WORDS, WORDS AND MORE WORDS!

By Shirley M. Carolan, ATM-G

This year is certainly flying by with summer now upon us. As many of you know I am passionate about words – both spoken and written. I even coined the phrase “Words are the poetry of the soul. They are as unique as your fingerprints You owe it to yourself to leave the finest imprint™”.

With that said, I don’t think I’m any closer to writing the great American novel! Maybe that’s because I write non-fiction pieces and have not researched potential markets for some of my material. Or, maybe it’s because the month of June saw me reading avidly, at least two books a week. You might say that’s not a lot but I truly devour words as I read chapter after chapter.. When I get to the end of the book I ask myself would I have ended it that way? Most of the time I have to say NO! And then, I torment myself with how I would end the book.

I think to be a good writer you have to also be a good reader. There are so many authors out there and so many different styles. Characters are also very important to me, including their names. If I can’t associate the name with the character, or the character’s deeds, words, thoughts, then I get frustrated. But that’s fairly rare, whether I read a murder mystery, autobiography, political and religious intrigue/scandals, historical novel, etc..

If the story has truly resonated with me then I like to contact the author, either through their website, publisher, or snail mail and tell them how much I enjoyed their book and ask them if they have another one in the works and when it will be published. Some authors only want to be contacted through their publisher and that’s OK too. But, I do get a thrill when I can contact the author direct and write/ask some questions that may have come up for me when reading the book and they, goodnaturedly, respond.

Once I’ve finished a book I ask friends if they’d like to have it, if not, I put them in a box and haul them off to the local senior center. The senior center is always happy to receive them. Last week I took 15 books to the new senior center in Oceanside, CA. It felt good to recycle something I’ve enjoyed and had a lot of fun hours with..

Local libraries and thrift shops are also a good source to recycle your books. I even buy books from these places and the cycle continues. It helps me to also get rid of some of the clutter even though I have plenty of books and shelves that might say otherwise..

I hope this will encourage you to pass your books along. Meanwhile, keeping up with all my books helps me to think about and write the great American novel!

Shirley M. Carolan, ATMG
Writer ● Speaker ● Artist
artistwithaflair@att.net
Phone/Fax: 760-732-0663
http://www.shirleycarolan.com
http://www.angelscross.blogspot.com
http://www.smcarolan.blogspot.com

Copyright© 2010 by Shirley M. Carolan. All rights reserved. To reprint any part of this article simply contact Shirley Carolan at artistwithaflair@att.net. Thank you