Friday, August 31, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
Writers and Writing: Cyn Riley and Anne Bradford
Writer’s Block airs
every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com
Collaborative Script Writing Brings Out the Best
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Listen to the podcast at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/11/guests-cyn-riley-and-anne-bradford/
Listen to the podcast at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/11/guests-cyn-riley-and-anne-bradford/
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| CYN RILEY AND ANNE BRADFORD |
Over the Edge V, Frack
You is writing at its twisted best, not that the content is twisted…
exactly, but the process of developing the script for the satirical outing is a
process of birth by bits. Playwrights Cyn Riley and Anne Bradford spend a year
getting ready from one production to the next.
Wait, that’s not right, Cyn said on Writer’s Block Tuesday
they begin talking about writing the
next one right after the current production ends, and then it’s November... January…
February… March… about April they get down to business, over biscuits and tea.
It isn’t quite that way. Anne has ideas percolating in her
head all year and throws them out to Cyn, who catches them on the fly and runs
with them, crafting them into vignettes that will be played out this year on
Por Que Fun Radio. There’s a bit of a send up on that as well, but I didn’t
know that until I read the Optic front page story on Friday.
Over the Edge
takes no prisoners. It’s topical, a trifle political (or is that an oxymoron),
suggestive, satirical and just plain fun.
Cyn and Anne not only wrote the show, they’re actively
involved, Cyn as director and Anne doing “something,” she didn’t say what.
Script writing has its challenges. Cyn said you must visualize
how the action is going to play out. It’s a matter of making the dialogue work in
the framework of the play and the set. Recurring characters and newbies are
woven into the story line, a factor that in the past has had audiences lining
up for every performance.
Anne’s wacky since of the absurd makes her a perfect foil. “I
just start thinking about how this or that would work out if this or that
happened,” she said in her Brit accent. “I tell Cyn and she writes it up for
the character who is most likely to speak those lines.”
Does it take a while to put the dialogue and scenes to
paper? Cyn says she can knock it together in two days, once the idea is there.
That doesn’t mean the script is cast in concrete. “We’re rewriting sometimes up
to final rehearsals. If it’s not working we make it work.”
Over the Edge is
meant to be funny. Audiences are ready and willing to laugh at the situations
depicted on stage understanding fully that they are laughing at life and at themselves.
“That’s the chemistry that makes theater work,” Cyn said. “It’s
different with each audience. The actors have learned to be ready for that.
What got a laugh one night won’t get one the next. Or something one audience
didn’t think was funny, another will laugh at.”
Script development is more than writing down words and collaboration has its own chemistry. The mix of Cyn and Anne continues to work
because each contributes to the process in different ways. “The best part of writing
the show is going to Anne’s for tea and biscuits,” Cyn said. They both laugh at
this and then talk about what’s hard. There are a lot of ideas. Because of time
constraints not all of them can be used. That’s part of the collaboration as
well, pulling everything together into a seamless work.
Over the Edge: Frack
You, will be performed Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., and at 3 p.m. on
Sunday. All performances are at Sala de Madrid on the New Mexico Highlands
University campus. Advance tickets are available at Tome on the Range and from
ace ticket seller, Em Krall. General admission is $10, senior citizens $8,
students with ID $5 and children under 12, $3.
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Writing and Writers: Alvin Korte, Ph.D
Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com
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Listen to the podcast at http://wbvandermeer.podbean.com/2012/08/11/guest-dr-alvin-korte/
Author Explores Hispano Culture
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| DR. ALVIN KORTE |
Alvin Korte has an interesting background primarily centered around
education and social work. He has bachelor’s degree from New Mexico Highlands
University where he majored in psychology and biology with coursework in
sociology. He received his masters in social work from Arizona State University
and completed a doctorate at the University of Denver. He also attended a year
of doctoral coursework at Washington University in St. Louis. He says he has had
many careers in social work.
“I was a school social worker in Phoenix and later
in Taos Municipal Schools. was I also a public welfare administrator charged
with everything from child welfare to food stamps and everything in
between.
He taught for 27
years at NMHU, and has conducted research in aging, developmental disabilities
and juvenile delinquency. He has long been an advocate for the elderly and a “…somewhat
lobbyist on housing in Washington."
After leaving the
university in 1999, he created the first domestic violence program in Las Vegas
in 2003, and continued with the program until 2011.
He now spends time
doing a genealogy and social study of one family of Bacas and Kortes. I am part of an effort to study some of the
German immigrant families in Mora in Territorial Days. He said he is also
studying corruption using matrix methods. Last year the Las Vegas City and Rough
Rider Memorial Museum published a booklet called Southwest Swastikas, which explains
the emblems usage in Native American and other cultures.
In the midst of
all that he wrote Nosotros, a book on
Northern New Mexico Hispanics, which was the primary topic of our on-air
discussion. The following is a summary of our discussion in Alvin’s own words.
Q&A With Alvin Korte:
WB: In what ways is your book, Nosotros,
A study of Everyday Meanings in Hispano New Mexico an academic exploration
of Hispano culture?
AK: Nosotros is an academic book in that it uses two theoretic
perspectives from Sociology. It takes as
its theoretical perspective the social philosophy of Alfred Schutz and the
ethnomethology of Reyes Ramos and others.
WB: What prompted you to write the book?
AK: Schutz was interested in the way people in everyday life made sense of
everyday life. Life is naturally occurring and never given any attention unless
conflict causes people to examine the “what’s going on” in this scene. Reyes
Ramos was also interested in the way persons in everyday life made sense of
their problematic events in their lives. He was an ethnomethologist (ethno
meaning folks not ethnics). One other academic besides Ramos in of course Dr.
Tomas Atencio. His idea is called resolano, the south side of the houses
where old men would collect to ponder the great questions of life. Atencio was
interested in collecting this wisdom which he called El Oro del Barrio from people in everyday life. It is academic in
that one uses the available literature to open these areas for study. I took
classes with Dr. David Franks at the University of Denver. He taught a really
crazy sociology class. Sometimes we didn’t
if we were coming or going. Dr. Clark Knowlton pushed many of us to study Hispanos
way after we had graduated. Both Knowlton and Franks were inspiring teachers. I
also hooked into the work of psychotherapist Dr. Rollo May to put these ideas
from Existential Phenomenology into use
for psychotherapy. I first posed the question of a book to Dr. Knowlton who
encouraged me to attempt such an undertaking. I found so much to write about. When
I used to have more freedom I taught seminars on this material. It always went
well. For many years we had to teach something about “cultural competence” but
the books that purportedly were about such competence really sucked.
WB: What
audience is the book written for?
AK: I think this book could be useful to people working with Hispanos in a
clinical setting but I’m not holding my breath. The book was used by a former
student in a cultural counseling class this summer. I don’t know if the book
was useful. I didn’t intend this book to be a social problems book. I worked
very hard to make the book useful for someone who needed to understand what she
or he might be up against, the nature of their problem but little about what do
you do about the problem. I just don’t think one can define a problem in terms
of its remediation.
As an example, the
whole idea behind Mancornado is to
describe what happens in situations where the old girlfriend is running around with a new guy
and this guy experiencing loss, anger stalking or in many cases lands up in
domestic violence class. Presenting the idea as I developed one guy said, “¡Eso me esta pasando a mi!” A lot of the material has applications in so
called mental health settings. I would hope that not only should academics read
the book, but others. I know of five anthropologists who are reading it
.
WB: What value is the book as a way to understand how
modern Hispano culture is influenced by present day society?
AK: There are huge inroads being made by American culture on Hispano belief
systems, values or language. Obviously if one no longer knows how to speak
Spanish then one is not in a position to understand some who have better understanding. We can’t
communicate with our compatriots. Recently one gal at Walmart in dealing with
an older customer apologized to him saying “Ya
se me acabo el espanol” (I ran out of Spanish.) Yet one sees elements of
culture being remembered, reconnected to its past. If re-membered then it isn’t
forgotten. Two weeks ago I saw en
entriega de novios. Not only was it well done but people in the party saw
something of how it was done in the past. This is a reviving of cultural
memory. Some of what we are--what we believe in--has a long history in Spain. The
first corrido was written in 1060. Of
course they were called romances. The corrido
is very versatile. Rosita Alveres is
a very old song written in 1910 and yet I still hear some of these songs New
Mexico.
WB: Talk about oral tradition. You include
a lot of poetry in the book, which gives a broader sense of the depth of
cultural expression.
AK: One of the chapters I didn’t want to write was the second chapter on the
oral tradition. The more I got into it the more I appreciated it as a source of
meaning. Dichos are highly developed
social knowledge. Dr. Aurelio Espinoza from Stanford was collecting dichos, refranes in 1916. I see where
they are republishing Dr. Sabine Ulibarri’s stories from Tierra Amarilla. I
heard some guys doing hip hop in Spanish. This group was from Milwaukee. I
thought at the time that the dicho
could be used as a hip hop to teach kids value lessons. It would fit so
nicely!
I covered a lot
of poetry that I found in a book by Drs. Anselmo Arrellano and Julian Vigil. It
is an awesome collection of historical events. There are poems about people
leaving Mora to go work as shepherds. One poem tells of the loneliness and
brutal dry summer sheepherding in 1932 in Wyoming. Others tell of the 120
Combat Engineers on their way to go fight in Italy in WWII. One gets the sense
of the meaning of these events. Additionally our oral tradition was used to
provide grieving families with support. Andelica Gallegos would write these recuerdos
for her neighbors in Taos.
WB: In the book you have a chapter on
mortification. What does that mean and what is its implication in Hispano
culture?
AK: We have to suspend what we believe or see in order to take a radical
position toward the phenomena we are considering. It is called rendering
reality strange (Natonson). I was
talking in class one time about family violence. An older gentleman asked me,
“Is that an example of mortificacion.”
Wow. It caused me to start an inquiry about mortification. It meant that
this fellow was creating a hell for his Mexican-origin wife. She was using this
word to describe what she was feeling. My folks used to say that my mentally
ill sister was a mortification for them (Esta
muchacha es pura mortificación, parece que nos pucieron una maldicion). Phenomenology
attempts to get to the essence of a thing.
The essence of mortification is an experience of the death of a self, as
an elderly couple in Questa said. “Junior’s drinking is pure mortificación for us.” They were saying
that because of Junior’s drinking they couldn’t be parents to him, support him
or give him counsel. They experienced this role as mortification. Schutz gave a
nice idea by calling these experiences as typifications. Mrs. Benitez typified
her situation as a mortificación. Hispanos
have many typifications. I set out to document these typifications on a variety
of everyday experiences. A woman dealing with a son-in-law who put a gun to her
head experienced mortification. One cannot act in these situations. If one
cannot act, meaning dies. This is mortification – a death of the self. This
idea the basis of depression, as Ernest Becker taught us.
WB: Talk a little about the chapter having
to do with shame, respect and joking around. I’ve been present when what
started out as a joke turns into a shouting match.
AK: Carria is a joking exchange and part of
the oral tradition. Every morning I hear it at the breakfast table when one of
the guys gets ribbed about something he did of failed to do. It is not
malicious just good natured ribbing. Carria
comes from the carriles (chin straps)
on soldiers’ helmets in Spain. Thus carria
in a slap on the face. Sometimes these games become vicious. In most cases this
goes on all the time where men are working. Cabula
is also an insult only it is so abstract that the person getting it is not
aware of being insulted. These are skilled philosophers plying their trade. One
guy who sold rocks for a living took on an engineer. All of us caught the line
he was playing out while the highly educated, credentialed engineer never got
it. True cabulla. Face is what we
present to the world, for others to uphold or deface. Face is also our cara.
Face has a public and a private component. If the private part can be reached
the face of the other can desecrate his or her value. We have a name for such persons who
disrespect. We call them descarado – literally
without face or unable to handle the face or “line” the other has presented in
the interaction.
WB: What was
the greatest challenge to writing the book?
AK: I suppose the biggest problem was taking phenomenology and
ethnomethodology as serious. I was trained in statistical and research
methodology. Phen and ethno methods advocate
a different approach to research. They value the descriptive and the
interpretive rather than the statistical, methodological based on the logical
positivist. Gertz, an anthropologist,
called it thick description. Some
people have dismissed it as philosophy or irrelevant. Next would be the innumerable
evaluations and re-writes. I’m sure there are bugs in the text. There were days
which turned into weeks when I didn’t feel like writing. Dead spots of
non-productivity when nothing productive or positive would occur. Writing is a
solitary endeavor. One has to be a fanatic to write. I imagine it is the same
problem in painting, or creating music.
WB: Did your
research change your perceptions about how Hispano culture has evolved?
AK: This is a difficult question to answer. This was not the goal of my
studies. My aim was to look at typifications and attempt of consider issues of
social interaction (inter-subjectivity), meaning (which is elusive), intentionality
of consciousness, and other ideas from Existential Phenomenology and as found
in the Encyclopedia of Phenomenology. In
short I also wanted to see how these ideas might be useful beyond the work of
May and Becker. One of the ideas I added was the idea of a cultural history.
Nosotros, A study of Everyday Meanings in
Hispano New Mexico is available at Tome on the Range in Las Vegas, or at most online retailers.
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Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Writing and Writers: Slim Randles
Writer’s Block airs
every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com
________________________________________
Columnist, Humorist and All-round Interesting Guy
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| SLIM RANDLES |
He is currently working with New Mexico Highlands University to help create a "Cowboy Code" that represents what most people think of as the cowboy way embodying honesty, integrity and strength of character.
Slim is amiable, quick thinking and
seems to have been born smiling. He sees the humor in life and helps his
readers see it too.
He is an award winning writer with
several books to his credit and countless articles. He continues a long
standing friendship with Max Evans, a legendary writer and the subject of Slim’s
2004 biography, Ol’ Max
Evans, the First Thousand Years. He speaks of writing and the art of
being a word smith with pride and passion. His reviews are unfailingly positive
and reveal the respect with which he is regarded by critics and fellow writers.
He doesn’t waste time being an “aw shucks, m’am” stereotype of cowboys. His
intelligence and humor are evident in his easy manner and a gentlemanly
kindness. He said in our interview that he wants to write the kind of books he
would be proud to have his grandkids read. His respect for his readers keeps
him writing relevant material that will last a lifetime.
He graciously gave me a signed copy
of Sweet Grass Mornings and I’m
looking forward to reading it. He is a cowboy humorist who shows us life’s
lighter side and takes seriously his responsibility to produce worthwhile work.
Q&A
With Slim Randles
WB: You’ve just been notified you will be the recipient of the Rounder’s Award. Tell the audience what that is.
WB: You’ve just been notified you will be the recipient of the Rounder’s Award. Tell the audience what that is.
SR: Named for my buddy Max Evans most famous novel and movie,
it is awarded by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture to someone who “…promotes,
exemplifies and articulates the Western way of life.”
WB: You’re among a pretty impressive crowd. Previous winners include Max Evans, Michael Martin Murphey, artist Pablita Velarde, illustrator Grem Lee, and Baxter Black. What was your immediate reaction?
SR: When Max called (he’s my mentor and I’m his biographer) to
tell me I was going to be given the Rounder’s
Award, I couldn’t believe it. I’d rather have this than the Pulitzer.
WB: Let’s talk about your writing. You are identified as a cowboy humorist. Was that a plan or did it evolve over time?
WB: Let’s talk about your writing. You are identified as a cowboy humorist. Was that a plan or did it evolve over time?
SR: I guess that evolved. I was a newspaper reporter who
morphed into a feature writer, and then editor, and finally to columnist. I was
also a cowboy, and being a cowboy is a ridiculous, funny thing to do, so I
think it kinda sneaked up on me. I do quite a bit of public speaking, and that’s
kinda how I’ve been billed. I’ve been called worse.
WB: Your background is in journalism, but you have also done things like participating in the Iditarod and were named Champion Mule Packer at the 1994 NM State Fair. In what ways do these kinds of activities contribute to your success as a writer?
WB: Your background is in journalism, but you have also done things like participating in the Iditarod and were named Champion Mule Packer at the 1994 NM State Fair. In what ways do these kinds of activities contribute to your success as a writer?
SR: Everything in life contributes to a career as a writer. I’ve
had a particularly colorful life, granted, but if you are going to write
knowledgeably about freezing to death, you should probably go out and get cold.
WB: There are a lot of definitions of the “Cowboy Way.” In a sentence, what is your definition?
WB: There are a lot of definitions of the “Cowboy Way.” In a sentence, what is your definition?
SR: Being honest with yourself and others.
WB: What do you most want people to know about you they don’t already know?
WB: What do you most want people to know about you they don’t already know?
SR: I love music, and have played half a dozen instruments over
the years. Wish I were better at it. Music is an elegant way of expressing
oneself.
WB: Among the iconic characters of the west, who do you most admire?
SR: First of all would be Max Evans, who is still with us. His
voice as a chronicler of our lives here is unique. Then I guess there would be
railroad magnate General Palmer, and Kit Carson.
WB: What keeps you writing?
SR: I have to. I’m not a good enough accordion player to
express what I have to through music. And I love my readers. I always have. It’s
always so much fun to share ideas and laughs and an occasional tear with them.
It’s truly a love affair, and I try to do my best each day.
WB: For writers who are listening in, what are your thoughts about publishing in the age of anything goes?
WB: For writers who are listening in, what are your thoughts about publishing in the age of anything goes?
SR: I just started putting out with e-books, and it’s fun.
Basically, I think technology is going to make it easier for writers to earn a
living. The computer certainly has. Without it, I sure wouldn’t have two
million readers each week, for example. But on a personal note, I guess I’m
old-fashioned enough to really enjoy the look and the feel of a real book, and
the thrill of seeing one of those with my name on it.
WB: In a review of Sweetgrass Mornings, the writer notes that in this collection of stories the tone is more reflective than rollicking, with an exception or two. Tell us a little about Sweetgrass Mornings and why you wrote in a more reflective manner.
WB: In a review of Sweetgrass Mornings, the writer notes that in this collection of stories the tone is more reflective than rollicking, with an exception or two. Tell us a little about Sweetgrass Mornings and why you wrote in a more reflective manner.
SR: Actually, Sweetgrass
Mornings is as close as I’m ever likely to come to an autobiography. I
included things from my past that were fun, potentially deadly, and sometimes
reflective, true. I omitted including crud like divorce because for one thing,
I didn’t think it would interest anyone else, but mainly because that’s a kind
of personal issue that isn’t anyone else’s business. But I sure had fun with
the horse and sled dog parts and the grizzly bear parts.
WB: Is the West more or less than it was, in terms of how it is perceived in literature and the movies?
WB: Is the West more or less than it was, in terms of how it is perceived in literature and the movies?
SR: The West never was as it has been perceived in literature
and the movies. I’m sure Louis L’Amour gunned down more bad guys on Main Street
in his books than all the marshals of the Old West. The truth is, almost no one
wore sidearms in those days unless it was a cowboy who might have to kill
snakes. The gunfights, for the most part, took place in saloons between drunks.
That’s still true today.
WB: What’s next for you?
SR: Oh, there are a couple of non-fiction books and a novel on
the back burner, but the truth is, it’s just so much fun being alive and
active, that you want to wake up each day and wonder what’s going to happen.
And I’m thrilled to be asked to help Highlands with their new program to make
being a Highlands Cowboy really mean something. A cowboy is, after all, the
closest thing we have to a knight here in the West. And there’s a very serious
side to it.
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Writers and Writing: Corie J. Weaver
Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on KFUN/KLVF,
WB: Let’s start with you telling the
audience the catalyst for you going from “not being a writer,” to publishing
two books.
CW: In grad school I started writing flash fiction as a way to relax. One day I had an image in my mind that I couldn't shake. I thought I'd be writing another flash fiction piece, then thought maybe it was a short story. After a month I realized to some dismay I'd started down the road of a novel. That one is still in revisions. For future projects I've made sure to have much more planning done before hand. I've been lucky enough to have participated in some fabulous crit groups, and to have attended the Taos Toolbox Workshop.
CW: Both are
fantasy novels. Coyote's Daughter is
closer to urban fantasy, with the blurred line in Maggie's life between the
real world and the world of legends. Bear's
Heart brings characters from folklore and forces them to deal with
consequences of a historical event. They can also both be seen as coming of age
novels.
WB: Coyote’s Daughter seems to be a blending of folklore and mysticism. Talk about how you decided to go this route in creating character and plot.
WB: Do you plan to do print versions of the books?
CW: That was actually the plan for this summer, but now it's looking more like a winter project. I've done a little bit of research into different options, now just to get that moved along. At the moment I'm leaning towards Lightning Source to take advantage of getting into Ingram's distribution catalog.
WB: You have a pretty active schedule. When do you find time to write?
WB: I know you used Smashwords as a vehicle for publishing. What was that like and will you continue to use that service?
WB: Do you have a website where your books are featured?
 |
| CORIE J. WEAVER |
Fantasy Tales Weave Stories Everyone Can Enjoy
Corie Weaver is a web designer and all around creative spirit. She
says she didn’t grow up planning to be a writer, but always loved to read, an
important step in becoming a writer. Realizing she had stories to tell she got
to work. Corie’s background is in medieval history, she loves to travel and she
and her husband are active in the local animal rescue group. She has written
two wonderful young adult e-books, Coyote’s
Daughter and Bear’s Heart.
Both novels are easy reads with a wealth of fantasy and lore, a
combination of what might have been and possibilities beyond what we know. Both
are written with tight prose and imagination. You can’t help but engage with
the characters as they are faced with the unexpected and the unsettling.
Riddles within riddles, challenges to established beliefs, and courageous
characters who do the right things for the right reasons keep readers turning
the pages anxious to see what’s next.
In Coyote’s Daughter you
will follow Maggie and Jack into a surprising alternate reality where their
actions make the difference between preservation of a society and its demise.
In Bear’s Heart a young girl resists
her destiny until it becomes clear only by embracing her unusual gifts can she
save her homeland and bring peace to troubled souls.
The target audience is preadolescent children and
teens. I found the plot interesting enough to hold my attention and left me
wanting more.
Corie Weaver is an emerging talent whose attention to detail and ability
to meld plot and character in entertaining ways shows great promise for a long
and prolific future writing good books worth reading.
Q&A: Corie J. Weaver
CW: In grad school I started writing flash fiction as a way to relax. One day I had an image in my mind that I couldn't shake. I thought I'd be writing another flash fiction piece, then thought maybe it was a short story. After a month I realized to some dismay I'd started down the road of a novel. That one is still in revisions. For future projects I've made sure to have much more planning done before hand. I've been lucky enough to have participated in some fabulous crit groups, and to have attended the Taos Toolbox Workshop.
WB: I’ve read Coyote’s Daughter and Bear’s
Heart. Aside from being targeted to a YA audience, what genre do the
books fall into?
WB: Coyote’s Daughter seems to be a blending of folklore and mysticism. Talk about how you decided to go this route in creating character and plot.
CW: So much of
young adult fantasy is rooted in the folklore and history of Europe. In New
Mexico we have a very rich history and I wanted to explore that. I spent about
six months researching pueblo history and legends for each book, with the hopes
that the new characters I created would blend well into the existing framework.
WB: Is there a third book in the series or is this a series?
CW: I've played with a couple of different options for the third book, but haven't drafted a final outline yet. And I must admit, I keep being distracted by shiny new ideas.
WB: Is there a third book in the series or is this a series?
CW: I've played with a couple of different options for the third book, but haven't drafted a final outline yet. And I must admit, I keep being distracted by shiny new ideas.
WB: Do you plan to do print versions of the books?
CW: That was actually the plan for this summer, but now it's looking more like a winter project. I've done a little bit of research into different options, now just to get that moved along. At the moment I'm leaning towards Lightning Source to take advantage of getting into Ingram's distribution catalog.
WB: You have a pretty active schedule. When do you find time to write?
CW: I'd love to
say I write every day, but it just doesn't happen. I'm currently experimenting
with having a few hours every weekend to actually write, and the rest of the
week percolating on world building or plot points, so that when I do have the
time to get some words in, I've done the thinking ahead of time.
WB: What authors do you admire?
WB: What authors do you admire?
CW: This is
something that changes pretty often, but at the moment I'm greatly inspired by
the plotting ability of Dorothy Dunnett. In her six volume Lymond Chronicles she spans the whole of the 16th
century world, from Europe to the Middle East and back. The pages are filled
with sword fights and period quotations, gorgeous detail. And the hero acts
throughout with reckless abandon that the reader only much later realizes is
perfectly calculated.
WB: I know you used Smashwords as a vehicle for publishing. What was that like and will you continue to use that service?
CW: Smashwords
is wonderful in that it formats the book for a number of different e-readers at
once, without me having to do all that work myself. It also has its own
distribution channels that let my work get into outlets I wouldn't have been
able to reach on my own.
WB: What did you learn about yourself in the course of writing these books that you didn’t know before?
CW: I've always loved puzzles, and plotting out these books was just like a giant puzzle that I could build and solve. I love figuring out who my people are, and what made them that way, and then creating situations for them and seeing what they'll do. The best part is when they surprise me, and take the story to wonderful new directions. The worst part is when I discover that a character I actually like has done something awful.
WB: What did you learn about yourself in the course of writing these books that you didn’t know before?
CW: I've always loved puzzles, and plotting out these books was just like a giant puzzle that I could build and solve. I love figuring out who my people are, and what made them that way, and then creating situations for them and seeing what they'll do. The best part is when they surprise me, and take the story to wonderful new directions. The worst part is when I discover that a character I actually like has done something awful.
WB: What is the most
difficult aspect of writing and how do you overcome it? What comes easy?
CW: I love world
building and most of the time is comes easily to me – creating the background
for the story, the conflicts that drive the plot forward. But every now and
again what seems like a minor detail comes up that I get stuck on. Usually a
logistical or logical issue that I need to get sorted out before the story can
progress. I feel silly, because about half the time it's something the reader
will never know about, but I need to know that everything hangs together
properly. I get around it by percolating on the issue for a few days, trying
different options, and brainstorming with anyone who will sit still long enough
to hear me out.
WB: Do you have a website where your books are featured?
CW: They're up at coriejweaver.com
Look for Corie’s work through her website, and hopefully before the year is out, in bookstores.
Look for Corie’s work through her website, and hopefully before the year is out, in bookstores.
_____________________________________
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Please subscribe (top right). Your comments and shares are welcome. Click on one
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Monday, July 30, 2012
Writers and Writing: Danny Iny
Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on
KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com
One of the best online connections I’ve made in recent months is with the marketing whiz Danny Iny. I was lucky enough to get him to be on Writer’s Block on July 24 and his comments were both inspiring and specific. Marketing doesn’t have to be scary. It can in fact be fun and functional, more about results than processes and totally targeted. Danny doesn’t talk about the technicalities; he points out the techniques.
I’ve taken some of his free online classes and did a paid class about blogging. I’ve acquired new information and had old information demystified and made doable.
He graciously sent me written responses to some of my questions and I hope the information is as helpful to you as it has been to me. I’m not selling Danny, I’m sharing the cool truth that if you’re serious about growing your business, Danny can give you an advantage in the marketplace, no matter where that marketplace might be, online or on Main Street.
Q&A With Danny Iny
WB: Danny, let’s begin by you sharing with our audience a little bit about the genesis of Firepole Marketing.
DI: My initial copywriting business evolved into marketing consultancy, which was really more valuable to my clients, who were largely small business owners and entrepreneurs. Many were doing very well, able to afford my services, but many who couldn’t afford to hire me also needed help. I could help a few people on an individual basis, but I felt like more was necessary, so Firepole Marketing began as a comprehensive training program for entrepreneurs, and the blog was built as a way to reach them.
WB: You have a particular philosophy about writing the support materials you’ve created, like Engagement from Scratch! Tell us how you approach writing the books you’ve written.
DI: I never identify myself as an online or an internet marketer. I’m a marketer, and whether it’s online or off, and marketing is about reaching people. Given that a lot of what I do is online, and given that the cost of delivering stuff to people, that gives me a lot more freedom. Also, really, no one makes money selling books, in traditional publishing, authors receive a very small percentage of revenues, and it’s the same online unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands or millions of copies. So it’s really not a great way to make money, so it’s important to have different goals. So Engagement from Scratch! is available on Amazon and Kindle for a price, but you can go to EngagementFromScratch.com and download the whole thing for free. I could be cannibalizing sales, but it doesn’t really matter. Some people who download go on to buy the book, but all give me the opportunity to engage with them. The book has been downloaded almost 12,000 times, and those are all people I now have a chance to engage with. People who buy from Amazon, I don’t get to do that. When I have the chance to interact with people, I can find out what they need, what they want and deliver content accordingly. Having access to people is much, much more lucrative in the long run than book sales.
WB: You are a prolific blogger providing free instruction on how to be better at self-promotion. Talk a little bit about how you stay inspired to write regularly on variations of the same subject.
DI: I only really write variations of the same topic when I’m launching a new project, and I have the fire and drive to write about the same thing again and again, but there’s a trap. It’s a trap of art, where you don’t feel you have to hold thing up to an external standard of measurement, which is great – but once you’re writing for an audience, how good it is matters to that audience. All of the different blogs I write for, I can’t write the same thing for each, I have to make sure my ideas are relevant to those different audiences. Writing is really an act of service. The rest of the time, I just write about things I’m passionate about. Once you get over a certain volume of writing, it gets easier, you get inspired and into it and find that there are almost infinite things and aspects to write about on your theme.
WB: You have good suggestions about how to make writing, particularly for blogs, easier. But looking at the materials, in terms of being an entrepreneur, this is also a good way to just organize your thinking. Could you talk about that?
DI: Sure, I teach a quote unquote formula for writing posts, it’s really simple, and can be done quickly. At its core is a really simple copywriting formula. As a blog post you have your hook – pain or pleasure, the problem, what is stopping them from ending the pain or getting the pleasure the reason for the problem, the solution and how to implement it. From a copywriting perspective, you’re building a connection, describing the problem, an “a-ha!” moment, explaining how you can help, then a call to action. At a high level, marketing is the majority of your business strategy. It’s all about determining how to share what you have to offer. Marketing is often made much more complicated than it needs to be, what you really have is a lot of people talking about it without knowing what they’re doing. I think the reason I’ve been successful is that I play to my strength, which is teaching, I’m good at figuring out how people are looking at things, and how I can speak to them so they’ll understand, which is what a good marketer really does.
WB: You offer a lot of free material, not overloaded with sales pitches for your own products, which are coaching, training and marketing. Give us your philosophy about what makes business work.
DI: At its core, good marketing, which is 90 percent of your business strategy, there are three stages to it – alignment, figuring out who is the exact person you want to reach and making sure you have something they’ll love. Then comes attraction – they need to notice you. Following that is engagement, a recurring cycle of commitment and reward – you can’t go from zero to sixty – it takes time to build up to a relationship that’s ready for a purchase. So I don’t pitch my products on my blog because it’s not a good place to pitch products, people come for information, not to buy. I want people to get to know me and trust me first, apply some of my teachings to their business, and then trust me with their name and email address, for which I reward them with even more great stuff. My selling is about an earnest exploration of fit, and if that fit is there, then it’s probably I your best interest to buy, and if it’s not a good fit – then you shouldn’t buy! I have those conversations through email and on webinars, because that’s where they’re committed and ready for it.
People tend to have a misconception that they either have to try to build relationships or make the most money – that’s a false dichotomy. With very few exceptions, what’s right to do is best for business. I could apply as much pressure as possible, and get people to buy quickly, and I’d make a little more money right away, but more would be turned off, and that’s not good business.
WB: You recently released the 42-page, Naked Marketing Manifesto, and are working on turning it into a full-fledged book. Give our listeners a little background about the manifesto, why you wrote it and how its naked truths can help even a novice entrepreneur become a more effective marketer.
DI: I wrote the Naked Marketing manifesto because a lot of people came to me, they were just getting started, and asking for book recommendations. I have a lot of books, but there was none I could point to as a go-to, getting started book. Within the subsets of marketing, there are plenty of canonical books, but there really isn’t one for Marketing, overall, and that drives me nuts because marketing is simple – not easy, but simple – you shouldn’t have to read dozens of books to understand it. So the manifesto goes over, clearly, what marketing is, and gives you a method to determine if it’s being done right or wrong. The response has been so strong that I decided it should be turned into a whole book. It really comes down to finding out who the single best person is for your business (who you want to see naked), and then make sure that you’re the type of person that they want to see naked too.
Danny had a lot more to say, but the thing I took away from our conversation and from his classes was to do it. Don't forever talk about and plan what you're going to do, DO it. The danger in over thinking something is that you never do it at all. With Danny's recommendations you can take the mystery out of marketing and put it to work for you.
______________________
Don't miss follow up blogs about Writer's Block guests. Please subscribe (top right). Your comments and shares are welcome. Click on one of the buttons below.
_____________________________________
Take the Mystery Out of Marketing
I’ve taken some of his free online classes and did a paid class about blogging. I’ve acquired new information and had old information demystified and made doable. He graciously sent me written responses to some of my questions and I hope the information is as helpful to you as it has been to me. I’m not selling Danny, I’m sharing the cool truth that if you’re serious about growing your business, Danny can give you an advantage in the marketplace, no matter where that marketplace might be, online or on Main Street.
Q&A With Danny Iny
WB: Danny, let’s begin by you sharing with our audience a little bit about the genesis of Firepole Marketing.
DI: My initial copywriting business evolved into marketing consultancy, which was really more valuable to my clients, who were largely small business owners and entrepreneurs. Many were doing very well, able to afford my services, but many who couldn’t afford to hire me also needed help. I could help a few people on an individual basis, but I felt like more was necessary, so Firepole Marketing began as a comprehensive training program for entrepreneurs, and the blog was built as a way to reach them.
WB: You have a particular philosophy about writing the support materials you’ve created, like Engagement from Scratch! Tell us how you approach writing the books you’ve written.
DI: I never identify myself as an online or an internet marketer. I’m a marketer, and whether it’s online or off, and marketing is about reaching people. Given that a lot of what I do is online, and given that the cost of delivering stuff to people, that gives me a lot more freedom. Also, really, no one makes money selling books, in traditional publishing, authors receive a very small percentage of revenues, and it’s the same online unless you’re selling hundreds of thousands or millions of copies. So it’s really not a great way to make money, so it’s important to have different goals. So Engagement from Scratch! is available on Amazon and Kindle for a price, but you can go to EngagementFromScratch.com and download the whole thing for free. I could be cannibalizing sales, but it doesn’t really matter. Some people who download go on to buy the book, but all give me the opportunity to engage with them. The book has been downloaded almost 12,000 times, and those are all people I now have a chance to engage with. People who buy from Amazon, I don’t get to do that. When I have the chance to interact with people, I can find out what they need, what they want and deliver content accordingly. Having access to people is much, much more lucrative in the long run than book sales.
WB: You are a prolific blogger providing free instruction on how to be better at self-promotion. Talk a little bit about how you stay inspired to write regularly on variations of the same subject.
DI: I only really write variations of the same topic when I’m launching a new project, and I have the fire and drive to write about the same thing again and again, but there’s a trap. It’s a trap of art, where you don’t feel you have to hold thing up to an external standard of measurement, which is great – but once you’re writing for an audience, how good it is matters to that audience. All of the different blogs I write for, I can’t write the same thing for each, I have to make sure my ideas are relevant to those different audiences. Writing is really an act of service. The rest of the time, I just write about things I’m passionate about. Once you get over a certain volume of writing, it gets easier, you get inspired and into it and find that there are almost infinite things and aspects to write about on your theme.
WB: You have good suggestions about how to make writing, particularly for blogs, easier. But looking at the materials, in terms of being an entrepreneur, this is also a good way to just organize your thinking. Could you talk about that?
DI: Sure, I teach a quote unquote formula for writing posts, it’s really simple, and can be done quickly. At its core is a really simple copywriting formula. As a blog post you have your hook – pain or pleasure, the problem, what is stopping them from ending the pain or getting the pleasure the reason for the problem, the solution and how to implement it. From a copywriting perspective, you’re building a connection, describing the problem, an “a-ha!” moment, explaining how you can help, then a call to action. At a high level, marketing is the majority of your business strategy. It’s all about determining how to share what you have to offer. Marketing is often made much more complicated than it needs to be, what you really have is a lot of people talking about it without knowing what they’re doing. I think the reason I’ve been successful is that I play to my strength, which is teaching, I’m good at figuring out how people are looking at things, and how I can speak to them so they’ll understand, which is what a good marketer really does.
WB: You offer a lot of free material, not overloaded with sales pitches for your own products, which are coaching, training and marketing. Give us your philosophy about what makes business work.
DI: At its core, good marketing, which is 90 percent of your business strategy, there are three stages to it – alignment, figuring out who is the exact person you want to reach and making sure you have something they’ll love. Then comes attraction – they need to notice you. Following that is engagement, a recurring cycle of commitment and reward – you can’t go from zero to sixty – it takes time to build up to a relationship that’s ready for a purchase. So I don’t pitch my products on my blog because it’s not a good place to pitch products, people come for information, not to buy. I want people to get to know me and trust me first, apply some of my teachings to their business, and then trust me with their name and email address, for which I reward them with even more great stuff. My selling is about an earnest exploration of fit, and if that fit is there, then it’s probably I your best interest to buy, and if it’s not a good fit – then you shouldn’t buy! I have those conversations through email and on webinars, because that’s where they’re committed and ready for it.
People tend to have a misconception that they either have to try to build relationships or make the most money – that’s a false dichotomy. With very few exceptions, what’s right to do is best for business. I could apply as much pressure as possible, and get people to buy quickly, and I’d make a little more money right away, but more would be turned off, and that’s not good business.
DI: I wrote the Naked Marketing manifesto because a lot of people came to me, they were just getting started, and asking for book recommendations. I have a lot of books, but there was none I could point to as a go-to, getting started book. Within the subsets of marketing, there are plenty of canonical books, but there really isn’t one for Marketing, overall, and that drives me nuts because marketing is simple – not easy, but simple – you shouldn’t have to read dozens of books to understand it. So the manifesto goes over, clearly, what marketing is, and gives you a method to determine if it’s being done right or wrong. The response has been so strong that I decided it should be turned into a whole book. It really comes down to finding out who the single best person is for your business (who you want to see naked), and then make sure that you’re the type of person that they want to see naked too.
Danny had a lot more to say, but the thing I took away from our conversation and from his classes was to do it. Don't forever talk about and plan what you're going to do, DO it. The danger in over thinking something is that you never do it at all. With Danny's recommendations you can take the mystery out of marketing and put it to work for you.
______________________
Don't miss follow up blogs about Writer's Block guests. Please subscribe (top right). Your comments and shares are welcome. Click on one of the buttons below.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Writers and Writing: Marcus Gottschalk
Writer’s Block airs every Tuesday, at 9 a.m. MST on
KFUN/KLVF, streaming live at www.kfunonline.com
_________________________________
Historian Gottschalk Updates Pioneer
Merchants of Las Vegas
Marcus
Gottschalk is a deeply passionate historian who spent months on research
and corroboration of the information he has collected for the current edition of Pioneer Merchants of Las Vegas, a book he says will continue to
validate his belief that Las Vegas was the Southwest's most important
commercial center for yearly 30 years in the late 19th century.
WB: Let’s
begin by you telling our audience what you’ve been up to.
MG: Publishing my book, working on a Gottschalk family
history, enjoying the activity around the Romero Reunion and researching Juan
Jose Guadalupe Romero.
WB: Update
us on the updates to your book, “pioneer Merchants of Las Vegas.”
MG: There is a new introduction and chapter one, and
information about gold mining in New Mexico
WB: I
understand it is one of the more popular books at Tome on the Range, especially
among visitors.
MG: In addition to Tome, my book is
available at UNIKAT, my wife’s jewelry store on Bridge Street.
WB: What
are the elements of the book you think people will most benefit from?
MG: It’s a look at important individuals in early Las
Vegas.
WB: With
Heritage Week coming up in August, do you have any special events planned to
promote the book?
MG: I’m considering a booth at People’s Faire, but that
hasn’t been determined. I encourage folks to go to either UNIKAT or Tome to
pick up a copy.
WB: In
doing your research in preparation for updating the book, what where some of
your more surprising discoveries?
MG: Indexing is always a challenge. I was surprised to
learn how much information you can get through Google Books. It was also
surprising to learn there was a Comanche presence in this area.
WB: What prompted you to write this book
originally?
MG: I had created a series of essays about the early
merchants and found there was a gap in American History having to do with the
early years in the development of this area.
WB: If
you could write on any particular subject—be it history-related or current—what
would it be and why?
MG: If I had the luxury of time and a lot of money in the
bank, I would write a complete history of pioneer merchants, and I would write
a well-researched history on the banking system. There is a lot to be learned
from a study of the system and how it has developed and evolved.
WB: What
writers or historical influencers do you most admire and why?
MG: Dr. Lynn Perrigo, Twitchell, Matt Taibbi of Rolling
Stone.
WB: What
do you want your book to be most remembered for?
MG: That Las Vegas—not Santa Fe—was the more important
commercial center in the late 1800s, and that many Las Vegans were important in
New Mexico as well as in American History.
_________________________________
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