THE WRITER’S EYES - 2

The eyes are valuable assets to any writer. Yet many of us tend to take them for granted. I have had some problems with my eyes in the past because I didn’t pay adequate attention to taking care of them. But with knowledge came a change in the way I take care of them and I just want them to last my life time, so help me God!

In the concluding part of Dr. Oma’s article, she shared some valuable tips on how you can make your eyes last your lifetime. If you missed the first part, please click on here

Enjoy!

Grace Greatman

THE WRITER’S EYES  - 2

Dr. (Mrs.) Oma Ulu [Optometrist]

I emphasized in the last edition that the environment in which you work must be properly lit. Straining to see or read in a poorly illuminated place is one of the ways to weaken your eyes. Proper eye care especially from childhood can prevent long-term vision loss and blindness. When eye problems go undetected, they can lead to learning disabilities and other behavioral problems. Poor vision and eyestrain can cause frustration and physical pain such as headaches, and inability to write and learn.

So AVOID:

Rubbing The Eyes

Eyes are what age the most on our faces. This is because the skin around the eyes is seven times thinner than the skin on the rest or our face; so it is more dry and brittle. Rubbing, pulling and pressing on them creates a loss of elasticity in the skin, which causes wrinkles.

Rubbing can also cause the eyelid and eye area to appear temporarily swollen. It can break capillaries and make blood clots form. In addition, it can tear the eye lens and cause the retina to detach if it is rubbed hard enough to cause excessive pressure.

Traditional Medicine And Practices

Some of the practices used by traditional healers or untrained people can result in vision impairment. These practices include instilling into the eyes sugar or salt solutions and herbs in treating conjunctivitis or dissolving cataracts, cough, etc. These can cause corneal scars and opacity, lens opacity (cataract) and even blindness.

Poor Hygiene And Lack Of Adequate Treatment

Poor hygiene is not only a major cause of some eye diseases; it also leads to its widespread. And some of these diseases if not properly treated can become more complicated leading to blindness.

CARE OF THE EYES

To make your eyes last your lifetime especially as writers; do the following:

1. Maintain a good personal and environmental hygiene in order to reduce the risk of infection and diseases

2. A good nutrition particularly diets rich in vitamin A will go a long way to help vision.

3. Abstain from traditional practices and do not patronize quacks. Use only glasses recommended by professionals.

4. Avoid reading and writing, working on the computer and watching television in a poorly lit place

Visit an eye doctor for routine eye examinations especially when there is a noticeable change.

Enjoy God's Exceeding Grace!

THE WRITER’S EYES

Writers have the tendency to neglect their health as they dig for writing  ideas, task the mind on the choice of words and expressions, race to meet  deadlines etc. if you are passionate about writing, you must have subjected your body to some unhealthy practices. Well, as the year round off, we must decide to take care of ourselves, so we can continue to write.

Here is an article a dear friend of mine contributed to my Writers’ Digest a few years ago. It’s titled, The Writer’s Eyes. You don’t have to be a writer to read this.

Enjoy!

Grace Greatman

THE WRITER’S EYES

Dr. (Mrs.) Oma Ulu –Optometrist

Image courtesy of Google Images

The writer’s eyes are a vital asset to him. Without them, he will be utterly limited. Every seeing writer fears to go blind. Yet many do not know how to give adequate care and attention to these organs that facilitates the writing passion. The eyes are a part of the body, the two organs that you see with. This organ of vision measures just 24mm and weighs 7.5 grams. Our eyes allow us to perceive light, dark and color in astonishing detail, revealing the beauty and complexity of the world around us.

The human eye is remarkable. It accommodates to changing lighting conditions and focuses light rays originating from various distances on the eye. When all the components of the eye function properly, light is converted to impulses and conveyed to the brain where an image is perceived. However, some common practices engaged by people are harmful to the eyes and may eventually leave a permanent damage.

Here are some activities you should not engage in when you are in the dark or in a place that is poorly lit.

Image courtesy of Google Images

      1. Reading and writing

      2.   Working on the computer

      3.   Watching television

Doing these three things in an environment that is poorly illuminated result into headache, strain and pain in the eyes. 

Image courtesy of Graur Razvan Ionut/freedigitalphotos.net
  

These discomforting symptoms may cause you to stop reading or working on the computer, thereby reducing your productivity. Although, these effects are just temporary discomforts that go away once you sleep or take a break, the strain they cause may degenerate your eyesight as you become old.

WHAT TO DO

1. Ensure adequate illumination of your environment.

2. Don’t work with the computer in the dark. This is because the contrast between computer-generated light and lack of background light strains the eye.

3. Task light should be positioned to provide direct light for reading and other office work, but not to shine directly on the computer or in your eyes.

I will discuss some other harmful practices to the eyes in the next edition.

Meanwhile visit an eye doctor for routine eye examinations especially when there is a noticeable change in the eyes.

Compliments of the Season

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace!

MAYA ANGELOU – A life that inspires

1928-2014

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”

I encountered this true statement by the late Maya Angelou, before I became familiar with her writings. One of the most distinguished women of our time, Dr. Angelou was a renowned novelist, poet, dramatist, filmmaker and actress. She was also an influential civil rights activist and educator.

In her lifetime, she won three Grammy Awards, the presidential medal of arts in 2000 and the Lincoln Medal Award in 2008. Wow! Isn’t that the dream of many creative personalities?

In 1993, President Bill Clinton requested the literary icon to compose a poem to read at his inauguration. She wrote “On The Pulse Of The Morning,” which she read live at the event while millions around the world watched.

Her memoir, “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” first published in 1969, became a huge success. Time magazine has named it one of the ‘100 best non-fiction books of all time.’ With 30 bestselling titles and many honors and awards, she is definitely a woman to study.

Since her passing in May 2014, I have been intrigued by her inspiring life. I have read so much about her and discovered what made her such a successful person and influential writer.

Here are some lessons I garnered from her story.

She read and studied voraciously, mastering French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Fanti, a West African language. Maya learns that love for herself, the kindness of others, her own strong spirit, and the ideas of great authors will allow her to be free instead of imprisoned. 

LESSON

Take it or leave it; you cannot be a great writer if you are not an ardent reader. Read works of great authors.

 

She said in an interview with Noah Charney on the Daily Beast:

“I keep a hotel room in my hometown and pay for it by the month.
I go around 6:30 in the morning. I have a bedroom, with a bed, a table, and a bath. I have Roget’s Thesaurus, a dictionary and the Bible. But I’ve never slept there… I’m usually out of there by 2. And then I go home and I read what I’ve written that morning, and I try to edit then.”

 LESSON

She took advantage of her mornings, which to me is the most productive time of the day. Serious writers set out a time to write, in a quiet place, away from distractions. Writing is serious business. It is not an activity you slot into your schedule when it’s convenient. If you want to be as successful as the likes of Dr. Angelo, you have to work it as a job and not a hobby.

 

She was also a diligent and committed writer.

She says: “Easy reading is damn hard writing. But if it’s right, it’s easy. It’s the other way round, too. If it’s slovenly written, then it’s hard to read. It doesn’t give the reader what the careful writer can give the reader.”

Her works are mostly a reflection of her childhood and other life experiences. Perhaps that’s what makes them so heart touching, so life-changing.

LESSON

When writers write from their hearts, from strong and sincere emotions, readers respond from their hearts too.

I can’t conclude this article without this final question Noah Charney asked Dr Angelo, especially now that she has passed.

What would you like carved onto your tombstone?

[Laughs] “I did my best, I hope you do the same.”

LESSON

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well. Let’s do our best to leave a lasting legacy, a worthy foot print on the sand of time.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

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BE A PRODUCTIVE WRITER

You can be a productive person if you want, but it takes discipline. We all need to make ourselves do what we should do, at the right time, whether it is convenient or not. That is self-discipline and that is what makes a person excel in his field.

Here are two tips that will help you become a more productive writer.

MAKE YOUR WRITING GOALS CLEAR

What do you want? What are you trying to achieve as a writer?  What do you want to write about? Why do you want to write it? How are you going to get it written and read? If you cannot answer these basic questions, you are not ready for success. Write down the answers. Make them clear and achievable. I read in one of Brian’s Tracy’s report that the great billionaire H.L. Hunt once said, there are only two real requirements for success. The first is to decide exactly what you want. The second is to determine the price you must pay and then resolve to pay that price.

MAXIMIZE YOUR DAY AND TIME

One of the ways you save time, energy and resources is to plan your day and time. Many things will happen to distract you, and if you don’t already have your time planned out, you may lose focus of your goals.

The renowned Christian novelist, Francine Rivers advises writers to keep their priorities in order – God, family, writing. This is achievable with proper planning. She says, “Write a little each day. Even if you only do a paragraph, you will have a body of work by the end of year. One page a day means 365 pages in a year.”

You maximize your day as a serious writer by making sure your plan includes writing every day, no matter how little.

Image courtesy of Akarakingdoms/freedigitalphotos.net

Award winning writer, Irene Hannon, said in an interview:

“Set aside time to write – and do it on schedule. It’s way too easy to find other things to do, but if you have a schedule, you’re more inclined to actually produce.

I recall someone once asked a famous writer if he waited until inspiration struck before he sat down to write, and he said something like: “Absolutely. I make sure I’m inspired every morning at nine o’clock.”

That sense of discipline - of making yourself write even when the muse is hiding or you’re not in the mood –is to me, the sign of a professional writer, whether you’re writing full time or juggling your writing with a day job. Even an hour three times a week is a schedule and it signifies commitment.”

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 6:6-11 to plan and be diligent like the ant. Great achievements require great sacrifice. So, to be a successful writer, you must be ready to pay the price. You can be who you want to be and accomplish just about anything you want if you are willing to pay the price.

A day came when I realized there is always a price to pay anyway, whether for success or for failure. I chose to pay it for success. That is paying in advance rather than paying later.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

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QUOTES ON WRITING

I am currently reading an e-book titled About Writing by Michael LaRocca. It’s a great book for those who want to improve their writing. In it are some quotes by writers. Some are instructive, some comical and some downright ludicrous. I had to go on the web to check out the bios of some of those writers and see what made them impressive.  Enjoy the snippets.

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"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." Flannery O'Connor

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) 

An American writer and essayist, she was an important voice in American literature. With two novels, 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries, her Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. She was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by internet visitors in 2009.

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• I write fiction because it's a way of making statements I can disown, and I write plays because dialogue is the most respectable way of contradicting myself. Tom Stoppard
• It is always a good idea, in any type of writing, to imagine what it's like to be the reader. Carl Dickson
• An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff. Adlai Stevenson

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Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. T.S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965) 

I encountered his writing for the 1st time at the university when we read one of his well-known plays, Murder in the Cathedral (1935). An essayist, publisher, playwright, literary and social critic, He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948, "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry."

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• It has been said that there is no great writing, only great rewriting. Michael LaRocca
• It is impossible to discourage the real writers - they don't give a damn what you say, they're going to write. Sinclair Lewis
• When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing. Enrique Jardiel Poncela
• Easy reading is damn hard writing. Nathaniel Hawthorne
• Writing comes more easily if you have something to say. Sholem Asch

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I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters. Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright(June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959)

He was known more as a reknown American architect of his time. He was also an interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1000 structures and completed 532 works. Wright authored 20 books and many articles and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. He was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time. one of his most popular architectural designs was the Falling Water.

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• I can't understand why a person will take a year or two to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. Fred Allen
• Writers have a rare power not given to anyone else; we can bore people long after we are dead. Sinclair Lewis

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

STAY MOTIVATED - MIMI’S STORY

Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles/ freedigitalphotos

Still talking about staying motivated, you need more than Willpower, you need a strong motivation.

What is motivating you to do what you do?

If you want to write a book; why?

If you want to go to school; why?

If you want to get married; why?

You should not decide to do something because others are doing it, you need a stronger motive than that or you will quit before you finish.

 Mimi is a dietician. About seven years ago, she told me of her desire to write a book on Healthy Eating. I asked her why and she said she wanted to be a successful author.

 Do you think her motive was vague and weak?
She started with so much zeal, and wrote the drafts for five chapters in a week. Then she met Paul and this hot romance started. She soon put the desire to be a successful author on the back burner. For two years, her job at a high profile hospital and her love life with Paul were enough to make her forget her goal.

What happened to her aspiration to become a successful author? 
The affair broke up and she was devastated especially by the fact that Paul left her for a well-known former beauty queen. That dealt a fatal blow on her self-esteem. When she recovered, the desire to be that successful author came back with full force.

Why did the desire return with a vengeance?

How long can the steam last? 
At an amazing speed, she finished the first draft of the book and sent it to me for editing. Her goal was to get the book published in a month. I was so busy then I didn’t have time to see her manuscripts and she harassed me so well I had no choice but to leave every other thing to look at her job. I made some corrections and observations, sent it to her, expecting to get it back in a few days. But it didn’t come. Two weeks later, I called her and was surprised at her response.

She and Paul had reconciled and she had been too busy to see the manuscripts.

Why and how did her desire evaporate so fast? 
Four years and two kids later, a sack letter and divorce papers from Paul, Mimi became a shadow of her former self.

Faced with raising her two kids alone, no paid employment and not only a broken heart but a shattered self-image, Mimi had a strong need to pursue her abandoned dream of writing a book.

She had converted the ground floor of her duplex to a Clinic and started a private practice as a Nutrition Specialist.

As her clientele increased, she found it necessary to finish her book to help her patients and others gain necessary knowledge on healthy living. 

How would you compare this motive with to the first one? 
So, she updated the book and within a few months published it. It was an instant success. She started a blog on Healthy Living that soon began to thrive. This increased her clientele. She wrote two other books within a year and became a co-host for a television health show.

What motivated Mimi to eventually realize her desire to be a successful author? 

What motivates you to do something is what keeps your Willpower on. The stronger your motive and desire, the stronger your Willpower.

The first assignment we have this year in my Writing Group is to purify our motives by making it clear, personal, purpose-driven and value-adding.

I will talk more about this next.

In the meantime, why don't you work on purifying your motives for some of your goals.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace

STAY MOTIVATED

When we set goals, we are excited. We start to pursue with zeal and make good progress for a few weeks. Then gradually, other things come up to distract us. After several failed attempts to continue, we get discouraged, abandon the project and don’t even bother setting goals anymore.

But goal setting is important in the school of success. It is God’s principle. Before He does anything, He says it. Check the bible; from the beginning, His goals were set, before He started to create the Heavens and the earth. All through the bible, God would always lay His plans out before He executes them.

We cannot achieve the kind of success we desire if we don’t make our purpose and goals clear before pursuing them.

The Truth About Willpower

Willpower is determination + self-discipline.

These two factors powers you to do something despite the difficulties involved.

Every day, we set goals and try to achieve them using Willpower. This is great, but Willpower, though very important in the school of success, is not just enough.

I read about the more than two hundred studies into human psychology and neuroscience, which revealed the limitations of willpower.

Cookies & Radishes

Here is one out of the many experiments carried out at the University of Albany. 

They presented two bowls to a group of students. One contained warm, freshly baked cookies and the other, cold radishes. The first group is to eat the cookies and ignore the radishes. This did not require any willpower because it was very easy to do.

The second group was instructed to eat the radishes and ignore the warm cookies. Now you and I know this will require a lot of willpower.

Afterwards, they gave a difficult puzzle to the students to complete. The result was that the students, who had already used up their willpower trying to resist the cookies, gave up on the puzzle much more quickly.

The researchers concluded that the students resisting the cookies had already used up their willpower and didn't have any left to work on the puzzle.

Limited Human Effort

Willpower is a very limited resource and it quickly runs out.

I’m not surprised at this conclusion because anything generated by human effort is limited.

This is why many of us (studies say over 88% of people) give up on our goals. When you have used up your Willpower in one area, you are likely to give up on the rest of your goals. For example, if you have a hard day at work or a tiff with a loved one, you may likely break your fast, your diet or abandon your plan to write that one chapter.

So if willpower is not enough, what is?

We discussed this recently in my writing group. Here are some proven ways we arrived at that will help us stay motivated this year and achieve all our writing goals.

The God Factor

We all agreed that these scriptures would be our greatest motivation.

“… A man can receive nothing (he can claim nothing, he can take unto himself nothing) except as it has been granted to him from heaven. John 3:27 AMP

“I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency) Philippians 4:13 AMP

“…apart from Me (cut off from vital union with Me) you can do nothing. John 15:5 AMP

Paul said in Acts 26:22, “Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day…”

No matter how strong your will, we all need the help of God. Every other thing will work, when we are in God’s Will and Plan. We must daily commit ourselves and our goals into His hands. Only then can we receive the grace that we need to achieve them.

Next article, I will share with you the other ways my Writing Group will stay motivated this year.

Enjoy God’s Exceeding Grace