The Portable Writer

Sometimes, all one needs to make a leap of faith is a little nudge. I hope reading this post will give you the push you need to get started. I want to talk this time about how writing can be the salvation of those who move often because of job transfers, and for those who want to travel and see the country, or the world.

You see, my husband was in the military when we married, so for years I was shuffled from place to place, and each time we moved I had to find a new job. I even went back to school and studied interior design at one location where jobs were in short supply, and acquired a skill that was fairly portable. Still, every time we moved somewhere new, it meant starting all over again. 

So what could I have done differently, had I been more aware of the opportunities available? I would have started my writing career much earlier than I did! I worked as a secretary for several years, and each place I worked, I was given additional duties after my bosses discovered I had writing skills—jobs such as composing letters and creating newsletters. So in effect, I gave my services away.  

Still, I can’t complain because I learned a lot during those years like how to manage a business, provide excellent customer service, work with difficult people, and the types of communication materials needed by for-profit and non-profit entities. I did clerical work in a department store, a University Medical Center and School, County and State offices, and a huge church, plus I gained valuable knowledge about the operations of retail businesses where I worked as a designer, which gave me diverse experiences to carry forward. None of the jobs would have indicated to anyone else that I had what it took to succeed as a freelance writer, but in my heart, I knew I could do it. And that’s all it takes, really. 

They say success happens when opportunity meets preparation (or something to that effect), so when I finally made the decision to become a full-time, committed freelance writer, I was ready. And maybe that’s the way it was meant to be. Maybe I needed maturity as well as life experience. You may have those things already.

Now I can travel wherever I wish and write wherever I happen to be. This isn’t a fairytale life, but it is the life I’ve chosen for myself, and it is good. I am living my dream!

For those of you still toiling away working for someone else or dreaming of writing for a living, I urge you learn from the  projects featured in Portable Writing, some of which are outlined in this newsletter, and then apply your new-found knowledge to starting your own writing career. I know that it is scary to take a leap of faith into the unknown, but the longer you wait, the more time you lose. You can do what I have done, and probably much, much better.

Don’t let time pass by until someday, all you may be left with is regret that you never even tried.     

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Since summer is around the corner and lots of people will be traveling, this is a great time to warn you that your communications over a Wi-Fi network might not be as private as you wish. A Wi-Fi transmission could be captured by a clever hacker, so you definitely do not want to transact personal business or banking activities over it. Never reveal any personal information when using a Wi-Fi connection.  

As you travel, always check to make sure you are connected to YOUR Internet provider when conducting personal business, since your computer might automatically connect to the nearest signal—which could be Wi-Fi or a neighbor’s non-secure connection. Wi-Fi connections are great for emails and non-private communications, but Wi-Fi hotspots like those offered by coffee shops, truck stops, hotels, and RV parks are not secure.

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I’m sure you’ve seen ads for Go RVing in magazines, but did you know that they offer a free CD or DVD on RVing. If you are interested, check their Website at www.GoRVing.com or phone 1-888-GoRVing to find out more and receive a free copy.

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By Kay Kennedy 

Writers must have an interest in the world at large. There’s no way to be a writer unless we know what’s going on and are knowledgeable about current events as well as history. I have an extra advantage in that I get to travel. A lot! I see and hear things that most people don’t have a clue about. That’s because, no matter where I go, I always read the local paper and talk to local people. I ask them about their community and their concerns. Now I don’t claim that this makes me smarter than anyone else, but it does make me more aware of issues that can affect any one or all of us. 

And that brings me to my newest book. A couple of years ago I realized that, although baby boomers are reaching retirement age and will soon have free time to read, nothing had really been written about their lives or that would appeal to them. So I decided to fill that gap by writing a book on the boomers’ history. And I decided to invite others to submit their own stories for inclusion in the book. 

Now I know that typical history books are, by their very nature, boring. So I decided my book would be anything but boring. It would be full of life and convey the feelings and emotions that engulfed the years between 1940 and the present. And that it does! Nineteen writers added their memories and feelings about the history they have lived through with 24 poignant, personal stories. 

I provide the background for each decade, and their essays to expand on the facts, but I also provide personal memories about events that I lived through. While I’m not technically a boomer, my family was full of boomers, and since I was only four when the population exploded after World War II, I was aware of the conflicts, emotions, and drama of those years. We were the first to have television, and the civil rights struggle, the Vietnam War, counterculture turbulence, assassinations and terror filled our living rooms every night via the evening news.  

And I was there in 1957 as Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas became the first integrated high school in the South. It was time for that cultural acknowledgement of civil rights and equal educational opportunities, but it was terrifying to students as we waded through noisy, racist protestors to get in, then attended classes under the cloud of bomb threats. Soldiers with guns and bayonets guarded the hallways inside as well as on the roof and the perimeter of the buildings. And all of this happened under the watchful eyes of the world. 

If you would like to read a firsthand portrait of the boomer era, be sure to read Looking Back: Boomers Remember History from the ‘40s to the Present by me and by 19 other amazing Americans who survived the times. It is available for $17.95 (paperback, or $9.95 (ebook) by clicking here: http://www.booklocker.com/books/3056.html. 

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Once again the country seems to be in the midst of a recession, or as the government prefers to call it, a little downturn, and we’re witnessing record inflation. To many, this is the worst of times.

However, for those who write, this can be the best of times. Why? Well for starters, businesses are also hurting. After investing time and money getting their business reputations established, some will have to decide between laying off employees and barely hanging on, or closing the doors permanently. Not only that, but many of the newly unemployed will start their own businesses—many of them home-based.

How can you profit? First of all, business owners need news releases. Anytime a new business opens, or new staff is added, or there’s any other newsworthy change, a news release should be mailed to local and regional newspapers. Among the products you can offer are newsletters, marketing letters, advertorials (advertising/editorial columns), ghostwritten articles, and even Web site content. If you have a desktop publishing program, you can expand your range of products.

So how can you get started in this lucrative field? First of all, pick up some “how to” books on business and copywriting. My book, Portable Writing provides detailed instructions for 25 projects that I’ve provided to businesses, some of which have never before been shared in a freelance writing book, but I also recommend any book by Bob Bly on copywriting and freelance writing. Then get a business card printed for your new writing business. It should include your name, phone number and email address where you can be reached, and it should tell what you do. You can make it multi-purpose by listing “freelance writer,” but the card should also say something like “business writing consultant.” Then tell prospects that you help business owners get publicity and attract new customers.

Offer to help a friend in business with publicity or marketing for their service or product. Next, attend meetings of business organizations in your local area to meet more business owners. Use any samples you’ve acquired, and if you have any published clips, put them all in protective plastic covers and show them as proof that you are a professional. However, even if you don’t have any published examples, sit down at your computer and write an article on your business and the services you offer to other businesses, then lay it out in a two-column format with a headline. Scan in a photo of yourself, and print out a copy.

When you’re really comfortable with what you’ve written, print out several copies and hand them out at meetings as a marketing tool. You also need to write a news release for your own business to send to your local AND regional papers, so add a copy of that in your portfolio—published or not. Prospects want to see that you can write and most won’t really care if you’ve been published or not.

My clients ranged from the home-based sole-proprietor to corporations, but it all started with one business owner. Business grew brick by brick, client by client, until I had more work than I could handle alone. When it reached that point—I began to pick and choose which types of projects I preferred to focus on—and at that moment, I realized that I had built my dream business. Then I took it on the road. And this all happened during a recession when many bigger businesses were failing.

My theory is that successful people look for creative opportunities in troubled times. Meanwhile, writers have the ability to help business owners in times of trouble by providing business-growing, profit-producing services. It’s the perfect win/win situation.

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A lot of people ask me, why would anyone buy an e-book (or ebook)? Of course, most of these people have plenty of storage space for books. Or, they simply like the idea of holding a book in their hands and flipping through the pages. For those of you unfamiliar with the term e-book, it simply means an electronic copy of a book.  

I’ll admit that I’m fond of old-fashioned reading, but as an RVer who likes to have plenty of reading material with me when I travel, I can’t carry that many books. So the ones that I read, then don’t care to read again, I leave at RV parks, usually in the laundry room, for the next reader. I’ve also picked up some of the best books I’ve read there—you know the out-of-print ones that you don’t see for sale anymore, or they’ve been removed from library shelves. There were several years during my adult life where I simply didn’t have time to read, and now I’m trying to catch up on some of the good books I missed. 

Electronic books are quickly gaining favor as the new way to purchase and read books. Once you find what you like at an online bookstore, you can download it immediately, usually for a lower price than a bound copy, and there’s no wait for the book to arrive in the mail and no shipping fees. This is perfect for RVers, who can download e-books to the computer and read them on screen, or they can be downloaded onto electronic readers and carried to read while waiting in the doctor’s office or for car repairs, etc. These little readers are still quite expensive, but they usually hold multiple books. And prices will surely come down as more and more buyers seek them out. Think of the space they will save—six books in an electronic gizmo smaller than a paperback. 

E-books can also be saved on a CD, which stores in way less space than a book, and you can squeeze several e-books onto each shiny disk.

E-books seem to have found a place in today’s society, but I still enjoying having hard copies of anything I’m going to read over and over because I like to highlight special passages. I suppose I could do the same on a computer copy of a book, but there’s just something about being able to manually flip to a page and read it again.

 POD publishers like Booklocker have found, after several years of offering books this way, that non-fiction books sell better as e-books. And I’ve found it’s true for my books. Portable Writing has sold many more copies as e-books than as hard copies. It remains to be seen which way will win the most sales of Looking Back. So far, it has sold more as hard copies, but I suspect that a lot of buyers have been shopping for gifts for their friends and family. One buyer even wrote to tell me she bought 12 copies for Christmas gifts. Fiction books still sell better in hard copy for some reason. 

There’s always the chance that someone will purchase and download a copy of a book, then illegally copy and distribute it themselves. That violates copyright laws, and violators almost always get caught since it is so easy to type in a book title and search the Web, where you’ll discover all the places that your book is offered—legal or not. 

For those who are thinking about getting their first book published, e-books can be self-published very easily. Just format yours as a PDF file and offer it for sale on your own Web site or blog. If you want to write a family memoir, this may be the perfect way to distribute it since there are no printing or mailing costs involved. E-books are definitely here to stay.

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I would love to say that I never procrastinate, but that would be absolutely untrue. I can put things off as easily as anyone. But I have found a way to avoid procrastination, and it’s called a schedule. Yes, you read that right. A schedule—in the form of a to-do list. There’s the long-term goal list, and from it I make a daily to-do list. 

I sit down the night before and make out the to-do list so I can start right in on it the next morning. I list the major tasks I want to complete the next day, then I assign a time allotment to each task. Say I need to do a particular type of marketing, such as getting on the Internet and locating newspapers to contact with press releases. And I also want to work on an article for a particular publication, or write something for one of my blogs. I put all the things I feel are necessary to get done right away on my to-do list. 

Next morning when I wake up, I don’t have to sit down and try to figure out what should be done first. It’s written down in black and white. I find it is so much easier to follow a script for the day than try to figure it out after breakfast, when it might be tempting to just goof off.  I could never have written three books, scores of articles, and worked for businesses without some sort of schedule to keep me on track, so my daily to-do list is an absolute necessity. 

Then there are those days when I don’t really want to avoid procrastination. Sometimes it is simply too tempting to ignore the schedule and go play. For instance, the weather is beautiful and I don’t have a looming deadline, so I take the day off and do whatever I want. But when I seriously need to achieve certain goals and meet a deadline, I can look at my to-do list and begin checking off the items, one-by-one, as I finish them. 

By the way, you can make up “To-Do” forms on your computer and store them there, or print them out and fill them in each night. I like a printed form that I can hold in my hand, so I can clip completed forms together and save them. Then, at the end of a year, I can look back and see how much has been accomplished. There’s something really rewarding and inspiring about seeing a stack of to-do lists with every item on them checked off. 

Succeeding at writing and avoiding procrastination isn’t rocket science. It simply involves deciding what you want to achieve, then scheduling the steps necessary to reach your goals. Or as I was taught many years ago: “plan your work, then work your plan.” It really is that easy.

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Since we were going to be near Carthage, Missouri and I knew my sister loved Precious Moments figurines, we decided to pay the chapel and home of the precious little dust catchers a visit. They basically make me gag, but for her, I would make the supreme sacrifice! Besides, I needed an appropriate gift for a young friend just graduating from nursing school, and I thought I might find something there. 

Well, as hubby started to turn into the parking lot, I pointed out in my nicest voice that the big rigs seemed to be parking across the street. My most pleasant voice wasn’t heard above the testosterone drumming in his loins as he sensed a challenge. So he turned into the vehicle lot. Then I spotted some RVs at the left end of the parking lot and suggested that he go that way. But again, he no can hear wife’s sweet suggestion. So he plowed straight down the middle row of the lot, thinking he could turn at the other end and get to the outer edge of the lot. He was wrong!

We got to the end of the row before he realized it was a dead-end. Not only that, the engine died at just that moment. No amount of cranking could get it started again, so he decided to unhook the car and have me park it while he continued trying to crank the motorhome. He hoped to be able to get it started and back it out of the parking lot, with his darling little spouse directing, of course. 

After a couple more futile attempts to start the engine, I finally hiked into the gift shop to find a pay phone to call our emergency road service. As I came out, a security guard came rushing up frantically signaling hubby to get that giant boxcar out of his parking lot. I explained that we couldn’t possibly move it until someone got there to start it again, and that meantime, I could direct anyone around us whose way we might be blocking. 

The guard was seemingly on the verge of a mental breakdown or cardiac arrest, and he wanted us to move, NOW! I tried to calm him down while I explained the facts. A horrific picture of myself having to direct traffic while also giving him CPR (which I had recently learned, but failed the certification test) wound through my brain. Things did not look good for the security guard! Still, there was nothing we could do except wait to be rescued.  

Long story short: the road service truck showed up, they took a look under the hood and discovered the problem—a ruptured gas line—and within a few minutes we were ready to roll again. Not one single motorist had needed to be directed around the motorhome during that time. I guess they were all still inside, catatonic and frozen in place after gaping at thousands of creepy little figurines.  I can’t say how the security guy survived the catastrophe. When we left he was still pacing up and down, wiping his brow and wringing his hands. He was so distressed, he was absolutely no help to us, nor could he have been to anyone else who might need help. In fact, he appeared not to notice that our motorhome was no longer blocking the lane. 

Hubby finally got the rig parked and I ran into the shop and grabbed a couple of precious little memory makers off the shelf, paid for them, and thought how the last thing I wanted to do was to spend money on the little dust catchers. I didn’t even bother to check out the Chapel, which is the showcase of the place. I just wanted out of there—and let’s just say we’ve never been back. And my memories of the place are not so precious! 

We would have many more mishaps before we managed to get this RVing thing right.

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Beginning writers tend to stress out over all the different things they’ve been taught about writing for publication. How do I even begin to write a query letter? Who do I send it to? Do I even need one? How can I sell my article idea in a query letter when I haven’t written it yet? And what about clips? What in heaven’s name are they? I don’t have any, so what do I do? By this point, most beginners are tearing their hair out—and for good reason.

There is one way you can begin earning money as a published writer right away and you won’t need to write a query letter to do it. Lots of magazines need fillers—short articles, jokes, quizzes, etc,—and greeting card companies need short verses and clever sayings to fill their cards and warm consumers’ hearts. You can get paid to write them, plus you’ll have clips to send out in the future to other magazines as evidence of having been published.

Which magazines need fillers? Well, Reader’s Digest is a leading publication that pays from $100 to $300 for funny true stories. They’re used in Life in these United States, All in a Day’s Work and Humor in Uniform. They also use jokes, quotes, and other material in Laughter, the Best Medicine, Quotable Quotes, and elsewhere in the magazine. And some of these fillers don’t even have to be original. You can send funny items from other published sources.

Go to www.rd.com/joke to submit original material, and check the magazine for how to send items clipped from other sources. You might find a really funny short piece in your local newspaper that would be suitable for Reader’s Digest. And flip through other popular magazines to see what types of fillers they use, and then submit your own.

By the way, this opportunity isn’t open only to beginning writers. Experienced writers can, and do, regularly earn easy, extra income by writing fillers.

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During the writer’s strike we discovered some new favorite shows, and one of them is a BBC (British) auto show called “Top Gear.” Now I’m not even a car fan—as long as it runs and doesn’t look too gross, it’s okay with me—but this show is hilarious. On every show, the three men who are regulars find every imaginative way possible to race or have a contest between a variety of vehicles, often built or modified by them.

They’ve taken ordinary cars and extended them four or five times, then raced to reach an award show in downtown London on time, with a celebrity in tow, never mind that some of the extended vehicles couldn’t maneuver the street turns. They’ve taken ordinary used cars (not 4-wheel drive) and raced them across the interior of Africa. Funny? You bet, as they discarded everything that weighted their car down, and eventually stopped to break out the windows, then fought off flies, mosquitoes, and dust as they tried to be first to reach the border over non-existent roads.

They also competed in a race from London to Heathrow Airport. One took a fast boat down the river, one rode a bicycle through traffic, one took public transportation, and one drove a car. Guess which one came in last. The race ended at the airport with the three regulars bemoaning the fact that they were on an auto show that promoted driving, but the car arrived 15 minutes after all the others. The bicycle came in first.

Recently the regulars decided to race several motorhomes around an oval track. Who else would think of anything so ridiculous? There was everything from Class A, to Class C, to one Toyota Class B van with a raised soft top to extend head room. Rules were that the rigs couldn’t touch each other during the race around the oval track.

Most of the drivers discarded the extra weight the afternoon before the race, but one of the regulars spent his time cooking a gourmet meal in his galley instead, so when the race started, dishes flew out of the cabinets, creating noisy havoc and a dangerous diversion as he drove the rig. The other motorhomes didn’t fare much better. Another of the regulars ended the race with only his truck frame and driver’s seat intact. Everything else was littered along the track, where it had fallen off as his coach bumped into others in his eagerness to win.

Bumping wasn’t necessarily intentional. The big rigs leaned and lurched into each other in the turns, often knocking off and shredding the walls of the units. One made a turn with the left wheels riding up on a curb. The Class-B Toyota plowed between the other motorhomes, sometimes getting frighteningly squeezed and finally losing its top somewhere along the race route. The sight of these behemoths racing and rattling around the track had us in hysterics.

So if you enjoy seeing the newest cars tested (they do try out the newest, latest, most expensive as well as regular cars like most of us drive), and love a good laugh, you might want to catch this show. Check your guide for day and time.

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(photos are available at: http://portablewritingnewsletter.blogspot.com)

As much as new RVs cost, you would think that manufacturers would hire professional, experienced designers and space planners to create their RV interiors, but many don’t! A lot of them use the “talents” of the owner’s wife, who might have a “flair for decorating.” Believe me, a flair doesn’t translate into being able to efficiently plan space and select appropriate materials for an RV’s interior. And those manufacturers that do use qualified designers sometimes hire recent graduates who don’t understand the needs of RVers. Sometimes, it appears that they don’t even understand how kitchens and bathrooms are used.

A common complaint in new RVs is the amount of wasted space beneath and behind things. Another is that few have backsplashes in the kitchens and bathrooms. And one other is that many manufacturers put carpeting in the kitchen and bathroom. It’s obvious that no space planning has taken place, and that the person who designed the interior has had no experience whatsoever as either a designer, an RVer, or as a person who cooks and cleans. So it becomes necessary to upgrade certain things in an RV to make it comfortable and easy to care for, and to suit your own, individual lifestyle.

Wasted space is one of my pet peeves. We have now owned three motorhomes, and every one of them has had lots of wasted space. Finding space can be a bit sticky, since there are weight considerations for RVs. Most don’t have much extra weight allowance beyond what is absolutely necessary. Every item in an RV must have a use and be properly placed. Usually, passengers and their luggage are about all that can be added to a fully furnished unit without overstressing the RV.

However, every RVer on the planet has to carry extra paper supplies, extra blankets and pillows, etc., so what’s the problem with making room for them? Our hallway has two big cubbyholes that are inaccessible, but by taking the wood panels out and replacing them with doors, they’re big enough to store toilet paper, paper towels, and other lightweight, bulky items. I can guarantee you that cupboards and closets in any RV are on the smallish side, so we’ve lacked space for these bulky paper items in all three RVs!

Another problem is storage areas with doors that fold down, so you have to crawl across the door to access the area. Two small doors that open back to the side would be so much more efficient!

Most RVs lack a backsplash around the sinks, but that is easily remedied by buying plexiglass, cut to size, then fastening it to the wall, or purchasing some other lightweight, waterproof material to use as a backsplash. While tiles are lovely and stylish, they add unnecessary weight to the RV!

There are lots of small, lightweight accessories you can add to your RV’s interior to make it more enjoyable and useful, and more homelike.

You can also subtract furnishings that you don’t use. We removed the table and chairs from our latest motorhome because the table was usually piled high with mail, etc. that needed putting away. The chairs were very heavy, and I got tired of lifting them each time I had to vacuum, or even to pull them up to the table. They were useless weight that I was overjoyed to remove.

Now we have a wide-open living area to which we have added an occasional chair, a 2-drawer file cabinet, and computer space. We attached the flat panel monitor to the wall and it swings out for viewing. Another problem we originally had was with the tiny 13” TV that sat at ceiling level in a cabinet built for it. From across the room, it was like watching ants parade across the screen.

Since we have a slide-out that holds the sofa, there was about 6 inches between the pantry wall and the slide-out when it was retracted. We measured the space and decided a flat-screen 20” TV would fit into the space if its speakers were at the bottom of the screen, instead of on the sides. We bolted it through the pantry wall and added metal supports to the bottom as an extra measure of safety. Now characters on the screen are visible and recognizable, no matter where we sit in the living area.

The kitchen has vinyl flooring, but then carpeting has been installed down the hall and in the bathroom. Pale colored carpeting! Needless to say, there’s a shaded wear pattern down the center of the hall, plus since my food storage pantry is located there, I managed to drop and break a bottle of orange-colored steak sauce that created a permanent stain. Nothing has cleaned it! So we discussed using wood flooring throughout, but decided the glue-down installation might crack when we bounced across rough roads, and the snap-together type might pop up. We may be wrong, but we are also concerned with the added weight. And forget about tile, which I would love, because of the same weight concern.

So we will look for a cushioned tile-patterned vinyl floor that looks nice, unlike the kitchen vinyl we now have which has a distinct “bathroom” design. And we will pull up the carpeting in the hallway and bathroom and replace it with the same vinyl flooring.

Don’t stress if you need to change a few things in your RV. Add colorful cushions, personal photos or favorite artwork, and perhaps, your own choice of window treatments. A few simple steps and a little ingenuity can easily customize your RV to fit your lifestyle

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One of the things I try to do in this column is to provide helpful information to those of you who are thinking about buying an RV, or those who have one and are planning to hit the road fulltime. Your questions let me know what I need to write about. I just realized that I have been negligent in passing on useful Websites after I received some questions about towing a 5th wheel and Internet service while traveling.  

Internet

I think most of you probably already know that we use, and are happy with both Verizon cell phone and wireless Internet services. Cell phone usage is limited to 450 minutes each month with free service on weekends and late evenings. We’ve only exceeded our limit one time, and that was only by a couple of dollars, and was because we were near relatives and were constantly phoning back and forth to each other. Internet usage is unlimited—and hopefully—it will remain that way. We pay about $60 per month in addition to the cell phone service, which is about $40. So for a total of $100 per month plus tax and surcharges, we can keep in touch as much and often as we need. 

RVing

There is a website where you can buy books and DVDs on RVing and various, related topics, including cooking in an RV.  It is located at www.RVBookstore.com. Also, you can receive a weekly newsletter that provides all sorts of useful information, including RV product recalls, by contacting www.RVTravel.com. I don’t know if there is a charge for this newsletter. 

Military RVers

If you are retired from the military or still on active duty, you will find lots of information on military camping at: http://www.rvtravel.com/blog/militaryrving/. You can also buy a guide book to campgrounds on military installations, called FAMCAMPS, at the above mentioned RV Bookstore.  

Work Camping

RV Travel also provides a link to a site that tells about work-camping while RVing. Many RVers work for a few hours each week. Some earn a free site with hookups by volunteering as hosts at federal and state park campgrounds. Others earn extra income by working at RV parks or at places like Disneyworld, Silver Dollar City, and Dollywood. Some folks work in the North during the summer and the South during the winter months. 

I hope these links will help answer questions you may have about the RVing lifestyle. Meanwhile, I will continue to update you with any news and information I come across. Happy travels to those of you who travel by RV, and happy dreams to those who want to.

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As you’re all probably aware by now, I’ve never depended solely upon income from published articles and books. Instead, I decided almost at the start of my career to also offer writing services to businesses. They need what we offer, and therein resides a great opportunity for all writers. And there’s no better time to offer writing services during a recession. 

I started as a writer during one of the lowest points in the economy during the Reagan/Bush administrations, when the Seattle area was in a deep recession. Okay, so the politicians called it a little downturn in the economy, but for those living there during the ‘80s, it was anything but insignificant. More and more people were starting their own businesses because they had been laid off from jobs in the corporate world. Remember, this was the era of downturns in the fishing and logging economy, plus the savings and loan scandals and corporate takeovers—meaning more job losses. What do people just starting a business need most, no matter how small their enterprise? Publicity! What do newspapers and magazines want most at times like that? Stories about new and/or successful ventures. And that’s where you, as a writer, come in. 

If you don’t know how to write a “news” or “press” release, read my book, Portable Writing, Also, read some of the articles in the business section of your local newspaper and you’ll spot stories based upon news releases. Almost all stories printed in the business section arrive on the editor’s desk via press releases. They tell about new ventures, what product or service they offer, who their customers are, and maybe a little about the background of the new business owner. Pay attention to what information is provided in the articles and develop a questionnaire for your clients based upon that information.

Then write a news release about your own writing venture and mail it and a photo out to all the newspapers in your area. Remember, you’ll want publicity for your writing skills, too. Make it fascinating enough, and a local television station may want to cover it, too. Sometimes the media uses press releases as written, and sometimes they expand the coverage into a long article, especially if the business is unusual or the only one of its type in the community.

As a writer, it is up to you to write a release that plays up the significance of the business to the community. A chapter in Portable Writing: the Secret to Living Your Dreams with 25 Projects to Fund Your Freedom covers news releases, and includes a sample copy of a press release that I once mailed out. Other books on news releases are available at your library or through Booklocker.com and Amazon.com.

You’ll need to know how to format a news release and what information to provide at the top of the page so that an interested editor can get in touch with your client, or you as their public relations representative (if you will also be fulfilling that role). This is a great project to jumpstart your writing career—and before you know it—it will lead to so many more writing opportunities!

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It was bound to happen eventually—a “Dummie” book for wireless service on the road. I haven’t personally seen a copy of this book, but ran across an ad for it in the RV Travel Online Newsletter this week. It sounds perfect for RVers who need to manage their investments or keep in touch with loved ones while on the road.You’ll supposedly learn how to choose equipment for Internet access on the road, including how to choose a Wi-Fi service and locate hotspots as well as the many other services available while traveling. 364 pages. Go to this link to read a chapter from the book or order: http://rvbookstore.com/shop/detail.aspx?m=2&p=941.

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Next week (Feb. 11^th), I’ll be going down to the Gypsy Caravan RV rally in Casa Grande, Arizona to take some copies of my books, which will be sold at the author’s co-op booth. The Gypsy Caravan is sponsored by publishers of The Gypsy Journal, a newspaper for RVers.

The author’s co-op is a group of writers who also belong to the Escapees RV Club, and they rent a booth at several RV rallies during the year to sell members’ books. They sold several copies of my book,  Portable Writing at two rallies this past year, and I hope to do as well or better with copies of both Portable Writing and Looking Back during the upcoming year.

If you are interested in learning more about these organizations and their future rallies, go to their Web sites: www.escapees.com, www.goodsamclub.com, and www.gypsyjournal.net.  These rallies offer great opportunities for RVers and wannabe RVers to learn about the RVing lifestyle, great places to travel, and the technical aspects of traveling in RVs.

More and more baby boomers are buying RVs and attending RV rallies, so these rallies offer an excellent opportunity to peddle books that appeal to them, such as those about RVing, including writing while RVing. “How-to write” books definitely appeal to boomers who are retiring and now have time to pen their memoirs or write that novel, and to those who are searching for a business or hobby that will fit into the limited space of an RV.

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For RVers lacking national/broadband Internet service in their rigs, it’s often frustrating to locate a Wi-Fi connection to the Internet. I’m sure this is also true of others who travel by car and want to keep in touch with the folks back home. Sure some RV parks, hotels, motels, and cafes have the service, but you can’t always count on it.

Now there’s a t-shirt that alerts wearers (and anyone standing nearby) that a Wi-Fi signal is available. No need to crack open your laptop to check for a signal. The bars on the front of the shirt glows and are animated, changing as Wi-Fi signal strength fluctuates. What will they think of next?

While a clever idea that would certainly appeal to the techies and computer geeks among us, you would have to either own several of the shirts (cost $29.99), or wash and wear daily while you travel. Washing involves removing a decal and unplugging the battery pack. Read all about it or order at the Website: http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts/generic/991e/.

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Since writing is the way I earn income, and after 20-plus years I consider myself a professional and an authority on the subject, you might be surprised to see that I’m including a blurb on a non-money-making venture. However, this is a wonderful way for writers to get out of their normal working environment, stay someplace for free, and perhaps get a new book or other project started. At the same time, you will be putting your writing talents to work for a good cause and you’ll gain valuable experience that can be added to your list of accomplishments.

The National Park Services offers opportunities for two-dimensional visual artists, photographers, sculptors, performers, writers, composers, and craft artists to live and work in the parks. There are currently 29 parks participating in the Artist-In-Residence program, although a few only want visual artists. In most cases, housing is available. You may need to provide samples of your work and references, but contact the parks you are interested in to determine their needs, duties you’ll be expected to perform, accommodations, dates of residency, etc. Get more information at: www.nps.gov/archive/volunteer/air.htm.

NOTE: Funding for the National Park Service was severely cut and some residencies were eliminated during 2007. Check with the sites listed on the above Web site to determine whether funding will be available during 2008 for the park you’re interested in applying to.

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The following review is reprinted from Escapees Magazine, Jan.-Feb, 2008 issue

“There is a quotation, often attributed to the Chinese: ‘May you live in interesting times.’ It is said that this may be a curse; I leave it to each person to determine whether it is a curse or not. But no one can deny that the years since 1940 have been very interesting, indeed. Time seems to have flown by, but that time was filled with extraordinary historical events. This period of history is so aptly presented in Kay Kennedy’s latest book, Looking Back: Boomers Remember History from the ‘40s to the Present.This thoughtful book had me remembering many things from my own lifetime, from the usual, ‘Where were you when Kennedy was shot?’ question to long suppressed memories of hiding under my third-grade desk in practice for a bombing attack. The human consequences of historic moments are vividly recalled (author’s note: by 20 contributors) in this extraordinary book. We are defined by the events of our lives, and each of these writers presents their memories in wonderful, sometimes heartbreaking, detail. Kay precedes each section of the book with an overview of the highlights of a past decade and a final brief chapter on the future.

I found this book very enjoyable. It was fun remembering personal recollections that I share with others. Even more interesting was experiencing stories of past events that I would have no possibility of experiencing such as a soldier’s memory of a Vietnam battle.”

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• How to conquer your problem with “too many ideas”
• “Real camping” vs. RVing
• Spending Christmas at the RV Park

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I have a serious problem–too many ideas. I have always been able to generate more ideas than I have time to pursue. One of this newsletter’s subscribers wrote a while back saying he has the same problem. A lot of writers would love to have this problem, but I suspect there are many more who also suffer from the same malady. 

Having too many ideas is a natural extension of being creative. As writers, we spend our lives in a creative world, coming up with characters, scenarios, and original ideas. The same thought processes that provide us with original ways of telling stories also give us unique perspectives and ideas. 

So if you suffer from the malady of “too many ideas” here’s how you need to conquer the desire to pursue them all. First of all, write your latest idea down immediately before you forget it. Keep a small notebook handy where you can record every idea that pops into your head. You might head some pages, “Ideas for writing projects” and “Ideas for articles.”

Other pages can hold “random thoughts” which might be an idea for a personality trait for one of your characters, or it could be something you witness that you realize would make a good topic for conservation among your characters. Notes could also lead to new ideas for a book or article topic.  I could go on and on here, but you can think up new divisions for your notebook based upon your own thoughts and ideas. 

When I first started writing, I made up charts on the computer for “article ideas” and would add a topic each time I thought of one. I would list the magazines that I thought would be appropriate for the articles. Since I was writing mostly travel articles, I would list a place we planned to visit and the idea for a story. Often these topics would become obsolete because we never made it to the place I planned to write about, or once I did get there I discovered an entirely new angle for my article. Still, the list was a road map for my future. 

Next, when you have a spare minute or two, go through your notebook and choose a project idea. As you read over the ideas you’ve previously written down, you’ll probably find some that seem silly, foolish, or no longer relevant. Cross those off your list immediately. No need to wade through a long list of irrelevant ideas every time. 

Having too many ideas can be as crippling as not having any ideas because they can clutter your mind, which can hold you hostage. You must be able to prioritize your time and projects so that you can always keep busy and can move smoothly from one project to the next. You’ll be well on your way to becoming one of writing’s success stories

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