to break out of your comfort zone? 

Have a great and wonderful day! 
 
_____
 
A writer at heart, Undawnted's own creative spark, DL Mullan, began writing short stories and poetry before adolescence. Over the years, Ms. Mullan has showcased her literary talents by self-publishing several collections of her poetry. She also writes novels, designs apparel, and creates digital art. Ms. Mullan‘s creative writing is available in digital and print collections, from academia to commercial anthologies. As an independent publisher, she produces her own book cover designs as well as maintains her own websites. She is an award-winning digital artist and poet. In 2022, DL Mullan begun sharing her knowledge via A Novelist Idea Newsletter. If you too want to become a Fearless Phile, then subscribe to her newsletter at her Substack.

Learn. Grow. Master… with Undawnted.




Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Spring is Here, Sports are Overrated, and Stories Abound

Yes, I know those in the upper and eastern portions of the United States are frozen.

In Phoenix, 80's are on their way! Good, I hate the cold. I hate snow even more. I did live in Iowa as a child and I am so glad we fled, I mean: moved.  

The only wish I have is that frigid weather would ruin the Super Bowl. Then maybe Arizona would not be cursed with having to host another one. 

I know that sounds harsh but sports are not important. Sports are for fun. Sports are not supposed to be a person's main focus in life or take up their extra cash.

Let's put it this way.... We pay men to play with a ball in several sports more than we pay our teachers to teach our children, people to watch our children while we are at work. It is really obscene once you put sports in perspective to the rest of our world. 

These examples demonstrate the failing of ethics and morals. Roman Gladiators and idolizing current sports figures are but two different sides of the same coin.

In writing, a writer can find the similarities between the past and present as well as what irritates him or her about their own culture and use that experience to create another society in fiction.

Perhaps writing about how cultures defeat their male worship sports binge might be a good novel to write.

That and the weather. I cannot wait for our nice warm weather to stay awhile, even if the temperatures do not ruin the Super Bowl. At least I will have a good time being outside again. 

Well, if the planes stop spraying lines all over that make me ill and cause breathing problems. Yeah, clean air days and blue skies would cure a lot of what ails me.


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