Roxanne K. Cottell

I have come a long way since writing The Observations of a Demented Housewife.

There are three books in publication - The Observations of a Demented Housewife, Angry: Some Words About the Crap in Your Life, and The Hula Book.  In the works right now are "I, Artemis," "How to be a Good Mom," and another which is a collaboration being brought into existence by my father and I about the lighter side of Alzheimer's Disease.

I have also taken a particular shine to public speaking, eulogy writing and ministering to those who are transitioning from this life into the next. Though there is nothing more that I would love to do at this moment other than teach hula, I cannot, because the truth is that though I am really good at it, I am the best when I am writing something. God grants us only so many things in life that we are allowed to do by nature, but always, we are only granted one specialty that we alone are completely unique in the style that we do this one particular thing. For me that one particular thing is writing.

Check me out on the web...you might actually like what I have to say!!!

These days my writing can be seen in various discussion forums all over the WWW, such as those at clubmom.com , mylot.com
and still in the archives at maliciousbitch.com and bfpmedia.com, respectively.

And if you want to laugh your butt off and see what goes on in my collective brain.

The Observations of a demented housewife

For many years, housewives have been the butt of jokes, the reason that politicians and feminists alike have for just plain old being mean and nasty. If truly we are the bane of many more than only one existence, then apparently we are doing something right, right?

Hey, here's an idea... click on that little button there, and you can buy my danged book! Yay You!!

 

 

Visit The Peace Church

People LOVE to be noticed, especially writer people. Writers, so I have learned, are not the type who care if their hair is perfect, about what gown this or that person wore when they graced the red carpet at the Oscars (okay, so gossip columnists and Joan Rivers do). Real writers, the kind that write for pay, for free, and who write about anything that hits their brain with a creative thought, only care about writing. Yes, we care about becoming a published writer, and we know well that the world is full of wanna-be J.K. Rowlings and Stephen Kings, but we also know that there is always room for just one more wordsmith.

 

I get emails asking about how I got published, how I landed my position with BFP Media Productions, and there are only a few words that come to mind. Two of those words are simple - Hard Work, and I don't mean hard working your lip to tell people that you are a writer. I mean actually sitting down, at the keyboard, typewriter, notepad, and actually writing, about anything, even if it is just one stupid word for the length of the page, over and over again, until your mind can only think of that stupid, stupid word for the next few days.

The writing life is a maddening one at best. There is no glory in it other than that of self-satisfaction at thoughts and opinions articulated clearly to another person. The satisfaction that one gets in producing pieces that were formed with lousy thought is ecstacy for some. We writers have a love-hate relationship with words- we love them when they just sit in our brain, behaving like good children who want ice cream before dinner, but hate them when we need to use them but cannot come up with any other words to surround them with. So is the life of those with a passion for writing and words.

Writing, like hula, has been so a part of my life, for all of my life, that people are taken aback that "the hula teacher writes, too? How'd that happen?"

If you think about it for a minute, then one might understand that hula is poetry in motion, and words spill from my fingertips two ways.

"How do I get published?"

You write. And write, and write and write. Writers have to write in order to sharpen their skills. Writing is not just sitting and stringing words together so that they make sense. Sentences have to flow together and thoughts have to make sense. There are many ways to become a published writer. Many writers have their own weblogs, while others choose to practice their skills in discussion forums all over the web.

In order to be noticed, you have to have a voice. Don't do your best impression of your favorite columnist. Do your best impression of who you are and you will find that there is no better way to know your voice than that. Write how you talk. Stay away from trying to impress people with big, fat words- the majority of the reading world does not use big, fat, intimidating words. If you have to look the word up and no one asked you what the word meant in the first place, you don't need to use it. That's too much work.

Write from the middle of your soul. Tell people about what bugs you and what you can do to make things better for just one person. Give the world the impression that you care, because as writers, we DO care. Don't worry about a title yet, because no one cares if you are an editor except for the kid turning in their work for you to review. I've been that kid, and lemme tell you something- there is nothing scarier than having a stranger look at your work and say "No thanks" than having someone look at your work and say "Heck yeah! When can I expect the rest of it?" It is exciting and wonderful and scary and will make you want to throw up, all at the same time. But is the thing that you long to hear.

And when you do, regardless of pay or not, it will be the thing that you prey upon for the rest of your writing life.

If you would like a critique of your work, please email me.