Blog Monetization for the Galactic Traveler

Okay, "Galactic Traveler," in this case, refers to the Global (Internet) Traveler. GITs cover the world, because "going global" is possible via computers, satellites, Internet. Writers that do not have a web page, site, or blog need those--fast.

Opinari Quarterly-Network for Writers-learned that Google blogs and Amazon Associates have teamed up. So OQ-NW signed on. OQ has opted to include more books and other materials interesting to readers and writers, like electronics, including Kindle.
Let us know what you think.

Good writers pay attention to: 

Mission—The chief strains or threads of their promise to readers

Message—The writer zooms in on words capable of carrying the most helpful tone and meaning in ways that are clear, interesting, and reliable.

Motive—The invisible dynamic; self-indulgent writing lends weakness

Meaning—Factual and symbolic meaning that fits mission and message

Movement--The writer's personal reading habits show through. It has been said, for example, that Winston Churchill's oral cadence matched that of the psalms.




 

Change

Faith is much more demonstrated in going where we do not know than sitting where we have been used to.

~ Mogama

Mogama (M.G. Matally) is finishing his forthcoming book: Refugee Was My Name, a personal journal of the Liberian civil war and the internally displaced and refugees of Liberia, from 1989.

Bringing Down Journalism?

NYT - Business/Media & Advertising, Sunday, June 27, "A Magazine Back on a Roll": "Rolling Stone’s explosive piece 'The Runaway General,' which last week brought a disgraceful end to Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s career, was just the latest in a string of articles resonating in the nation’s corridors of power."

So writes Jeremy W. Peters in his New York Times article about Rolling Stone's actions in journalistic circles.

Is exposing weaknesses--and "bringing down" those that otherwise might not show their weaknesses again-- something to be proud of, as is Rolling Stone? Did RS behave ethically, albeit toughly, in publishing the report? Does such a magazine, which seems intent on economic survival through shock value, trivialize not only the issues but the Americans fighting in Afghanistan? 

Writer of Exile

You shall leave everything you love most: this is the arrow that the bow of exile shoots first. You are to know the bitter taste of others' bread, how salty it is, and know how hard a path it is for one who 

goes ascending and descending others' stairs.

Dante Alighieri

TODAY'S BLOG - ACROSTIC VERSE

Use the letters of any word, in proper order, placing them vertically. Then write a verse, each line starting with the letter that starts the line: Fun for children’s poetry-writing exercises, where they use their own names or any word word(s) they choose, such as MY NAME. Here's an adult effort, proving it is not as easy to do as it may appear. Grownups and children play acrostic games.
________________________________________
More than I can tell you right now
Your permission for me to sing makes me Wow!, for

Nothing is as thrilling
As hearing a fun song spilling
Melodiously from iPOD/CD
Especially if with you sing it with me.
________________________________________

Other places where acrostics are found? In languages all over the world. For example, the psalms in Hebrew, using the entire Hebrew alphabet-27 letters.

No Lazy or Loud "Thank you" to an Editor

Should you write "Thank you in advance" to an editor you're querying about a poem, article, or book proposal? Elements of Style says "in advance" could seem like a way to avoid saying "Thank you" again if you get a favorable answer. Instead, you're giving one big shout-out. Not good, when a simple "Thank you" after you get a response will do.

     If an editor turns down a query or submission, most writers send a simple "Thank you" for the editor's time, consideration, and response. Writers never know when interest may come the next time from the same editor. Better to say "thank you" simply and as often as called for, rather than once to cover all possibilities.

     Never, ever send an ungrateful or bitter note to an editor, and I imagine I did not need even to mention that. 
     However, should you try to change an editor's mind once a decision is rendered to you? If the editor gave suggestions without inviting further contact, I would consider the suggestions and, if making changes accordingly, would try again, carefully and respectfully, by sending another query letter, inviting consideration for the revision and making a kind case for why it might, possibly, be more interesting now, for the editor's needs for his/her publishing company, magazine, or whatever. Include thanks, again, for the editor's original suggestions and consideration.
     Be sincere. Do not try to flatter or grovel. Just state the facts as they have changed, and in a mannerly fashion. I know that is how you would do it anyway, so I'm just reinforcing this. (smile) 

     If the work does not get anywher further with the editor, keep working with the other editors you've queried or sent materials for for the same work.  

Publishing Know-how

Keep investigating how publishers think. Learn by experience, questioning, and reading. Learn from other, published writers. Read-scan Publisher's Weekly at library. Ask them to order if they do not have it. Maybe they will. Good writing has to find its place--its niche and home. Learn the ins and outs of publishers' ways of looking at what you do. Writers may see their works according to genre, lit, or art. Publishers see them as products they invest in. Our work has got to carry the weight, professionally, of marketplace interests or demands. ~ Opinari Quarterly (OQ)

OQ: Love and Revenge

OQ: Love and Revenge

OQ: Refuge in Singapore

OQ: Refuge in Singapore

Gerard Seow and Oikos

Gerard Seow sort of "fell into helping" improve the lives of Filipino domestic workers. Now, he and the Oikos Associate Trust Home (OATH), of which he is director, have seen 12 former domestics nurtured and trained as church planters and serving in two areas in the Philippines.

Since 1996, OATH has built two ‘barrios’-- a type of house which can double up as a church, residence, library and community hall, in the Southeast Asian country. A third barrio is underway.

The structures are built in areas of sugar plantations and rice fields that have little government support or church presence. GerardSeow is the author of When Favor Comes. Now residing in Singapore, he has lived outside Asia from childhood to teenage years, sharing his family's diplomatic life in Switzerland, the U. S., and elsewhere.  

Love and Revenge-Personal Narrative genre

Her genre is personal narrative. Her story is about love's freeing power, told in her book that includes photos of her with other internationally-known journalists. She reflected upon this quote after her ordeals of World War II in the Pacific:

Peace is sweeter to those who have known the true meaning of war.

At the Eternal Light War Memorial on Corregidor island, Mamerta de los Reyes Block meditated on these words inscribed:  

No traveler who comes here sees the magnificent monument and stands unawed;...  
Sleep my sons, your duty done 
For Freedom's light has come. 
Sleep in the silent depths of the sea or in your bed of hallowed soil Until you hear at down the low, clear reveille of God.

Her WWII captors thought her dead when they dumped her in a heap of corpses. They neither knew nor cared about her, the new life within her, or her widowhood due to murderous occupiers. A respected Philippine journalist, she amazingly survived that pile of death. She bore a baby daughter, Aida, and then did physical labor as a detainee. 

After peace came to her island home, she continued journalistic work; she also met and married a US Ensign, Isaac Block, stationed at Subic  Bay, Philippines. She did not seek revenge against her tormentors, but rather adjusted proactively to post-war life. She moved to Washington, DC, where she and her husband rented a large house known as The House on 19th Street, which gave temporary refuge to exiles coming from war-torn parts of the world.

She never forgot the details of cruel and courageous people; of military powers abused and love's powers applied; of betrayals and sacrifices; of downtrodden people relying on faith to survive. She wrote her story, a Philippine story that reverberates everywhere.  

She said of her treasured freedom: "And yet, I still have occasional flashbacks of torture and sudden deaths of loved ones. It is only God's love that can heal."

Her personal narrative ends: 

Charity (love)

Beareth all things, Believeth all things,

Hopeth all things, Endureth all things.

Charity never faileth.

(I Corinthians 13)

(c)2003 Block, Mamerta de los Reyes, The Price of Freedom: The Story of a Courageous Manila Journalist, Trinity Rivers Publishing, Manassas, Virginia USA  

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/03/25/AR2005032508813.html

Chaucer and Shakespeare

"What Bach and Beethoven are to music, Chaucer and Shakespeare are to English poetry."

"Shakespeare was a towering romantic genius,....

Chaucer on the other hand, was a sort of medieval, well-tempered Bach."

Some writers major on emotion, while others place the mind ahead of everything. The best poets and writers in general combine the two in the necessary balance for the work, cheating neither feeling nor thought. 

The Life and Times of Chaucer by John Gardner, Alfred A. Knopf, 1977

...Knowing--Tho'ts for 6/20-26

This week's psalm is Psalm 91.

Believing is a state of knowing.

Unashamed

"Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed" (Isaiah 54.4).

We shall not be ashamed of our faith. Carping critics may assail the Scriptures upon which we ground our belief, but every year the LORD will make it more and more clear that in His Book there is no error, no excess, and no omission.

from No Cause to Blush, C. H. Spurgeon, in Faith's 
Checkbook

Refuge in Singapore

The poor in Geylang, along with the fatherless and widows, must have a place kept open by day and by night, an alternative to the brothel community among the pimps.__Gerard Seow, Gerard's Site.

As we work

"... above all, ask God to guide you toward work which glorifies his kingdom...." 

Source: Forward Day by Day, June 8, 2010; 2003. Used by permission.

Show, don't tell

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  ~Anton Chekhov

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Enjoy writing!

"Writing became such a process of discovery that

I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say." ~Sharon O'Brien

Devotional - Week of June 13

Welcome. Here is a reading to think about this week. Comments welcome.

No Need to be Ashamed
"Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed" (Isaiah 54.4).

We shall not be ashamed of our faith. Carping critics may assail the Scriptures upon which we ground our belief, but every year the LORD will make it more and more clear that in His Book there is no error, no excess, and no omission.

It is no discredit to be a simple believer; the faith which looks alone to Jesus is a crown of honor on any man's head.... We shall not be ashamed of our hope. It shall be even as the LORD has said. We shall be fed, led, blessed, and rested. Our LORD will come, and then the days of our mourning shall be ended. How we shall glory in the LORD who first gave us lively hope and then gave us that which we hoped for! We shall not be ashamed of our love.

Jesus is to us the altogether lovely, and never, never, shall we have to blush because we have yielded our hearts to Him. The sight of our glorious Well-beloved will justify the most enthusiastic attachment to Him. None will blame the martyrs for dying for Him.

When the enemies of Christ are clothed with everlasting contempt, the lovers of Jesus shall find themselves honored by all holy beings, because they chose the reproach of Christ rather than the treasures of Egypt.

from No Cause to Blush, a meditation by C. H. Spurgeon, born in England, 1834; died in France, 1892.