DeeEl's Mo Chroí Scríofa

Changes Coming

I just heard some sad news this morning.  Okay, a lot of you will probably not consider this to be sad news.   However, I do.  I went to the library this morning to pick up a book and a DVD that I had ordered.  The librarian who attended me and I began chatting.  He advised me that the process has already begun to phase out books, DVDs and CDs. 

For those of us who are writers, it seems the proverbial writing has been on the wall for a while now with books being replaced by e-publishers and internet downloads for e-readers.  Now it seems more and more people are obtaining their music, movies and television shows via internet download as well.

Don’t get me wrong, I have downloaded a lot of books, music and movies.  Where my issues come in is, first of all, books.  I do use my iPod Touch as an e-reader to make it easier to carry books with me, but there is nothing like the feel of holding a book in your hand and smelling the pages as you turn them to discover the treasure on the other side.  For me, it is also much easier to study with an actual book.  I can highlight and make notes in the margins for future reference especially if I am researching for a piece I am writing.  I can then flip through the pages to find those notations easier than having to scroll through page after page of pixels.

The rest of my objections come from my being hearing impaired.  I am sitting here typing this and popped in the DVD I just picked up at the library on sign language.  While I do scan lips when speaking to people to be able to better understand them I am finding that as my hearing gets worse I need to brush up on my ASL (American Sign Language).  One would think that a DVD teaching sign language would have Closed Caption (CC) for hearing impaired.  This is not the case.  There is someone speaking while another is signing and since I am not fluent in ASL I need to see the person’s lips to know fully what is being said.  The person speaking is off camera.  I am now very frustrated.

When I had Netflix, I complained because many of their DVDs and none of their downloads had CC.  I was advised that they were attempting to make that available and I would have to go to a different site to download and it would take twice as long.  It seems that to provide CC for a digital download you need two feeds – one for the video and audio and one for the CC.  None of the movies or television programs I have downloaded from iTunes are equipped with CC although my iTunes preferences dose allow for it and I have it turned on.

Music is something I have already become accustomed to in this modern world we live in.  If there is a song I have known since before my illness which is taking my hearing, then I have no problem and can still sing along.  However, if it is a new song or one I don’t recall from before, I need to Google the lyrics to be able to understand what is being sung.

So what does the future hold for us?  Several generations ago families would gather around the fire while one read or played a musical instrument.  It was a time for families to be together and share.  Not long after that with the incoming of the radio, families would sit around the radio and listen to music and dramatic presentations over the air waves.  Then, when I was young, the family would gather around the television and watch favorite programing.  With the changes coming, people will gather around the computer or completely detach from the family gathering and everyone will have their own iPod, computer or viewer to sit in their own corners and watch what they choose.

Since so many options are not including CC for the deaf and hearing impaired, my options will diminish.  I just hope that families will find new and creative ways to maintain that precious family time without something to gather around and enjoy books, music and programing.

Reading vs Writing

Benjamin Franklin once said; “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”  When I first made it known I was heading toward freelance writing as a career, I was told to first learn how to read.  This was not said in the literal meaning of the word ‘learn’.  I was an avid reader as a child and adolescent.  I wanted to read.  When you are shy, reading can be your favorite pass time.  As a freelance writer, or a writer in general for that matter, you read – a lot.  Research means reading.  Luckily, I choose to write about things I love, like history.

I was scanning my Facebook this morning and my writer friend Adele had posted that she was awakened this morning by the delivery of Adam O’Riordan’s collection In the Flesh she had recently order.  Excited about receiving it, she set about reading straight away.  I have known people who read much like a chain-smoker smokes.  They are already picking up their next book in hand before they finish the last sentence of their current book.  I have never been one of those.

Before I go any further I would like to address one issue, writers who read and those who don’t.  I have known some great story tellers, but if you ask them to write the story in order to publish it, it is no where near as exciting as the story they tell.  This is similar to ‘writers’ who do not read.  It amazes me that there are those who desire to be writers but yet they don’t make it a habit to read.  In school they read the minimal amount to pass their classes.  A person would not climb a mountain without proper training and preparation.  So why do people think they can become a best-selling author if they haven’t prepared?  This excludes politicians and celebrities, they hire ghostwriters (Sarah Palin included).  Reading is training for a writer.

All great writers are habitual readers, but not every reader can write.  So which is the better choice, being a reader or a writer?  In my opinion the better choice is to be a reader.  *Waits for the phone to start ringing and the e-mails and IMs to begin following the vacuum-like suction from the gasps*  Reading brings about knowledge.  Knowledge creates informed individuals.  A few months ago there was a frenzy in the United States regarding the passing of President Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill.  Due to my illness acting up at the time, I was unable to write a post regarding that.  It seemed to me that so many people were voicing their opinions (which is supposed to be one of our constitutional rights) and yet they were uninformed of what this bill actually contained.  I actually went as far to say that those who voted on this bill had not even read it.  Yes, I have read the bill.  In fact I was in the process of re-reading it when it was passed to prepare for my blog post when my illness stepped in and halted the process.

In 1966, RIF (Reading Is Fundamental) was founded to motivate children to read.  Here in the area where I live, Dolly Parton began a program called Imagination Library which now reaches around the world.  In conjunction with that, the state of Tennessee has a program called Books From Birth.  Every baby born is given a book and then receives a new book on their birthday every year till age five.  Each of these programs and many, many more around the world are striving to improve and in some cases enact the habit of reading in children.

When I used to take care of children and would be there for their bedtime, reading was a habit.  I would have the children take their baths and prepare for bed and then meet me on the living room couch.  I would have one of their books or my complete works of Hans Christian Anderson and while they relaxed, I would read to them.  Reading to children will open their minds (imaginations) and pave the way to make them habitual readers.  There is one other side-effect to the practice of reading to children, it creates a bond like no other between the child and the reader (parent).

Read to your children.  Read for yourself.  I am not talking about reading the newspaper or what ever you may need to read for work.  Pick up a book or even a magazine and read for pleasure.  Lose yourself in your own imagination opened up within the pages of a well written book.  The rewards are immeasurable.  As for writing, those who write, write on!  Everyone else – READ!

Getting Inside

As long as I can remember, I have loved to do research. In my college psych classes, having the same prof was at times an advantage. He asked the same question in each of the classes “Who would rather write a 20 page research paper in lieu of taking an exam?” My hand was usually the first one up. My final class with this laid-back intelligent Jewish man was Adolescent Psychology which I took as an independent study. He looked at me during one of my orals with him and reminded me of this question in the other classes. He said that in all the years he had been teaching and of all the students he asked that question of, I was probably the only one who answered honestly. His reason for this question was in asking students who had test anxiety. Yes, I do.

To me, research is as natural as breathing. You don’t learn if you don’t seek and ask questions. Since being thrust into a life of freelance writing I have learned something new about myself and about research. Generally, I look at research as a way to learn about something that interests me. Now I see it as something so much deeper. When I wrote my book, Through God’s Mercy, I just sat and wrote. The research I conducted was first of all finding an empty spot in the ocean to place my island country. The rest of the research was using French/English, Spanish/English and Portuguese/English dictionaries to create some words for usage in this country. My newest book has taken me into the research of the history of Ireland as well as watching Irish movies and seeking out those who live in Ireland to get a better grasp on the verbiage and speech to use.

I still don’t consider this outrageous research. It isn’t even rating near the kind of research I may do to find out about doctors and lawyers I decide to hire. However, I have been doing some research lately that has taken me to a whole new level. I embedded so much of myself in TGM that at times when I read it I have to stop and shake myself off because I am so attached to the dept of it. I am currently working on some research that has given me the same feel. I love history and museums. I determined that as a freelance writer I would write about museums and historical events. Now the fun begins.

I wasn’t interested in writing the usual things that the whole world already knows. I wanted to find the hidden treasures. The little nuances that are not widely known. I knew that The Crockett Tavern Museum would be my first. I used to live just a couple miles from this museum and had visited there before. Then in July just past, I learned a hidden gem about Mr. Crockett and was given permission to use it and create from that. I knew I would be doing research, but I did not know then, how deep this would take me. I have begun to feel an almost intimate bond with an American legend that is bigger then the state he gave his life for. And yet, I know that even as I read his words and examine his prized rifle, I am hardly scratching the surface of who he really was. But this research has shown me that until I get inside the heart, mind and very essence of the one I am researching (much like I got into the minds of the adolescents I used to counsel) my research will be utterly incomplete. If the research is incomplete, the story cannot be told in a satiating manner to fully fill those who read.