Ooh, free stuff. Better yet, good free stuff! That good stuff is the 2012 edition of the Guide to Literary Agents, which has comprehensive contact listings of agents and agencies, tells you what they are looking for in regards novels and nonfiction books, and supplies submission tips and writerly suggestions. And one of you glittery souls who merely puts in a comment here will be shipped a free copy of the guide. (Gotta be a U.S. address—sorry!)

Besides all the agency listings, the book has lots of articles on what makes agents happy with your submissions, and what makes them cranky. There’s also a section on writing conferences and screenwriting. This is the book for you even if you can’t decide if your novel is YA or DOA. The guide also includes an updated online subscription to agent listings.

Shameless Plug
What will undoubtedly thrill you down to your very tippy-toesies is knowing that there’s an article of mine in the book. It’s somewhat of a how-to on setting up (and getting something out of) a personal writer’s retreat. That’s a freebie too.

Even if you don’t have a manuscript or book proposal ready for an agent, you might want to swim in the comment stream just to get stimulated. I’ll take all your names and select one at random. I’ll cut off the contest a week from today, and I’ll let the winner know by email.

And to my pals who drop by and comment on a regular basis, no, I’m not going to cheat and choose one of you just because you’re pretty. Grow up. This is legit. (But you still have a chance in the random drawing. And you’re still pretty.)

Like a lot of self-obsessed pundits (whoops, I mean astute marketers), I use Google Analytics to check my site’s traffic statistics, such as what search engines invite people to visit, which referral sites point an arrow to mine, and what flavor of link bait might entice Lady Gaga to go gaga over my prose. (Note to Lady G: I’ve named all my strings after you.)

One of the analytic tools displays what search keywords people use to find my site. Writers and other types of peddlers have been scolded by marketeers of every stripe that we must discover and cultivate our audience, whether we want to sell words or wombats. The keyword tool does reveal what’s on the minds of site visitors, and thus is one gauge of what people are looking for when they come to a site. Apparently my people want to learn how to write obituaries.

Running from Your Audience
The greatest number of people, by far, who visited my site—as a result of organic search (not direct visits)—over the past nine months were looking for advice on writing an obituary for a family member. The reason: my father, Sgt. Robert Bentley, died on New Years Day of this year. My sister and I collaborated on writing his obituary, and I wrote a “How to” post on that strange, sad process.

I was struck at several levels by that search-tally information: one, on an emotional key, thinking of the anonymous (to me) people who have had death enter their lives, some probably suddenly, and the weight of that loss. Thinking anew of the loss of my father. Thinking that so many issues around a family member’s death are boggling, and how we seek help for those issues—such as help with writing an obituary for our loved one. And thinking that I clearly didn’t want to go into the obituary-writing business, no matter if that’s where my audience is.

Capturing the Elements of a Life
This is an age of specialists; undoubtedly, there are writers who focus on writing obituaries, though I didn’t want to search for them—probably afraid I’d see my own site come up, and add to my totals. I don’t want to consider the commercial aspects of the trade, but I could see some appeal in helping people through the process, because the obituary’s tale is part of the grieving, the letting go—obit content, narrow as it is, can sometimes atomize the elements of a life, the cherished aspects of character, the seat of a family’s love for the lost. But I don’t want to write them; that is too close, too sad.

Ironically, this post will undoubtedly bring more souls to my site looking for a way to write about things that are in some way unwriteable. The words of broken hearts. Maybe my original “How To” did help. I hope so.

At least it’s better than the searches for “long scrotum” and its variants that brought many people to my site a while back after I’d posted an article about my vasectomy. Sigh…

I love this photo of Kate Hepburn. Even though her both-feet-athwart stance seems to presage a butt-tumble to come, the fact that she’s cranking the angle shows she’s not just rolling a flat-foot-dead-ahead-I’m-terrified skate, but she’s going for it. Maybe it’s the only time Kate skated, maybe it’s just a publicity photo, but implicit in it is the kind of attitude confirmed by Hepburn’s bio: a brash kind of what-the-hell brio that was disarming and refreshing.

That’s what I think writers should do: push the angle a little, crank off some language that’s bolder or brighter, be willing to take a bone bruise to your writer’s elbows. I like to imagine Kate grinding on a curb in the Safeway parking lot, the security guard saying, “Hey lady, give it a rest!” From reading of her history, she rarely gave it a rest: she was opinionated, strong-willed and emotional, and it came out in her acting and her personal life. Whether you write for business, pleasure or both, writing doesn’t have any flavor unless you add some cayenne now and then.

The Long Hangover from a Word-Bender
When I was ten or eleven, I became slap-happy with words. I’d read the dictionary in chunks of pages, getting into the brief etymologies, mouthing the pronunciations. I remember running down to my best friend’s house, having memorized a line about a nice, old Volkswagen bus his highly educated parents had bought, so that I could spring on them something like “Congratulations on purchasing a well-restored vintage mode of transportation,” or some such gobbledygook. My friend’s dad just looked at me and laughed, though in a kindly way.

Despite regularly getting those kind of skeptical responses, I continued being a word-dweeb for years. The editor of my college paper was a guy who liked me and my writing, but one who accurately judged that my polysyllables-per-sentence count was choking many readers. He once titled an article of mine about an unconventional housing design near the college, “A Lot of Big Words About Housing.”

I’ve calmed down some from those days. I’m no longer so insecure about my writing that I have to forcibly lard it with fifty-cent words to make it seem worth something. But I’m still thrilled by language, still rifling through the dictionary, still wanting to goose a sentence with word-grease that makes it jump. So, take some chances with your writing: think of Kate Hepburn shredding in a half-pipe, no knee pads.

Bonus Celebrity “No Way!” Sighting
Agatha Christie was a surfer. I knew that Mark Twain did it in Hawaii (look for his tales of “surf bathing” in the Sandwich Islands), but Dame Agatha? Yes! I am hoping that one of you can find out whether Yogi Berra was a knitter.

The problem is, the setup for the joke is this: What’s whiskey and aspirin? Now the reason I find that so uproariously funny (besides the fact I wrote it) is that in the past couple of months, I’ve been denied healthcare coverage by four different carriers. Oh, you perspicaciously say, I must have:

✓ Spondylosis or tachycardia (or another polysyllabic terror)
✓ A large, suppurating wound that can’t be covered by the Sunday paper
✓ Something growing in my mouth that looks like a lionfish
✓ No functioning internal organs

Surprise—none of those! However, I did have hip surgery for a labral tear close to four months ago. Successful hip surgery, followed by successful physical therapy, signed off as “fine and dandy” by my doc and the PT guy. Why, I could briskly walk up to you right now and put a live salmon in your underwear and you’d never suspect I’d had a hip problem.

No, the problem is getting health care after having a hip problem.

Cobra Bites
The complication is that I did have COBRA health coverage, but it expired about a month after my surgery. Silly me, I’d thought that I could just pick up a new carrier post-surgery, since I’m in basically good health, exercise (with delight) six days a week, and don’t have any peculiar conditions (space between ears notwithstanding) as listed above. Wrong!

So, denied, because of my recent surgery (they are most cautious, these vigilant health carriers) as being too risky. Denied even by what’s called “bridge” insurance carriers, who cover you month-to-month when there’s some problem with standard insurance, or if it’s expired. Denied even when I’d applied for high-deductible insurance—$4,000–$6,000—so the insurance companies wouldn’t have to pay a dime until my arm happened to fall off while signaling for a cab. (Of course, if anything is going to drain your health, it’s filling out the forms online, which run to 12-15 pages. No coffee is strong enough to combat that pain.)

That Bitter Socialist Pill
Of course, that damn socialist Obama wanted to prevent carriers from being able to deny people coverage with pre-existing conditions, but that part of his plan probably won’t see the light of day, since many partiers of tea find it an abomination. After all, we do have to protect the insurance industry at all costs; my God, we wouldn’t want their record profits to be undermined by ill people that need care.

It is interesting to be a freelancer, subject to these kinds of insults, particularly when my pre-existing condition is that I’m fine. Gracious, I feel bad for the people who have real ailments, like diabetes, macular degeneration and the like, who are independent of corporate insurance. That’s a real picnic.

Finished ranting now. For a look at an interesting post on freelancers obtaining insurance, check out this from Peter Bowerman’s site. There is some good stuff in the comments there. For now, I guess I’ll go try a dose of my punchline.

PS
One of my bills from the surgery center came in at around $28,900.00. The insurance carrier countered by offering $245.00. The surgery center then said they had a contractual write-off of $27,500.00. They play amusing games, these healthcare providers. Especially since my “supplies” from the experience were bandaids and hospital socks. Oh, but they were nice socks…

One of my most esteemed, smart, good-guy writerly pals, Joel D Canfield (don’t you dare punctuate that “D”) is stepping out on a limb to offer his services and counsel in a new enterprise-cum-enchantment called Finding Why. I suppose this venture is not really stepping out on a limb for Joel, because he has built this philosophical tree of his over time, and this latest branching is sound. Here’s how Joel might have explained it in his own words. (Actually, these are Joel’s own words, pre-trademark violation):

“Too many people spend life stuck, going through the motions; believing they know what to do and how to do it, but never really clear on why. Finding ‘why’ makes ‘what’ and ‘how’ become clear. I want to help folks who are stuck being what the world expected to find their why, to find meaning and joy in life, and show the world who they really are.”

Joel proclaims that there are already 10,000 ringing words on the site. (Joel, these words weren’t selected at random, were they?) There’s also, “… hundreds of thousands to come. Free downloads. Room for conversation. A little insanity.” That “little” is Joel’s first effort at understatement ever. Well done, man!

I do suggest you hie on over to FindingWhy and find out why. Joel’s broad shoulders can bear the weight of the “Renaissance Man” title (while at the same time, I can see him well-fitted for jester’s shoes. But a canny, giving jester at that). He likes good beer, laughs freely and makes excellent pancakes. He will give you good Why.

Let’s consider a nice serving of mashed potatoes, hot and buttery. Most cooks probably don’t think too much about preparing their potatoes, so it’s often a rote task, hurried through to get to the entree. But what if those potatoes were served with panache, with some kind of style point or spicy twist? Say you were served potatoes with a tiny derby hat on them. You’d remember those spuds, wouldn’t you?

You’d probably remember them even more, if under the tiny derby was a clump of hair. Wouldn’t that drag an interesting expression of creativity into an unappetizing corner? The reason I bring up potatoes, derby hats and unwanted hair is a point I want to make about editing. Competent editors are able to shape the standard serving of potatoes so that it’s without lumps, smooth and palatable. Good potatoes, but still just potatoes.

Better editors recognize when a piece of writing has a derby hat in it—they would never take that hat out, robbing the writer of a unique angle or voice. They’d find a way to allow the hat to fit snugly in its potato surroundings, fully expressive of its quirk and charm, without it seeming unnatural or foreign. And of course, a good editor would remove that hair—typos, kludgy expressions, dully passive voice, et al—posthaste.

Seeing What’s Missing from the Plate
Another skill possessed by a good editor is recognizing when something’s missing. If you don’t provide the reader with a fork, they can’t fully enjoy those potatoes. Some pieces of writing are strong, but they might have gaps in logic, or need to be buttressed by a few more starchy facts. Good editors notice if the writing meal is missing ingredients, and they know how to persuasively suggest adding them so that the writer chefs promptly step back up to the stove.

Of course, editors should always recognize when that potato serving is too big. I remember one of my first copywriting jobs out of college, writing catalog copy for an outdoor equipment retailer that sold a lot of camping goods. One of our products was the Backpacker’s Bible, which was a tiny book that gathered some of the most powerful/popular Bible verses (no “begats” allowed). My first round of copy for it had the line “The best of The Book with all the deadwood cut away.” [Note: for some odd reason they didn't use my copy.]

And editors recognize when something’s just off. If you’re serving your potatoes to Lady Gaga, you don’t want her wearing her octopus-tentacle bra tinted some neutral shade of grey, do you? It cries out to be Day-Glo puce! If writing has a certain rhythm established, and the rhythm, without context, goes awry, a good editor will re-establish that rhythm. And the proper bra color.

You Don’t Mean He’s Trying to Sell Us Something?
Why is he going on like this, about potatoes and bras? Easy. I’m getting ready to unleash The Write Word’s Easy Editing and Spiffy Style Guide on the world, perhaps as soon as this week. It’s a 55-page ebook chockablock with editing potatoes and other good stuff. And unlike my first couple of ebooks—available here for free—I’m going to charge money for it. But it’s worth it, because it will keep the hair out of your potatoes, while preserving the stylish hats. The guide is filled with editing tips, so that you don’t have to pay me to be the potato masher. Look for its buttery goodness soon.

Yes, I have reached the point where I manipulate you with puppy pictures

The writer’s life can be an isolated one, where you, sequestered near your gnat-swarming compost heap, concentrate on your compositions, in between bouts of bitterly denouncing 14-year-olds who get publishing contracts for writing YA novels about zombie-vampire aliens who look like rutabagas (albeit sexy ones).

Wait, you mean I’m the only writer forced to scribe next to the compost bin? No matter. What I’m actually getting at is that in these cyberspheric times, writers don’t have to be the lonely Kafkaesque wretches that they were in the past. They can be connected wretches, which is so much more sociable.

In that light, I’ve listed below some of the sites and personas from which I get good writerly info, or where I can pull up an electronic chair and sit a spell (to be spellbound), or where I know the site’s owner always provides food for thought. Any thought leftovers I just put in that nearby compost bin.

This list is by no means exhaustive, because that would be exhausting. Nah, it’s just me picking among the URL wildflower patches. Please list any good bouquets of your own if you’re of a mind to.

Blogging, Copywriting, Writing and General Good Info
Copyblogger
Men with Pens
All Freelance Writing
Freelance Folder
Write to Done

Idea Sparking and Entrepreneurship
Seth Godin
Jonathan Fields Art of Non-Conformity
The Fluent Self
Chris Brogan

Publishing and Such
There Are No Rules
Guide to Literary Agents
Query Shark
The Rejectionist

My Pals (Who Have Gotta Lotta Soul Savvy)
Below are some personable folks who are all smart cookies, and I’m happy to be their friend; many of these are their business sites, where they can help you with copywriting, marketing, presentations, graphic design, world-changing, and of course, dentistry. Some of them I’ve only exchanged electrons with (wearing protection, of course), but I have intuited from the lovely letter choices they make in their writing that they are good folks.

Jodi Kaplan
Megan Morris
Becky Blanton
Rick Wilson
Joel and Sue Canfield
Michael Knowles
Jule Kucera
Chris Landry
Ricki Schultz
Rich Luhr
Annie Dennison
Mary Louise Penaz
Marcos Gaser (Brush up on your Spanish)
Bob Poole
Jai Joshi
Pace & Kyeli
Bernd Nurnberger
Sue Greenberg

If I forgot you, it’s not because I don’t love you any more. It’s the pain pills (plus the cocktails) from the hip surgery. Remind me and I’ll add you. For $100. And a new compost bin.

And I would put my mother on here too, but she just won’t start her damn blog. Sheesh!

Copywriters that have a clearly defined niche—”I write sales letters for mid-tier businesses selling nuclear-powered rabbits”—are both constrained by their choices and freed by them. They are constrained in that they may have always dreamed of writing sales letters for nuclear-powered goat companies, but instead they are known as the rabbit guy, and thus they don’t want to dilute their focused offering, and potentially blur the boundaries of their defined space.

However, they are freed from casting their “I-need-new-work” lines in the thistle-tangled fields of businesses small, medium and large, who might peddle soap made from recycled comic books, or tongue scrapers for denture wearers. Generalist copywriters tend to a casual work garden of mingled (and sometimes flopping) stalks, colors and scents, while the specialist might have a sturdy monocrop of clients and cutoff dates.

You might guess that I’m a generalist.

The 360-degree Rotating Exorcist Head
I’ve thought about trying to restrain my 360-degree rotating Exorcist head (minus green spewings) of writing endeavors, but it’s just not my nature. While I can admire the ferocity of focus some copywriters employ, I can’t join their ranks—I don’t think I could breathe. And, genial bigot that I am, I have to sing the praises of the generalist’s keys, because polymath writing pursuits are inherently interesting for their variety. This month alone, to wit:

• I finished an article for Fine Books and Collections magazine on the makers of exquisite and zany handmade books, touring the U.S. in their gypsy wagon.
• Finished editing a book on social media for nonprofits.
• Edited the first in a series of short books on Nonverbal Communication in Dentistry.
• Wrote logo taglines suggestions for a home design and remodel company, and begin writing their brochure copy.
• Discussed writing “replies” for a company that’s developed an advanced virtual personal assistant chatbox app; the replies will cover the branching potentials for suggested questions that users might want answered.
• In discussion with a company that needs someone to update the documentation for the new version of its novel-writing software.
• Am writing my two monthly articles (a recurring gig) for the Airstreamer, Airstream’s email newsletter.
• Sending out queries for a variety of articles, many of them travel-related (though a few are about whiskey and one about old cars).
• Sending out short older short stories of mine to some lit magazines.
• Berating myself for pausing in what had been a steady (and productive!) half-hour of writing per day on my novel, having used Thanksgiving and then Christmas and then my father’s death for an excuse for not doing the work. Get after it, man!

Building Expertise, by the Paragraph and by the Project
Now, I have varying degrees of expertise in the areas above, but having written and edited nonfiction books, having written question-and-response dialog for software products, having written a novel (unpublished), having written travel pieces, having written brochures, heck, having written lots of grocery lists, I’m confident I can deliver what each organization needs, granting the many iterations of review and rewrite that some projects necessitate. For many writers like me, once you write website copy for a company, they may call you later to write headlines for an ad.

You might not have written headlines for ads before, but the good generalist will always pipe up with a merry “Yes!” when asked about their ability to write a heady headline. Many fundamental writing skills translate across boundaries—cross-writing is often more comfortable than cross-dressing. (High-heeled pumps just don’t work well with my size 13s.) So, if you are breaking in to the copywriter’s fold, and you’re thinking that you could write sales letters not only for the nuked goats and rabbits, but perhaps for radium-isotope gerbils too—go for it. Next thing you know, you’re a reptiles-with-battery packs specialist too.

This is an IDEA (though it resembles a butterfly)

I’m a guy whose wishes are words. And whose wishes are FOR words. By the clock, the wished-for words are straight-spined and modest, assembling in tight, orderly rows. But when work gives way to whimsy, that’s when words can stretch, flop, and peep around corners to see who’s looking.

The division is due to the fact that I’m both a business writer and a fiction writer, and not only do the twain not meet, but the twains don’t even arrive at the same station. And that pun is not nearly as painful as trying to reconcile the two worlds of words.

Sometimes, there is a truce of sorts: a brochure on streaming video might have a little stream of consciousness, or a character sketch might call for a pencil tipped with the driest of logic. But most of the time, when I have to travel between the word-worlds, it’s a difficult, deliberate journey—an enterprise that requires even more than Thoreau’s dreaded change of clothes.

However, I want to avoid the sense that being a painter or writer or sculptor confers any elite status or implies some exalted perspective. I’ve been a staff copywriter, freelance essayist and fiction writer for years, and it’s often more a matter of managing deadlines than swooning in inspiration. Keeping the queries fresh. Being thick-skinned about the seemingly inevitable “no” that you get from most publishers. I’ve learned to just shrug and go to the next query or project.

Words for the Plucking
However, there are some moments in the writing process, where words seem to be bright objects that can be plucked out of the air and strung together in serried ranks of complement and charm. Out of nothing, a paragraph that prances—or one that cries and bleeds. In those moments, it’s less the affected pose of practiced art, but rather a kind of verbal husbandry, a farmer grateful for an unexpected crop.

This isn’t precious wordsmanship, it’s grace—and I’m grateful when it occurs.

What I’m getting at, is that at some times in the creative process, it’s less a “me” than a “Wow!” (Conversely, it’s more often, “That’s shit!”—but that’s realistic, not wallowing.)

But perspective is king: there can be beauty in the way a bus driver weaves her route, how a seventh-grader whistles a made-up tune, where the making of a good sandwich is an artful act. Those moments of grace can be fleeting, but a good sandwich is forever. Well, until lunch.

Consider this:

“It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. 
How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the
moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone;
life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his
fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop.”
— Vita Sackville-West

Keep hopping, and snap a net on that nervous mind.

I was insane about the Beatles as a kid. I even used to read some of those candy-colored drugstore fan magazines that had compelling facts: “George doesn’t like to ride on buses.” I had a HUGE plastic Army set—that even had exploding bridges!—with tanks, trucks and soldiers galore, and I traded the whole thing for a Beatles wig, which looked like a giant, black, eyeless Maltese. I felt that I got the better end of the bargain. The wig, cleverly, matched my Beatle boots.

So it’s no surprise that the Beatles were my inspiration for my first literary endeavors. I hand-wrote a Beatles newspaper; my handwriting, which is similar to what you’d get if you put a full inkwell up your nose and sneezed it out on paper, wasn’t helpful, but I didn’t know how to type. The newspaper was filled with the kind of thrilling things I’d read and heard about the Beatles, as well as some of my original Beatles poetry. I still remember the line, “The Beatles like to sing and dance, even in their underpants” like it was yesterday.

I made 15 or so copies of the 4-page paper and sold it for a quarter on the street corner of my block, shaking it enthusiastically in the faces of strangers passing by, a few of which would part with a quarter to rid themselves of this bewigged menace. After four issues, I shut the enterprise down, because the public wasn’t ready for my poetry.

John, of course, was my favorite, because he was a wise guy, and because he wore glasses, like me. Imagine that.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Lennon. Dreamers make a difference.