Month: September 2018

Systems of Learning: An Observation on generated wealth

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Money….Money, money.

Everybody has their reasons for going after it and developing systems to create wealth to enrichment our pockets and inflate our egos. Everyone has their reasons and justifications. Including yours truly but then again who cares about me. Let’s focus on the topic and how learning a system of wealth can benefit you in your own ambitions.

Advice: What works for person B may and may not work for you. First know who you are and what can work for you. You don’t need much. You just need to do something and stick with it until it works or find something that works better.

Again, I’m going to put forth one example here because I believe it’s enough. You don’t need a list. You need to get working.

I’ve done a lot of research on writers from the past and present. Not everybody has the ability to write long novels. Some of it has to do with genetics and mental focus but really it has to do with personality and engrained motivating desires.

Prime Example:

JK Rowling.

Enough said. Right?

No. Think about it. She created a story with the written word and then proceed to tell that story in every possible way through many channels of communication. T-shirts, book marks. Covers, posters, movies, theme parks, theater plays, games. You name it the woman took one story and farmed it out into every channel of modern media.

Here’s a secret: The Harry Potter book series isn’t the greatest story ever told at all or without flaws and this is coming from a dude that read every book and owns two first editions in the series. From one idea one woman was raised out of poverty in to great wealth.  One system. One product. Massive returns. People helped.

Observation option 1: If you have a trade or profession master it and then take the funds from that trade or profession and channel the proceeds into passive incomes you have invested the time to learn how those systems work. Example: JK Rowling 

Observation option 2: Develop a product be it your own skill, knowledge or intellectual assets and make it valuable the thing everyone desires to have and is worth paying for because of the time and effort you’ve taken to make it appear or be so. Example: Apple Inc

Your measurement of wealth isn’t mean. We’re all different but we all have something. Knowledge, wisdom, art, skill, speech, comedy, writing etc.

L. M. Parker

Thoughts on my on own U.S. History

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History, I think testifies of it best. There’s nothing new under the sun. If one man has thought of a world view or thought of a concept there’s is a record of it’s performance.

You can learn a lot from the historical origins of a political ideology as you can from different forms of storytelling and writing styles that seem to transcend years and cultures and speak to the people of any time. Words and narratives that pull on deeper super national and natural meanings. Should a man, any man be owned by a political systems.

I’m not so much a historical hobbyist of history in general but some I reading stories about my own nation and people groups histories shape me.

The Declaration of Independence. A remarkable well written piece of literary work that shaped a brief memoir of the story of the times the people lived in. By directing a bold and blunt picture of what in justice looks like the true evils of Tyrant in royal robs. It is the prologue and the reason for the proceeding Constitution and amendments that would follow. Imbedded in the text is the sub text of Liberation for the free man from the tyrant failed political system.

Though not all together the most noblest of men they were the most courageous to sign their names to a document that represented a worldview they were willing to die for.  They made mistakes. They also had grand dreams of Liberty to bestow on their own children’s children.

I think of my own people group. My Black history from chains of greed, to individuals who grabbed our own dreams of liberty at one time through hard work and determination to be own people and not be ruled by the chains. Liberated men and women who were the leaders of their own prosperity and navigators of their own histories.

Liberty.  To be liberated from enslaved thinking. To be free willed and not controlled by the false Gods in high places or political tyrants in high places.

L. M. Parker.

Systems of Learning: Observation

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Okay, I’m going to go with a definition hopefully we all can Identify with:

“Come here, kid. Let me show you how to do something useful.” said someone older person in your life.

Learning by observation is all about you making the concise effort to learn by observing on someone performing the action you wish to master. Think about it. How did you learn to walk as a kid was it due to the effort of someone giving you a task book and sitting down in front of teacher in class room. You learned, we all learned to walk by watching and observing someone doing an action.

Yes, there was someone there to catch us and hold us up if we should fall but ultimately, our observation and attention is what sparked our minds take in that information and conduct experiments with the knowledge that came from your observations.

This is a form of visual learning. We all gifts and abilities for learning in certain ways. Take the scientist who conducts careful observations on a hurricane patterns for decades to find out if there is rise, fall, or average on the rate of them striking in one state or country. If you want to know yourself and how best you learn something you need to observe yourself and take careful observation of when you learn something new, maintain that knowledge and grow to master it. If you want to write more observe your patterns of effectiveness and times of day you are at your high or low performance and for what reasons.

L. M. Parker

5 ways to organize your writing projects

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Despite my current dislike for government organized learning institutions I very much am thankful for my time attending college. For the experiences alone in learning how to format pages, time management and organization of projects I’m working on were well worth the sometimes boring subjects I had to endure amid the classes I liked to take.

My a main folder on your computer and then inside the folder have inside the following folders for each subject project:

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  1. (Fiction/scripts/novel/novellas folder with sub folders inside) If your like me. I love writing so I write a lot. I have over a 50 to 100 projects I’m working on, from short stories, novels, novellas, scripts, etc. Some projects I have finished other projects I am working on for fun. It’s helpful as a writer to know where everything is and what I need to be concerned about and what needs to get done at a certain time period.
  2. (First Draft folder with sub folders inside) Writing takes a lot of time and energy. The last thing you want to be worried about is trying to find a project when your on a crunch time to get a book published on time. Time is money and attention.
  3. (Final 3rd draft Folder) Inside should be your final draft of your writing projects.
  4. (Formatting Folder) Inside this folder should be your final finished formatted completed work that is ready for publishing.
  5. (Outlines and notes folder) This is where you keep all your notes and ideas in this single folder. Some ideas are good and can be moved on into the fiction or other writing projects folder you wish to continue the work until it is finished.

This filing system again is a starter point and meant for you to stay focused and avoid the problems of losing work and time on working on projects.

L. M. Parker

Encouragement

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I have often experienced times of depression throughout my life.  There have been times when I would find myself in moments staring off into space my mind either lost in sorrow or caught up in a problem I couldn’t solve having to deal with talking family or a person. Some times I would be frozen for a few minutes in the internal world of my mind.

Life can be hard to deal with taking on the problems of being human and facing deaths of love ones have been a normal for me sense I was eleven when my father died. Though, my case is manageable compared to others that can’t escape from their minds with out professional help I grew up poor so I had to find other means of channeling myself out of my mind. Writing became my friend to help encourage me in times of storms both in my life and my thoughts and the means of confessing my deepest fears and means of seeing into the mirror world of my own mind and how it works.

Writing is a strange bit of magic.

One part: communication of thoughts and meaning.

Second part: tool for creating your own poetic worlds of fantasy and escape.

I love writing for simple fact that with a few words I can be just as encouraging to my fellow human beings as I can encourage myself when no one else will.

L. M. Parker

Systems of Learning: Patterns

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Okay. Let’s start with a definition though there are a number of them for the word. I’ll try to stick to one in regard to the subject.

a discernible coherent system based on the intended interrelationship of component parts

  • foreign policy patterns 

A  literature example: Almost all literature starts out with a simple pattern to understand and translate meaning. Beginning, middle and End or Introduction, conflicts and resolution.

Why patterns? I don’t know it’s just I would hazard to say how our brains work or how our brains see the world in patterns or groupings. The language we use is nothing but a series of patterns, connected with structure to convey meaning.

To master the basic formulas of story telling is easy enough and starting out as a writer, you need this formula down to a habit if you’re going to able to convey meaning. I have said before in a previous post that I often see a story’s ending and beginning in my head so I know what to write from the drafting stage. However, the middle is always where I spend the most time trying to figure out and I can’t publish or say I have finished a story until I have written the beginning to the ending and I know no one will understand it if I just have a beginning and ending.

I don’t have a natural talent for writing or a gift for crafting excellently contextual scripts of  grammar and rhyme to be honest.  My experience of educating myself has required work and effort in retaining information into a codified means of memorization through patterns of rhyme and figures. I don’t know why but it’s what works best for me. Though, I can’t help thinking I’m not the only one.

L. M. Parker

My writer’s bible

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I’ve read and a small body of books on the subject of writing over the years. Some books I still have in small collection. Though to be honest only a hand few of them have done little more then pointed me a general direction and helpful tools. Two books come to mind though. One is a weird memoir of honesty and horror on a writer’s photo stylist life that taught me four lessons. The second book is what I would call my writer’s bible.

I read Steven King’s On Writing book many years ago as a young writer to mine out the secrets of a professional decades long writer and gain some pasted on knowledge. I discovered little of use that would help me I’m afraid but four lessons. One: Be honest about how humans and life is. Two: learn from the masters before but be original and seeker own voice. Three: Cut the fat out. Editing is about cutting away useless sentences  for the reader to read. Four: The book led me to read one book that I referenced before and will do so again in future posts.

The Elements of Style by William Strung. It’s a little book that is a help ful powerful to have in your tool box of the writing trade. The lessons are direct and examples perfect. Though, English like every language is always in the process of evolution this little book I believe can stand the test of time.

L. M. Parker

Systems of learning: Reverse engineering

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I’ll give you a quick reference point for what I’m talking about and link from Merriam & Webster dictionary.

to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a product or device) to discover the concepts involved in manufacture usually in order to produce something similar 

In general, the principle is simple to input into any field of interest. It’s like the idea of a young child taking apart a bike or toy to figure out the moving parts and then if he or she gain an understanding they can put those parts back together again. It’s one method of learning about the essence of how a thing works and how to put that object back together again or modify it to function with new added abilities.

Case in point, in the 2003 movie titled PayCheck the main character is introduced in the opening prologue as a man who buys a television at a store and then proceeds to go to a secret futurist lab where he takes the device apart down to it’s bare parts and proceeds to reverse construct it back together but with a improved modification to the design.

I learned to write by braking a subject down by it’s elementary levels. I would in the beginning copy sentences down until I got the structing of them into my writing habits. I would then experiment with those same structures of sentences with my own ideas in poetry and later fiction.

Now, my parents taught me how to sound out words and my teacher’s tried to teach me sentence structures but those lessons didn’t hold.  I learned to read by hearing with my ears and memorizing the flow of sentences with my eyes. Reading became internalized for me as I listened to audiobooks with skilled narrators used inflictions and tones for the words meaning and the punctuations implemented into the text to carry emotion into the reader’s inner ear. I started to gain a internal knowledge for the song and rhyme quality of the English language.

I began to know when a sentence was correct not by a rule or text book I could turn to but by the sound of the sentence’s flow and whether or not it sounded correct or I found it off key by two beats or three notes.

I’m not being at all poetical when I say English is a very beautiful song bird language.

 

L. M. Parker

 

A confederacy of corporate dunces

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I can remember the day when Donald J. Trump into the job of the elect the executive branch of the United States.  I had a feeling of surprise and elation. The surprise was because everything I been told was a impossible outcome happened and instead of fear or anger as most happened to feel, I felt a incredible ease.  The second feeling was elation because I foolishly thought the circus train ride of the elections was finally over and we could all get back to living and being concerned about our own lives and communities. I was wrong of course. The train ride was just picking up speed as it was catching on fire as I would find out later.

I watched the 2017, inaugural procession with a bit of surprise at the fain ghost reminders of a Christian origin long sense past. The rituals of the past continue into the post modern era we live in. I watched my fellow citizens send out fits of fearful screams into the winter morning with a wonder at this strange comedy blip in time I would find out would be the opening fire for “The New Normal” in a post truth era for many people’s reality.

I feel like an odd idiot in this strange circus world I’m living in. I can’t stand the convivial music or dancing clowns with doctorate degrees in simulations in bogus realities. Every-where I look I find people trying to control my attention, my mind, my emotions and my sense of objective reality. I’ve long sense cut myself away from the Televised cable simulation of twisting reality to meet the needs of the high and powerful. I am not a super intelligent person I’m just as influenceable to accepting the twisting of truth and reality as any modern day Television programed person the only difference is that I came into mental maturity during the rise of the internet, as a practicing Christian and I’m introvert. My politics would have remained the same as the state I was born in if not for the internet and one book in particular’s influences on me.

Fahrenheit 451 scared the hell out of me as youth. I could only get through half that book as a teenager and then only be stuck thinking on the horror of that world for a few years before I got back to the book and finished it. The hallmarks of that book echo back to me even now as I write this post. A country that has lost her ability to think, question and reason in an objective reality can be easily controlled and influenced by the corporate Over Lord behind the red current with a simulation of convenient “truths”.

L. M. Parker

 

The way I write

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I have often heard when I began introducing my book to the world from community of lover’s of books that heart felt expressed dream:

“You know I always wanted to be a writer.”

“I have to tell a story but I can’t seem to find the time to write. I’m just to busy.” 

I know logically from experience that being a writer is part volunteer action of the mind and part of one’s nature’s compulsion to use words, stories and construction of ideas into written form.  At least from my experience and the study I’ve done on successful writers and moderates who just have that literary itch that begs to be scratched. Simple, if you wanted to write a story, nothing in this world would keep you from doing it.

However,  the question drives me to answer it in a practical way. There are systems that writer’s employ to get their ideas/stories out of their heads and then present them all into a clear form and timely matter.

I’m not going to get every system just to keep this post short. I will present my system. Though not the best it’s what works for me.

I start out with a general outline in my head where I detail the beginning, middle and end and chapter headings if I’m inclined to do. I use the outline as a map of sorts to keep my mind focused on where I am and where I’m going. Some times I have to write it out just keep my mind focused sometimes I just have the map in my head set. Honestly though, I end up writing it out because my mind some times can’t keep on the subject or single map at a time.

Okay with my map in hand I have to figure out if this is a short story map (20,000 to 50,000 words) or a novella map (50,000 to 60,000 words). I’m not worrying about the word count because I know I need at least 198 to 300 pages. I prefer to write short stories and short novella books partly because I’m some times in a rush get the story written so I can read it and partly because I’m getting older and if I don’t get the story out of my head I’ll forget it or major details about it later.

When I began to write stories I found the faster way to get a first draft done was to write it out by hand in a notebook each chapter as it came to me. I like characters in stories  more then the settings of the stories and I hear the dialog in my head and write conversations out as it comes. The conversations are like a string to me that leads me from one setting to another until I get to the end of the story. Currently, I just use my Notebook computer as my notebook or Note Text Document but occasionally I have a need to use my hand to write because it’s a relaxing way to keep my thoughts in the motion of writing and not think about the 300 pages or how many words I need to have down on the page or computer document. The beautiful scale of editing always adds in more pounds to the completed work.

My advice: Keep focused and keep writing in whatever way makes it easy for you. Don’t worry about plot or page counts until the first draft is completed.

My chapters aren’t long but I add in a lot of them into a book. In the second drafting I begin to read over the story I see some details missing or questions that need answering with another chapter or I need to delete a sentence or two that doesn’t make sense for a character’s motives or personality.  I could go on but in a elementary view point this is my system for writing a story.

L M. Parker.

The Comfort of independence

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When I was eleven years old and first started on my journey to being a writer I was a far cry from being anything of the like and I was a poor reader as well. However, I had a way with sewing words together and creating feeling and impact for the reader. I enjoyed creating that stream of one for one consciousness between the reader and the writer. I wanted to get better at the art. I found a means of directing my thoughts and energy toward something in the positive I could achieve a level of success in. I thought maybe just maybe I could find a career I could be independent in.

Fast forward twenty plus years I haven’t achieved that climb to the summit of highest ambition in the regard to writing but I have grasped the mountain and kept up my pace toward grasping small goals along the way. I have had a taste of independence as a professional freelancer for most of my life off and on.  It has for the most part been my normal and most comfortable way of receiving nourishment for my male pride to grow in self worth.

I have learned and accepted this factor about myself.  I’ve never had a nine to five job. I doubt in fact if I ever will or If I would desire such. I’m very much an independent to my very bones.  Though it is not easy being an independent minded fellow some times. I enjoy change and find boredom in the mundane and factory like settings of restrictive lights, boring rules. Freedom isn’t free however and humans must play the game of services and goods at one level or another. So I do play the short game until I can get this writing game going properly.

L. M. Parker.