What Is It?

You see something great. You take a photo. You look at the photo and without context, you have no idea what it is.

Here is my “What is it?” shot. Description below the photo.

Looks like . . . .

It’s a frosty mug of ginger beer, beer partially frozen. The shot is taken with the mug placed on a white coaster. The camera was held directly above the mug, pointing down into the mug. Yep, on my desk. Drinking while working. This ginger beer is non-alcoholic though.

 

Don’t Write for Free: Your Talent Deserves Pay

More and more often, I’m seeing writing jobs that pay so little it would take three assignments and two months to buy a pack of gum.

Part of the reason that those ads work is that there are desperate people who want to be writers. They buy into the idea that not getting paid is an “industry standard for beginners,” and give up their work for nothing.

I’ve never met a plumber, grocery store or car lot that does that. If I asked for a car for free to “prove their worth” they’d laugh at me. They can go bankrupt in different, more inventive ways.

Yet writers agree to write for free for experience and exposure every day. Stop doing this. The more writers offer to write for next to nothing, the harder it makes it for the rest of us. Many people don’t know good writing from bad, so it comes down to a matter of money. Anyone who can click a keyboard and is willing to get paid per view is offered a job. I know about supply and demand, but I also know that the internet is still largely words, and if you want to stand out, you have to know how to write well.

The same companies that tell advertisers that they get millions of views and that the Internet was the next big market for their products, calmly turned around and tell writers that there isn’t any proof that writing works, and the person to take the hit for doubt had to be writers.

I’ve answered several internet ads for writers, but have yet to find one that pays decently, let alone well. One wanted me to produce a series of restaurant reviews, 8 per week (who eats out that much?) and write a 200-word review, with picture. The pay? I get to be published. I can publish myself and not pay myself, neatly cutting out the middleman.

Now my articles are getting picked up all the time, to fill the blogs of other writers, who are desperate to meet their goals. One such place offered to pay $0.12 per day, but they own the copyright. That was based on click-throughs per article, so I’d have to write a huge amount to make minimum wage.

As a writer, who has made a living from writing for most of my adult life, I’d like to pass on encouragement and a warning. Get paid for your work. Do not work for free. When you give it away, no one will respect you in the morning.

And the warning: Writing well is hard. You have to know grammar. You have to be able to think analytically. You have to be able to reason logically. Just because you can keyboard your thoughts doesn’t make you a good writer. Get paid what you are worth. Walk away from scams, underpayment and empty promises. You’ll respect yourself in the morning.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2007-9 All rights reserved.

Theme Thursday #25: 11.19.09

It’s Theme Thursday and that means it’s time to do something fun and creative. For altered book artists, go take a peek at GoMakeSomething, who has a list of elements to add to altered books, each with a how-to link, including one for 350 ideas for altered books, as well as how to do a layout for one.

Colored pencils from metu.edu.tr

Altair Designs provides you with different geometric patterns, a brush, a color selector and a few auto-fill in tools. You can color in designs, save them, email them, and see other people’s work in a gallery. Surprisingly enjoyable; a great way to explore color combinations you’ve been wanting to  work on.

Tired of explaining your project progress  to your peers? Here’s a jargon generator that creates empty, meaningless phrases for you. The advantage is that these phrases sound important. Who wouldn’t want to empower cross-market e-platforms?

Thanks to frequent commenter Pete Harbeson, we have a map quiz with a twist. The maps are shown, complete with colors, demarcations and scales, but there is no explanation. Using only the information shown and your basic knowledge of, try to guess what information the map shows. It’s not about geography, it’s about information.

More on found poetry: Logolalia is a site dedicated to artists’ collaborations. The link points to an artist who is working through a page of a book a day, looking for found poetry. It’s visually and poetically interesting.

And finally, TinyBuddha gives you simple advice for a complex life. In this link, 7 keys to happiness.

Five Most Recent  Theme Thursdays:  * * * Creative Play 11.5.09 * * * Creative Play 10.29.09 * * * Creative Play 10.22.09 * * *  Creative Play 10.15.09 * * * Creative Play 10.8.09 * * * Creative Play 10.1.09* * *  Creative Play 9.24.09 * * * Creative Play 9.17.09* * * Creative Play 9.10.09 * * *

—Quinn McDonald is a life- and certified creativity coach. She teaches people how to write and give presentations. She also wonders what you would like to say that you didn’t?

Resume Ignored by Online Application Sites? Here’s Why.

You’ve filled out hundreds of online job applications, and have never heard from an employer. You are beginning to feel rejected, unloved and unappreciated. Why doesn’t anyone call back? The reason may be in your resume and you haven’t noticed it.

This cartoon appears 1websurfer.wordpress.com's site for Aug. 18, 2008.

I’m going to start with the assumption that your resume is neat, truthful, printed in a simple font, no smaller than 11 points, no more than two pages covering the last 10 years, and that it is spell-checked and proofread. No “manger” for “manager,” no “it’s” when it should be “its.”

There are two areas that will get your resume ignored–fast. One of them is the “Objective” statement. Anything vague  gets you rejected. “I’m looking for an exciting job to advance my career,” is an example of a sinker. So is “Powerful executive with 20 years of increasing responsibility available for lateral applications of bricks-and-clicks viral e-marketing,” or anything else that looks like it comes from a jargon generator.

The objective is not a PR statement–the purpose is to get your hired. You will need a new one for every job you apply to. Hate the idea? Then get used to longer unemployment.

Your resume is being scanned for key words every time you submit it. If you don’t have the right key words, your resume will be shot into the shredder. What are the magic key words? Read the ad. The job description contains the key words. That’s why you need to change your objective for each job. Because the key words change. Look for nouns (titles, duties, responsibilities), not verbs (action words). You’ve probably been taught to create a “results oriented” resume. They don’t work anymore. Everyone “generated top results,” “managed profitability” and “won industry-wide awards,” and the scanner is not interested.

The new resume flies in the face of reasonable writing, but right now, just for resume, nouns are winning the eye of the scanner. And they are the nouns in the job description the scanner is looking for. A match gets your resume in front of a real person. Until that happens, you won’t find a job.

The second mine-field is the words you use to describe your job responsibilities–especially if you are changing fields or job levels. Your resume is about your past. If you use words that link you to your past job, you won’t find the new one.

For example, if you were a financial writer and want to be a trainer, don’t describe yourself using financial language. “Wrote extensively on retirement plans, 401(k) investment options and high-yield portfolio management” are words that classify you as a financial writer. Instead, read the ads for a trainer and use those keywords to describe your old job. No, don’t make it up. I’m talking about using a different vocabulary to describe the work you did.

If the training ad is looking for someone who “develops training programs and is familiar with adult learning practices,” you might want to say you “developed stories to train adults to prepare for retirement,” or “Wrote material to familiarize adults with practices that provide a secure future.” Those aren’t wonderful sentences, yours will be better because you have more job description to choose from. The point is to use the key words for your future job to describe the past. So you can move out of the past and into a future–or at least get a job interview with a real person.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer, life- and creativity coach. She is a trainer in business communications. © 2009 All rights reserved.

Judy Melvin: Class in Mixed Media

Judy Melvin, a mixed media artist, taught a class to the Calligraphy Society of Arizona this past weekend. Judy is a calligrapher with a big portfolio. She has a 12-year career with American Greeting Corporation where she designed and lettered product, invented new fonts and painted and designed cards.

Radish bird, bleach, pastels on Arches cover stock © Quinn McDonald 2009

For members like me, who aren’t calligraphers, the class was still rich in opportunity. I used mark-making, found poetry, and hand lettering in this class and had a wonderful time.

Judy demo’d “Sink Art” –you start by using sumi ink on white paper, then rinsing it under running water. Sumi ink is tenacious, but the running water washes some of it off. With careful manipulation, you can run the ink to other parts of the paper and develop a marbling effect.

We also used brushes and calligraphy pens to write on black cover stock with bleach. The stock was black all the way through, so the result looked like batik. We then went back and added pastels to incorporate color into the positive and negative spaces.

We worked with gesso and walnut ink as well, creating several pieces. The class ended with an art show. One of the delights in a class of creatives is seeing the results of people who have received the same instruction. None of them are in the least alike.

Judy’s friendly, easy-going style and encouraging manner is a big plus in making the class interesting and fun.

Below: Detail of a bleached  piece of cover stock, colored with pastels and then collaged with found poetry.

Bleach and pastels take away and give color

Rebels & Radicals

Dangerous women
Fight to build clarity, creativity and courage
Demonstrate How we are connected
in a world gone mad.

Below: Detail of a bleached piece of cover stock, colored with pastels using hand-cut stencils.

Detail of Radish Bird, showing stenciled pastels

Holiday Party? How to Hold on to Your Job After the Party

Every year, hundreds of well-meaning people jump off the career ladder and don’t know it. They attend the office holiday party and in one, colossal moment of misguided relaxation, kill their career. When they let go, they don’t remember that the problem started at the holiday party.

So let me be plain: Holiday parties are not for having fun. They are for proving you can behave well in public and know how to dress appropriately (Hint:  no flip-flops). Here, for those who may have trouble navigating the office party scene, some hints:

1. Even if there is an open bar, do not have more than two drinks. Don’t drink often? One is plenty. A holiday party is not for losing control or letting go. At best it is a networking opportunity, at worst it is a chance to prove you can behave in public. Slurred speech, bleary eyes and loudly insisting you are “fine to drive” doesn’t fool anyone.

2. Crying, vomiting, or taking off any portion of your clothing is not part of a holiday party. Stick to club soda or juice when you start to feel frisky and funny.

3. Unless you are a professional, do not give in to the urge to sing or dance on stage, with a microphone or in a spotlight. Cell phone cameras will have you on YouTube tomorrow, just when that company you submitted your resume to is checking your profile and finding the link.

4. Stay away from the copy machine. You don’t need to be there at an office party and the temptation to photocopy body parts increases with liquor consumption.

5. No matter how hot your boss’s spouse looks, not matter how flirty the CEOs date, do not, under any circumstances, reply in kind. The bigger the age difference, the less you should engage them in any conversation. If you think I’m not serious, rent and watch an old movie called The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman.

6. Do not discuss your promotion or engage in self-promotion at the party. Of any kind. Do not take the opportunity to snark on anyone who isn’t there. No one likes to keep someone else’s ego inflated at the holiday part. Slimy behavior engages the karma wheel.

7. This is not the time to pull off your glasses, fluff up your hair and be the inner animal you’ve always wanted to be. This is also not the time to wear anything that flashes, jingles, or glows in the dark. That’s for your own party, at another time. Wear party clothes that are appropriate for your age and figure. Spandex is tricky to wear and still be thought of as chic.

8. Avoid the person holding the camera or video equipment. If they ask you to do the solo from “Evita,” the full-body spelling of Y.M.C.A., or the hysterical imitation of the guy in accounting, feign ignorance, even if you have left people in the kitchen in stitches with the routine. (See warning in #3, above.)

9. Don’t be the last one to leave. Do not be the first one to leave either. If figuring this out causes you a headache, put your drink down, switch to club soda.

10. Learn to enjoy yourself with all the restrictions. Sometimes that’s as good at is gets.

Images: martini glass: midwestdiva.blogspot.com ornaments: www.jewelry-gift-boxes.com

–Quinn McDonald has been to many holiday parties, some of which she would prefer not to remember. She is a writer and certified creativity coach who teaches Workplace Communication.

Different Journals, Different Jobs

Keeping a journal is not a formal work for me. I have several journals, some larger than others, some with handmade paper. As long as I date the work, it doesn’t matter which journal I work in.

As most people who juggle different projects, I have to keep track of voice mails, make lists, and jot down notes to find directions. I tried keeping the information on 3×5 notes, but discovered I often needed information on notes I discarded. So I began keeping the information on rollabind-punched 3×5s.

Then I noticed that I have a hand-brain memory. I would remember on which side of the page certain information appeared, and about where in the book. So removing pages confused me and threw the whole book into disarray.

Another fact floated to the top of my brain: these notes, phone numbers, movie names, books someone recommended–all form a weird map of my life. They are as much journal information as the stories, artwork and posts in my more formal journals. I refer to them to find out when I saw which movie, or to draw a map to get me from the bookstore to the art class.  These pages form the real pieces of my life, the daily patchwork that makes life interesting, gives it color and texture.

And now I’ve decided to start keeping those scribble journals.  Instead of loose cards, I’ve moved the whole thing to Moleskine Cahier bound-books, the 5×8 size. They are thin and flat and fit into my paper calendar that keeps my appointments straight. (Yes, I have an iPhone, and it keeps many things, but I need a paper calendar to show me what I’m not doing as well as what I am.)

This is a whole new direction, and piques my interest in mapping a life through journals. It may be a whole new kind of journal.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and certified creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com (c) 2007-9 All rights reserved. Cahier notebooks by Moleskine.com   Image: “Solstice” by Quinn McDonald. Watercolor, pencil, on handmade paper.

Art Tutorial: Found Poetry Collage

If you like found poetry, you can take it one step further and create a collage with it. A few days ago, I used raw-art techniques for found poetry. Today, I’m using a different method. It’s the journaling version of NaNoWriMo –National Novel Writing Month.

While the “rules” of found poetry say you underline the words, then copy them, I like the idea of cutting out the words and pasting them down. This can get a little tricky if you are using catalogs or magazines. It gives it a visual and textural feel, as well as a heightened realism in the cut-out words.

Here is my most recent venture into found-poetry journaling, a two-page piece, including cut-out. Directions are below the photos. Words of the poem:

Sanctuary

In a seaside town
two minutes from the beach,
you grow up with nothing–
Winters hold razor-sharp edges.
Pearl moon makes the most of its small space
Still big and empty enough for
human-scaled dimensions.

Overleaf (page 1) with moon cutout backed with parchment. You can see part of the poem through the parchment.

Next page. Moon repeats--this is the piece from the previouis page. The letter "M" is large to emphasise the word "moon".

Directions

Materials: Several magazines, catalogs, old books and. . .

• Scissors, craft knife (small box cutter or X-acto knife)
• glue
• tweezers
• parchment paper, cut into 5″ x 8″ pieces.

Method: Read through catalogs, magazines, or an old book that you don’t mind cutting up. When you find a phrase you like, cut it out carefully. Leave a margin around the words you want. It makes it easier to change tenses or capital letters if the new piece overlaps, rather than butts up against, the cut-out piece.

Don’t worry too much if you don’t have perfect sentences. Right now you are gathering. It’s also a good idea to cut out a few extra words. You don’t know yet where this is going, and that’s part of the fun.

In this case, I had drawn a fancy bottle on the page, intending to make the poem about memories–the bottle was a perfume bottle, the idea that scents evoke memories. That was my idea. Poetry’s idea ran away in another direction. That necessitated the cut out page and re-thinking of the design. Leave yourself open till you have the poem. It’s much easier.

Put the strips of paper together, using lines to create phrases.

In some cases, you may want big or fancy letters for the initial capital. You could write them in, or use rubber stamps, but I find the search and cutting method to be more satisfying for this collage.

Trim the larger pieces you have to make just the words you want visible. Now use tweezers to place them as you would collage pieces, to see where you want them.

The glue choice is important. I tried a glue stick, but it doesn’t deposit enough glue and often the paper rips. Thin glue makes the paper too fragile. I like to use a PVA glue and a thin paintbrush. Put the strip face down on the parchment paper, use the tweezers to hold the paper in place, and stroke the glue over in a thin coat. This keeps the glue from oozing out underneath the paper and leaving marks on the page.

Use the tweezers to place the piece of paper, face up, in place. Pat over the entire surface, including corners, with the tweezers. You can use the paintbrush, too. I use plastic instead of painted wood paintbrushes. The paint flakes off the painted wood when you are working with glue and gets in your artwork.

Keep your journal open until the page is completely dry.

––Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved

Words Are Art

There is a strong connection between words and art. Not just words used to describe art, but words that form art. Some words look bold and important, others are meant to slip over a page.

Marta's amazing tree. See her website at: wordsareart.wordpress.com/2008/12/09/

My world is on paper. But there are other ways to handle words. Johnathan Harris does it in cyberspace with the Word Count. He’s an artist whose entire body of work exists on computers. Part of Harris’s mind is an engineer’s mind, part is an artist’s mind. Harris created a list of the 86,800 most common words in the English language. He sorted them and posted them. The most common word is “the” and its number is ‘1′ . “of’” and “and” are in places 2 and 3. You can look up a word to see where it is or type in a position number and see what word it is.

Looking at them turns you into an instant numeric scholar. Click on “666″ and you get the word “easy.” There is some wonderful divine justice in that. “God” at number 376, is between “began” and “top.” It starts to make sense after a while. “Death” (number 454) is between “church” and “sometimes.” There are words in sequence that make sense. “Running” and “Feet” and numbers 698 and 699. “Contagious” (2159) is just one over from “Feverish” (2161).

Harris wasn’t finished yet. He started a count to see which words people looked at most often and created another list–the Query List. What’s the most common word people looked up? Of course, “sex.”

You can also see Harris as a speaker on TED–the conference of interesting ideas told by their fascinating creators. And read his 2007 story, the whale hunt.

Have some fun. Type in your birthday, your age, some special number. See what comes up. Words are art. In many ways.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer and artist. See her work at raw-art-journals.com © 2007-9. All rights reserved.

Tutorial: Found Poetry, Raw Art

Found poetry is the discovery of hidden words and phrases in text that was written for another purpose entirely–a catalog or magazine article, for example. The poem is not found all together, you’ll find a word here, a few more six lines down.

I find this accidental discovery a perfect match for raw art--which is drawing abstract patterns that are pleasing, exciting, soothing, or engaging. Both are a discovery and both result in the creation of something new.

You can make up a variety of rules to make found poetry more challenging–mine are simple: You choose a set number of pages from a catalog, book, or magazine and find words or phrases that, when cut out and placed next to each other, make poetry. No fair using song lyrics or pieces that are already poetry.

Be careful to cut out words that are grammatically correct in the place you want to use them. That might mean cutting out extra letters. Because you are creating a collage  the words can be different typefaces, sizes or colors.

Then you add raw art–in this case a repetitive topographical pattern, with a suggestion of plant life, to match the seasonal theme of the poetry and to emphasize the word “freedom” and the tribal feel.

Horizon Dust

Time around us moves faster.
The seed that was sown 20 years ago
sweeps into the season raw-edged and tribal.
New growth, striped in rich autumnal hues,
moving to a new feeling and a new freedom
blossoming forth.

All the words in “Horizon Dust” comes from a variety of clothing descriptions in two pages of the Sundance fall catalog.

–Quinn McDonald is a writer who stands in the middle ground between words and illustrations, believing they both make meaning and create art. © Quinn McDonald, 2009 All rights reserved