Others have just come off the frentic pace of the Nanowrimo, and need a break - so slow to a crawl.  And then there’s those writers who are slow and steady, and just continue, come rain, shine, sleet, loss of internet connection…

Whatever type of writer you are, the pieces I’ve chosen, and my editors have chosen for this month’s edition spoke to us on some level.  “Memories” is an amazing sci fi piece that touches on the human psyche, The flight of the Red Kite had the note, ’surreal and very worthwhile’ on it, and the articles we’ve chosen this month reflect what we believe to be important information for writers everywhere.

Thanks for reading, and Salut!

D Kai Wilson
Managing editor, Digitalisobscura.com
http://publishhacks.com

….rain slewed down, pattering and slicking over the rows of polished marble and turning the grey of Lexia’s uniform from light to dark. It drummed on the hard brim of her peaked cap in a staccato march, invoking unwelcome memories of melancholic parades for non-existent victories. She removed the cap, peak first, and placed it on top of the headstone in front of her. The rain had turned the cap as dark as the marble upon which she sat it. It proceeded to slick her raven-black hair to her back, the obsessively neat pony-tail soaking into bedraggled rat-tails.

It hid her tears very well.

Lexia ran her fingers over the cold stone, tracing the strict, stark lines. The headstone was identical in shape, size and proportion as the ones to either side of it, and the ones in front and behind. They too were identical to their neighbours, as their neighbours were to theirs, on and on and on. Over fifty square miles of neatly trimmed grass and polished marble. Each headstone contained a glass section in its centre, displaying some treasured memento, something considered to convey the nature if the person who’s remains resided in the ground below. This one, just like thousands of others, contained a row of medals. Lexia’s fingers traced the glass, slick and cold in the rain as the marble that encased it. She paused at each polished medal, trying to remember what each one was for. Her father had gathered so many. This one, a silver-trimmed star, he had won at during the Forbidden Strikes, while the golden discs where medals of valour for forgotten and minor skirmishes that the other side no longer deigned to remember. Lexia’s collection of medals, gleaming dimly on her chest, seemed meagre in comparison, but they were the one thing that had brought her closer to her father. She remembered when he had presented her with her own Shining Star with a vividness so strong and clear that it could have been yesterday. He had seemed so stern and proud and weary all at once, forged as he was in the image of the government he served. Given time, Lexia might become like that as well.

She withdrew her hand from the stone and raised it in salute, wondering how many others across the Memorial Fields were doing the exact same at that moment. The burial expanse was so great that she would never know. She was alone. One more soldier standing in the fields of the dead, mourning a passing that had come all too soon.

“Goodbye father,” She said, biting back the sobs that welled up unexpectedly, The words to the tradition Russian prayer seemed heavy and awkward on her lips and she stumbled on the words. Sighing, she retrieved her cap from the cold stone. The felt lining was sodden, but she barely noticed. She donned it peak first, carefully mirroring her early action, and turned…

…striding across the room, she swatted the tall glass as if it were in her way. It crashed against the wall and shattered. The scent of expensive vodka, harsh and sharp, rose in its wake. The clear liquid had splashed over the table and the papers and the wall. A cold silence settled over the room, and for a few long moments, no one stirred or spoke. Lexia stood and seethed, her pale skin whiter than usual, her lips nearly as white as her cheeks.

General Korchev broke the silence with a carefully timed cough, as small and neat and precise as the man himself. He ran one hand over his balding pate and forced a smile.

“Please, Captain Mashen’ka, we’re not blind to your grief, but surely you understand that there are certain…issues…that must be considered?” He gestured to the chair that Lexia had been sitting at until a few minutes before. She sat, if only because she felt that she might lunge over the table and strike him if she remained standing.

“General. Let me be absolutely clear in this,” Lexia kept her tone clipped to control her anger, “My father, Kommandant Garsha Evich Mashenvich, decorated war hero, has been killed during some sort of mission in Embyar space, killed during circumstances so secret that you refuse to even bring me his body for burial? You know dammed well I can’t accept that”

Korchev pursed his lips, considering for a moment. Neither of the other two Generals spoke out, preferring to let the older man do most of the talking.

“Captain….Lexia,,,,,there are often political considerations that must be given greater precedence than personal grief, or even that of the State itself. You know that as well as anyone here. It is for such reasons that we cannot acknowledge your father as having being killed in action.” He leaned forwards, placing his weathered hands palm down on the table. He lowered his eyes as well. “I miss Garsha just as you do, and I grieve for him. He was a good friend. But you know that if we give him the funeral he deserves then questions will be raised. We are not officially at war with Embyar…but one wrong move in this could spark one off.”

Lexia’s anger flared, stinging her eyes with new tears, and her voice was shot with more bitter coldness than she thought possible.

“I don’t care! You’re so wrapped up in your worthless schemes and plots and politics that you can’t see anything but border movements and past glories! I just want to bury my father!”

“A full State burial is out of the question.” The man to Korchev’s left grumbled out the words, sounding like a grav-tank with a faulty engine. Lexia leaned towards him him, nearly snarling, and he flinched nervously, flicking his eyes towards Korchev, seeking support. Korchev was placating as he came to his colleague’s rescue.

“There will be a funeral, we will honour your father as much as we can afford. But…” he left the word hanging for a second, “what we have discussed here will go no farther than that door. As far as anyone else is concerned, Kommandant Mashenvich passed away in his sleep, and old hero of our people. Is that understood?”

Lexia rose from her seat, gripping the table edge more to focus her hands than to steady herself. Korchev sternly cut short her angered reply.

“Lexia, I love you like my own daughter, and I’m sorry, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that this is a discussion. It isn’t.”

Lexia felt herself stiffen, her anger and grief seeming to solidify within her. She looked over at the Generals, so rigid in their worries and politics. Of the three, only Korchev had ever actually seen combat, which made his decision seem even more like a betrayal. He knew the strength of loyalties that lay at the heart of the State better than the others. He’d been a good friend and ally through many long years, had served together with her father, but looking at him now, Lexia…

….hatedthe feel of the unfamiliar material. It was thick and heavy, and felt coarse on her skin. Lexia tugged at the hem of the dress, trying to get it away from where it was rubbing the tops of her ankles. For what seemed like the hundredth time, her mother leaned over and rapped her hands with those delicate, porcelain fingers.

“Stop that, Lexia. You’ll stretch the fabric.” Mothers voice was firm, and Lexia clasped her hands together reluctantly.

“Don’t care,” She mumbled, “Don’t like it. Its heavy and scratchy and black and horrible and I hate it.”

Her mother sighed, and gave her that look. Lexia tried to glare back, but as always she could never hold her mothers gaze for long. But somewhere inside her a glimmer of defiance flickered. She didn’t want to be wearing that dress, and she certainly didn’t want to be sitting in that noisy shuttle as it glided over miles and miles of monotonous, boring forest, with nothing to do but listen to the jagged roar of the engines and watch the cold drizzle spattering against the windows.

“Don’t see why I have to wear this anyway.” She finally said, bitterly.

“Its tradition, Lexia. I have to wear one just like it.” And it was true. Under her long, fur-trimmed coat, Mother was wearing a very similar dress, plain cut and a deep black that served to make her seem paler than usual. Caught short, Lexia couldn’t think of anything else to say for a few seconds. She was about to repeat her early statement of dislike when Father’s deep voice rumbled out over the sound of the engines.

“Its not only tradition, Lexy. Its symbolic, and symbols can be very important.” The crisp, firm lines of his face flickered into that half-smile of his, and he fondly reached over and brushed a stray lock of her hair, “The black is a sign of respect.”

“It makes me look white.” Father always made Lexia uncomfortably aware of how childish she could be, and the words sounded silly before the even said them.

“Perhaps she’s still too young for this.” Mother said, sounding uncertain.

“No. I was Lexia’s age the first time I had to do this. It’ll be good to do this now.” Father wasn’t wearing black, but his uniform was black trimmed at the cuffs and collar, as was the peak of his cap. His rank pins and medals glinted against the grey material. Lexia thought he looked very fine.

“Where are we going, Papa?”

“We’re going to pay our respects to your Grandfather.” He answered.

“But, Papa, Grandfather died. How can we visit him?” Lexia felt her face screw up in confusion.

“You see, Garsha? She doesn’t understand. She’s too young for this!” Mother’s exasperation was plain. She had been arguing against bringing Lexia along for over a week. Lexia bristled. It was always the same. Mother always thought Lexia was too young, that she acted more like a boy than a girl. Only a month before Lexia had stated with that certainty that only a child can have that she wanted to be a soldier, just like Father, and have medals just like his. That one had sparked a blistering row between Father and Mother that had lasted for days. She wanted to tell Mother that she was old enough, but Mother had that look again, and the shuttle suddenly seemed cramped and stifling.

Suddenly, though, she wasn’t paying attention to what Mother and Father were saying. The roar of the engines had dropped to a barely audible whisper, but only Lexia seemed to have noticed. She leaned over so she could look out of the window, pressing her hands and face up against the cold glass.

The forest below had given way at last. There was a brief patch of manicured grass, and then the shuttle was gliding over row upon row of stone blocks, hundreds….no, thousands of them, more than Lexia could hope to count. They were laid out in neat, regimented lines; each one the same shape and colour as the next. Occasionally, dotted here and there, where small patches of colour. Flowers in bowls and vases, or lying on top of one of the blocks of stone. Lexia had never seen anything like it. It seemed so grim and oppressive, and very lonely, as if the whole place was gripped by great sadness.

“Why have the engines gone quiet, Papa?” Her sudden query quieted Mother and Father, who’’d been arguing again. Mother suddenly looked very sad, and Father’s voice was low.

“Its to show respect.”

“Like the black?”

“Yes Lexy…..like the black.”

“What are the stones, Papa? There’s so many of them.” All trace of her earlier petulance was gone. The bleak vista made her feel very small.

Father was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, it was with a sadness that mirrored Mother’s expression, but with a reverence that stirred something in Lexia’s heart.

“They’re memories.” He said.

Keith Foreman works in a soulless office in the outskirts of Edinburgh, and views his job as important only because it gives him the money to pay for his World of Warcraft subscription. And food. When he’s not stuck in the Monday-to-Friday grind, he’s letting his imagination run circles around itself and playing the aforementioned computer game. Very occasionally he manages to write something. He has a BSc in Environmental Management and Technology but his dream has always been to be an author.

His hobbies include Role-playing games, Star Trek and reading. He has a very infrequent blog named Automatonrevolution.com (http://automatonrevolution.com ) where he writes about whatever comes into his head and rants about politics.

(editor’s note - I have the privilege of presenting this work, after telling this wonderful writer for YEARS that he’s an amazing writer. I hope you enjoy it, cause I certainly did when I read it nearly two years ago - Kai)

Blogging is one of those things that everyone that’s been doing it for a while claims they are good at, and its really easy, after about three months to believe that those claiming they know it all, actually do, especially if they teach you a couple of neat tricks.

I’ve been blogging since 2002 - since before it was ‘cool’ and part of the mainstream internet, and I teach blogging on a regular basis, so I thought I’d share some of THE most important tips I’ve picked up along the way.

One - be authentic.
If you are authentic, people will relate to you better, and more importantly, your language and tone will match your message.  Putting that into plain English, if you use your own voice, you’ll have people responding before you’ve finished posting

Two - post as regularly as you can.
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of us at the Writing Mother try and post once a week, schedule permitting.  So if you’ve got a blog, post to it at least weekly.  Give your readers something to look forward to and check back for, at least weekly.  If you can manage more than that, go for it!

Three - don’t get TOO personal, but don’t be too impersonal either
If you’re too personal, people will RUN for the hills screaming ‘TMI! TMI!’.  Sometimes its funny, and can be done well, but most of the time, people will be seriously put off by sharing the WRONG things.
That’s not to say that if you do share something, that its a problem - like I said before, when done right, it can stir up people into responding.
On the flipside, if you’re not sharing enough for people to get a feel for your voice, they won’t feel happy commenting on your blog - which means they probably won’t come back.

Four - Content is gold - commenters can be platinum
Your blog posts ARE your bread and butter - if you do well with them, you’ll get lots of comments - which makes your commenters some of the most worthwhile people to get to know on your blog.
Commenters tend to tell other people when they’ve found GOOD blogs.  And while you can purchase advertising, and undertake link exchanges and lots more, you will ALWAYS find that getting on the blogroll of someone ‘big’ in the blogging community is gold dust.  Better yet when they talk about you in their main posts.  So make sure your content is what your regular commenters want.

Five, and finally - you CAN make money from blogging, but that doesn’t mean you should.
Most new bloggers slap up a blog, insert Google ads, and then spend the next six months complaining that they’ve made five cents a month.  Nine times out of ten, they’ve put their blog up, they do the ‘bog standard’ and expect that it will make them a small fortune, just for being there.  Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that, so my next post on blogging will talk about the five most important ways you can maximize your time investment and actually make a little bit of money from your blog.  Probably not enough to retire on, but since when was writing easy in the first place

 D Kai Wilson is a blogger, editor, writer and student with Gloucestershire University.  When not writing essays and blog posts, she can be found crafting fiction and poetry, running around after her children, ranting about the inconsistencies of Vista, and playing World of Warcraft and the Witcher.  Information on her books can be found at Books by Kai, or stalking her on Facebook.

David McLean was born in Wales in 1960 though he’s  lived in Sweden since 1987. He has  been submitting seriously for about a year and, as of the end of October 2007, he has around 325 poems in or accepted by 143 magazines both online and in print. A chapbook “a hunger for mourning” with 52 poems is available from Erbacce press and Lulu at http://storeslulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=1277957. More information at http://www.myspace.com/david_mclean and a blog at http://mourningabortion.blogspot.com/, where there are links to various online publications.

A cold feeling crept up to my neck; I walked over and undid the string from the tree. Just then, the bats unfolded their wings and began to flap them wildly. A strong wind began to blow and before I knew it, I was lifted off my feet and the ground fell away rapidly. Before I could react, I was too high to let go of the string and I prayed it would not break.

My unexpected flight was short, although it seemed an eternity; the wind died, the bats quit flapping their wings and I plummeted toward the earth. I let go of the kite string and fell into a small lake where, after plunging underwater, I surfaced and watched as the red kite drifted away. The bats, having done their job, let go of the string and flew off together. I started swimming for the shore but, no mat-ter how hard I swam, I got no closer. My arms became heavy and I realized I might drown.

I was startled when I felt a nudge on my shoulder and looked behind me to see a flat,yellow skiff. There was no one in it and there were no oars, so I clambered aboard, relieved to be out of the water. The breeze had died and yet the boat seemed to be moving on its own. I tried paddling toward the shore, but my arms soon grew tired again and I lay there looking up at the sky and the dwindling sight of the red kite. Given the spectacle of the bats, I imagined that under the water there were hundreds of golden eels pushing, carrying, and towing the boat.

I had eaten a good breakfast but, for some reason, I suddenly became very hungry and thirsty. Looking around the bottom of the boat I saw a covered picnic basket and, when I opened it, I found a bottle of wine and some biscuits and cheese.

What if it’s poisoned? I thought. It had been a strange day so far, but I was as yet unharmed, so I proceeded to take a drink from the bottle and to chew on a hunk of yellow cheese and a biscuit.

My apprehension diminished somewhat when I felt no bad effects from the food and drink–only the feeling of lassitude that often precedes a nap. The warm sun and the gentle motion of the boat soon lulled me to sleep.

I do not know how long I slept, but when I awoke, the motion of the boat had stopped and it was beached near a small glen. I didn’t know where I was, but it could not be far from my home. I got out of the boat and decided to explore the area. I soon found a narrow path and as I walked along I looked around expecting to find something strange, but the plants bordering the path were the normal weeds and vines that one expects to find in the woods.

It had not been exactly a normal day so I was relieved that there were no more bats or kites or boats. After some minutes of walking, he path ended in another clearing and I saw a tall, stone wall covered with vines stretching out on either side. I walked along the wall searching for a gate, but found nothing.

Finally, after about an hour, I grew tired of searching and decided I would climb the wall. The vines were old and strong and looked like they would support my weight. I am not a strong man, but by resting in my climb several times I managed to pull myself up to the top of the wall.

Stretching out before me was a vast nothingness. No desert, no forrest, no plain. Just a deep blue darkness as though it were the painted backdrop for a movie set or a play. There was no up nor down. There was no here nor there. I sensed that my journey had ended as all life’s journeys end.
Destiny’s slate is often bare.

Phil Richardson has been a freelance writer for about ten years. He belongs to a local writing group in Athens, Ohio. His stories have appeared in The Storyteller, Northwoods Journal, ELf: Eclectic LiteraryForum, Wild Violet, Fantasy, Folklore and Fairytales, Cafe Irreal, and Writing on Walls Anthology. One of his stories was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in Fiction.

Remember, Issue 1 of Digitalis Obscura has gone live and we’re looking forward to YOUR feedback.

Remember to grab YOUR copy of our PDF edition, and if you like it, feel free to head on over to our printers and order a copy - every copy we sell supports our writers and their honorariums directly.

Desire and Madness is a simple enough premise – and as themes go, its pretty well represented throughout the works of a diverse range of students. Eighteen separate, and sometimes disparate, yet compelling voices that cover prose, poetry, and one rather interestingly vignette style novella. As the introduction states, in 2005, the final short story submissions for the term, on the fiction course was ‘Desire and Madness’, as chosen by those students and was later extended to the creative writing department as a whole, and the anthology was born. From a modern retelling of Hamlet, to flash fiction, to modern and traditional poetry, the anthology, though relatively slim, holds a lot of interesting and riveting writing.

Prose

The standard of prose was fairly high, with a couple of really gleaming gems. The book itself puts the prose first, sandwiching the poetry neatly between it and the novella, a format I really believe worked well for this anthology. I really enjoyed all of them – Airhead, which, at first blush was a deceptively simple tale about a girl with voices in her head goaded into suicide – but has more to it. My favorite of the prose, however was Existentialism on Massacre night – based on a painting”The Massacre of the Innocents” by Guido Reni. Slightly tongue in cheek – a lot funny, yet, knowing the material it was inspired from, harrowing, and if you believe in otherworldly presences, easily believable, it describes the scenes depicted in the painting from the perspective of Angels. Not particularly angelic angels, but angels nonetheless.

Poetry

The poetry in this anthology is outstandingly good. I really enjoyed several of them specifically, Gwithian and Frustration. Both are beautiful, and contain the images I could relate to the best – Gwithian reads more like a couple of paragraphs of prose, but is poetic in its execution. Its beauty and elegance spins throughout the one half page paragraph, leaving me with a distinct impression of the moments it described - as the best poetry should always provide. Frustration covers exactly how I feel when struck by writers block. Frustration is more modern in its execution, interestingly creating a juxtaposition between the concept of the Muses, and the modern world.

The majority of the volume (or at least submissions in the anthology) are made up by poetry, so though its ’sandwiched’ between prose and the novella, its possibly the biggest section.

Novella

“A strippers story” is a wonderful vignette about falling in with the wrong crowd and discovering just how gullible, and easily lead people really are. Its a shining example of the blindness of teens, and how those mistakes can sometimes follow you to wherever you run to.

Overall, this anthology is really enjoyable, and as it also supports the University’s efforts into continuing projects like this, and others, its a great buy – http://www.bluechrome.co.uk/store/shop/item.asp?itemid=152&catid=

D Kai Wilson is a 20 something writer living in Gloucestershire with her young family - and has just returned to University to study an Honors Degree in Creative Writing and Criminology.
When not working on course work, she also edits at Scribe and Quill (http://scribequill.com) and her own ezine DigitalisObscura (http://digitalisobscura.com) – whose inaugural issue is due out sometime in November 2007

Rahul: What is Ten Zen Seconds all about?

Eric: It’s actually a very simple but powerful technique for reducing your stress, getting yourself centered, and reminding yourself about how you want to live your life. It can even serve as a complete cognitive, emotional, and existential self-help program built on the single idea of “dropping a useful thought into a deep breath.”

You use a deep breath, five seconds on the inhale and five seconds on the exhale, as a container for important thoughts that aim you in the right direction in life—I describe twelve of these thoughts in the book—and you begin to employ this breathing-and-thinking technique that I call incanting as the primary way to keep yourself on track.

Rahul: Where did this idea come from?

Eric: It comes from two primary sources, cognitive and positive psychology from the West and breath awareness and mindfulness techniques from the East. I’d been working with creative and performing artists for more than twenty years as a therapist and creativity coach and wanted to find a quick, simple technique that would help them deal with the challenges they regularly face—resistance to creating, performance anxiety, negative self-talk about a lack of talent or a lack of connections, stress over a boring day job or competing in the art marketplace, and so on.

Because I have a background in both Western and Eastern ideas, it began to dawn on me that deep breathing, which is one of the best ways to reduce stress and alter thinking, could be used as a cognitive tool if I found just the right phrases to accompany the deep breathing. This started me on a hunt for the most effective phrases that I could find and eventually I landed on twelve of them that I called incantations, each of which serves a different and important purpose.

Rahul: What sort of hunt did you go on?

Eric: First, I tried to figure out what are the most important tasks that we face as human beings, then I came up with what I hoped were resonant phrases, each of which needed to fit well into a deep breath, then, most importantly—which moved this from the theoretical to the empirical—I tested the phrases out on hundreds of folks who agreed to use them and report back on their experiences. That was great fun and eye opening!

People used these phrases to center themselves before a dental appointment or surgery, to get ready to have a difficult conversation with a teenage child, to bring joy back to their performing career, to carve out time for creative work in an over-busy day—in hundreds of ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. I think that’s what makes the book rich and special: that, as useful as the method and the incantations are, hearing from real people about how they’ve used them “seals the deal.” I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.

Rahul: Which phrases did you settle on?

Eric: The following twelve. I think that folks will intuitively get the point of each one (though some of the incantations, like “I expect nothing,” tend to need a little explaining). Naturally, each incantation is explained in detail in the book and there are many personal reports, so readers get a good sense of how different people interpret and make use of the incantations. Here are the twelve (the parentheses show how the phrase is “divided up” between the inhale and the exhale:

1. (I am completely) (stopping)
2. (I expect) (nothing)
3. (I am) (doing my work)
4. (I trust) (my resources)
5. (I feel) (supported)
6. (I embrace) (this moment)
7. (I am free) (of the past)
8. (I make) (my meaning)
9. (I am open) (to joy)
10. (I am equal) (to this challenge)
11. (I am) (taking action)
12. (I return) (with strength)

A small note: the third incantation functions differently from the other eleven, in that you name something specific each time you use it, for example “I am writing my novel” or “I am paying the bills.” This helps you bring mindful awareness to each of your activities throughout the day.

Rahul: Can you use the incantations and this method for any special purposes?

Eric: As I mentioned, folks are coming up with all kinds of special uses. One that I especially like is the idea of “book-ending” a period of work, say your morning writing stint or painting stint, by using “I am completely stopping” to ready yourself, center yourself, and stop your mind chatter, and then using “I return with strength” when you’re done so that you return to “the rest of life” with energy and power. Usually we aren’t this mindful in demarcating our activities—and life feels very different when we do.

Rahul: Is there a way to experience this process in “real time.”

Eric: By trying it out! But my web master Ron Wheatley has also designed a slide show at the Ten Zen Seconds site (http://www.tenzenseconds.com) that you can use to learn and experience the incantations. The slides that name the twelve incantations are beautiful images provided by the painter Ruth Yasharpour and each slide stays in place for ten seconds. So you can attune your breathing to the slide and really practice the method. The slide show is available at http://www.tenzenseconds.com/test_photo_slide.html

Rahul: How can people learn more about Ten Zen Seconds?

Eric: The book is the best resource. You can get it at Amazon by visiting here.

Or you can ask for it at your local bookstore. The Ten Zen Seconds website is also an excellent resource: in addition to the slide show that I mentioned, there is a bulletin board where folks can chat, audio interviews that I’ve done discussing the Ten Zen Second techniques, and more. It’s also quite a gorgeous site, so you may want to visit it just for the aesthetic experience! I would also recommend that folks check out my main site, http://www.ericmaisel.com, especially if they’re interested in creativity coaching or the artist’s life.

Rahul: How does this book help the writing community?

Eric: One of the biggest challenges that writers face is making the transition from ordinary mind to creative mind, from a busy, rushed, self-unfriendly way of thinking and being to a quieter, calmer, more affirmative way of being that allows good ideas to arise.

Ten Zen Seconds is designed to promote exactly that switch and to help it happen really quickly, in the space of a minute or less, through the practice of a few deep breaths and a few useful thoughts. Every writer needs to make this switch from “noisy mind” to “right mind” and this book presents a tool that serves exactly that purpose.

Rahul: Sometimes technical writers can get hold of the wrong end of the stick, which can result in incorrect information or embarrassment for the organization. I have also noticed many writers complaining of anxiety, confusion, anger, frustration, and resentment at their workplace. What incantations would you suggest for overcoming all these negative traits?

Eric: The most important habit to learn is to detach from outcomes: to have goals and dreams, to intend to do excellent work, and to otherwise meet one’s inner needs and outer responsibilities while at the same time letting go of expectations: that the workplace can be any different, that people will change their stripes, that deadlines will miraculously shift in our favor, and so on.

The incantation that supports this way of detaching is “I expect nothing,” which, when coupled with some of the others, like “I am doing my work,” “I am open to joy,” and “I am equal to this challenge,” provide a mental model for negotiating the everyday difficulties present—and rampant—at every workplace.

Rahul: Technical writers are subject to constant criticism at their workplace or otherwise. Some critics seek every single opportunity to tear your writing apart. How should a writer deal with criticism?

Eric: Well, I’ve written a whole book on that subject! It’s called Toxic Criticism and in it I suggest many strategies for dealing with criticism, some that require major change, like becoming more phlegmatic and philosophical and adopting a different attitude in life so that criticism begins to roll off your back like water off a duck’s back, and some simple and practical, like writing (but not mailing) “dear critic” letters in which you ventilate your feelings, since getting your feelings out is the best way to get over the toxic incident quickly.

Taking a mindful approach to criticism, rapidly determining which criticism is apt and which isn’t, and, when some piece of criticism sticks, using incantation 7, “I am free of the past,” to put the criticism behind you, are pieces of the puzzle.

Rahul: What incantations would you suggest for writers who are not able to enjoy their work?

Eric: I think there are several different issues here. Boredom is always a meaning problem: we are bored because we do not feel that what we are doing is meaningful to us (it may be meaningful to someone else, but that’s another matter). This boredom is a meaning crisis and can lead to existential depression, as I explain in The Van Gogh Blues, and constitutes a problem that requires an existential answer.

You either have to find the way to reinvest meaning in your for-hire writing, or make meaning elsewhere in your personal writing, or, most likely, both, as part of the problem with your day-job writing is that, because of it, you may not be getting to your personal writing, which makes your day-job writing feel all the more odious.

You will concentrate better and feel more confident if you accept that you are the arbiter of meaning in your life and that you must make conscious decisions about how and where in your life you will invest meaning. A separate question is if you find your personal writing boring you—then you have to examine that, making sure, first of all, that you are working on a personal writing project that actually holds meaning for you.

Rahul: Competition, in today’s context, rears its ugly head from time to time. How does one remain sane?

Eric: I think that competition, managed internally well, is a necessary part of the writer’s life, as she is likely to need to prove the exception in order to have a career and succeed as a writer.

It is the fact that a given publishing house will only have slots for so many books and if you want to be published there you must indeed “compete,” by turning in the stronger book proposal, by beefing up your credentials so that you appear to be an expert in your field, by building your platform, and in all the other ways that separates one writer from another.

You do not have to embrace this necessary level of competition with a cutthroat air and make rivals of your fellow writers, but you do need to accept a Darwinian view of the marketplace and recognize that, if you harbor the dream of regular publication, you must compete for those slots.

Rahul: Any suggestions for writers to improve?

Eric: There are three areas where most writers have to improve: in the way they manage their own personality, in the way they manage the challenges that the writing itself provides, and in the way they manage their relationship to marketplace and the world. I examine all three in a recent book, Creativity for Life.

The Ten Zen Seconds method allows you to create islands of mindfulness in your day so that you can master these tasks: you can work on your personality by trusting your inner resources and breaking free of the past, you can work on your writing by completely stopping, naming your writing as your work, and more fully embracing the writing moment, and you can better deal with the marketplace by reminding yourself that you make your meaning and that you must take action. By using the incantations in a context of ongoing self-improvement, writers can learn to write more often and deeply, sell more, and stand in better self-relationship.

Rahul: What else are you up to?

Eric: Plenty! I have a new book out called Creativity for Life, which is roughly my fifteenth book in the creativity field and which people seem to like a lot. I also have a third new book out, in addition to Ten Zen Seconds and Creativity for Life, called Everyday You, which is a beautiful coffee table book about maintaining daily mindfulness. I’m working on two books for 2008, one called A Writer’s Space and a second called Creative Recovery, about using your innate creativity to help in recovering from addiction.

And I’m keep up with the many other things I do: my monthly column for Art Calendar Magazine, my regular segment for Art of the Song Creativity Radio, the trainings that I offer in creativity coaching and my work with individual clients. I am happily busy! But my focus for the year is on getting the word out about Ten Zen Seconds, because I really believe that it’s something special. So I thank you for having me here today!

Author Bio:

Eric Maisel, America’s leading creativity coach, recently ended a two-month blog tour, which started in mid-April this year to promote his new book, Ten Zen Seconds (http://www.tenzenseconds.com). Eric visited Rahul Prabhakar’s blog on Saturday, May 19, 2007.

Rahul Prabhakar works as a technical communication professional with Samsung Electronics Company Limited, South Korea. He is a leading member of the Indian technical writing community, having spearheaded several initiatives to elevate the profession in the country. Rahul has a Bachelor’s of Technology degree in Electrical Engineering and a Diploma in Advertising Management. His blog, titled, “When the Muse Strikes!” highlights global challenges related to technical communication, along with links to his published work. Refer to the same at http://2brahulprabhakar.blogspot.com

Blood, by Nigel McLoughlin is beyond words. Moving, deeply riveting, and most of all standing as both a marker (for lessons learned, in discussion of terrorism through poetry) and inspiration.

Boldly mixing Irish myth, and the rich imagery we associate with all traditions of Irish writing, with a more modern view of terrorism, and bloodshed, this book covers several aspects of the concept ‘blood‘ – from the spilling of it, to the ties and links we hold to our ancestors. Perhaps we don’t know where we come from, but its fairly certain our blood, and our genetics do, and they tell tales of pillage, conquest, bloom and the amazing and often indefinable pulse that keeps us, and our heritage – our remembrance of ‘where we came from’ alive in its fractured, fragmented forms.

Throughout the images that I was being offered, distilled in poetic form, I kept thinking and tracking the theme – and in every poem, whether clearly stated, alluded to, or understood via reference, each poem does relate to ‘blood‘. Be it family, ancestry, or the actual act of spilling it, sometimes more than one concept of blood appears in the poem.

Images, and concepts have remained with me – the poems where he talks about having to allow and aid a doctor in getting blood from his six month old son, who has meningitis touched me, as a parent. I remember doing something very similar with my then four year old son, though in our case, it wasn’t meningitis.

My favorite poem is ‘Going West’. Its opening paragraph, two lines, is short but moved me almost to tears. The implication that we’re leaving things behind, heading for the ‘richer’ parts of the world, towards cities, and ‘freedom’, and a new life on a new continent, that we’re also diminishing ourselves, becoming poorer. Losing our heritage, and that there’s few left to ‘hear’ it die, or even, in some cases, mark its passing. Having moved recently, and brought my children from the world I grew up in, to another part of that same Empire, yet, still, slightly foreign for me, this poem touched me incredibly deeply.

Another incredibly moving, yet deceptively simple poem is “Split Second” - which shares the idea of needing to stay conscious, after a serious injury, in this case, caused by an explosion.

Legacy, that talks about the plague, but also of the fact that we can’t leave behind the only people that understand us, after all, stories are only truly worthwhile when people understand. Though we can leave accounts, without perspective, without reference, words can be rendered meaningless – and without someone to advocate them – to continue to share them, people forget.

All in all, there are 52 poems in this anthology, each as well crafted and interesting as its companions. Not one poem in the book seemed to ‘let down’ the tone, and though some were slightly weaker than others, in many cases, their weakness is what made them stand out and gave them a different kind of strength.

This book of poetry formed the basis for his PHD, and is an amazing testament to the voices that come out of higher education. Having read this anthology, I feel honored to be given the chance to study under him, at some point in the next three years, and more importantly, urge anyone without that opportunity to grab a copy of this book, so that you too can find some influence, some inspiration in his words and images.
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