Serendipity is Just Another Word for “Support of Nature”

by Monica Hadley on January 23, 2011

First, let me reiterate something I said during my interview with Elise Ballard about “Epiphany”: out of almost 200 books that I have read over the last 4 1/2 years of producing Writers’ Voices, this is one of the books that I have most enjoyed reading. In fact, although I didn’t receive it in time to complete “Epiphany” prior to the interview, I took the time to finish it afterwards. Check out the book review for more details about the contents of this rewarding book.

Ballard has had success in many creative fields – acting, film-making, producing and now, writing. We all know people who dream of pursuing a career in just one of those fields, and never make it happen, and here’s a woman for whom the pieces have fallen into place again and again. Is it just luck? Karma? Being in the right place at the right time?

Ballard calls it serendipity, at least in regards to the out-of-the gate success of her writing career. Her first book, “Epiphany: True Stories of Sudden Insight to Inspire, Encourage, and Transform” was published by Harmony Books, which is an imprint of Crown Publishing, a division of Random House. Otherwise known as a first-time author’s dream come true. And in perfect circular literary structure, serendipity is part of what this book is all about.

Ballard describes four patterns that are present in what she terms an epiphany.  First, the individual was open to the experience, and paid attention to the message they were receiving.  Second, they believed in it.  Third, they took action, which led to an experience of serendipity, where the whole world seems to conspire to support you.

Ballard’s own epiphany led her to overcome a  deep fear by changing a long-term pattern of avoiding fear to one of acquiring knowledge about the cause of her fear.  This led her to a major life change, and to anther epiphany that led to the writing and publishing of this wonderful book.

If you listened to the Writers’ Voices interview with Elise Ballard, I’d love to hear if you felt as I inspired as I did.

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Computer or Pen – which is best?

by Monica Hadley on January 17, 2010

We often ask our Wrtiers’ Voices guests whether they prefer writing long-hand or on a computer.  Most have a strong perference for one or the other and as you might expect, the computer is winning out. But Maya Angelou, who granted us a brief interview when she was campaining for Hillary Clinton for president, is a hold out.  In the December issue of Esquire magazine she proclaims that she has written 30 books, all in longhand.

And Natalie Goldberg, in Old Friends from Far Away, talks about the link from mind to pen and how creativity flows through the hand. 

This got me thinking about my own relationships with pen and paper versus computer keyboard. Is it possible to love them both?

Being over a certain age, the specifics of which I will leave to your imagination, I began writing longhand.  It’s not that computers did not exist, but they weren’t to be found in homes or schools.  So even though I was an early adapter – my first computer in 1982 was an Osborne portable, the size of a large suitcase, with a 5 inch built-in monitor, 64 kilobyes of RAM and two 98 kilbotye floppy drives – don’t laugh! – I still did a lot of writing by hand.  Even after I bought that computer, complete with WordStar word processing software, I liked writing the first draft longhand.  Think of the advantages:  you can write anywhere, anytime, with nothing more than a pen and a piece of paper.  In a pinch you can borrow the pen and write on a napkin.

There is something to the idea that thoughts flow in a special way from the mind to the pen.  Even though I can type without having to think about where the keys are, handwriting feels more natural; more integrated.  But when I’m finished, the page is so messy, filled with scratchouts, circles around sections of writing and arrows pointing to where that part needs to go.  Phrases are interjected above and below the line and afterthoughts snake their way up and down the margins.

Messy yes, but maybe it’s better that way.  Maybe there is less of a pull to make each sentence perfect before I move on. After all, I’ll be able to fix it once I type the whole thing into the computer.

That’s where the computer really shines – when we reach the editing stage.  Many writing teachers suggest that first drafts should be written quickly, without letting the brain engage the editing function; that editing should be a separate endeavor.  Not all writers work best this way of course, but even those who do run into several obstacles.  For some, it is hard to resist editing as you go.  For others, writing the first draft quickly is the easy part – but they resist going back and doing the hard work of editing.

Writing your first draft longhand helps avoid those obstacles.  Since making a lot of changes is tedious, it becomes easier to keep the writing flow going.  Then, typing the draft into the computer provides a perfect opportunity for a complete first revision – so by the time you have something that you can show to someone else, you’ve already been through it at least twice. 

For me, writing longhand and then putting my first draft into the computer is the best of both worlds.

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The Generosity of Famous Writers

by Monica Hadley on January 13, 2010

I am grateful to all of our guests on Writers’ Voices for being willing to spend an hour of their time and share their stories with us.  Yes, they get to promote their book, but we go beyond the content of the material, to learn the story behind the book, and to get to know the author.  In hearing these stories week after week, we as writers get directions to help guide us on our own individual paths to writing and publishing success.

On November 6, we interviewed Dr. David Simon about his latest book “Free to Love, Free to Heal,” the thirteenth book by this author.  As a cofounder of the Chopra Institute, Dr. Simon is a colleague of  Dr. Deepak Chopra, who, according to Time Magazine, is one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the 20th century and “the poet-prophet of alternative medicine.”

So you might expect to see Dr. Simon interviewed on Oprah, or Good Morning America.  But here he was on Writers’ Voices, broadcast on KRUU 100.1 fm in tiny but culturally rich Fairfield, Iowa.  For a full hour, Dr. Simon shared his story with humility and grace.

The following week, November 13,  our guest was Dr. Stephen Covey, author of the most influential business book of the 20th century, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” and recognized by Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans.  It was a delight to have an hour-long conversation with this man as he spoke about his recent interactions with world leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Barack Obama.

What I’m trying to say is – there may be famous writers who want the interviewer to acknowledge how incredibly fortunate they are to get a piece of their celebrity time, but I haven’t met any of them yet! But I also want to acknowledge our lesser-known but no less informative, entertaining and sometimes enlightening guests. I honor each and every one of you:  the writers, publishers, editors and agents who make producing and hosting Writers’ Voices such a joy, the listeners who give us a purpose, and last but not least – the incredible creative forces behind the greatest little community radio station in the world – KRUU-LP  100.1 FM in Fairfield, that makes it all possible.

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Writers’ Voices goes Live

by Monica Hadley on October 10, 2009

When Caroline (also known as my Mom)  and I first started producing Writers’ Voices with Monica and Caroline, we thought we might pre-record most of the shows.  Caroline was used to doing that with her half hour community interest show on KAYP 89.9 FM in Burlington Iowa.  The station manager lined up her interviews, 3 or 4 at a time, and she’d make the commute to the station to record several weeks’ worth at once.

But KRUU 100.1 FM in Fairfield is a different animal.  For one thing,  because it is a volunteer-run community station, when you volunteer to do a show,  you are also volunteering to be the producer and engineer. Pre-recording an interview has the advantage that it can be edited, so if you really mess up it can be fixed.  But only if we had the time and expertise to do the editng ourselves.  Which neither of us did. It quickly became apparent that broadcasting live was the most efficient way to get a show on the air every week.  As I became more comfortable with being live on the air, I realized that live broadcasts had another advantage over the ones that, due to scheduling conflicts, we did have to pre-record.  There is a certain “liveliness” and spontaneity to the conversation that is maintained in the live broadcasts, even when they are heard later as a recording, that gets suffused when you know that you can always do another take.

Once we started doing the live broadcasts, in October of 2006, it didn’t take long to nail down our preferred format.  We had lots of ideas when we started out, and the first few shows in our archives demonstrate some of the content that we experimented with.  From the beginning, the focus was to talk to writers not just about the content of their work, but about their live as a writer.   Initially, the author interview was going to be only part of each show, but it soon became clear that to really get to know a writer and his work, we needed almost the entire hour.  The format evolved into a short conversation on books and writing between the show hosts, followed by a 55 minute interview with a writer, some famous, some just starting out, on the writing life.  We then close with a quote from Caroline, who has been collecting quotes for most of her 74 years.

Of course, getting the show on the air took a large investment of completely unpaid time.  Not only the hour a week to actually do the show, but many more hours to line up guests, read the books, prepare questions, write the blog on KRUU’s web site, and prepare the show to be archived.  With all of this time being invested, I wanted to do more with the wonderful interviews that resulted. The next step was writersvoices.com.

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Welcome to Writers’ Voices

by Monica Hadley on October 8, 2009

Hi – I want to welcome you to writersvoices.com.  This website had been three years in the making, and it sure is exciting to see it become a reality. Let me tell you how it all came about.

I live in a small but vibrant town in southeast Iowa, Fairfield.  You may know it as the US headquarters of the transcendental meditation movement and the home of Maharish University of Mangement, but it is so much more than that. My family moved here just as I was starting high school, so I’ve spent most of my life in or around this community.  Over the years in this town, I have started several successful businesses, raised my children, and been an active in a number of groups and organizations. 

One of the great delights of living in a small town (and there are drawbacks too, but we’re focusing on the positive here) is the strong sense of community that develops when you see the same faces year after year – and in a variety of contexts.  So it is not surprising that when a small but  extremely dedicated and creative group of social entrerpreneurs in Fairfield decided to launch a low-powered FM community radio station, they asked me to do a show.

KRUU 100.1 FM in Fairfield, Iowa (www.kruufm.com) is a one-of-a-kind radio station. It is a local non-profit with an open-source philosophy in everything it does. For three years now, it has been broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with over 95% original local programming provided by over 100 show hosts and volunteers.  Writers’ Voices has been airing live weekly at 1 pm Central Time every Friday since the first week, rebroadcast at 8 am on the following Monday  morning. 

When station manager James Moore asked me to consider hosting a show, he knew that I had years of experience in public speaking through my prior involvement with Toastmasters.  He also knew me as business person, a writer, and an amateur musician, but he didn’t know my secret weapon – my mother Caroline had been a radio personality in Fairfield thirty years earlier, and still had a weekly interview show on a small Christian station in Burlington, Iowa.  The idea of doing a show with my Mom really appealed to me.  It would be one way to make sure that we spent some time together every week.  Plus, despite my Toastmaster background, the thought of doing a show live on the radio every week was a little intimidating to me.

Now, my mother has been an enthusiastic reader for as long as I can remember, an interest which was imparted to me and an on-so-early age, so interviewing writers seemed like a natural fit for us.  Thus, with only the shortest of gestation periods (or thought into what this really meant), Writers’ Voices with  Monica and Caroline launched in October 2006.

But that was only the beginning – the rest of the story is still to come.

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