Category: General

As I race through October toward the day I don’t want to think about, I was forced to think about loss for another reason. A dear friend is moving on to a new chapter of her life and I’m feeling the loss. So, that’s what this months newsletter is about – the journey we had together.

http://hathrae.com/newsletters/Unremembered_Loss_Issue_26.pdf

Two years ago I started sending out a monthly newsletter. It has been a challenge to find something new to write about each month, but I think it has been a good exercise for me. I’ve built the email list to 53 in these last two years.

Any suggestions on how to increase the numbers?

Here is a link to the most recent issue.

http://hathrae.com/newsletters/Unremembered_Loss_Issue_24.pdf

My question: Is there value in doing a newsletter? Am I doing them right?

For a non-fiction audience I know what a newsletter looks like. I’m not so clear on a fiction one.

Doug

I just signed up for this new service (still in beta) called Flattr.

It lets you specify an amount of money that you would like to spend each month (starting at 2 euros) and then lets you pick web sites to spend it on. At the end of each month if takes the money you said you wanted to spend that month and splits it evenly between all the sites you clicked on.

If you click on a lot of sites then each will only get a few cents, but if lots of people give sites a few cents it can add up.

I’ve signed up and now I’m looking for sites to flattr.

Hope you will do the same. Click on the flattr button on the left side of this page to flattr me or to get more information.

I wrote about Hint Fiction in a previous post – http://douglasgclarke.com/wordpress/general/hint-fiction – which are very short stories with a fixed word length like 25 or 50 words. This week I’ve been talking with other writers about 140 character stories, or tweet stories.

Here is my first tweet story, which is my autobiography.

Nigel
My son died and I had to go on. My heart was overwhelmed with feelings, so I wrote to give it peace – 100 blogs, a novel, now a tweet story.

I do miss him.

The March 2011 newsletter is up and is a departure from the previous 18. This issue looks at the development of children’s picture books.

Hope you enjoy.

http://hathrae.com/newsletters/Unremembered_Loss_Issue_19.pdf

 

Welcome aboard everyone. Please take a seat.

My name is Laura and I will be your tour guide today. We will be going through some dangerous areas so please remember to keep your hands and arms inside the tram at all times.

We will be traveling through several different habitats on our tour today. We are coming up on our first one. Off to the left you can see the habitat of the marginalized indigent. There habitat consists of out of the way places, often characterized by large amounts of refuge and a lack of vegetation. Look, there, behind that trash container. If you look carefully you will see under a thine layer of newspaper and prime example. If I’m not mistaken that is a wine-o.

Wine-os are humans that for one reason or another have decided to hide from their troubles by numbing their senses with wine. Because of their excessive use of wine they often loose their jobs and very often their families. When they have no where else to live, they end up here.

Up ahead I believe there are two more indigents. No, way. One of them is an indigent and the other is the all to rare Christian. I think this one is sitting and talking to the indigent, and it looks like he has brought a hot beverage for the two of them to share, coffee if I’m not mistaken from the markings of the cups.

If everyone will be very quite our driver will see if we can get close enough to hear what they are saying with out spooking them.

I didn’t plan to end up like this. It’s not like in high school and said to myself, “I want to be homeless when I grow up.” I had a job. It wasn’t a good job, but it let me pay the bills. Then the economy went bad and the company closed. I looked for work, but now one is hiring.

Have you tried to get into a homeless shelter?

Sure, at first. But there are way more of us that there are beds. And the women with children should get them first.

If you would like to come home with me I have some work around the yard that I can pay you do do. I’ll give you a good meal, too.

I appreciate the offer, but I’d just use the money to get drunk. I’m better off with just enough money to eat.

Well that was a wonderful exchange to have gotten to hear. I hope neither one of them give up. We will continue or tour now by heading over to a local park. This particular park, which you can see up ahead on the right, is a sports park. It has many sports fields where local kids and participate in many different competitive games.

It looks like we be lucky enough to see a soccer game in progress. The two teams playing today are made up of local boys. You can see their mothers and fathers on the side lines cheering them one. Lets stop for a moment and see how the game is going.

From the score board it looks like it has been a fairly tight game. The score is 2 to 3, which is pretty typical for your soccer games. The blue team just got the ball and they are passing it back and forth as the head up the field. Looks like their coming up to some organized defenders. Yes, two of the red team players doubling up on the boy with the ball, and – oh that’s got to hurt, the two of them ran right into the boy with the ball at full speed. They nailed him and he’s gone down.

Alright the ref has called a foul, but wait one of the fathers on the defenders side has jumped up and is yelling something. Oh my, I’m sorry we’ve had mute the outside audio since this is a family tour. Let me just say the the father is saying some very not nice things to the ref. Now the ref is yelling at the father.

Wait, it looks like one of the two boys is coming over to the ref. The ref doesn’t look like he wants to hear it. Let’s see what he has to saw.

Ref, I’m sorry. My dad is way out of line. I messed up and you made a good call. Will you let me talk to my dad.

The ref looks like he is calming down. He’s indicating that the boy can talk to his dad. Looks like he’s not going to get a chance, his dad’s going to yell at him.

What are you doing? I didn’t raise you to be a looser. I raised you to be a fighter. Get back out there and beat them.

Dad, stop it. It’s only a game. If you want to yell at someone, yell at me – not the ref. He was right – I was wrong.

Don’t you talk to me like that you piece of garbage. Don’t let me down. You can win this.

Dad, listen to yourself. Is that the way you’ll talk at church tomorrow?

The boy is walking away from his dad who is just standing there. He is walking over to the other boy who is laying on the ground crying.

Hey, Danny. I’m really sorry I nailed you. Give me your hand so I can help you up.

Danny is lifting his hand and the boy is helping him up. Parents from both sides are standing and clapping.

Well we better continue with out tour, we’er a little behind schedule. Next we’re going to visit a church where Christians worship God. This can be a quite joyous experience. Lets hope the Holy Spirit is at work today.

Wait, over there on the side of the road. There is a man laying in the gutter. It looks like someone beat him up. It’s so sad what people will do to each other. Well hopefully someone will come by and help him.

What’s that. Oh we could stop and help but it would put us behind schedule and we won’t be able to see the rest of the sights.

Well if you’re all sure. Driver, can you stop. It looks like we have a some special work to do.

It’s that time of month again. Actually I’m doing good this month – there still another whole weekend to go.

This months newsletter is a little all over the place, but the bottom line is your’ve got to do what your are passionate about.

Enjoy

http://hathrae.com/newsletters/Unremembered_Loss_Issue_17.pdf

Last night at 11:10, I finished my 50,000 words.

Are they the best 50,000 words I’ve ever written? Not even close. But it’s only the third time I’ve ever written that many words on the same topic, and by the far the fastest.

I had fun. It was a lot of work. And now I have to figure out what to do with them.

For now I’ll be happy putting this cool badge on my site.

Posted some more pages from Chapter 4. I also jumped ahead a little and did a six pages from chapter 5 and four from chapter 8.

I fell behind my word count yesterday, but caught up today.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think