Do all writers need formal education to be ‘good’?

The other day I read an enlightening blog by Matthew Wright, blogger, historian, and writer extraordinaire. I always look forward to his posts because they’re the perfect blend of cut-and-dry information and actual, honest-to-goodness, excellent advice.

The post in question was titled, “Write it now, part 3: passion and learning – the writer’s toolbox.” I highly recommend popping over there and giving it a read. Amazing stuff.

The general idea behind the post was that you need to be passionate about your writing in order to become successful. Of course, this applies to just about everything you do in life. Otherwise, what’s the point?

The other half was to learn your craft in any way you can. The passion that you have for writing will motivate you to educate yourself.

This is about the time I started sweating bullets.

I have a four year degree. In art history. I’ll never knock my professors, my program, or my school. I don’t regret getting my degree in art history because it’s something I’m passionate about, and something that I feel is a unique skill to have.

However.

I’ve decided to become a writer. Not just in my spare time. Not just one book. Not just as a hobby. I really want to be a professional writer who makes her living off of the words she writes.

So does this mean I need to go back to school?

I asked Matthew that exact question and he had an excellent answer for me. It’s in the comments section on that post I linked to above – check it out. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Basically, his answer was – it doesn’t hurt. However, he said, practicing and writing and honing your skills by doing what is going to make a good writer a great writer.

Whew.

I loved school, but now that I’m out of it, I don’t want to go back. I have too much freedom, and I love it. Plus, I’m probably going to be paying off tuition bills until I’m 80. I really don’t want to add any more to that.

I’d really like to hear your opinion on the matter, though. How many of you have formal training – maybe not a master’s degree, but even a Bachelor’s degree in English? Do you feel like that education helped you to become a better writer, or do you think you learned more on your own by reading craft books, novels, and picking up free and excellent advice on other people’s blogs (like I do )?

Is technology harmful? (Or, will robots take over the universe?) – Part 2, NO!

Wednesday saw the introduction of this topic when I discussed how technology can be harmful to us, how it can make us lazy and dumb, and asked you whether or not you thought we had anything to fear from the advancements that happen at an alarming pace in this industry.

Today I’m here to tell you that’s a load of crap.

Okay, well, no, I’m not. BUT, I don’t actually think robots are going to take over the universe, and I don’t actually think we need to worry about becoming too dependent on technology for everything we do. Sure, there are issues regarding this topic – but there always have been. There always will be.

Instead, it’s important to focus on how technology can assist us. There’s a very strong argument to be made about technology limiting our experiences, but I think there’s an even stronger one to be made about how it can expand our knowledge.

About every other week I hop on Skype and talk to a girl from Australia about Teen Wolf (hey-ho, self promotion alert!). Some of the most remarkable people I know, the people that I talk to on a daily basis, don’t even live in New York. Some of them don’t even live in this country! I’ve never even met them, yet we share common interests that allow us to bypass the limits of physical boundaries and develop of strong relationship.

On Facebook I can talk to one of my best friends (a former exchange student) whenever I want – despite the fact that she lives in Argentina. When I’m doing research for my writing, the answers to all my questions are right at my fingertips. When I want to spread the love and tell people about a great new book I’ve read, all I have to do is take thirty seconds and tweet out a link.

Technology can divide us. It can keep us from having “real” conversations with each other. It can keep us holed up in our room, bent over our computers for hours at a time, instead of going outside and playing with the kids next door.

But it also connects us. The world is interdependent, and that’s a wonderful thing. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I’ve learned about other countries and cultures since I started (virtually) hanging around people on Twitter. A simple e-mail can get me in touch with a friend in California, a friend in England, and a friend in India.

Without technology, that literally wouldn’t be possible.

So, sure. There are disadvantages to this technological boom. But let’s not forget there are advantages too. In a growing world, it’s important to stay culturally aware. It’s important to stay in touch. It’s important to stay conscious of what is going on around the world.

As with anything, this whole technology thing requires balance. I’ve been in plenty of situations where people side-eye me because I’m holding a smart phone in my hand. I’ve had people look down on me when I pull it out to check an e-mail. They’ve judged me based on a thirty second assessment of the type of person they think I am. And it isn’t fair. Not everyone is the type of person I described in Wednesday’s post.

So the important thing here is to maintain balance. As an individual, we must maintain balance. Take the phone out when you need to, when you want to. Put it away when you should. Technology is wonderful, but we must remember to stop and appreciate beauty when it’s staring us in the face.

As a people, we should continue to rely on and develop technology. There’s nothing wrong with using it to help us become smarter, faster, stronger, better people. Let’s just make sure that doesn’t get away from us. Technology has made us care more about updating our Facebook status than having meaningful relationships with other people. But it has also taken us out into the vastness that is space to discover new stars and new galaxies.

It’s up to us to decide which direction we want technology to take us in.

So, what do you think? Do you think the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to technology, or do you think we’re just one step away from Matrix-esque enslavement? Leave a comment, and let me know your thoughts!

My New Favorite Website: Goodreads.com

There are a few websites that I visit on a daily basis. I literally just can’t get enough of them. One of them is Hotmail – for my e-mail. Another one is eBay – because that’s a part of my job. I also visit WordPress (that goes without saying) and Hypable. I also just added another one to the list:

Goodreads

This is one of the most amazing sites that I’ve ever come across. I heard about it for the first time the other day in that way that the internet seems to tell you about things: I was looking on WordPress for other blogs about writing. I found a blog and read it. Then I visited the Twitter of the author. She just happened to have tweeted about how she was reading The Hunger Games and linked back to Goodreads.

Whew.

Yep, that’s the internet for you. Anyway, I decided to click on it and – whoa – there I meet my new best friend. Maybe I’m just behind the times and you’re all up to date on these things, but I feel like I have to rave about this website anyway. If you’ve never heard of it…good! I hope I can turn you into a fan.

The first step on Goodreads is to make a free account. All you need is your first name, your e-mail address, and a password and you’re in. When you activate your account you fill in some more information, but I’m sure you can leave a lot of it blank if you want to.

The next step is to pick out the genres that you’re interested in. I chose art, fiction, young adult, fantasy, and classics. They have a whole bunch to choose from, and you can always add or get rid of more later. Once you pick those, you have to choose about twenty books that you have already read. This part is my favorite! You can pick from their suggestions based on the categories you chose, or you can go up to the search bar and type in the name of the book or the author. It will bring up a lot of choices, and usually the one you’re looking for is right at the top. You give it a rating out of 5 stars and it is added to your “read” bookshelf. This is a PERFECT way of keeping track of all of the books that you’ve already read.

Once you complete this step, the site gives you suggestions for books based on what you’ve already chosen to read. This is good for two reasons. The first is that it allows you to find more books that you might have already read and rate them. The second reason is that it is wonderful for finding other books that you might be interested in, based off of the ones that you’ve already liked. These might be books by the same author, with similar plotlines, or just ones in the same genre.

Once you’ve exhausted your memory, you can start adding books to your “to-read” shelf. These are ones that you’ve had your eye on for a while, or ones that you’ve found via Goodreads suggestions and think they sound interesting. You can also order these so that you know which ones you want to read first.

Lastly, you have a “currently-reading” bookshelf where you can add the books that you’re reading right now. There’s also a cool feature that you can use to update the status of the book, like which page you’re currently on. Goodreads also has a feature where you can choose how many books you want to read this year, and it’ll help you keep track of the goal. How cool is that?

There are a bunch of other features, too!

+Friends – catch up with your friends and see what they’ve read or are currently reading
+Listopia – view lists made by other members and see if you’ve read or want to read any of the books found there
+Giveaways – you can try your hand at winning some free books!

Goodreads even has a community of readers and writers right at your fingertips. Authors can make a page for themselves, which includes a short bio and a list of the books they’ve published. You can become a fan of their page and stay up to date!

I didn’t even list half of the things you can do on this website. There are a lot of features and a lot of great books listed. I love the site because I can keep track of all of the books that I’ve read and find more that are similar to them.  Hope you guys have a chance to check out the site if you haven’t already heard of it! Let me know what you think of it in the comments below.

Happy reading!

I Turned Out Okay…

Those passing vehicles in Ireland are so full of anger.

So, I follow a lot of people on Twitter. Well, not a lot…but over 200. One of them is @OMGFacts. They tweet great facts and always have an interesting story to back up each one. A week or two ago they tweeted this:

“The Power Rangers were banned in New Zealand until 2011, despite the fact that the show is filmed there!” (This was because of the violence.)

And then not long after that…

“The Power Rangers were censored in Malaysia, because censors thought it would get kids addicted to drugs!” (This was because the word “Morphin’” in “Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers” was too close to “morphine.”)

So, this got me thinking. There are a lot of things individuals and groups like the Parents Television Council are slamming lately: TV shows, video games, movies, music. Is this new? No, absolutely not. But that’s precisely what got my gears turning.

I watched Charmed when I was younger – there are episodes where Prue, Phoebe, Piper, and Paige all have sex with their boyfriends (or, sometimes just strangers. Or demons. Or demon strangers. Even demon boyfriends.)

I played, and watched my cousin play, all sorts of video games. Donkey Kong was a favorite. So was Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. But he also played a lot of James Bond and Mortal Kombat. James Bond is full of criminal activity – on each level you have to shoot and kill all sorts of bad guys, steal things, blow things up. But it is nothing compared to Mortal Kombat. Did you know there’s a cheat to turn up the blood graphics? Yep, there is. I’m pretty sure a human body doesn’t hold that much blood, let alone get up and start fighting again. Pretty awesome.

And movies! My mom never told me I couldn’t watch a certain movie – mainly because I already filtered through them myself. I never watched horror (I’m a wimp) and I rarely watched a thriller (I’m a BIG wimp, actually). But I’d watch a lot of action movies and comedies.

Lastly, music. If I had headphones in my ears, chances are I was listening to Eminem. (And when it comes to today…chances are I’m still listening to him.) My favorite kind of music is rap, though pop is right up there with it. And don’t get me started on music videos – Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Eminem, Lil Jon. They’re all full of explicit imagery.

My point?

*shrugs* I think I turned out okay.

I don’t have rampant sex with strangers (or demons). I don’t have intense urges to put fifty rounds through the body of a random person on the street. I don’t have strange desires to jack cars and blow up buildings. And I definitely don’t believe in promoting domestic abuse, murder, or rape.

The thing is, the more you hold a kid back, the more they want to rush forward. Teenagers are rebellious in nature. That is never going to change. You have to teach them maturity, and the only way to do that is to expose them to a subject matter and explain it to them. Honestly, they’re going to be exposed to sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll (actually, rap might be the rock n’ roll of our age, but it doesn’t sound as good) by the time they hit middle school anyway. Trust me. The school bus is an orgy of rumors and hormones.

So, instead of trying to keep them innocent forever, I suggest getting to them before anyone else does. When a borderline-panic-inducing subject (like sex, *gasp!*) comes up in a TV show (I’m thinking about Glee here), take the time to explain your expectations of them. Should they do it? Probably not. Will they do it? Maybe. Talk to them about the dangers and set some guidelines – not the 20 foot high castle walls with accompanying moats of lava, rickety draw bridges, and starving dragons type of guidelines, though. Kids, believe it or not, respect their parents if the parents take the time to earn it. They’re not going to want to disappoint you.

Now, I realize that there is a difference in being your child’s friend and your child’s parent. I definitely get that. I think there should be rules – curfews, computer monitoring, parental supervision – but you can’t smother your child. It will back fire. I’ve seen it enough times to know that is absolutely true.

I wasn’t smothered as a child. I was expected to make decisions that could have consequences. I chose to be responsible and I think I was a pretty good kid. And that pretty good kid turned into a pretty good adult.

The bottom line is this: TV, video games, movies, and music do NOT turn a good kid into a bad kid. Poor parenting does. These things can be contributing factors, but they are not sole reason why your child suddenly decided to murder the neighbor’s cat. (And if he really did that, please be responsible and send him to a professional. I’ve watched enough Criminal Minds to know that it’s a precursor to some more serious problems.) I’ve seen perfectly good kids knock down the toughest baddie Mortal Kombat can throw at them, and bad kids that have never picked up a controller in their life. If they’ve got issues, it lies much deeper than what they’re seeing on screen.