The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood

I recently came across a neat little book.  The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspiration for Writing by Monica Wood is everything that the title advertises.  In addition to having a variety of creative writing prompts, style suggestions, helpful quotes, relevant anecdotes and words of encouragement, it has a fun format that makes it accessible to someone as scatter brained as myself.  I will be sharing many of the writing exercises contained within the book through the Detangled Writers blog, but there was something I read tonight that I wanted to share here.

Don't write to hurt. Understand that a line exists between your story and somebody else' privacy. This line is zigzaggy at best, and it takes a clear eye to follow its path. Writers have the right to write. We know this. But there's a difference between writing to purge and writing to illuminate.

I have known a couple of people who wrote for revenge; as far as I can tell, publication didn't make them feel any better. Of course the worst part is that vengeful writing usually isn't good; that's what personal journals are for, to college that bad, small, narrow-eyed writing and keep it private.  

If you are embarking on a piece of writing you believe you'll have to shield from certain readers - a family member, a former friend, an erstwhile lover - think it through before beginning. My advice is to wait six months. There are so many other things to write!  If in six months the story is still lodged within your gut, that's probably a sign that the story needs writing. But be careful.

Wood, Monica. The Pocket Muse: Ideas and Inspirations for Writing. Cincinnati, Ohio, 2002

This got me to thinking mainly about Facebook and how it has become nothing more than a battleground of volatile mud slinging all under the guise of innocent social networking.  I don't like propaganda on Facebook.  I don't like the attacks on political beliefs, slams on sexual or gender orientations, and I loathe the volumes of religious and atheistic condemnations.  I don't like hate speech of any kind and I especially despise it on Facebook.  But it's not so much a personal preference as a deep founded belief that it does not belong there.  Put such content in private blogs and in personal journals, or talk to like minded people over the phone.  But please, do not write to hurt.  Even a simple status message.  And pressing 'share' is the same as writing it yourself.  It's tiresome and, just as Monica Wood stated, it's not good writing.