The hardest part of writing is making yourself sit down to write.

Of the many first blog post lines I have ever read, I think that yesterday’s Over Easy first line was one of the best:

Yesterday I was up against a wall.

After reading that first line, I had to read the post, because I could not help but wonder what this author was experiencing. Turns out Kris was facing a bit of writer’s block:

Suffering from a bit of writer’s block even. I could not come up with a topic for today’s post that stirred my passion as an activist, a person, a parent… anything. My only semi-solid thought was a post about gun control, but it seems like such a large and complex issue.

By coincidence, I was in the same position over the weekend, so I decided to share a few writing tips that I have learned, and invite others to share as well.

Keep this fun site in mind as well, because it impossible not to learn and enjoy while you visit.

I was in this position because I have been researching my legal case, and writing an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim (11.42 in Kentucky) against my trial lawyer. I was experiencing writer’s block for online essays, because I have been doing formulaic legal writing for the past month.

To get out of the legal writing mindset and return to the fun of writing, I phoned my retired-English-teacher elderly mother over the weekend and asked her to reflect on the worst of the worst that she observed in writing over the years, and with that in mind, share her handful of key writing tips for anyone covering any topics. My mother, Letty Owings, is 88 years old, and here is what she offers:

1. Begin with whatever you begin with.

If you are writing about your recent trip to Hawaii, for example, do not begin with “We decided to go to Hawaii,” because you obviously decided to go to Hawaii or you wouldn’t have gone there! Letty uses the Christmas letter as an example of where one might see unnecessary overstatements of the obvious: “This year has gone by so fast. Here it is Christmas and I don’t have anything ready.” The year obviously went by, or else it wouldn’t be Christmas!

2. Be careful with adverbs.

The adverb “very” is terrible, according to Letty. For effective embellishment, replace the adverb “very” with an adjective. For example, rather than say “very hot,” say “scorching” and leave it at that. Do not be tempted to turn scorching into an adverb by saying “scorching hot,” because the adverb diminishes. Also, anything that ends in an -ly is an adverb that can diminish through unnecessary overstatement and redundancy. For example, a “brutally horrific murder” is a murder, and what murder is nice and polite? Are not all murders horrific? A better way to embellish would be to say, “She was tortured and bludgeoned.”

3.The Dreaded “It”

The dummy subject ‘it,’ followed by the ‘be’ word ‘very’ can kill, especially at a post beginning. While sometimes the only or best word at the time, rather than say: “it was a very horrific scene with marbles in the aisle,” try, “When I ran to an exit, I slipped in marbles and fell on my back.”

4. Omit Omit Omit

As Strunk and White insist in their classic Elements of style, OMIT needless words, making cuts and edits, thus allowing meaning, rather than overwriting. Growing up with my mother, she red-penned my writing and deleted my thesaurus enhanced writing. Oh the shouting, crying, vows never to write again, but rather leave home and submit my sophomoric screeds to caring folks who were, for the most part, more interested in weed that in essays.

What are your favorite first lines, from fiction or nonfiction? I offer two, for hooks that one cannot avoid but reading on:

This is what happened, — “The Mist,” by Stephen King.

or,

We were somewhere around Barstow when the drugs began to kick in. — Hunter S. Thompson

Share your writing tips, secrets, marketing techniques, style, where to get ideas, share some concepts, or anything else bout blogging/ news linking, as well you your experience with writer’s block! Improv/warmup ideas, anything on writing of on any topic, please join!

Also, what first lines last lines are memorable for you?

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The Decorah Eagles

The Decorah Eagles use the Wi-Fi in their auxiliary nest to check in on the Over Easy thread.

Although the Decorah Bald Eagle Livecam is up and running, we may not be able to watch the Decorah pair this season because they have built an auxiliary nest that is outside the camera’s view. “That’s what eagles do,” said Bob Anderson, of the Raptor Resource Project. “They build auxiliary nests.”

They pair will choose one of the nests in the next couple of weeks. More here, where Raptor Resource adds, “We would really like Mom and Dad to use the nest they have occupied for so long, but we cannot and will not interfere if they decide to use the new nest. As we said in an earlier post on intervention, their lives are a gift we have been privileged to share. We can only hope we’ll get another chance in 2013.”

Last season was both joyful and heartbreaking for the Decorah Eagles. The pair, together since 2007 and using a nest 80 feet high near a fish hatchery in Decorah, Iowa, had three chicks last year, D12, D13 and D14. Tragically, D12 and D14 were both electrocuted. The body of the oldest eaglet (D12) was found in July, 2012. D14, the only eaglet fitted with a transmitter was found in November, 2012, when the transmitter showed no movement.

“Unfortunately, a federal study done in the 1990s identified impact injuries, poisoning, gunshot and electrocution as the top four sources of bald eagle mortality,” said Anderson. D14′s body will be sent to the National Eagle Repository, where his feathers and other parts will be distributed for use in Native American religious ceremonies. Eaglet D13′s whereabouts are unknown.

Some efforts to advocate for bird safe power poles and protect eagles and other birds from electrocution:

Raptor Resource Project Blog Bird Safe Power Poles

Avian Power Line Interaction Committee (APLIC)

How Protection Devices Work

Raptor Resource Project Blog (with Annual Report for 2012 and updates for all of the birds)

The Arctic

You may want to come back when you have 15 minutes, and watch this haunting but informative short film, to understand some history about climate change and Geopolitics – North from Studiocanoe on Vimeo:

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Over Easy gets chilly in the Arctic.

Arctic policy rhetoric is changing as the climate changes. Arctic geopolitics involves people and cultures, environment and ecology, zones and laws, agreements and alliances, shipping and industry, climate science, and even a donut hole. What sites can we consult to gain a basic understanding of this broad topic and follow the developments?

Aleksander Schilbach* (bio below) is currently defending a graduate thesis titled The Arctic Asia-Pacific Dimension for the University of Washington, Jackson School of International Studies: Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies Program. He recommends the following basic resources, for information and news about the Arctic region and Arctic (High North) geopolitics:

1. The Arctic Council Website.

The Arctic Council “is a high-level intergovernmental forum to promote cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic States.” This website is a good starting point for getting to know the Arctic indigenous peoples and their languages and cultures, as well as the climates and environment, oceans and biodiversity. Learn about monitoring and conservation programs and anything else of general interest.

There are eight countries in the Arctic Council:

Canada
Denmark (representing also the dependencies of Greenland and Faeroes)
Finland
Iceland
Norway
Russia
Sweden
United States

Five of these member countries have Arctic coastlines: Russia, the United States, Canada, Norway and Denmark (via Greenland).

Two major polar shipping routes are the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route.

Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Chair of the Arctic Council’s call for decisive action to combat climate change by reducing global emissions is here.

2. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. (document also here in full-text)

The Law of the Sea Convention (1982) defines the rights and responsibilities of nations in their use of the world’s oceans, establishing guidelines for businesses, the environment, and the management of marine natural resources. Wiki has the list of countries that have or have not signed this treaty.

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (mentioned yesterday in Fatster’s News Roundup) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.

3. Geopolitics in the High North.

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