Writing for Pleasure

I have recently downloaded a very interesting ebook titled “Start to draw your life”. It is a simple and easy to read ebook giving valuable advice for anyone thinking of illustrating their writing – especially journal writing or memoir writing. It is not necessary to only provide photos, your own drawing can be used to great advantage.

This little ebook is all you need to get started. You can download it for free from here.

Now, why didn’t I think of that? I do draw but I mainly use photographs for illustrations. To use drawings will add an extra dimension that only can benefit the reader interes. Great information!

In a very interesting guest post in the “Hell or High Water” blog, there is a guest post by Linda Joy Myers, the author of The Power of Memoir: How To Write Your Healing Story. You can access the article here.

Writing is certainly a powerful tool to help each and everyone, and that is why we hope to get people into writing – and starting out writing for pleasure is they way we think will help.

Journal writing is a good start, and as this article shows, it can be the beginning of more serious memoir writing.

I recently read a very interesting article about the value of money - ”When money is just an illusion”. That article is well worth reading, and not only because we are living in a time when money seem to be hard to come by. The financial crisis and all the problems associated with that. You can read the full article here.

The main reason why I find the article interesting is the fact that I have the same kind of relationship to coins, often wondering about its history and who have had it in their hands, how they obtained it and how they used it…and for what.

Besides that, I often find the coins very beautiful and look at them as small pieces of art.

I recently came across a link to a site with information about how one person had used memoir writing to help her adjust to a new and unfamiliar culture in Peru. You can access the article here.

I assume that it all may have started as a journal writing, and then when the material had matured it developed into the memoir books published.

I have visited Peru in the past, and that was perhaps what made me interested in the article. That visit took place many years ago when I arrived in Peru as a young sailor. The main harbour was Callao and from that we often travelled up to Lima.

I still vividly remember a street scene  in Lima. There was a little music shop where music was being played loud enough for the people on the street to hear it – and everyone who walked past started to dance to the tunes. They didn’t even stop walking, they simply danced as they walked past.

I felt rather envious seeing this – a fascinating glimpse into a life that seemed to be filled with more joy than that I had experienced in my own country. Nobody there would ever do something like what I saw in Peru - people back home would probably have entered the shop to complain about the noise instead…:-(

Via a “Twitter friend” I received information about an interesting article written by an older Gentleman who had decided to write down his wartime memories as a gift to “the younger generation”.

A splendid idea and one that more people should follow – that is, to write down memories that the younger generations (or future generations) may find immensely interesting.

You can access the article here.

I have read a free download from “Women’s Memoirs” titled “Top 10 Reasons to Write Your Memoir”.

I highly recommend that you download this document – the only thing you will have to give in return is your email address.

The document gives a lot of very useful tips that anyone can use – especially if you are interested in writing for pleasure.

However, the tips can also help you if you are interested in writing for profit. Not a bad thing to do. If you have a chance, go for it.

I recently received a box filled with photos from my deceased father – and that caused me to write this post.

None of those photos had any information attached and many thus became completely worthless to me and anyone else looking at them. Who were those people? When and where were the photos taken? What was the reason they were taken? Etc.

There were pictures of cute kids, of people enjoying a party, having a pick-nick, at the beach…all the “normal” family photos that nobody seem to care about… until the day the owner pass away and there is no one to tell the stories about the photos and the happy occasions that made people pick up the camera and take the photo…

They were not any professional photos, that is for sure, but the happy occasions and the people they depicted may be very valuable mementos indeed. They were all “snap-shots” of little artistic value – but the value they represented for me I may never find out. Simply because my father had not added any notes to them – he knew all the background details, he could tell stories about them…but he never wrote anything down. Sad indeed.

I will keep the photos though, and I will do what I can to investigate and try to find out about those people who are smiling so happily towards the camera when they posed for the pictures.

I have one uncle and one aunt still alive, and they have promised to take a look at them all and identify what they can to help me put real value to those photos.

With this I only want to stress how important it is to provide information about the photos you collect in boxes or – in best cases – photo albums.

Not only will it help you remember the details better, it will provide valuable information for your descendants…”Hey! Look at that picture…that’s me when I was three months old!”

Do yourself and your descendants a big favour. Write down information that will make it possible to identify the “Who, where, when and why” the picture was taken.

I received my new credit card yesterday, and I tested it right away…it works fine…:-)

The first thing I did was purchasing a domain for Jake (jakecoolman.com)that we intend to use to try and sell his short stories and to inform about the books (fiction and non-fiction) that he has been working so hard on lately.

However, not to be outdone, I also purchased the eBook “Write Where the Money Is” by Robert Earle Howells for my own personal use. The cost is 47 US$ but for me, having the credit card issued in Europe, there was an added tax that put the price up to over 58 dollars.

I didn’t get upset over the 47 dollars paid to the author, he has done a tremendous job, but to pay tax on top of that bothered me. I have paid tax on the money I used to buy the book, the author will have to pay tax on his income from the book as well…and then we have to pay more tax for spending the money we already have paid tax on?

That feels completely wrong  but what can you do when you have to deal with money grabbing politicians – avoid working I guess, and avoid spending money too…doesn’t sound like a fun life to me.

In my next life I better become a politician – having fun spending other peoples money – but, in order to be able to do that, I guess I have to be born without a conscience.

Thinking about this almost makes me regret buying the book – if it will help me make money then most part of it will be taken from me as tax…and the poor souls buying from me will also see the tax bite increased. The only ones being happy will be the predatory people in positions of “high power and low intellect” – it now seem to be smarter than ever to simply write for pleasure.

However, now I shall start reading the book again… I will start on chapter 4 now…:-)

I have added posts a little at will, mainly in order to make sure that the blog is updated regularly by the search engines - I have learned that it is considered important to do so… and I am still learning this blogging business.

However, it is necessary for me to focus on what this blog shall cover. That is, items and information relating to “writing for pleasure”. There I have failed even though some of the posts that I have written have increased the number of visitors.

My difficulties in this is perhaps partly due to the fact that I am administering this blog for a friend of mine, and he should perhaps be more active in sending me suitable material…:-)

Yes, I know that Jake will read it… and it was he who pointed out the need for me to focus on what is posted in this blog…or, as he so kindly put it “who do you think is interested in your credit card problems?”

I have had some unexpected problems when trying to use my Credit Card to pay for online purchases. None of which did go through and no information as to why. The company I tried to buy from simply stated that the payment had been refused by the credit card company – no reason for this was given.

Since it is a Bank Card I contacted the bank and found out that everything was OK and that the card was cleared for online purchasing. Yet none of them went through. This puzzled me, but finally I got hold of a person (by phone, which is expensive when you live overseas) and was told that he could see no charges at all to my Visa Card…and I told him that I do not have a Visa Card, the one I have is a Master Card.

Imagine my surprise when I was told “We changed over from MasterCard to Visa a couple of month ago – haven’t you received the new card?”

No, I had not…and now I only wait to get that card so I can try it out. What makes me a bit annoyed is that the bank could not give me that information earlier – a lot earlier.

Now I have had a lot of trouble and have worried quite a bit too…all because nobody at the bank office could find it in their heart to let me know that they had changed to Visa… Now I can only hope that I will receive the card soon, and that it shall work as well as the Master Card did…