DIRTY POLITICS

Well, I hope that you all voted yesterday in your local elections. While I agree your vote is only one of many voices, it is YOUR VOICE. Any politician who wins by less of a margin that he/she thought there would be, will have to rethink priorities and causes, especially if they are planning on another election down the road. And… if YOU voted (I am addressing those of legal age to vote) then YOU have every right to complain or celebrate the election outcome.

 

What disturbs me every single year during the build-up to the elections are the political ads spread throughout the media — so many of the ads are attacks against the opponents rather than telling potential voters what the candidate himself is bringing to the table. I want to know what YOU (the candidate) bring to the table, what YOU plan to do for me, my town, and whatever level of government you are running for. There is so much misdirection.

 

Even worse than slamming your opponent(s) are the OBVIOUS ads where soundbites have been twisted and melded to create totally false statements which often show your opponent unfavorably. My husband and I were watching television the other night when a political ad came on – it had nothing to do with our state and we don't have any strong opinions about the candidate. HOWEVER, it was more than obvious that the alleged film clip was pieced together, and not very well done at that (the film "jumped" several times and each time the candidate's pose was slightly different!). The result had this candidate supposedly saying something that was NOT in the best interests of his constituents. Now I don't know if or what this candidate said about the subject, but the very fact that someone (an opponent) was outright lying would certainly have made me question if the opponent should even be running.

 

I've always made a habit of researching ALL listed candidates, using multiple sources, to learn a little about their history, their affiliations, and their character. I also look to see if the source of information is sponsored by someone with a political stake and therefore may be slanted. And then I go to cast my vote… and hope for the best.

 

I hope for all of you that the best candidates win. I hope that you will celebrate YOUR choices rather than regret why you voted that way. And mostly, I hope that all the winners will act like true winners and do their absolute best for all of their constituents, and most, if not all, will be satisfied with the results.

 

How to read a newspaper…

In reality I guess I have many pet peeves, but one that truly annoys me is when people read a simple headline or re-post a Facebook meme and repost without bothering to test the truth of the content. Now this flaw really has little to do with politics, religion or lifestyle choices — I honestly think it is simply a matter of reading or hearing ONLY WHAT YOU WANT TO HEAR and then being so determined to prove that you couldn’t possibly be mistaken.

First of all, and I’ve told this story before, I had a Junior High School teacher who taught his class a very valuable lesson; The ONLY way you could truly be sure of your beliefs was to understand other viewpoints. He said that if you couldn’t even listen to another opinion there was no real way you could be sure that you were “right”. Basically every time you close yourself off to other people’s thoughts, you really don’t have anything to back up your own way of thinking. It is only when you have a lot of information at hand that you can make an informed decision.

Everything you read on the Internet is NOT necessarily true, and neither is any one “news source” guaranteed to present honest reporting. There are also many who go only as far as a headline and never bother to actually read the content of the article. And of course there are folks who limit themselves to a sole source of “news” and never check-out IF that source is reliable or not. I am not trying to get you to agree or disagree with me, or to choose one candidate over another — I only want you to look at multiple sources, review the facts and THINK FOR YOURSELF.

I certainly am not perfect, sometimes it is difficult to get ALL of the information you might need to understand what really is going on, and there are a few times I’ve made mistakes. If you spend time on a site like FaceBook I am sure you have seen those popular memes that keep getting reposted only to be followed by a litany of corrections and complaints. This can certainly be avoided (you’ll probably never avoid all the complaints) if you take the time to check the info. If you come across a meme or headline that has Chicken Little shouting that “the sky is falling” take the time to search for that information. If you are online simply Google the phrase, how many other sources are reporting the same thing, or, how many sources are saying exactly the opposite? Based on your findings it may be easier to believe one way or the other.

Many of us tend to become complacent and comfortable listening to just one radio station or read one newspaper and while limiting yourself to just the one source of news if by itself dangerous, how do you really know that you can trust that information? After getting into a political debate with a friend I learned that her sole source of info came a single news broadcast channel so I looked the channel up. No, it wasn’t the stories I was interested in, I wanted to know WHO was behind this newen channel. Imagine my surprise when I found corporate info that told about an owner who had been accused of an actually indicted on a few charges of illegally terminating his employees if they dared to report any negative news about the owner’s favorite politician! And just to be sure of what I had found, I looked up another source and found very similar information!

What I am trying to say is always check your facts. If you find multiple sources that agree with your original point of view, terrific! Whether I agree with you or not I can respect your opinion because you’ve taken the time to educate yourself and make up your own mind. Maybe, just maybe, the information you found will change your mind and that is good too. We are all entitled to our personal views, so long as we really understand why we feel the way we do. And if you really want to convince others to believe the way you do then understanding their side will help you present facts and possibly even change their mind. But above all, we all have to be willing to hear other viewpoints and respect other opinions.

Here’s to a little less arguing and a little more progress down the road.

.

The Fictional Life of a Fiction Writer ~ #MondayBlogs

We’ve all seen those funny T-shirts and mugs warning people that THE WRITER is around and ready to put them into the next story. One would think that people would tend not to want to disclose personal info once they’ve been warned “Be careful what you say, you could wind up in my next book.”

I adore creating characters that I have (almost) total control over, they take my advice with little argument and even though sometimes they need a bit of nudging, they don’t disappoint. And the best part, I can KILL someone off if I so desire! However I have found that a writer does have to be careful when doing research…

There was the, time I needed help in “hiding” a murder that would eventually be found once the medical examiner knew what he was looking for after exhuming the body. So I called an acquaintance who worked as an investigator at the local MEs office, explained that I was researching a story and asked my questions. He was very cooperative and helpful — until I thanked him and was ready to hang up the phone. I was then subjected to a few minutes of his questions making sure that everything was okay between my husband and me.

Considering the topics that writers discuss on the phone with editors, publishers and critique buddies, we must truly keep the NSA hopping. Paranoia set in one day when my sister and I were discussing a murder scene and we both thought we heard a few clicks on the phone, every minute or so after that one of us would speak clearly into the phone and state this is for a fiction story we were formulating.

I have discovered that my husband is not appreciative of those sudden lightbulb moments I get after trying to work out a scene and somewhere in the middle of dinner and I say “Oh yeah, I have to make so&so do that!” It took him a while to realize I wasn’t talking about some long lost relative turned up during a genealogy search a long lost cousin was conducting. Of course sometimes I talk in my sleep and mumble about all these juicy tidbits that leave him wondering exactly what I do all day.

And of course all of the research I do as a writer, both for my fiction and my alter-ego journalist, turns into all of this useless trivia knowledge, but G-d forbid I can hold my own during a couples’ Trivial Pursuit game.

Yep, being a writer is certainly an adventure.

#MondayBlogs ~ Social Networks

It seems like there are a lot of folks today that are ANTI-Social Networking. I can understand that if you are limiting yourself to the computer screen and ignoring family and friends in REAL TIME… but what about the people who aren’t surrounded by others like shut-ins, or the folks who live quite a distance from family and just want to stay in touch? I am sure there are a dozen more (at least) valid reasons to LIKE FaceBook, Twitter, Google-plus, Pinterest, Instagram and other such networking opportunities. And don’t ignore the targeted forums like Growing Bolder, LinkedIn, Emergency Service chat-rooms, and chronic illness sites.

I spend a lot of time on sites like FaceBook and Twitter and visit several others frequently; for me a lot of that time has to do with my career as a writer (both author and journalist). I network with others for information, promotion, learning more about my craft, and (because I work from a home-based office) for a pseudo-office water cooler experience. As a journalist I do research on a wide variety of topics and once I query a few search terms I never know where the results will lead me. As an author I use the internet, including blogs and email, to connect with readers. But most of all, I love the fact that social media has given me a chance to re-connect with childhood friends and school alumni even if we are no longer around the corner from each other. And I can stay in touch with long distance family on a more frequent basis than our busy schedules permit via phone or handwritten letters.

There are ways to limit who sees your posts so that the relatively personal family stuff isn’t shared worldwide for everyone, of course marked private or not you should never post the really, really intimate details online. Since I want my online presence to be an “open book” )please excuse the pun from this author), I maintain two FaceBook accounts: one is for personal use and one is for anything related to my writing and my readers. During the average day I flip back and forth between my actual work (research, writing, business records, etc.) and then spend some time checking up on friends and family online.

I notice a lot of people alternately take time off from online, surprisingly most of these people are indeed missed when they are gone. Sometimes I have to wonder if they realize that they have become vital presences in other people’s lives. I have some friends and family that have come off of FaceBook entirely and they are truly missed — while I do have real-time dealing with them, there are times I just want to send them a post, pass along a meme or just send them a smile.

If you are online please feel free to some check out my sites, like me on FaceBook, follow me on Twitter and Google-plus and say HI. Thanks!

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Uh, what year is this?

Perhaps reading recent posts from fellow Vanilla Heart Authors Malcolm Campbell  and Joice Overton  about the research they put into their stories for authenticity influenced my subconscious... boy did I ever wake from a confusing dream this morning!

Basically the dream involved two brothers and their dad. There was mention of mom but she never appeared in the dream. The setting, clothing wise and scenery seemed to be in the middle ages (like the "Robin Hood" era), but here comes the confusion.

The younger boy was headed off to some fair or such, he was rolling a zippered suitcase. The boys wanted their dad to come with them, but dad was having trouble getting a message to his wife because she apparently “never got off of her cell phone”. At the fair the boys ordered lunch and sat in a booth in a 50’s style diner complete with car hops on skates. Confused? Definitely.

Please don’t analyze my dream, lol – I swear, it was just because I was thinking about research and period authenticity.

How many times have you succumbed to a movie or book plot just to be jolted awake by a glaring addition of something so very out of place like a wrong year car driving over a bridge that collapsed years before the manufactured year? Or maybe it’s a pineapple tree growing (naturally) on the streets of New York City? The last time I was bumped out of the fantasy, it had to do with a police uniform and the color of a shirt. Not everyone will realize or catch mistakes, but why ruin it for anyone? Just because it’s fiction doesn’t mean it shouldn’t seem real.

I write mostly contemporary fiction so, hopefully, I don’t have too much of a problem with the proper accessories of the time. But research is still crucial. Take the weather for instance, in Hostage Heart I used actual hurricane devastation to build my character’s story. Sometimes the tourist industry is important, in His Lucky Charm and Within the Law  I used well known landmarks to paint the picture. And in Hyphema  I used ethnicity and cultural insensitivity to build my plot.

Some research may come along easily especially if we write about areas, customs and time periods we are most familiar with. If I wrote about my community, my experiences, my lifestyle and my life in every book, I doubt readers would be fascinated (at least not beyond one story). I have to learn as much as possible about other occupations, religions, areas, cultures and more in order to make my stories real and believable.

How do writers do their research? Most of us delve deeply into the learning process using encyclopedias, the internet (and we know that EVERYTHING we find there is true, lol), read books, and even find tour guides for foreign locations.

When I am researching culture, religion or occupations, I stop random people in my daily activities and ask questions – I’m sure one of these days I’ll probably be arrested for harassment or such. I sometimes even go to experts for answers although I guess I wasn’t thinking too clearly the time I asked a real medical examiner if a particular poison could be detected in an autopsy…

We have muses, we have voices in our heads, and we live in fantasy worlds - but we do try to stay grounded in reality.

Please visit my website for more info about my books http://ChelleCordero.com/

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