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Today’s Spotlight is on Chicago Writers Association member, Lisa Maroski, author of The One That Is Both.

Exploring the Frontiers of Language    Many years ago I read a small book called The Limits of Language. It had been written much earlier, in 1962–a collection of essays by philosophers, scientists, and writers who all pointed to a boundary of sorts. If there were a sign at the border it would have said something like “Caution: No Adequate Language Beyond This Point.” However, none of the authors did any more than point at a dark void; none offered a solution, none ventured into that void. I resolved to be the person to do that. I have taken some first tentative steps, which I will share in the hope of sparking someone’s imagination, to join me in this adventure into a frontier as exciting as deep space, deep interior space this time.

My own quest began while studying physics and Eastern philosophy. From both those perspectives, the world seemed to be a paradoxical unity, not the nice linear, rational world that I had been conditioned to expect. The interpenetration of opposites–such as body and mind, energy and matter, subject and object–was more compelling to me than analyzing them in their separateness. And aside from clumsy compounds, such as bodymind, there was no way to express succinctly the dynamism, cocreativeness, and inherent unity of such oppositions. In graduate school, I experimented with equally clumsy constructions, but it wasn’t until I hit upon the idea of getting away from the alphabet that I struck paydirt. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Let’s look a bit more closely at the boundary. If you come from the perspective that each thing we have a word for is a separate entity distinct from other entities, then the language we’ve got will do you just fine, and you can stop reading this. If, however, you come from the perspective that everything is profoundly interconnected, then the limitations of language become more evident. The very act of predicating, of saying X is Y keeps X from ever being one with Y. My friend, Steve Rosen, describes this limit very concisely, “Of course, any act of predication, any assertion that ‘X is’ or that ‘X is not,’ is an act of circumscribing X, rendering it finite, implicitly (if not explicitly) turning it into an object that is cast before the subjectivity of the predicator. Quite irrespective, then, of the explicit content of my thoughts or words, when the form of my discourse is that of predication, implicitly I finitize, objectify, create an other. Therefore, in predicating self, I actually produce what is other, what appears over against this existential self that predicates.” In other words, our language implicitly keeps the subject and object separate, keeps the unity of interpenetration of such opposites forever a poetic metaphor.

This is not the case in some languages. A Navajo woman once explained that when they say something like “I see the mountain,” it is implied that I am also that mountain, that it is not separate from me. English implies that is absolutely must be separate.

So how do we expand this language, English, to be able to express that inherent non-separation of subject and object? How do we increase the bandwidth of our language?

I have taken a stab at it by inventing new types of words, words that don’t have letters but have graphic images, since images show relationships. Here is an example of what one of them means: “fu-an-gu: its meaning translates roughly as ‘the deeper you get, the less it looks like itself, and when you reach the core, it looks like the opposite of what you started with.’” (Check out my book to see the actual graphic.) This concept embodies the paradox of wholeness, wherein you express the simultaneity of opposites. That is one way to increase the bandwith of language. I’d love to hear your ideas for other ways.

Lisa Maroski, author of The One That Is Both
website: http://murder.booklocker.com/www.theonethatisboth.com
blog: http://paradoxplayground.blogspot.com

I was checking my site stats for Blooking Central and saw one “Recently Came From” entry was from Wikipedia. I backtracked and discovered that Blooking Central is one of two external links listed! Not bad for a site that’s less than 2 months old.

I’ve put a lot of hard work into the blooking site - 24 blooks examined the last month, 15 blooks or blooks-to-be so far this month and it’s only the sixth of July.

Just a quicky to tell you that CWA’s own Paul Wolf has a new website.

I just watched the Today Show’s interview that Lester Holt did with Bill Barnes. When senior citizen felt the pickpocket’s hand slip into his pocket, he reacted immediately by beginning to attack his attacker. Much is being made of the fact that Barnes is a former Marine and Golden Gloves boxer.

Barnes had just withdrawn money from an ATM which leads me to believe that the pickpocket had been watching for someone he considered an easy mark. He was wrong in assuming that a senior would be “easy.” Follow this link for a video of the fight.

I’m a little annoyed. Yesterday in the morning’s email I found a request to proof something for a friend. I did and within hours received the jubilant message that it had been accepted for publication and it would be appearing in the next issue of some magazine.

Okay, so maybe not annoyed. More like jealous. I’m happy for my friend. Really. But golly gee whiz, why don’t things like that happen to me

On the other hand, I’m signed up to do an internet radio show next week. I’ll be reading one pretty long piece entitled “Witness” and a short story called “Flight.” Getting the opportunity was not as easy as my friend popping her piece into email.

When I inquired about appearing as a guest, I was sent a document with some really stringent requirements regarding content for work to be submitted. I was amazed at what I found there. The show purports to be interviews with book authors plus short reads by the authors. THIS was NOT THAT.

Undeterred, I located “Witness” which did fit the criteria. I waited almost a month to hear that the show’s host rejected it. Seven minutes after receiving that email I received another saying that she changed her mind. But did I have another piece to fill out the hour?

I submitted short story that had been published in DePaul’s literary magazine, Threshold. It was rejected (don’t ask). Then I submitted two more pieces. One of these was found “acceptable.”

And so next week I’ll be doing the show. I can only hope that I get to mention the name of my book.

The latest issue of the Chicago Writers Association newsletter, The Clarion, has just been released. Oh, and it has an interview with me

It also has an interview with Helen Gallagher, “Writerly News” (On Publishing, Self-Marketing). Dorien Grey was also interviewed.

Making her first appearance in The Clarion and one of the newest members of CWA is Diana Xin. a student at Northwestern University/Medill School of Journalism. Her feature article is an interview she conducted with award-winning romance writer Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Naperville.

Also in this issue: Freelance and Paying Jobs for Writers; Personal Writing Essays & Success Stories; and Chicagoland Author Friendlies.

I was happy for her when I learned that Marlys Marshall Styne took two firsts in the Illinois Press Women’s Association competition for both her book and her blog. She’s just posted that both have AGAIN won. This time on the national level! First place for her blog (Web writing, Personal) and third place for her book (Nonfiction, Biography/Autobiography). Wow! I am more than happy for her. What’s more than happy?

This morning on the CWA forum Jeanetter Clinkunbroomer linked to an article about Copyright and “fair use.” I’ve always thought of myself as being responsible with other people’s words, keeping my quotes to the bare bones so as not to infringe on their rights.

Lately, though, I’ve discovered that it’s getting harder to do. Not with respect to writing but blogging. I know that you write when you blog, but I’m pretty sure you know what I mean when I make the distinction.

At Blooking Central I’ve been researching software and publishers as well as blooks and blauthors. It’s been really hard when I’ve had words in front of me — words that I could highlight and plug into my posts as quotes — to keep myself honest.

Generally I pick up whole paragraphs, sometimes whole pages of material. I pop it into Homesite and save it until I need it.

Then I begin trimming. Then I trim some more. I confess that some of the quotes look pretty mangled when I’m done but I don’t know how else to do it. I’m very careful about attribution and always provide links to where I got the material. But still … . I was glad for Jeanette’s reminder.

Today’s Spotlight is on Chicago Writers Association member, FRank Creed.

Tackling the Big-Hairy-Business-of-Writing-Monster:
How to Shave and Exfoliate This Bad-Boy Without Bruising or Laceration.

by Frank Creed

At the beginning of 2006, I learned my first novel would be published. I jumped on the bed until the biz realities of being a published novelist went upside my head. That mother of a problem spanked me hard. I was an artist who’d spent a lifetime learning craft. My only online writing connection then was Elfwood.com the web’s largest amateur sci-fi/ fantasy site. Big help. Mother’d brought me up right, so I stopped jumping on the bed, and began jumping on the Web.

Intimidated by technology? All you need to know is how to use a web-browser and an e-mail program. Add a tasteful website and a real domain name to that ask-Santa list. As you log BOCHOK (butt on chair, hands on keyboard) time, steeling the courage to tackle the big-hairy-biz-reality-monster, focus on this one purpose: networking. Your job is to help your publisher sell your book—trust me, it’s in your contract. Bad news? Gone are the days when an author can retire to a cabin and just write. Worse news is that the biz-monster eats time. His diet seems to be a minimum three hours biz-time for every word-count hour, and if you don’t feed him, he can kill your career.

Why network? We use viral-marketing to build web presence infrastructure. Before the web, viral-marketing was called word-of-mouth buzz. Demographics show that the overwhelming number-one reason someone reads a book is because it’s been recommended by friend or family. Infecting print, radio, and television mediums through the real-time-modern-encyclopedia called the internet, and thereby infecting readers, is known as viral-marketing. Web-presence simply refers to an author’s visibility on the internet. This is achieved by laying an infrastructure of sites, blogs, and memberships. Web-presence is measured with tools like hit-counters, Technorati-ratings, and Googlability.

If you’re not genuine and kind throughout your infrastructure, you’ll get tagged as a spammer or board troll—friends of the biz monster willing to help kill a career, so use some propriety in your networking. Be passionate without being desperate. Live the Golden-Rule and be courteous. Help others and just tack-on your signature links. If you don’t use sig-links, get-over-it and write some. Make it easy for readers to learn more about you.

I spent eight months furiously Googling, bookmarking, joining groups, kissing palms and shaking babies. Even though I write in the nonexistent speculative fiction sub-sub-sub-genre of Biblical end-times sci-fi, I was stunned at the quantity of tools and people like me I found scattered across the web. (Let me pause and say I’m not cramming religion down any throats here—the following context will work for any writer’s niche.) Authors whose genre begins with the word “Biblical” all consider our work to be some kind of ministry. As such, my motivation for founding the Lost Genre Guild was to gather the tools and people I’d found scattered across the web, for the Boss’s glory. That, and Christians who are spec-fic genre fans pack the grudge that G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Frank Peretti and Stephen Lawhead were the only known Biblical-Speculative-Fiction authors published in the twentieth century. As readers we were starved. Quick tip: don’t starve a guy stubborn enough to spend a dozen years on one novel.

Point is, Google your niche very specifically. Use a variety of subtly different parameters. Christian spec-fic has three main sub-genres: I chased sci-fi, fantasy and horror *cough spiritual thriller cough*. Then I replaced “Christian” with “Biblical”, and did it again. Then I did it for every sub-sub-genre I could think of. Take the time to chase and scan the first two hundred results—you won’t believe the useful things that don’t Google well. Central gathering points for your niche may already exist on the web, and some charge membership fees (the Lost Genre Guild does not). To have genre-specific resources at your fingertips is worth thirty bucks a year. If you can’t find a guild or writers’ club for your niche, start one. A specific fiction-ministry is LGG members’ motivation, but authors of any niche share a bond. Find others out there doing what you do. Band together and share what you know. Network.

For those still reading, here’s a couple cookies. The Lost Genre Guild began as a private invite-only Yahoo newsgroup. I spent another eight months networking and promoting the guild. What began as a handful of artists now consists of publishers, editors, web-show hosts, production studios, promoters, blog tourists, and one unofficial cat. According to a spring of ‘06 Writer’s Digest issue (that the cat messed-on and I pitched), religious, not just Christian, fiction is expected to explode over the next five years. I’ve heard echoes of this anticipation over the last year, and the fact that the local Barnes & Noble’s has three times the Christian fiction shelf-space as the biggest Christian bookstore *cough gift-shop cough* is a biz reality. If you write religious fiction, you’re in the right place and time. And here’s a fun fact: an LGG member wrote the Wikipedia definition of Biblical Speculative Fiction. Network.

If any CWA member would like an export of my mostly categorized favorites-file containing thousands of writing bookmarks, send a blank e-mail to frankcreed@insightbb.com with “bookmarks” as a subject line. Obviously Christian or Biblical Speculative Fiction authors would benefit most, but all my months of research is bound to help anyone. I oughta be burnin’ disks and sellin’ this stuff.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, the web is a writer’s whetstone.

To God be the glory,
Frank Creed

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Home: www.frankcreed.com
Author Blog: frankcreed.blogspot.com
Book Review Blog: afrankreview.blogspot.com
Lost Genre Guild Site: www.lostgenreguild.com
Lost Genre Guild Blog: blog.lostgenre.com
The Underground Series: End Times Sci-Fi

The Blog Writers & Artists Network has just announced that I’ve won the Red Envelope competition for frequent blogging. I missed a day here and there during the month but had good responses to my posts. You needed to have four comments (excluding your own) for an entry to count.