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Writing Magazine Articles: Writing is writing, right?

April 12, 2019 by in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as , ,

Magazine articles may not be a full novel but I have found the process in writing smaller articles to stretch me in ways I didn’t expect.

The Need to Write Something

As a writer, it’s one thing to write down your thoughts, ideas and inspirations. It’s another to hand it over to someone who is going to take it and print it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a full-length novel or smaller articles.

I’ve always loved writing, and had many experiences in the corporate world creating pieces for our customers to use with their customers. But these were always product related and the specifics were crafted by a team of people.

To have something that I wrote from the beginning to completion on my own, is a completely different experience.

You never know where opportunities are going to come from. Because I need to find a way to generate an income if I want to write full-time, I thought to look into other areas. Last spring I happened upon a booth for a regional magazine and inquired about writing articles for them. She gave me the contact for the editor, I reached out and submitted some writing samples. She offered me a choice of some articles and in the July/August 2018 issue, my first two magazine articles were printed. Little did I realize they would be cover stories! 

Magazine cover articles written by Denise M. Colby for Westcoast Magazine July 2018

They even used a few of the pictures I submitted, which made it all very exciting!

Denise M. Colby receiving her white roses for writing magazine articles at the Orange County Council of Romance Writers of America September 2018

And then I received a precious rose!

See, in our Orange County Chapter of RWA, roses are awarded for publishing. Different color roses represent different types of works. Novels are Red, and so on. For articles they are white. I have been watching for YEARS, waiting for the day I would receive a rose, so it was so meaningful to receive roses for these two articles plus one more for the next issue.

Three white roses for three magazine articles - Denise M. Colby

Each time a new issue publishes, I’ve been asked to write for the next issue (picking from a list already decided upon by the editor). It’s been great writing experience writing different types of topics. I feel my writing is growing stronger. I’m gaining experience in working with an editor, meeting deadlines, submitting and the concept of letting go (which we all know is difficult to do).

Three of the articles are part of their digital library on their website.

July/August 2018 – Adventure Awaits on Route 66 and Homeward Bound

Celebrating Milestone Events written by Denise M. Colby for WestCoast Magazine September 2018
Celebrating Milestone Events by Denise M. Colby, September/October 2018 issue.

Jan/Feb 2019 – Safety Tips for Your Family – Kids and Tech

Other articles include:

September/October 2018 – Celebrating Milestone Events

March/April 2019 – Finding New Ways, to Thrive Follow Your Passion Now which is the Current issue online.

And printing in the May/June 2019 issue: Women Learn to Brag…you can’t be modest in business.

So today I’m celebrating a few publishing milestones. It’s been a blessing to write these articles and gain this experience. It’s fun to look back and see how far I’ve come. I’d love for you to join in the celebrating with me.

Thanks for reading,

Denise

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Teaching SEO Marketing and Author Brand to Writers At SoCalCWC 2019.

February 12, 2019 by in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as , , , ,

I’m super excited to announce I will be teaching for the first time at a writers’ conference in June this year. The SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference will be held at Hope International University in Fullerton, CA on June 20-22, 2019.

SoCal Christian Writers' Conference June 20-22, 2019. Denise M. Colby will be teaching two workshops - one on SEO Marketing and one on Author Brand

I will be teaching two workshops. My topics? 

  • SEO Marketing for Your Website
  • Developing Your Author Brand

And I’ve been given a cute social media button to announce that I’m faculty on my website and social media. I thought it would be fun to add it here, too.

SoCal Christian Writers' Conference Faculty Member Denise M. Colby will be teaching SEO Marketing and Author Brand

What is the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference? 

This is what is listed on their website:

Whether you’re a new writer or you’ve been in the industry for a while, you’ll find a wonderful community of writers at the SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference.

  • Meet with and learn from top-name professionals who will share their insights and expertise from their work in the Christian publishing industry, including agents, acquisitions editors, and best-selling authors.

There are several topics that attendees can learn about, but to help you find out more, take a look at their websiteor Facebook Page.

Did I tell you I’m excited? I am a little giddy about sharing my knowledge and experience with others in a way that I hope will be helpful. I’ve been waiting a while to have this opportunity. I also will have time slots for people to sign up and meet with me one-on-one for advice or input. I wonder if anyone will be interested in hearing what I have to say?

Whether you are a screenwriter, fiction, nonfiction, memoir or teen writer, this conference has something for you. The morning is filled with continuing sessions in a specific topics such as platform, editing, screenwriting, memoir writing, fiction, and nonfiction. There’s even a special section just for teen writers. Each morning session builds on each other throughout the three day conference.

Then there are also individual topics in the afternoon workshops in areas including; publishing, the writing life, fiction, nonfiction, screenwriting, specialty and marketing.

This is where my two classes fit.

In the Developing Your Author Brand class, I plan to help attendees figure out what their brand is or at least narrow down options to help them decide later. And how to develop that brand with your target audience. We will brainstorm applicable content for future use and introduce apps that can help create posts for social media and websites. I’m hoping to have it be a hands on class, where people can actually make something on their laptop during class they can use right away.

For the SEO Marketing for your Website workshop, I will go over what is SEO and why it is important, how to use search engines to find strong keywords and how to create strong SEO with your photos and text (and the steps to do it). We will brainstorm content ideas and create one item from your list.

SoCal Christian Writers' Conference 2019 Marketing Workshops by Denise Colby or Denise M. Colby, SoCalCWC2019
Look – My name is listed!

Years ago when I sat in on my first writers meeting, I had an interest to want to teach a workshop. But I felt at the time like I didn’t have anything to offer, especially because I didn’t know much about this industry. How would I ever have enough experience to provide knowledge and inspiration to both published and unpublished authors?

Well, it turns out I can use my knowledge in my 20+ year career in marketing. The only thing I didn’t have, was an understanding of the publishing world. Yet.

Fast forward five years and I’m ready.

I’ve had several years’ experience in creating my own website and evaluating other author’s pages, as well as practicing different theories and formulas and working with experts in the field. And I’ve learned that what comes naturally for me, may not be natural for other writers. But it doesn’t have to be scary. Thus, this is where I can help.

SoCal Christian Writers' Conference Faculty Member Denise M. Colby is teaching SEO Marketing and Author Brand at SoCalCWC2019, Denise Colby
Here’s my picture and bio on the faculty page

This year, the conference is in its third year. I wrote about the first year in my blog, What Do You Do At a Writing Conference? Since I’ve been involved from the beginning, I’ve made such wonderful friends and have learned something new each year I’ve attended. It’s the perfect place for me to get my feet wet as a new faculty member. I can’t wait!

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My First Audiobook Experience

January 12, 2019 by in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as , ,
My first audiobook experience Denise M. Colby blog post at Slice of Orange

I know I know. I ‘m late to the party. Audiobooks have been around for a while now and I know several people who prefer listening to reading, due to several reasons. And for just those reasons I’ve been wanting to try out an audiobook.  I just hadn’t had a moment to sit down and figure out which book, which app and what I would do while I listened.  

Some have asked me why I don’t just play a CD in my car, but our CD player has been broken for years, and most of the time the radio is off as I’m picking up and dropping off kids and having conversations with the family. Rarely am I in my vehicle long enough to get into a chapter or even a scene while driving.

So, I finally asked a friend who listens to books all the time to help me out. That accountability helped me to commit to trying out this new way of “reading”.

I decided to try the new Libby app from my library.

I was giddy with glee when I selected a book. I mean my house was a mess and I planned to listen while folding laundry and cleaning up things with the goal of wowing my husband while getting in a good story. All good plans, right?

With loads of excitement and anticipation, I opened the file and pushed play….and immediately picked up something to look at. 

My first audiobook experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on Slice of Orange

My eyes could not, not look at something. They felt lost. They were so used to being the medium with which I take in and process information, they didn’t know what to do with themselves.  

I found it actually quite weird. 

And funny.  

So it took me a bit to get going.  

And as I kept going, I kept picking things up to look at and it would take me out of the story. So I had to learn to not take in things with my eyes. At one point I thought this might be a good sense stretcher for me in not being so dependent on my eyes. I tend to need to see something in order to remember it.

Listening is harder for me.  And this exercise confirmed it.

And then my mind couldn’t get used to the voice. It sounded completely different than how I read in my head. I’ll admit, since it’s my first one, I didn’t know if they all sounded like this or not, but I do know when I read, I say phrases differently. 

So that took some getting used to as well.

My first audiobook experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on Slice of Orange

The whole experience was not what I was expecting.

Quite frequently, I would get focused on my task and not quite hear the phrase read, but then I had no idea how to rewind. By the time I figured it out, the story had moved forward quite a bit, and I didn’t know how far back to go. I found myself not remembering the story as well, either. 

When I come across brilliant writing, I love to read over the passage a few times. Savor it. Let it sink in. Slow. Fast. It varies based on how my brain absorbs it.

Again, with listening, I was past the section before I knew what to do about it. I finally figured out I could tap my app and back up 10 seconds, and I tried the rewind a few times, but it just didn’t have the same affect for me. Also, I still felt challenged as my hands were busy while I was listening, and I found I couldn’t get to my phone fast enough. By the time I did, the story had moved on. Again.

But I felt I missed something. Deeply.

The first day, I got a good way into the story (and caught up with my laundry) and looked forward to the next session. But I found out that when you don’t have a habit you have to be very purposeful to keep doing it. I needed my headset handy, my phone charged, no one in need of anything and all of it to come together for me to connect again. It seemed the times I had available to listen, I couldn’t get those things all to line up together. It made it a bit challenging, but I persevered.

There were several things I noticed:  

My First Audiobook Experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on Slice of Orange

1. Showing me how much time I had left to listen to the book made it feel more daunting.

Like a chore.

When I read and tell myself, “Just one more chapter”, I may take a long time but I’m not really keeping track. But the app? It told me right there — you have four more hours!

And I already spent four hours already. That’s like me pointing out to my boys when they watch videos. “You spent 25 minutes on that one video? That’s 15 minutes you could be working on your homework or cleaning your room.”

Yep, that voice! It was now yelling at me!

My First Audiobook Experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on slice of orange

2. I’m a fast reader, but when I sped up the voice, it felt rushed to me. 

Which made me laugh out loud.

The voice didn’t get higher pitched. It was still quite clear. Which made it sound like speed listening. And alas, I couldn’t process as well, which leads into…

3. I found it harder to process through my ears.

I can read a book with my eyes and tune something out but still be able to hear things. I couldn’t hear anything else when I was concentrating on the story in my ears. I guess I’m not a verbal learner. Also I like the voice I hear in my head. I envision a certain sound and what it sounds like. But with audio, you end up with the voice of the book in your head and I felt it took away for me. Not the fault of the voice actor, just it was so new and different for me to get used to.

My First Audiobook Experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on Slice of Orange

4. I felt like I was purposely tuning everyone out, not to enjoy my book, but so I wouldn’t hear them. 

It’s hard to have a moments peace in my house.

The dog wants out, the kids are asking a question. Unless I was home alone, I really couldn’t put my headphones in and just listen and absorb the book.

Also, I mostly read at night before I go to bed. It felt funny to me to put my headphones in with my husband in the room. It was like I was purposely tuning him out.  Shouldn’t be a big deal but it felt like it was.

I really didn’t want to read another book while listening to this one, but there were times it was just easier to pick up a book.

So I did. Then one day I went to listen and the book had gone back to the library.  It had been three weeks already! And I wasn’t even half way through.  I borrowed the book again and was able to keep plodding along to the end.

All in all, it took me much longer to get through this book than when I read. And the amount of time spent was there right in front of me.

I realize now, I prefer not knowing how much time I spend reading. To me, that’s part of the magic of reading. You get lost. Time gets lost. There’s no one keeping track.

My first audiobook experience blog post by Denise M. Colby on Slice of Orange

All in all I found the experience enlightening. I will do it again at some point, but my first choice is still picking up a book and reading it with my eyes.


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My Year To Be Steadfast

December 12, 2018 by in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby tagged as ,

by Denise M. Colby

My Year to Be Steadfast | Denise M. Colby | A Slice of Orange

#myword2018

Steadfast.

My word for 2018.

I loved choosing this word.  It truly was a word that fit my year, my writing, my life. 

Sure. Dependable. Reliable. Constant. Unwavering. Steady.

All the things I needed in order to see things through this year. I needed to be sure of myself to pursue my writing goals. I needed to be dependable and reliable, so I would keep writing. Constant, unwavering support from writing friends made things fun and encouraging. Steady. Something to tell myself whenever I found myself wavering.

I had created three quick messages which I kept close by to remind me throughout the year:

  • steadfast in one’s faith
  • do not look behind
  • stay focused on what’s ahead

When I took the Seriously Creative online class with Laura Gate-Lupton recently, we created process goals to support our outcome goal. I found my process goals were the steps I need to help me be steadfast.

When I keep my focus on these smaller actions, I’m able to make progress without overwhelming myself. By going slow and steady, I see actual progress. Steadfast!

I’m really going to miss this word next year. 

But with a new year, comes a new word. I wonder what my word for 2019 will be?

Choose a word to represent your year by Denise M. Colby
Time to choose a word for next year!
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Celebrating Veterans Day; Honoring the Veterans in my family

November 12, 2018 by in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as , , , ,

Celebrating Veterans Day; Honoring the Veterans in My Family

By: Denise M. Colby

Since my post is set for the day we celebrate Veteran’s Day and I love history, I thought it would be fun to celebrate my family in the military and do a bit of research. I don’t have a long list of family members in the military, nor do I have a lot of stories passed down from generation to generation. What I do have are snippets and a few photos.

James Clyman Trapper, Mountain Man Great, Great, Great Grandfather to Denise M. Colby

My great-great-great-grandfather was a Mounted Ranger and a First Dragoons

1832-34 Mounted Volunteers, Mounted Rangers, First Dragoons

I will start with my great-great-great-grandfather James Clyman, who I wrote about a few months ago. He wrote down information in his journal and it is here that I learned he enlisted as a private in a company of Mounted Volunteers on June 16, 1832. He was in the same company with Abraham Lincoln for a month (and together they fought in the Black Hawk War). He is quoted in James Clyman, Frontiersman (quoting a quote from another book by R.T. Montgomery, “Biographical Sketch of James Clyman”) of saying “We didn’t think much then about his ever being President.”

Military Inventory Sheet by James Clyman 1833 Photo taken by Denise Colby - great, great, great granddaughter

Military Inventory with James Clyman’s name on it. 1833-1834

He was then commissioned as a second lieutenant of Mounted Rangers, and later appointed as assistant commissary of subsistence for the company. It’s here that several of the receipts and inventory papers he signed are in the Huntington Library.  I was able to go through these papers and take photos a couple of years ago, which was an amazing experience. And finally, I get to use them in something I’ve written.

Clyman transferred to the First Dragoons and nine months later sent in his resignation, which was accepted on May 31, 1834. He wanted to get back to his farm and business and, according to the Frontiersman, after he returned home, “he was besieged with accounts from the Commissary General of Subsistence at Washington, requesting the return of vouchers and abstracts of ration issues made during campaigns in the field, some of which were dated back to the time of his predecessor in 1832. Clyman stood charged on the books with over $400.” I’m interpreting this as basically the government sent bills to pay for the vouchers and ration issues made while he was in the field.

Unknown Stories Needing to be Found

I believe that my grandfather, Carroll W. Marsh, Sr. was in the military, but I don’t have any specifics on him. As I’m writing this, I realize I need to ask and find out something. We have lots of details on my grandmothers side of the family, but not my grandfathers.

Denise Colby celebrates the veterans in her family November 2018. Carroll W. Marsh, Jr. National Guard 579th Battalion

My dad, Carroll W. Marsh, Jr.

1950 Army National Guard

Next on my list is my father, Carroll W. Marsh, Jr., who left the National Guard long before I was born, so I didn’t know him in that capacity. Nor, was his service really talked about. He didn’t fight in any wars that I’m aware of, nor did he have any big stories that were shared to me as a child.  My dad passed away over twenty-one years ago and the information I have on my dad and his stint in the Army National Guard is actually very small. But, I decided to find out more.

It’s amazing to be able to research via Google. This large company photo has a title above it that says “Local Boys In Sonoma County’s National Guard Company”. One of the men holds a banner with 579HQ on it. I was able to search up the number. The 579th was an Engineering Battalion, based in Petaluma and still exists today. My dad turned 18 in 1950. I don’t know how many years he served, although I do know he was still in when my parents were married, which would’ve been beyond 1952.

 

Denise M. Colby celebrates the veterans in her family November 2018

My nephew, Jason

Present-day United States Navy

My nephew, Jason Burrows, just retired from the Navy earlier this year after twenty-four years of service. We are close in age, raised more like brother and sister. I’m quite proud of him. He’s been all over. Italy, Japan, Florida. On the Atlantic and the Pacific. The few times our families have gotten together, I have loved hearing his stories. The little things, that as nation we have no visibility to. The inside scoop. I remember staying on the U.S.S. Midway with my family for a scout event and finding how tiny the bunks were for even myself. I couldn’t imagine how they were for him for six months at a time given he’s 6’4”. He said when on ship he’d jog for exercise but would have to duck to clear the doorways. I loved every minute of my twenty hours on board, feeling closer and gaining an understanding of where he was and what he did.

I remember when my dad was sick and close to passing, email was new. Hard to believe now, but given my corporate job at the time, I was the only one in the family that could communicate with Jason and keep him updated so that he could be flown off the ship when the time came to come home.

I have lots more stories, but I had originally planned to keep this short, so I will save them for another time.

Denise Colby celebrates the veterans in her family November 2018. Carroll W. Marsh, Jr. National Guard 579th Battalion

Another picture of my dad

 

 

 

 

As I’ve written this, I realize I have much more information than I thought I did about my family and their military history. I’m very thankful I have the ability write about it and an audience to share it with. Thank you for joining me in learning more about my family and its military roots.

I wish you and yours a Happy Veterans Day.

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