HEAR IT READ ON BLOG TALK RADIO! MOM WILL LOVE IT!

Did you know that sentiment can bring out the best in your writing?  Want to know why? Because it comes from the heart. And the heart is pure and honest. Writing it is even better. When you write it, you don’t blush!  You don’t stumble on words. You don’t hold back.  A special thing about writing it, is that it can be read, re-read over and over and cherished forever, in a frame, scrapbox, or treasure chest.

For Mother’s Day, why not write your Mother a letter. Tell her things that you have always wanted to say to her, but were maybe to “embarrassed” to say, or had difficulty saying it outloud.

As a Host on, BlogTalkRadio/The Puddle People Hour/, we are hosting a special segment dedicated to “MOM’s” on May 10th @ 1:00 p.m. EST. We are going to have our listeners write a letter about their Mom and email it to the writingeditor@yaoo.com. My co-host and I are going to read them on the air.   It will be so special for Mom to hear it on the air, and it can be download on the ipod and recorded at the site. She will love it! 

Let’s say your Mom is in the nursing home, can you imagine the joy she would feel if you wrote her a letter and she heard it read over the air or on a recording? Then, plays it back over and over again? 

On a personal note, my own loving mom has Alzeheimers. She is in a nursing home. She still knows her kids, but may forget the names sometimes. The hard part is she lives 550 miles away from me, and is being taken care of by other siblings. I’m going to do a recording that she can listen too,  so when she misses her “eight kids” (yes, 8 kids!) who all live in several different states, she will be able to hear their voices and have a loving letter read to her. Cool idea, yes? 

C’mon write that letter!

Then send it to thewritingeditor@yahoo.com and I’ll read it on the air, to YOUR mom!

I challenged myself last week. I was doing a Poem for a client. Her son was graduating from High School and as the Writing Editor they asked me to do a poem about their sports minded and very talented son.

Well, I happily obliged since I do these all the time, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. When I do these I ask the parents to send me the info on their child, their bio, if you will, and activities..much like reading a resume..an outline of YOU. Anyway, I got four pages from the Mother and 3 more pages from the Father! I had also requested some action pictures, and I received 8 pictures in my email. Lesson learned by me…be more specific! But in another way, that was the challenge I had too! I was able to fit ALL the info sent to me into the poem, and also had it all rhyme! I picked two out of all the pictures and watermarked them and it came out great!

The point I’m trying to make here however, is that you have to be concise when giving out details, instructions, descriptions, information, directions and suggestions. 

Here is an example of details:

“Please send me information on your son, and since he is good at basketball, provide me some history along with that.”

Now there is really nothing wrong with this request above, but you will get JUST what you asked for.  Pictures and basketball history.  But what didn’t you get?

Next request: 

Thanks for the basketball history and pictures.  Now could I ask you to please send me other interesting facts about him to show the “whole person?”  Was he a leader in school, how were his grades; did he have any honors awarded him? Who is his mentor?  Does he have a favorite sports idol?  Does he enjoy any other activities?  Was he in a school play? Who are his friend?  Does he have a girlfriend?  Who are his grandparents? Where does he want to go to college?

As you can see, the difference between the two requests for information are quite different.  But which one will tell me most about the person?  Which will be the best for what I am writing about him?  Obviously, if it is a sports article for the newspaper, along with stats, the first one would be best.  But for this graduation bio, I need to ask the right questions to get the right answers and the “whole” picture of the subject.

Remember, if you receive too much info from someone, you can trim it down or cut it out.  But if you don’t get enough, it takes more time and wasted effort to go after more.    Now your an investigative reporter!

I don’t know what all the hullabaloo is about considering video games and kids. Do Parents let their kids go to x rated movies? No. Do Parents allow kids to Drink before legal age? No. Do Parents allow kids to do drugs, especially when THEY themselves may have done it back in the sixties? No. Why? In the sixties, it was a generational thing; And, now they have learned. It is a traditional thing to find something bad in every good new thing invented..that’s known as being progressive; or is it the other way around..we find something good in newly invented things and that is being progressive…that’s it.

We have high tech kids born today. Do you know any child, say 3-4 years of age today, who does not already know more at that age than you did? Or possibly, even when you were 5-6? Is it because the parents ate the proper foods and now have created robotic techie kids? Don’t think so… Are we worried that traditions will break with the (not so new anymore) technology? Too late. Traditions as we knew them have been challenged..but there is a little consolation in that fact that some important ones remain; Santa isn’t analoged or digital when he visits the kids each Christmas yet.

So, why does playing video games HAVE to be an issue. It is a matter of parental control, that’s the long and short of it. Always was that, and always will be. That is one formula in life that won’t change…ever, even though some parents may exercise it more than others. Parental Control.

O.k. for the sake of argument, let’s say that little Johnny does find his way to a game that is not age appropriate and has violence in it. I believe the animation found in the games, still wins on the basis of keeping it a fairytale; where in real life, on the news, you can find missing and murdered children; kids abused and used as sex slaves; drug rings and gang activity.

If the video games stop, and the shows become more kid friendly, will it stop the gangs and killings and shootings? I think not. Aggression has been around for a long, long time. It’s shown in relationships through abuse and ignorance in how to deal with it.

Perhaps the more powerful stigma, as a result of kids playing these games, could be illustrated by seeing the aggression children feel, for any reason, being cornered by venting it through gaming channels and role playing. Parental Control should be the issue here, not the gaming our techie kids and their generation adhere too. If for any reason, it’s not good for them, they’ll learn…don’t you think parents?