I had a little time to browse this morning so I clicked on the most popular upcoming jobs on Yahoo while having my coffee. It said that writing, both technical and online journalistic are upcoming, high paying jobs. The requirement is a Bachelors Degree in English or something of that nature. The article also claimed that most people who dream of writing and publishing the great american novel end up writing technical manuals.
Wrong! As a person with a love for writing, I write. I sell, I volunteer, I blog, write manuals, courses, and recently published a book about horse fitness which had been a life long goal of mine.
Am I the highest paid script writer in the world? No. Do I have to get dressed and work for someone else every day? No. That's my point. If writing is something that you love to do, do it. If you look at Hollywood and Nashville, you will see that there are enormous pools of talent waiting tables. I don't really want to wait tables. I want to write. I'll write procedure manuals, newsletters, recipe books for the lady down the street, and donated editorials to the local free press until it adds up to a large income.
If your passion is writing, don't listen to anyone about how to make a living. Writing is a craft, a trade, and a talent. It doesn't take a publisher or a degree in English to make money doing it. Keep writing, and submit, submit, submit!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Writing And Presenting Educational Material
When putting a workshop or course together for a group of people, you might take great pride in the way that you have bound the booklets, and carefully organized the material. It is possible that only half of the group will really appreciate your work. The other half might lose the booklet in their car as soon as the workshop is over.
Generally, people not only favor a particular learning style, but they think with a dominant brain side. The left brain student is likely to appreciate the checklist that you have included with the course syllabus, and is likely to use it, while the right brain student would probably respond better to color coding.
Before designing an educational program, it is a good idea to explore these very different types of thinkers and organizers so that you can attract and maintain the interest of each. If you are the type of person that is motivated to organize this type of learning program, you are likely to be a left brain thinker. In order to be completely effective, you will need to learn different techniques to attract the right brain dreamer. Of all things, do not have your feelings hurt if someone doesn't fawn over your meticulous presentation. Maybe they just don't get it. Left brain thinkers are much more obsessive than right brainers.
In addition to dominant brain types, there are three specific learning styles that are individual to each student. If you present workshops, you will soon discover how much it matters that you present a balanced program to include each specific learning style. It will be written all over your participant's faces as you lecture. They will appear lost during some sections, and will be nodding during others.
The first learning style is the visual learner. These are the seers. This student likes pictures, graphs, colors, videos, and actual demonstrations of how things work. Studies show that visual learners are often good customers for infomercials and television shopping networks. They like outlines and diagrams, and generally do well on IQ tests that have pictures, but they become stressed during oral exams.
The second learning style is the auditory learner. These are the listeners. This type of student loves to memorize long lists of information. They listen to books-on-tape, remember words to songs, and are a specific target for jingles used in advertising. An auditory learner is good at memorization by repeating facts with their eyes closed. These learners are good at remembering specific rhyming techniques like "lefty-loosey, and righty-tighty." They often use small recorders for recording a teacher's lecture for later review. Auditory learners do exceptionally well during oral exams.
Lastly, kinesthetic learners are hands-on learners. These are the students that might fidget during the lectures. They don't relate well to a drawing or explanation of a particular exercise. They must perform the task in order to understand what the words and pictures mean.
The new television show by Dr. Mehmet Oz demonstrates a great balance for education. First, Dr. Oz gives his monologue about how many people die of heart disease each year. He gives the staggering statistics about how and why it happens. He then shows a large, color video screen of the mechanics of a working heart and how it becomes affected by heart disease. He follows this with an audience member putting on surgical gloves and actually feeling and handling a human heart taken from a cadaver. Lastly, he adds the shock factor by having a person that is overweight or has a lifestyle that might cause heart disease stand in front of the audience and discuss their habits that have led to the disease. He then discusses their numbers like cholesterol, blood pressure, etc., and how they can be changed.
Every type of learner is hit with the wow factor of the message that he is trying to portray. Incorporating all of these factors together in your articles, courses, and workshops will assuredly reach your entire audience with your teaching message.
By Kathy Duncan
Generally, people not only favor a particular learning style, but they think with a dominant brain side. The left brain student is likely to appreciate the checklist that you have included with the course syllabus, and is likely to use it, while the right brain student would probably respond better to color coding.
Before designing an educational program, it is a good idea to explore these very different types of thinkers and organizers so that you can attract and maintain the interest of each. If you are the type of person that is motivated to organize this type of learning program, you are likely to be a left brain thinker. In order to be completely effective, you will need to learn different techniques to attract the right brain dreamer. Of all things, do not have your feelings hurt if someone doesn't fawn over your meticulous presentation. Maybe they just don't get it. Left brain thinkers are much more obsessive than right brainers.
In addition to dominant brain types, there are three specific learning styles that are individual to each student. If you present workshops, you will soon discover how much it matters that you present a balanced program to include each specific learning style. It will be written all over your participant's faces as you lecture. They will appear lost during some sections, and will be nodding during others.
The first learning style is the visual learner. These are the seers. This student likes pictures, graphs, colors, videos, and actual demonstrations of how things work. Studies show that visual learners are often good customers for infomercials and television shopping networks. They like outlines and diagrams, and generally do well on IQ tests that have pictures, but they become stressed during oral exams.
The second learning style is the auditory learner. These are the listeners. This type of student loves to memorize long lists of information. They listen to books-on-tape, remember words to songs, and are a specific target for jingles used in advertising. An auditory learner is good at memorization by repeating facts with their eyes closed. These learners are good at remembering specific rhyming techniques like "lefty-loosey, and righty-tighty." They often use small recorders for recording a teacher's lecture for later review. Auditory learners do exceptionally well during oral exams.
Lastly, kinesthetic learners are hands-on learners. These are the students that might fidget during the lectures. They don't relate well to a drawing or explanation of a particular exercise. They must perform the task in order to understand what the words and pictures mean.
The new television show by Dr. Mehmet Oz demonstrates a great balance for education. First, Dr. Oz gives his monologue about how many people die of heart disease each year. He gives the staggering statistics about how and why it happens. He then shows a large, color video screen of the mechanics of a working heart and how it becomes affected by heart disease. He follows this with an audience member putting on surgical gloves and actually feeling and handling a human heart taken from a cadaver. Lastly, he adds the shock factor by having a person that is overweight or has a lifestyle that might cause heart disease stand in front of the audience and discuss their habits that have led to the disease. He then discusses their numbers like cholesterol, blood pressure, etc., and how they can be changed.
Every type of learner is hit with the wow factor of the message that he is trying to portray. Incorporating all of these factors together in your articles, courses, and workshops will assuredly reach your entire audience with your teaching message.
By Kathy Duncan
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Now, The Pope?
Oy Vey, even the Pope is in trouble for a sex coverup. Yes, they say that he let pedophiles go free. And now, after the Health Care Reform vote, there are threats of violence against government officials! Can't we all just get along?
We've got a recession that we're worried about! We need to get out of our cabins and spend money again. How can we? The deficit is rising, terrorists are trying to take over like cock roaches, and our government officials are bickering about their own popularity in November.
It's a shame. We can only hope for a better world in the future. I feel positive about it. Life is good. We will get through this. A day at a time. We can only hope.
We've got a recession that we're worried about! We need to get out of our cabins and spend money again. How can we? The deficit is rising, terrorists are trying to take over like cock roaches, and our government officials are bickering about their own popularity in November.
It's a shame. We can only hope for a better world in the future. I feel positive about it. Life is good. We will get through this. A day at a time. We can only hope.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
What is pork anyway?
Read the bill. John McCain jumped in the President's proverbial #%$@ because he has delivered a 2700 page Health Care Bill. So, read the thing! What's the problem? How many 12 year old Harry Potter fans have already read the last book totaling 800 or so pages three or more times? If you asked, they would tell you that they read it in three days! Sorry, John McCain, but the days of claiming that you have never turned on a computer and being proud of it are over.
The lawmakers complaining about a 2,700 page bill should be impeached. End of story. When it is your job to make laws, you do your homework. If going to the office on a weekend to read 2,700 pages is too much for you, quit your job. There is no excuse for complaining how long it is. I don't get it. All that I can do is hope that someone runs against you in the next election that is willing to do the job.
I've downloaded and looked over the entire document. It's interesting how certain politicians are saying that it's loaded with pork. I wonder exactly what each individual's interpretation of pork is. I wonder what the specific problems are for the people that haven't read it over. Let me give a short analogy of my interpretation, because most of the so called pork is stuff that we would be spending on in one form or another.
Let's say that you were going to be moving to a state that doesn't charge sales tax. Let's also say that you have a little money in your savings account. Not that the U.S. has money in their savings account, however, there are projected expenses either way. Would it be worth taking money from your savings account today, in order to save thousands of dollars in sales tax for tires, appliances, groceries, etc., If it were going to save at least 33% of your income for the next couple of years?
Not everybody shops like that. Not everybody has a savings account to draw from. Not everybody would buy in advance even if they did. Does that mean that the person that is willing to buy in advance is wrong? Or does that mean that they are making a mistake because tire prices might go down in the future? I can't even speculate on an answer.
I have prepared many million dollar budgets in my career, and I know that the best way to save money and to stay within a budget is to forecast far into the future. The best way to forecast the future is to take the statistics from the past and try to compare apples to apples.
It might seem like irrational spending to some people to speculate what the future might hold and to plan this far in advance. To me, it's well worth the risk to buy my tires now because, as we all have learned, we might not even have a job tomorrow.
The lawmakers complaining about a 2,700 page bill should be impeached. End of story. When it is your job to make laws, you do your homework. If going to the office on a weekend to read 2,700 pages is too much for you, quit your job. There is no excuse for complaining how long it is. I don't get it. All that I can do is hope that someone runs against you in the next election that is willing to do the job.
I've downloaded and looked over the entire document. It's interesting how certain politicians are saying that it's loaded with pork. I wonder exactly what each individual's interpretation of pork is. I wonder what the specific problems are for the people that haven't read it over. Let me give a short analogy of my interpretation, because most of the so called pork is stuff that we would be spending on in one form or another.
Let's say that you were going to be moving to a state that doesn't charge sales tax. Let's also say that you have a little money in your savings account. Not that the U.S. has money in their savings account, however, there are projected expenses either way. Would it be worth taking money from your savings account today, in order to save thousands of dollars in sales tax for tires, appliances, groceries, etc., If it were going to save at least 33% of your income for the next couple of years?
Not everybody shops like that. Not everybody has a savings account to draw from. Not everybody would buy in advance even if they did. Does that mean that the person that is willing to buy in advance is wrong? Or does that mean that they are making a mistake because tire prices might go down in the future? I can't even speculate on an answer.
I have prepared many million dollar budgets in my career, and I know that the best way to save money and to stay within a budget is to forecast far into the future. The best way to forecast the future is to take the statistics from the past and try to compare apples to apples.
It might seem like irrational spending to some people to speculate what the future might hold and to plan this far in advance. To me, it's well worth the risk to buy my tires now because, as we all have learned, we might not even have a job tomorrow.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Americans Are Weary
"Americans Are Weary." This is what I heard on the news today. Ya think? Weary is not the word! Sick and tired and fed up is more like it! We're all camping. I mean, I can hardly complain because Al still has a job with health coverage for him. His paycheck covers my COBRA which will run out late this summer. We also have a roof over our head that we can afford, but camping nonetheless. By that, I mean that we no longer have a land line, have cut our TV services to the bare minimum, we go out to eat very rarely, and make sure to bundle errands into one day a week rather than go out and use gas whenever we want.
Many Americans are virtually camping camping. No bedroom, no bathroom, let alone bare TV services. Weary barely covers it. I'm starting to get cranky. WTF are these guys in congress doing claiming that Americans shouldn't get unemployment extensions because they WANT to be unemployed? That Americans have become lethargic and don't want to work.
Well, Tom Delay, you were a buffoon and a loser on Dancing With The Stars, and now you're a buffoon as a Republican spokesperson. Americans want to work. In fact, we want to work so badly, that I think that we should all consider running for office so that we can control our own destiny and get free health care coverage like the rest of the bums in Congress.
The only way that you people in Congress will ever touch the ground like the rest of us is to find yourselves with no jobs and no health coverage for your families. You're all making fools of yourselves covering only your own asses and making foolish remarks about how the typical unemployed Americans feel.
Many of us were making it as self employed Americans with employees of our own, but the cost of health care and wars and bank bailouts have taken it all away. My message to all of you has-been, lazy, fat buffoons in Government, look out! The typical unemployed Americans are not only cranky, but now we're motivated to roll your fat lazy asses off of the podium to become the new lawmakers of this country.
Watch for me. I'll be on the ballot as an Independent. You can check the box "Cranky and Motivated" to cast your ballot for me. One thing is for certain. YOU will not be re-elected.
Many Americans are virtually camping camping. No bedroom, no bathroom, let alone bare TV services. Weary barely covers it. I'm starting to get cranky. WTF are these guys in congress doing claiming that Americans shouldn't get unemployment extensions because they WANT to be unemployed? That Americans have become lethargic and don't want to work.
Well, Tom Delay, you were a buffoon and a loser on Dancing With The Stars, and now you're a buffoon as a Republican spokesperson. Americans want to work. In fact, we want to work so badly, that I think that we should all consider running for office so that we can control our own destiny and get free health care coverage like the rest of the bums in Congress.
The only way that you people in Congress will ever touch the ground like the rest of us is to find yourselves with no jobs and no health coverage for your families. You're all making fools of yourselves covering only your own asses and making foolish remarks about how the typical unemployed Americans feel.
Many of us were making it as self employed Americans with employees of our own, but the cost of health care and wars and bank bailouts have taken it all away. My message to all of you has-been, lazy, fat buffoons in Government, look out! The typical unemployed Americans are not only cranky, but now we're motivated to roll your fat lazy asses off of the podium to become the new lawmakers of this country.
Watch for me. I'll be on the ballot as an Independent. You can check the box "Cranky and Motivated" to cast your ballot for me. One thing is for certain. YOU will not be re-elected.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Writing For Supper
I read a lot of writing blogs. Like most professions, it depends on which side of the business that you're on, how you choose to operate. I'm not sure who all of the writers are that say that story, article, and essay contests are a waste of time, but they must already have an agent that does their worrying for them.
When there is a recession, a plumber goes out and explores every possible option for a job. It really doesn't matter if he was the star of the town in the past. The same goes for actors, teachers, mechanics or whatever else that a person might be professionally trained to do. If you call yourself a writer, unless you're John Grisham (and by the way, his last book had the MAXIMUM marketing campaign that I have ever seen!), you need to pursue a paying publication, or even two or three EVERY day if you need to pay the bills.
If you are otherwise unemployed, you will need to buy food and gas for your family. Many competitive stores and product manufacturers have essay contests on "Why I Like Their Product The Best." You are one lucky writer if this is a product that you normally purchase. The prizes are usually in the form of product.
I lived in a small surf town in California for a while. The local grocery store had those TV Guide contests where you had to provide the code from the grocery line TV Guide, a grocery receipt for anything over $10.00, and an essay. Most people didn't participate at all, so there was my $500.00 worth of groceries three times in a year!
Most recently, I participated in an essay contest for my Chinese Herb Company. I order from them once a month. Runner up got me a mention in their trade newsletter (which is where my clients and colleagues shop), and $100.00 worth of product.
So, whoever the hotshot writers are that think that contests are a waste of time, congratulations! Either you're an accomplished novelist, or an unemployed factory worker that will never have the joy of being a working writer.
I am determined to write rather than wait tables. Nothing against waiting tables, it's just more fun to hunt down quirky but profitable writing gigs.
When there is a recession, a plumber goes out and explores every possible option for a job. It really doesn't matter if he was the star of the town in the past. The same goes for actors, teachers, mechanics or whatever else that a person might be professionally trained to do. If you call yourself a writer, unless you're John Grisham (and by the way, his last book had the MAXIMUM marketing campaign that I have ever seen!), you need to pursue a paying publication, or even two or three EVERY day if you need to pay the bills.
If you are otherwise unemployed, you will need to buy food and gas for your family. Many competitive stores and product manufacturers have essay contests on "Why I Like Their Product The Best." You are one lucky writer if this is a product that you normally purchase. The prizes are usually in the form of product.
I lived in a small surf town in California for a while. The local grocery store had those TV Guide contests where you had to provide the code from the grocery line TV Guide, a grocery receipt for anything over $10.00, and an essay. Most people didn't participate at all, so there was my $500.00 worth of groceries three times in a year!
Most recently, I participated in an essay contest for my Chinese Herb Company. I order from them once a month. Runner up got me a mention in their trade newsletter (which is where my clients and colleagues shop), and $100.00 worth of product.
So, whoever the hotshot writers are that think that contests are a waste of time, congratulations! Either you're an accomplished novelist, or an unemployed factory worker that will never have the joy of being a working writer.
I am determined to write rather than wait tables. Nothing against waiting tables, it's just more fun to hunt down quirky but profitable writing gigs.
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