Write with TLC

Oh, boy!  Am I excited or what!!!  Christina Katz discusses being ethical in The Prosperous Writer this week, and I’ve been giving ethics a lot of thought lately!  You’ve got to love it when that happens! Last week, a friend told me about an ethical dilemma that had arisen at her work.  She was in her own ethical dilemma over how to handle someone else’s unethical behavior. Behavior that impacted her life and her ability to do her job.  She felt it necessary she do something.  She devised a plan.  It didn’t quite work out the way she’d hoped.  It can be hard to handle it when someone else’s lack of ethics appears to get rewarded and your attempt to do the ethical thing about it gets “punished”. I know someone who has been downloading movies that by my definition are “pirated”.  I’ve expressed my discomfort with this explaining that “stealing is stealing” and there’s no splitting hairs.  Just because it’s “interesting” technology doesn’t make it right.  As a writer, I

This week  Christina Katz tackles professionalism in The Prosperous Writer . Most of us would never ask a professional to do their work for free.  Writers are often told they should write for the love of writing and money should be a secondary concern.  How many times are poets encouraged to “give” their poetry to a magazine or journal for the “exposure”?  How often do people ask authors to give them copies of their books as if the work they  put into creating their work is somehow less important than other jobs?  I think this mentality can create doubt in the mind of the most productive artists.  We, as artists, have a tendency to go along with it rather than stand up and say “I worked hard on that.  Is the time, effort, research, and skill I put into creating that product worth less than the work you do each day?”   When I published my novel, All She Ever Wanted , I was bombarded with people wanting free copies.  I heard every reason in the book.  Mostly, it boiled

Sometime in the first few weeks of 2010 I set a personal goal that scared me more than any goal I’d ever set in my life.  I decided to allow myself - no, let’s go a step farther - to make myself vulnerable.  I’ve always been known for speaking my mind, but I’m not always good at expressing my innermost feelings.  This would surprise some people who probably don’t understand that for me speaking my mind and expressing my emotions is two VERY different things. I have no problem giving you my opinion about anything or helping you analyze a problem.  I can even discuss the emotional ramifications related to the problem with ease.  I can discuss the ins and outs of your personal problems, politics, religion, current issues, and myriad other things without hesitation.  I don’t even care if we disagree.  Either I’ll learn something new or I’ll share something that helps you better understand my point of view.  Perhaps we’ll even find a solution to some problem or the other.  I