Channeling Ray Bradbury

This post includes a link to a video with Ray Bradbury about writing persistently.  This is in the blog to meet the requirements of a creative writing class I am taking. One of the biggest challenges for me when it comes to writing is sticking with my writing despite getting a rejection.  The video with Ray Bradbury is a good example of how persistence is critical to success as a writer.   I found it interesting that even the great writers had to earn their stripes so to speak.  He talks about writing a story a day and getting them rejected. It takes a lot to break into the business, although now with self-publishing, the climb might be a bit easier. 

Ray Bradbury on Writing Persistently

Tom Clancy's Knows Action

I chose to review Tom Clancy's Facebook page for my creative writing class because Clancy is one of my two favorite authors.

Four key characteristics listing in our lecture are Be social, diverse, natural, and consistent.  Tom Clancy's website hits on all cylinders.  He routinely posts (about 1 or 2 a month and sometimes more), asks questions and opinions and posts surveys for his fans to answer.  From the posts I checked, the author does not appear to respond to any comments to the original question so a little more participation could make the site better.

He does a good job of publicizing his books, games, and movies.  I could figure out which books I still needed and which ones had the characters that I liked the best.  There are a lot of promotions on the site but they are done tastefully and do not overwhelm the reader.

http://www.facebook.com/TomClancyAuthor 

First Time for Everything

When I took a creative writing program, I never thought I would be creating a blog and setting myself up in a small dark and musty corner of the Internet. Well, here I am now and it will be fascinating to see where this takes me.  Will my writing benefit from a blog? Will the blog last past this course?  Both are good questions, and I am excited to find out where this journey takes me!

Biography

The first time I thought about taking the road less traveled was in fifth grade as I walked the worn brown carpet in the library.  I flipped through a book on the United States Air Force Academy and was hooked.  I read it on the small cement porch of our row home in Northeast Philadelphia while my friends played stickball in the street.  On that fateful day, I decided to do something my parents had not done…go to college and do something none of my relatives had ever done…join the Air Force.  Despite being oblivious to the odds of actually getting accepted to the Academy, I held that dream through Catholic high school and to my parent’s surprise, received my acceptance notification from Congressman Borski on a summer day in May.  Four years later in 1988, I threw my hat in the air in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains.  I spent 20 years serving my country although I did most of my service overseas.  I lived overseas for 13 years in 13 different countries. 
       While in the military, I married and we had two children.   When my children reached school age, I retired to keep them from bouncing around four schools before 8th grade.  After retiring, I could have done the easy thing and took a government job, but the dusty road was calling me again. I became a high school JROTC teacher in South Carolina.  I thought I knew what I was getting into, but wow, was I mistaken. Compared to teaching teenagers, the military was a breeze.  I plan on keeping at it though and at some point getting off this road and back on the main road in a nice house on a lake with grandkids running around.