Screw Iowa Blog

My poem, “Writing Your Way into the Story,” appears here today:

Writers News Weekly

http://www.writersnewsweekly.com/taxonomy/term/214

Poets submit if you have a poem about writing~good luck.

Here’s a twofer for those of you craving a giant dose of summer romance:

Prolific Nora Roberts Bride Quartet was mentioned here once before when I reviewed the first book, Vision in White. The books revolve around the story of four childhood friends, Parker, Emma, Laurel and Mac, the founders of Vows, one of Connecticut’s most popular and successful wedding planning companies. In the first book, photographer Mac finds her true love.

Book 2 in the series continues the story of the ups and downs of running weddings, showers and rehearsal dinners for everyone from Bridezilla to The Perfect Couple in Bed of Roses. This time the focus is on Emma, the florist of the pack and the true romantic. She yearns for a lifelong love affair with her man, if such a thing is possible.

Book 3 in the series is Savor the Moment, another delectable piece of romantic candy. This time baker Lauren is up for the spotlight.

For those of you looking for a mega-dose of romance to cool your days, try one of these sparklers.  All are quick to read, maybe while you sit on the beach and let the sand sift through your toes.  Roberts Book 4 will premiere in November, when Parker gets her man. But trust me, if you read the others, you’ll already know who her Mr. Right will be.

Melissa Westemeier

I’m no poet.  I try.  I read poetry.   I scribble a few lines now and then.  I even submitted a few poems that made it to publication.  I believe in my heart that even if I never become a good poet, learning and trying poetry makes me a better writer.  Poetry relies on all the loveliness of language–imagery, metaphor, assonance, rhyme, rhythm–that improves any kind of writing.

But I feel rather lonely writing bad poetry.  I don’t aspire (really) to write good poetry.  Most poets I know either have their poems come easily or they make much of even mediocre poems that they write.  No one goes around talking about bad poetry or admitting to writing any.

Until today.  Today at BlogHer I got to peek at someone else’s bad poetry habits and learn two things:

a) I’m not alone.

b) Bad poetry CAN lead to better writing.  And occasionally a decent poem.

Check it out over at BlogHer:  How to Write (Better): Even Bad Poetry Can Make You A Better Writer by Schmutzie.

Today’s guest blogger is Matthew Graff, JD, MLIS.  Matt lives in upstate New York with his lovely wife, Kimberly, and their two cats, Pumpkin and Hamilton.

As a proud Gen X’er I get a lot of my news and info from Internet news sources.  With the massive amount of information available to me, content organization tools make my online time more efficient and pleasant.  Two of those tools that help streamline my online experience are Readability and Instapaper.

Instapaper

While online, I frequently find and receive links to pages that I would love to look at, just not at that particular time.  A number of quick, dirty, and ultimately unsatisfying solutions are available for this problem, including: leaving the links open in separate tabs until an opportunity to read presents itself; emailing the links to yourself; or bookmarking the pages.  But each of these fixes presents problems of confusion, disorganization, and clutter.  Enter Instapaper (http://www.instapaper.com/).  Instapaper is a free application that provides subscribers with the means to save webpages in a neat and organized fashion for later viewing. A  quick, easy, and painless installation places a link, “Read Later”, in the bookmark toolbar.  Clicking on that “Read Later” link saves a page to your Instapaper account.   Accessing your Instapaper account page reveals a record (list) of your saved content as well as a link to read those pages at your convenience.  Instapaper offers a number of ways to manage your saved pages, but some highlights include: an option to load a text-only version of your saved page, the ability to archive your content or export it to a folder, as well as to edit and delete an entry. Oh yeah, Instapaper is also available for your iPhone as well.

Readability

Unfortunately reading all those saved pages is often a less-than-pleasant experience.  Filled with links that open pop-ups when moused-over, distracting side columns, and annoying adds and animation, the online article format can usually be described as, and  I’m being charitable here, the dogs breakfast.  But there is a fix available to deal with this issue.  Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/) is a free and powerful online tool that strips the extraneous info from your articles and renders them in a simple text format for easy reading.  Similar to Instapaper, installation is a breeze and place a “Readability” link in your bookmark toolbar.  Clicking on that “Readability” link reloads your page in a clear and easy-to-read format.  Readability offers a fair degree of customization as well, including the option to change font type and size, article format, and margin size, as well as the ability to print content in Readability’s new, neat format.

Used in tandem, Instapaper and Readability are a powerful combination of tools that may improve your online information retrieval and consumption experience.  If you spend time online and run into problems of the sort listed above, give these programs a shot.

Today’s guest blogger is Matthew Graff, JD, MLIS.  Matt lives in upstate New York with his lovely wife, Kimberly, and their two cats, Pumpkin and Hamilton.

As a proud Gen X’er I get a lot of my news and info from Internet news sources.  With the massive amount of information available to me, content organization tools make my online time more efficient and pleasant.  Two of those tools that help streamline my online experience are Readability and Instapaper.

Instapaper

While online, I frequently find and receive links to pages that I would love to look at, just not at that particular time.  A number of quick, dirty, and ultimately unsatisfying solutions are available for this problem, including: leaving the links open in separate tabs until an opportunity to read presents itself; emailing the links to yourself; or bookmarking the pages.  But each of these fixes presents problems of confusion, disorganization, and clutter.  Enter Instapaper (http://www.instapaper.com/).  Instapaper is a free application that provides subscribers with the means to save webpages in a neat and organized fashion for later viewing. A  quick, easy, and painless installation places a link, “Read Later”, in the bookmark toolbar.  Clicking on that “Read Later” link saves a page to your Instapaper account.   Accessing your Instapaper account page reveals a record (list) of your saved content as well as a link to read those pages at your convenience.  Instapaper offers a number of ways to manage your saved pages, but some highlights include: an option to load a text-only version of your saved page, the ability to archive your content or export it to a folder, as well as to edit and delete an entry. Oh yeah, Instapaper is also available for your iPhone as well.

Readability

Unfortunately reading all those saved pages is often a less-than-pleasant experience.  Filled with links that open pop-ups when moused-over, distracting side columns, and annoying adds and animation, the online article format can usually be described as, and  I’m being charitable here, the dogs breakfast.  But there is a fix available to deal with this issue.  Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/) is a free and powerful online tool that strips the extraneous info from your articles and renders them in a simple text format for easy reading.  Similar to Instapaper, installation is a breeze and place a “Readability” link in your bookmark toolbar.  Clicking on that “Readability” link reloads your page in a clear and easy-to-read format.  Readability offers a fair degree of customization as well, including the option to change font type and size, article format, and margin size, as well as the ability to print content in Readability’s new, neat format.

Used in tandem, Instapaper and Readability are a powerful combination of tools that may improve your online information retrieval and consumption experience.  If you spend time online and run into problems of the sort listed above, give these programs a shot.

“You can tear a poem apart to see what makes it tick….The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps…so that something that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash or thunder in.”

~~~~Dylan Thomas

Janet Evanovich always makes me laugh out loud several times during my read, and Sizzling Sixteen is no exception.  This one had me reading several paragraphs out loud to my husband, who always nods and smiles at my laughter.

Stephanie Plum’s major assignment this time around is trying to raise over $700,000 to secure the release of her kidnapped cousin Vinnie. Yes, the same Vinnie who is the owner of Vincent Plum Bail Bonds and her boss, although she personally loathes the man. His gambling debt to a mobster has set this whole caper in motion.

Helping Stephanie, as only she can, is file clerk Lula, she of the spandex outfits she squeezes her zaftig body into; and Connie, office manager, who decides to lend a hand getting Vinnie back. All three are more anxious to save their jobs than to save Vinnie, but since it boils down to the same thing, off they go.

Stephanie’s on-again, off-again romance with cop Joe Morelli is in an ‘off’ stage in this one, so sexy security expert Ranger ramps up the heat.  Of course, Stephanie still needs to find her usual collars to keep the business going, as the trio search for Vinnie.  There are encounters with a Jersey Turnpike toilet paper bandit and a drug dealer with a pet alligator named Mr. Jingles. Really.

And no Plum novel would be complete without a turn from Grandma Mazur, one of the funniest characters ever put on the page.

You can’t get better summer reading than putting on the sunblock and settling down with the fast read.  I’m waiting for Stephanie and company to be put on the big screen.  Perfect for a quick read of laugh-filled brain candy.

In the old days we called them comic books, and they were a guilty pleasure, bought for a few nickels at the corner drugstore, toted back home where we flopped on our stomachs on the floor of our rooms or lay in the hammock in the summer backyard to read them.  Nowadays they’ve made their way into the classroom where they’re called Graphic Novels, and teachers use them as a means of enticing reluctant students to enjoy reading.  Wonder Woman was always a favorite–a lone fist-fighting Amazon in a pack of male super heroes.  She’s still going strong, as her new slightly punk, slightly Goth look shows.  Remember bullets and bracelets?  It’s how a hardworking supergal kept the bad guys at bay.

Traveling upon the Amur River , Anton Chekhov wrote this profound statement to his friend Alexei Suvorin, who was also his publisher: “ Truly  I have seen such riches and had so much enjoyment that death would have no  terrors now.”

Today is  Anna Akhmatova’s birthday. She’s one one of the the world’s most renowned poets–who wrote about love and Stalinist Russia.  I was introduced to her work by John Dufresne about thirteen years ago.

Here’s my thinking: Poets, if you’re smart, read her! And, dear Writer’s, read her to learn precision and compression!

Now the pillow’s

hot on both sides.
A second candle
dies, the ravens cry
there, endlessly.
No sleep all night,
too late to think of sleep…
How unbearably white
the blind’s white deep.
Hello, Morning!