Outside The Cube Forum Sharing my first "Opportunity!..

Thought I'd share two things that I'm working on...

First, I'm in the process of writing a memoir. It's been quite the challenge. I've started over three or four times because I just didn't have the approach quite right. I think I've got it now, but we'll see. At some point, I'd love to have it edited and critiqued by someone or the group here. It'll need it! It's about the friendship/love of two women and living an authentic life.

Second, I now have a writing website/blog. I'm trying to branch out into freelance writing, proofreading, and editing. It's a tough field to get into for newbies (to the field, but not to writing)! Check it out if you want...I'd love to have feedback.
www.kat-collins.com.

On a side note, I love the idea of having our own site since WC can get a bit funky at times. I wish there was a way these WC emails could be sent to our personal emails. I'd get them faster. :) Maybe the site can do that?

Lastly, a thought for the day....

In a cover interview in the February issue of Keyboard magazine, the brilliant jazz pianist Keith Jarrett drops an arresting line in one of his answers. Never one to mince words, he laments “this stupid world we live in” in the context of people’s ability and willingness to engage in sustained concentration. He is talking, in part, about the audience for great music, but more, too. He explains: “ … You can feel the attention span of the world dwindling; you can feel people not paying attention to things that are difficult. When I read a book, I try to sacrifice myself to the book, even if it doesn’t occur to me until 400 pages into it what the voice of the writer is like. Then finally I get it. If I didn’t go that far, I would have never figured it out.” There are many reasons, of course, for this short-focus problem, beginning, in my view, with technology and visual media, but also the failure of many parents to regularly read to their small children and engage in other activities that develop young attention spans, and to restrict television viewing. One of the means by which the adult can purposefully try to counteract the “stupid world” of which Jarrett speaks is a quiet room. So simple and, amid our technological blizzard, so ironic. Doesn’t have to be big. Just a quiet room, and no interruptions. In this way, you read a great short story word for word, listen to a great symphony or concerto end to end, enter entirely into every note of a jazz improvisation, get thoroughly immersed in a novel. (Pascal: “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”) “The listening part—today it seems like it’s bits and pieces, and ‘What’s your favorite track?’ ” he says in the interview. “People walk around with a thousand tracks on their little machines. But it is a process, and the awareness of the process is being lost.”
Kat

(adapted from writermag.com "Resisting the Tide")

All good stuff Kat. Thank you.   I'll look at your memoir when it's done. I'm a fairly decent edit and critique type. I'm sure many others here will jump at the chance when it's done.   Also, before my business took off, I did a lot of freelance. I'll dig through my external drives and see if I can find some decent contacts for ya. No promises. but, I'll give it hell. :)   Cheers! RG