SARK, poster child for Coloring Outside the Lines and Succulence, has scored another hit, and this time she is squirting her juiciness directly into the souls of life story writers. The lengthy subtitle of her fifteenth volume, Juicy Pens Thirsty Paper, is Gifting the World with Your Words and Stories and Creating the Time and Energy to Actually Do It. In her inimical style, words flow in every color of the rainbow, enhanced with her trademark doodles and fillips, fulfilling the promise of the title.
Her Writer’s Manifesto appears on the very first page, showcasing her spirit and serving as an example for writing our own:
May words and letters assemble themselves and collect without effort on pages and screens.
May I live my life joy-fully and in between and during these times, learning to dance with distractions, being conscious of the ways my writing practice fills my soul.
May my writing teach me to leap forth and lead my words to be read when this serves me and others.
May my writer’s heart be free of competition, comparison or questing for money or recognition, and remember that we all write for everyone.
May I write my truth and write authentically even after times that I might write falsely, timidly or with ulterior motives. May I embrace the challenges as well as the joys of writing.
Throughout the book, words tumble forth like frolicking children, That’s how SARK is. Bubbly, Exuberant. Colorful and juicy. She makes readers believe anything is possible, because she has done the seemingly impossible herself. Like her other books, this one sounds like it’s written by the nicest, most lovable cheerleader you could ever hope to meet. I felt like a kindergarten kid standing at a painting easel as I read, and although I’ve already written stacks and piles of stories and a growing list of books, she inspires me to write more, to keep “moving my tools” and trying new ways of writing.
Despite her sometimes simplistic approach, the book contains solid, useful advice, helping the timid get those tools moving through first drafts. She gives instructions for teaching friends and family how to be helpful. She explains how to fit writing into over-crowded schedules. She convinces us we do dare write about that! and how to manage our inner censor and writer's block. She explores ways of making our writing real and going deeper. She includes project management tips and oodles of writing prompts.
Although this is not specifically a workbook, she includes space to do some of the exercises she recommends, and peppers the pages with inspirational quotes. At the end of the book she includes interviews with five other writers, explains how she produces her own books (writing/drawing each page by hand at least four times) and fills eight pages with resources for writers that include self-publishing sites, writing tips, inspiration, and supplies. She includes lists of writers’ organizations, retreats, music for writers, and thirty-three recommended books.
It is worth noting that while SARK’s wildly colorful, handwritten pages excite and inspire most people, some find their busy-ness overstimulating, even hard to read. If you want to take a look at SARK’s style before ordering, check out her monthly eletter or take a look inside the book on the Amazon site (this Amazon feature is not yet active on August 5, but should be soon).
Write now: with a juicy pen or several, on thirsty paper, about something dashing and daring that you have done. Let your inner child out to play. Scribble, doodle, make a mess. You can edit and clean it up later. It’s play time! Or, get out your crayons and draw a picture of a childhood memory. Check out my example of such a picture.
Someone recently asked about my alias of Ritergal. “Do you have a split personality or something?” he quipped.
“Well, actually, yes,” I replied, “or at least I used to.” I went on to explain that although I had not yet met her, my muse Sarabelle bestowed this name on me seven years ago in 2000. That’s the only way I can explain it. She gifted me with it for the purpose of keeping Ritergal’s Story Site anonymous. I wanted to share some stories, while safeguarding the privacy of others. Ritergal was a great cover, with no link to my “real” persona.
Sarabelle knew what she was doing. She knew I’d like that name, that I'd find it dashing and jaunty. She knew it would challenge me. Indeed it did! I felt a bit like a little kid playing dress-up. In the early years I found it easier to write certain things if I put on my Ritergal cape. Ritergal was more daring than Sharon could imagine being. Ritergal could be sassy and true, or gently tender, as the need arose. Ritergal wrote outside Sharon’s boundaries, though she seldom took the results public. Sharon was better at details and documenting. She was a great editor and organizer. She did the geeky layout stuff.
Ritergal played a crucial role in my development as a writer, but as I drifted away from posting on that website, Ritergal took a nap. She woke up again in February 2006, when I began this blog.
“Hey there! Remember me? I want a piece of this action, and you know we make a great team... how about it?”
“You bet! Where have you been?”
“Giving you a break. Now it’s time to get to work.”
I’m so happy she’s back and part of my life; part of me. She’s especially obliging about providing cover in public places like writer’s forums. In fact, she may be more widely recognized than Sharon, but just as the world can easily discover that SARK carries Susan Ariel Kennedy’s passport, Ritergal no longer hides her DMV identity.
When I say she’s part of me, I mean that with my whole heart and my whole brain. Until recently, I considered Ritergal to be a bit of a charade. She was the real writer Sharon aspired to become, as in when I grow up, I want to be a writer.
Sometime over the last several months I realized that being a writer isn’t something that can be measured by numbers of stories, publishing credits, or anything tangible. Being a writer is a way of thinking, a way of analyzing feelings and experiences to articulate them in succulent ways. Being a writer involves experiencing the moment in full, living color, and consciously anchoring the details in a neural databank, with organized tags for convenient retrieval. It means living life as an observer and interpreter of the human experience.
Being a writer also means writing — writing more than grocery lists. Email counts, as long as it includes more than “See you then.” I'm often asked if I write every day. Yes. I write every day, I eat every day, and I breath every day. Some days I get dressed and leave the house.
I can’t point to a date for the transition, but a few months ago I realized that Ritergal’s cape had become comfortable. It fit. It was warm and cozy. I no longer had to hide behind the curtain while Ritergal was in the forefront. Ritergal and I have fused as surely as our son John became Lippy. Ritergal is no longer that mysterious essence I hope to live up to — Ritergal is uniquely me.
I strongly encourage any aspiring writer out there to consult your muse to find and claim your Writer Name. Claim it in gmail. Claim it in forums. Use it and grow into it.
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
Some people are deterred from writing about their lives because they feel more comfortable with a paintbrush than a pencil. SARK* is the poster child for such people, showing how to combine a few words with compelling images that enhance the message. I refer you to books by SARK and her Planet SARK website for examples of another way to express yourself. Click on the image of her latest book (to be released in April) to explore the wonders of her way with words and art. Even those of us who are artistically challenged can benefit from SARK's succulent views on life.
She breaks all the rules about typing and formatting in an extraordinary, unique, hand-written way. I’d never advise anyone to copy SARK's specific style, but I urgently suggest that you emulate her general approach. Her work spills directly from her heart and passion as it colorfully splashes onto the page. Unless you have the gift of drawing or painting, you’ll likely confine your efforts to colorful words, but hopefully they will come straight from your heart and your passion for life.
Should SARK’s example inspire you to experiment with embellishing hand-written sagas with your own art, turn to your scanner to electronically consolidate your output. Combining your scanned images into a PDF document (think Adobe Acrobat Reader) allows you to print all the pages at once, and/or share them as an e-book via CD or downloads.
The high-ticket way to do this is to purchase a copy of Adobe Acrobat (standard or professional, not the free Acrobat Reader). Most individuals will find Adobe's prices prohibitive. Fortunately there is an affordable alternative: The Pdf995 Suite. You can download and use this full-featured suite of pdf creation tools for free, without any time limit. If you want to avoid pop-up ads for their other products, you can purchase a key for a mere $9.99. I definitely recommend key purchase as a gesture of support for those who make such powerful software available at no charge.
With either of these programs, you can incorporate dozens or hundreds of pages of text and/or graphics into a single PDF document, suitable for sending to a Print-On-Demand (POD) publisher such as Lulu, or sharing as an easily viewable e-book.
I’m about to grab my Crayolas™ and some paper and try a little SARKish succulent writing. Will you join me?
Write on,
Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal
* It took some digging, but I discovered that SARK, the name this creativity maven always uses, is derived from Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy. Truthfully, I like the ring of SARK better than simply Susan, but remember, I'm partial to my own chosen moniker of Ritergal.
