Be a writer who writes...

This is a great article about being a writer who writes. (I don't know some of the people this article mentions. I'm not recommending the writing or products of any author mentioned, but the article itself is very good.)



How to Become a Writer Who Writes

by Judy Reeves

Gertrude Stein wrote, “To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write.” Who can say what she meant (she also wrote, “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”), except perhaps exactly what she wrote: that writing is all and everything of it, the beginning and the end. That to write is to write. We just do it. How to get started writing? Write. How to keep going? Write.

Sadly, for many of us it just isn’t that simple. We have trouble getting started, we have trouble keeping the pace and, too often, we simply give up or our enthusiasm and determination trickle away, like a stream petering out.

But because writing is in our hearts and souls and DNA, after a few weeks or months or even years, we’re back at it again. More determined than ever that, this time, we’ll stay with it.
Maybe we do and maybe we don’t. In my experience as a teacher, more often than not people don’t stay with it. For some, the cycle repeats and repeats. Because we can’t keep the thing going, we begin to judge ourselves failures at writing, our self-esteem goes the way of our tossed out pages, and after a while, it becomes more and more difficult to begin again. This is heartbreaking. Because we are writers and when we aren’t being fully and wholly ourselves — when a piece of ourselves is missing — we can never feel at home in the world or at peace within ourselves. Writing is who we are. Not all of who we are, but enough of who we are that when we’re not writing, we’re not whole.

Claim Yourself As Writer

Until you name yourself Writer, you will never be a writer who writes (and keeps writing).
Most writers I know, especially those who have not published, say, “I want to be a writer.” Or “I’m a [fill in the blank] and I like to write.” Or “I’ve always dreamed of being a writer.” But they don’t actually call themselves a writer. Think of all the other names you give yourself: man/woman, mother/father, wife/husband, friend, teacher, technician, masseuse, lawyer, gardener, chef. We take each of these names as a way of identifying ourselves, both to others and to ourselves. We are what we say we are. In some cultures, new names are assumed when character-evolving events take place. These names indicate the person has been transformed. If you announce you are a writer, rather than simply mouthing that you want to be or you’d like to be, you may be transformed. Try it. Right now. Speak your name out loud followed by, “I’m a writer.” Let yourself experience the sensations you feel when you sound out the words. “But I haven’t been published yet,” you might say, as if this were the thing that would give you the right to call yourself writer. After all, when you tell people you’re a writer, don’t they always ask, “Oh, and what have you published?”

Listen to this: Being published doesn’t have anything to do with being a writer! It has to do with earning money as a writer. Maybe. Getting some kind of validation and recognition, perhaps notoriety and fame. Though truth be told, the majority of published writers don’t earn all that much money or notoriety or fame. We might say, to be published is to be published is to be published. To be sure, getting published is the aim of many of us. After all, we write to communicate, and having an audience is the flip side of the communication coin. But it is not the reason we write. We write because it is what we must do. Anne Sexton said, “When I am writing I am doing the thing I was meant to do.”

Besides, once we are published, this doesn’t mean we will stop writing. We will continue to write. This is what writers do. I have this vision of me at my writing table, a fat roll of butcher’s paper at one end and a take-up reel with a crank at the other end. The paper just keeps passing beneath my pen and I just keep writing. As the old joke goes, “Old writers never die, they just keep revising the ending.”

How do you claim yourself as writer?

First, say it. “I’m a writer.” Say it out loud. Say it to yourself in the mirror. Say it to your friends and family. Say it to the next person you meet at a party who asks, “What do you do?” Say it to a stranger in line at the grocery store. Say it to your mother. Mostly, say it to yourself. “I’m a writer.”

· Make a place for your writing, a sacred place where you go with joy as your companion, not dread or guilt or “shoulds” riding your shoulders like weights of sand. If you don’t already have a room or specific place, make one. Take up a whole room or a section of a room. Before she created her own studio, my friend Wendy used a screen to separate her writing place from the rest of the living room. If the only space you can free up for your writing is part of a table, sometimes, when you’re not eating on it, then make it a special place. When you go there for your writing, bring along a candle or lamp or some flowers, anything that transforms the space from the quotidian to the unique. Make it important and make it yours however you can. Claim the space.

· Get the tools you need. Honor your writing with the kind of paper or notebook you like; buy your favorite pens by the box or spend a bundle on that Waterman or Mont Blanc you’ve always wanted. Have a computer that belongs to you — not one you have to share — and a good printer. It’s amazing what just printing out your writing using a laser jet printer will do to make it look — and you feel — professional. Get a good dictionary, thesaurus, and stylebook. Find books on the craft and subscribe to writing journals.

· Hang out with other writers. Go to readings and book signings, open mikes. Communicate with other writers. Drop a note to someone whose book you admire and tell them (not in a gushy, fan magazine kind of way, but as one writer to another). Sign up for workshops and conferences. Get in a group.

· Read as a writer. Learn from the best. Study your favorite authors, and copy passages into your notebook to get the feel of their rhythm and style. Deconstruct their sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and chapters to discover their techniques and their secrets. Read the work aloud and discuss the books with your writer friends. Next to the act of writing itself, reading good writing will be your best teacher.

Make Time to Write

The second thing you must do to be a writer who writes is make the time to write. This is where many would-be writers fall short. Unless you make the time to write, you’ll never write. Extra time won’t just show up, and if you promise to do your writing “as soon as...” you’ll never get to it. Take it from one who knows. For the better part of twenty-five years, I was a writer who would write “as soon as...”; I had more stops and starts in my writing career than a local train. It wasn’t until I actually set aside writing time on a regular basis that I became a writer who writes.

Make an appointment with your writing self, write it down in your calendar: 2:00 p.m. Monday: Write; 3:30 p.m. Tuesday: Write; 9:15 a.m. Wednesday: Write; and so forth.

Find a time that fits you. Don’t set aside two hours if you can only do thirty minutes. Don’t set your alarm for 5:30 in the morning if you always resist getting up and hate the mornings. You may come to resent your writing as much as you resent the alarm clock. By the same token, don’t say you’ll do it at night after everything else is done if, by 8:30, you’re supine on the couch and can’t keep your eyes open. Find a time that works for you. Take half your lunch hour. Do it right after work. Get up half an hour earlier. If you have the flexibility to make your own schedule, set aside time during the workday.

In my classes I listen to the complaints of students who say they just don’t have time to write, then I ask for a show of hands of those who watch television on a regular basis or those who surf the Web. When the rows of hands waving in the air look like an Iowa cornfield in August, I ask again, “Who can’t find the time to write?” Sheepish grins and embarrassed giggles. Write instead of watching TV, instead of surfing the Web, instead of spending an hour or more reading the newspaper, instead of going out with friends. You have to give up something. Even if it’s only leisure time in front of the tube.

Note: don’t give up taking walks or witnessing sunsets.

You may have always heard that if you want to be a writer, you have to write every day. This is not an absolute rule. Few rules are. To be successful (i.e., a writer who writes), you do have to write several times a week — at least four or five sessions, and every day is best. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon swears by his 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Sunday-Thursday routine. Part of it is the daily habit of it and part of it is the continuity. The writing will come easier with regular practice, too. You get better at something you do often. Mick Jagger said, “You have to sing every day so you can build up to being, you know, Amazingly Brilliant.”

In a New Yorker (January 28, 2002) article titled “The Learning Curve — How Do You Become a Good Surgeon? Practice,” Atul Gawande related the importance of practice. In writing about elite performers, he said, “[T]he most important talent may be the talent for practice itself.” He referred to K. Anders Ericsson, a psychologist, who noted that “the most important role that innate factors play may be in a person’s willingness to engage in sustained training.”
Like exercise or losing weight or taking a class, sometimes it’s a whole lot easier to do it with a supportive companion. Make a date with a friend for writing. If you can’t get together in person, make a phone call or e-mail one another to say, “I wrote today” or “I’m going to write at 6:30 this evening,” or “How’d the writing go today?”

Waiting for inspiration to descend before you write is like waiting for Godot. Interminable. It’s been said that if you show up at your page at the agreed upon time, inspiration will know where to find you. Someone else said, “Writing is 20 percent inspiration and 80 percent perspiration.” Besides, if writing is your daily practice, you won’t need inspiration to get to it. Imagine waiting for inspiration to rest her shining arms around you before you take the dog for a walk or drive to work.

Write

Finally, the third leg in the triangle of being a writer who writes is, of course, doing the thing. Talking about writing isn’t writing. Thinking about writing isn’t writing. Dreaming or fantasizing isn’t writing. Neither are outlining, researching, or making notes. All these may be a part of the whole milieu of the writing life and necessary to getting a project completed, but only writing is writing.

“You can’t sit around thinking,” said fiction writer David Long. “You must sit around writing.”
So every day, at the appointed time (or at some spontaneous gift of time), you sit at your desk (or your table in the café or on the grass in the park), you open your notebook or you boot up your computer, and you write.

Do this every day and I will guarantee you, you will fill notebook after notebook, you will begin and complete stories, essays, narrative nonfiction — whatever you want to write. You will have bits and pieces and wild, imaginative ramblings. You will be a Writer Who Writes.

From Writing Alone, Writing Together by Judy Reeves. Copyright © 2002 by Judy Reeves. Excerpted by arrangement by New World Library. $14.95. Available in local bookstores or call 800-972-6657 Ext 52 or click here.


http://www.grandtimes.com/A_Writer.html

Yes, I'm back!

I've been picking up interest in writing again. I found my works-in-progress for Woman's World magazine, and I've been reading how-to-write books, The Writer magazine, and books in my genre (Christian (celebate) romances). I'm thinking of revising the Woman's World stories to fit the new 1,000 word limit and sending them in over the summer. Time will tell what comes of all this!

Are you writing? If not, think about why not? Maybe this isn't the time, maybe it is. Ponder that question, and see if you can discover what you need to be doing right now.

Happy writing!

Reading, but not writing...

I seem to have put writing into the "I'm not sure I'll go back to that" category. I've been doing a lot of fiction reading, but no writing.

Hmmm...what's wrong with this picture? Or - is anything wrong with this picture? A great deal of advice about writing always points to "read, read, read!" Of course, it would be to my great advantage to also "write, write, write," but that hasn't been happening. My energies have been focused elsewhere lately, as I'm in a season of decision-making about other things, and I tend to prefer to 'clear my mind' (AKA avoid thinking about the decisions I need to make) by reading rather than writing.

So, what's a 'writer' to do who isn't writing? Read her genre. Read books about writing. Wait for inspiration to come along before writing (not the ideal, by any means, and not the way professional writers write, but better than nothing at this stage).

Here's one of two books I splurged on for my birthday this past week. I'm enjoying it.

New Hampshire Weddings by Rachel Hauck

Enjoy your week, and maybe you can fit in some time to relax with a good book! Maybe after you do a little writing?

HAPPY, HAPPY!

What a surprise I had the other morning as I was reading through the April 2007 issue of The Writer magazine I had borrowed from the library!

In their "Special 120th Anniversary Issue" was a letter I'd sent about an article in their November 2006 issue. If you have the April issue, my letter is on page 7, and it's the very first one! I am so thrilled!

A new day...

The sun is out, and it looks like a beautiful day. A new day. A day to start a healthy lifestyle with the goal of losing this excess weight. Wait a minute...this isn't a diet blog, this is a writing blog! Okay, there is a connection between my wanting to lose weight and writing. Scratching your head yet? Come on, now - every writer wants to look her best for the dustjacket/author bio photo in her books, and so do I. Am I that confident that I'll get published? As a matter of fact, I am (well, most of the time). Glammin' up for my photo is one way to keep up the motivation and momentum - seriously!

I'm right in the middle of the college class I'm taking on copyediting and proofreading. It's been helpful. My goal for the next couple of months while I'm completing the course is to find the short stories I 'put in a safe place' by emailing them to myself in case anything happened to my computer. Then I'll dust them off and submit them. I'm planning on getting back into writing once that class and another I'm taking on American Sign Language are over.

Hmmm...what could you do to glam up?

Class on writing for Woman's World magazine...

Happy February!

I've just started taking an online class about writing 1,000 word stories for Woman's World magazine. They pay $1,000 for each story, well worth the $20 I paid to take this course! I've submitted several times before, the last time receiving a nice, handwritten note on the rejection letter. This should be a great class since it's taught by a woman who has sold 25% of her submissions to Woman's World.

Looking forward to learning what it takes to get published - and get that $1,000!

A new year...

Welcome, 2007! It feels like it's been a long time since I posted. I spent a good deal of time at the end of December mulling over things like priorities and goals. Very interesting to think about one's life like that. I settled on a few - okay, more than a few - and set some plans in motion. Success? A little here and there, but that's okay. I'm not going for the "I have to be perfect in everything every single day of the new year." I've gone through that before; it didn't work. I'm going for progress, not perfection, which happens to be this year's motto for FlyLady.

As for my writing, I can't deny the urge to do it. After the burn-out I experienced due to my foray into the working (outside the home) world over the summer and into the fall, and once I'd handed in my resignation, I'd pulled out of every activity I'd been involved in except for two. The ones I wouldn't let go were my class in American Sign Lanuage and my participation in NaNoWriMo. Once those things were over and I got into my "think over my life" phase, I certainly wasn't writing or even studying my craft actively; I was just thinking, which I believe was well worth putting everything else on hold.

Now that the new year is here, I've been moving into action. One thing I don't want to do is to overextend myself like I did before. I'm coming out of burn-out well, but I am concerned about the tendency I've had of taking on much too much and then having to back out of things when I can't do it all. I don't want to do that again. In addition to my plans to achieve some definite and realistic goals in 2007, I've added two classes (American Sign Language 102 and Copyediting/Proofreading), one I'll go to , one that's online. Let's add to that the very distinct possibility of making a major move in the next eight months and having a houseful of stuff to go through and important decisions to make (like where to move). Now add to all that scheduling time to write - can I do it? Should I do it? How can I not do it?

Hoping to update with words of success for every area, including writing!

I did it!

Along with 12,947 other winners, I won this year's NaNoWriMo with a personal, verified word count of 50,116 words!! Three wins in a row! Woo hoo!

Now to discipline myself to continue the editing I started on my first Nano and get it submitted before September 2007, so I can get ready for Nano '08!

Keep writing!

Keep writing!!

Nano will be over in four more days! I put in a lot of hours on Sunday, and my total is now 34,297 words written, with 15,703 to go! I'm 69% done. Keep writing!!

What a day!

What a day, indeed! So far, I've written 10,341 words with 39,659 to go!


Chapter word totals so far:


Chapter 1: 1885

Chapter 2: 2215

Chapter 3: 2146

Chapter 4: 1736

Chapter 5: 2359

NANO UPDATE! 4,100 words so far, 45,900 to go! Whee!

NaNoWriMo has begun!

NaNoWriMo has begun!


If you've ever had an itch to write and you haven't participated in National Novel Writing Month, which rolls around every November, you're missing a great time!

You don't have to begin on November 1st. It's never too late (well, it is on November 30th!), and it's just plain fun.

So join NaNoWriMo! You don't have to have a plot, characters, etc., ahead of time. (You can have those things written down prior to November 1st, as long as you don't write out the story/dialogue before November 1st.) Just jump write - I mean, right - in!!

It's almost NaNo time!

Yes! It's almost that time! National Novel Writing Month starts on November 1st! Never heard of it? That was me two years ago. I found out about NaNo about a month before it started, and I am so glad I participated. (By the way, to "win" means to have written at least 50,000 words in the month of November. Remember, this is simply a first draft and by no means perfect.)

NaNo is so much fun! Ready? Set? NaNo!

A new grandbaby!

Praise the Lord! My grandson Noah was born Wednesday, October 11th! Can't wait to see him! We'll visit over Thanksgiving.


And, for all you Nano-ites, the Nano forums are open for the season! Counting down the days 'til November 1st!

Finally!

I finally got into my Blogger dashboard so I could make this entry! Whew! That was just plain hard. I'd tried repeatedly to log in, but for some reason, I couldn't. Now, I'm in. The only problem is: What was it I wanted to say? LOL!

Ah, yes. It was about writing, or, rather, the lack of writing. After all, how am I supposed to write every day when there are other things that don't get done? How do you write when there are checks that need to be written and mailed, there are dishes waiting - no, demanding - to be washed, there's a dusty car interior to clean?

You know what? Other people do it. Other people find, even "make," the time to write. "Write for ten minutes each and every day," one book instructs. Okay, that sounds easy enough. So why don't I do it?

Three little words (okay, two little words and one big word): lack of organization. I truly feel that lack of organization steals time and energy that could (and hopefully would) be spent on reaching my goals.

Now that I know what I lack, how do I get what I need? Do an Internet search, you say? Well, yes and no. Yes, if I want to find some great resources; no, if I want to slog through over a million results (more or less).

I've played with organization time and time again. I love, love, love to plan. It feels good, yet I'm really not accomplishing anything yet, so it's safe and easy. Sitting on the couch, filling out a time schedule, is just plain comfy, but getting off my behind, keeping track of time and chores done, doesn't seem so comfy. I'm beginning to get irritated by my own busy-ness and laziness. Yeah, I come home from work tired, but so does everyone else.

I'm going to formulate a plan (yay - comfy time!), and I'm going to work that plan. The sense of satisfaction I'll receive from regularly working toward - and accomplishing - my many goals will be more than worth the effort.

Come along on this journey with me. Start thinking about what areas of your life you're feeling disorganized in. I'll bring my thoughts, insights, and plan right back here, and I'm confident there will be answers and solutions to the idea of there's not enough time.

I just finished reading:

Reason and Romance by Debra White Smith (a contemporary Christian version of Jane Austin's Sense and Sensibility)

I will be reading:

Put Your House on a Diet by Ed Morrow, Sheree Bykofsky, and Rita Rosenkranz

I want to get back to reading:

Get That Novel Started! by Donna Levin


Got ten minutes? Then write! (Does this blog count?) :)

I have a new job!

Yes, I am now working outside the home five hours each weekday, to go up to seven hours per day in February. I like it. I'm working with people I've known for almost two years in a good environment. I haven't been in the workplace for almost twenty years, although I've done quite a bit of volunteer and group activities, which helped a lot when it came time to make up a resume!

The big question, in addition, of course, to when to go to the laundromat, etc., is: When am I going to write? I posed this question to my fellow writers on the Romance Divas website and received all kinds of great advice. Here's some:

-- Use an Alphasmart work processor
-- Write to and from work if using public transportation
-- Use the computer at work during breaks/lunch and put the info on my own disk
-- Get up earlier/stay up later
-- Make up a writing schedule to make sure I use those bits and pieces of available time
-- Set a goal of two- or three-thousand words per week
-- Make up worksheets for character sketches and plotlines to fill in during breaks/lunch
-- Use bits and pieces of time to jot down dialogue

Some of these ideas, I can use; others, I can't (no public transportation where I live, for instance), but the bottom line of all this is that I'm encouraged that, yes, I can make time to write.

How about you? How do you make time to write? If you've been struggling with that, I hope some of these suggestions can help you see that with a little thinking and planning, you, too, can make time to write!

Remember: The more productive we are with our writing time, the closer we get to publication!

Happy writing!

Excited about a rejection letter!

Yes, you read that correctly. I am excited about a rejection letter I received today. I'm more than excited; I'm encouraged!

Had I expected to receive a rejection letter after my submission being out for six months? No. My other rejections from the same publication came exactly at six weeks. However, this submission made it all the way to the hands of one of the editors, and the reason I'm so happy about my rejection letter is that it has a great note from the editor written on it.

She was kind enough to sandwich constructive criticism of my story in between two compliments. She began by saying that it was a "nicely written story" (yay!) and ended by saying that she like my writing style, a comment that was punctuated with an exclamation point! Yay again!

On my way to the post office this morning to pick up my mail, I planned to submit three new stories to that same publication tomorrow. I feel much better about submitting them now! :-)

I encourage you to get excited about your writing. Perhaps you already are, but if you, like me, get tired of being patient while waiting to hear back from a publication, or if you, like me, just don't want to do those rewrites as the days go quickly by, be encouraged. Are there any ideas, outlines, or stories you could work on today, even if it's just for fifteen minutes? Try it. You'll probably find that time flies by. Remember - a writer writes!

See if you can...

...pick up a copy of The Writer magazine (May 2006) at your library or wherever you buy magazines. This particular issue has a lot of interesting articles. Some of the highlights are:

• Master the art of the personal essay
• 3 top freelancers tell us what it takes to succeed
• Give your fiction a nudge - 10 surprising places to find ideas
• Description - how to use it effectively in your fiction
• 7 grammar mistakes and how to avoid them
• How to turn journal entries into powerful fiction

I usually find several good bits and pieces in each issue, but this one had so much in it! I think it would be worth your while to take a look at it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some other books I currently have from the library are:

• Self-editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King
• What in the Word? by Charles Harrington Elster (reviewed in the May issue of The Writer)
• The Wrong Word Dictionary by Dave Dowling (explaining the definitions and spelling differences of words like peak, peek, and pique, for example)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Looking forward to having more time for writing when the busyness of the next month settles down. How about you? Are you "too busy" right now to write? I know that it's important for writers to write, but I also acknowledge that sometimes life is just sooo busy! After this long Memorial Day weekend, I hope to find - no, make - some time to get back to writing, even during this next busy month. You can, too. Will you?

Put your feet up and grab a good book...

Here is a great read - "Mixed Signals" by Liz Curtis Higgs. It's a funny, funny, fast-paced contemporary Christian romance. I loved it so much, I immediately bought a copy! You'll never look at a radio tower the same way again.

I enjoy reading for the sake of relaxation, but I also read to learn how to write - and in some cases, how not to write.

When I read to learn, I'm focusing on what works and why. How did the author use so few words, yet draw the reader in so powerfully? How did the choice of words convey a description, whether of place or person, so vividly that I had an immediate sense of "seeing" the story? How might I have written a certain portion of the book, for better or for worse? Does the writing "sound like" the way I write? Is there a portion that reads awkwardly due to an omitted comma? On and on it goes.

When I read to relax, I enjoy using my imagination to really "see" the story. It's slightly distracting when my "editing gene" picks up an error in the manuscript, but I welcome that. It means I'm still aware of what I'm reading from a professional writer's viewpoint, even when I don't realize it.

Am I a "professional writer"? Depends what you mean by that term. I have had nonfiction pieces published by a magazine and regional and state newspapers. I have submitted romance fiction to a magazine, and I have more stories ready to submit. I have received rejection letters. I have one story right now that has been at the magazine for quite a while, so I'm hoping they're interested in publishing it. I actively seek out learning experiences, whether through the internet or books on writing. I attend online workshops. Now - one thing is left, the most important thing of all...writing! Do I write every day, all day? No, I don't. I have other responsibilities which I am glad to perform. However, I am making myself a schedule that will guarantee me time to write. Yes, you heard correctly - you must make time to write. My scheduling goal is to set aside two hours each weekday with no more than 30-60 minutes for research/learning and the rest of the time for writing.

I feel I am viewing my writing as a professional, and I am learning all the time. My goal is to produce professionally-written, heart-touching fiction that has integrity and purity, and to see these pieces published.

Whenever that day comes, I'll be posting the information on this blog.

Ahhh, time to sit back, get comfortable, and open a good book...

If you're a Christian, remember to open the Good Book as well!

Let's talk about romance writing...

Good morning! Happy Mother's Day yesterday to everyone concerned.

If you are at all interested in writing romance fiction, Charlotte Dillon's site will gladden any writer's heart! Stop by and have a look.

There's so much to romance writing that it gets overwhelming for a newcomer like me. Where do you start? I usually start with a snippet of a scene, perhaps people I've seen in a certain situation or just in my mind, and then I wonder who they are and why they're doing what they're doing. For the first novel which I wrote through NaNoWriMo (loads of fun!!!), I had the beginning and the ending and enjoyed quite a ride getting from one to the other! LOL! I had more of the beginning for the second novel (yes, again through NaNo).

Here's what you can do. Keep a pad of paper and a pen handy whether you're home or out and about. Jot down those snippets, perhaps a phrase or two, maybe a short physical description of someone you see who would be perfect for your story or novel.

Any ideas yet?