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The Slam and Other Outlets for your Poetry Needs (poetry reading) Poetry is an effective display of human life and emotion. Not only are the writer’s feelings about life revealed, the reader is also taken on a journey of meaning and feeling. Poetry is an outlet for writers and readers alike. Each new poem that is written is another chapter in the entire human experience. Since people are looking for meaning within their experiences, poetry draws fans by adding that meaning. Poetry reading can be educational and enjoyable. There are many places and forms that poetry reading can take, so if you are looking for an outlet or inlet of your own, you’ll be sure to find one that will fit your needs perfectly. A Poetry Slam A poetry slam is a gathering of poetry lovers. Each person that attends brings one or several pieces of poetry to read. The poems can be individual work or work that you have come across in your poetry reading. The point is to allow everyone to enjoy poetry that they may have never heard before. As each reader places his own interpretation within his reading, everyone can enjoy the variation in style and sound and meaning that comes out of the experience. There are probably a few poetry slams scheduled in your community already. Check the library or the local college campus for more information. If poetry slams are not already being scheduled, or if they are not frequent enough for your taste, you can start your own. All it takes is a meeting place and some flyers. You’ll probably meet all kinds of people that you enjoy being with at a poetry slam. Going to Class Another place to meet other poetry lovers is in class. If there is a college or university campus near you, join a class. Poetry classes are often scheduled in the evening because of their popularity with those who are not regular students. Poetry reading happens in a couple of different kinds of classes. You can take poetry classes that focus on poetry that has been written through history. Sometimes the classes will focus on a specific group of people or time in history. As the subjects change, you can continue to take the classes and continually come across new poetry that you have not read before. You can also take poetry classes that encourage you to write your own poetry. You will then be able to read your work as well as listen to others’ work. The great thing about poetry classes is that they are set up for discussion. You can discover more meanings in other people’s writing and develop your own with the help of other qualified students as well as your professor. The Impromptu If you are involved in any other kind of poetry reading, you will probably be well immersed in the different forms of poetry. Understanding a few different writers’ perspectives will allow you to involve poetry in your every day life. As you talk to friends and relatives about typical situations that arise, you will be able to bring meaning to many of your conversations through poetry reading. You will probably also develop your own skills of writing and so be able to express yourself effectively when it comes to all kinds of human experiences. Hopefully, at impromptu poetry readings, you’ll be able to inform your friends and relatives as well. Poetry reading opens doors to the heart and the mind. Poetry is a deep expression of emotion and the understanding of life as well as death. Don’t hesitate to broaden your own poetic horizons by experiencing your own poetry and that of others. Try some of the outlets and inlets listed above.

The Makings of a Magazine: Do They Include You? (writing magazine articles) Magazines are everywhere. They are published on nearly every subject you can imagine, in duplicate and triplicate and more. All that a start-up magazine needs is a niche and an audience. While there may be hundreds of cooking magazines out there, a new one could come up if it should cover cooking for your pets. In fact, there may already be such a magazine in existence. The niche is cooking for pets. The audience is those people who want the healthiest foods for their pets and are willing to put the time and effort into making it for them. If you are interested in writing magazine articles, you’ll be sure to find one that is perfectly suited to your interests and abilities as a writer. Because there are so many magazines, it won’t be difficult to find one that you will enjoy becoming a part of. What You Should Know Magazines survive on advertising. The advertisers pay because the content is good enough that readers will invest in the glossy covers again and again. The best way to find a healthy magazine is to look through the racks for thick publications. They will only be full of content if they are full of advertisements. The big magazines can afford to pay their writers more, but they can also afford to pay only the best writers. Even though there is quite a lot of space to fill with content, you may have a hard time getting published in major magazines at first. Smaller magazines do not have quite the readership and so they also do not have quite the advertisement content. The space will be limited and the pay will be lower, but these magazines will be more open to new writing talent nonetheless. The More You Know, the Better When it comes to a writing career, the more you know the better off you will be. It is not hard to figure out that you will have the best chances for publication if you can write on a variety of topics. You should not limit yourself to a small area of expertise. Work to become an expert in every topic you come across. There is no possible way of course to be an expert in every area of human knowledge, but it will help you in writing magazine articles to learn every new piece of information that you can. For example, if you were to send a query to a health and fitness magazine about writing a short piece about general mountain biking tips they may accept it. They may also then request additional information about the pros and cons of using a road bike on mountain trails. If you only know about mountain bikes, you’ll be stuck. If you have worked on broadening your horizons though, you’ll be able to produce the work that the magazine editor requires. Getting On Staff Querying magazines is a way to get published, but if you need a more stable job, you may be interested in getting on staff with a magazine. Writing magazine articles is a talent. If you can consistently bring an editor what he is looking for, you might have a chance. To improve your chances, in addition to writing effectively, it will help to have some significant education behind you. If you are serious about making it to the masthead of your favorite magazine, it’s time to go to school. A degree will help your credibility as a writer and will help you open doors into the magazine publication world. Writing magazine articles takes a special kind of writer. You have to have a feel for what people are interested in reading about. The magazine content will help you understand how to write for a particular magazine and audience. You can also improve your chances of writing accepted articles by improving your knowledge base. Don’t be picky about what you’re willing to learn and you could go very far in the writing business.

Why Time Management Makes for a Better Employee Time management is a major issue in the workplace. When time is not utilized efficiently, it leads to sloppy work, missed deadlines, and way too much stress. Employers are constantly seeking ways to teach their employees to manage their time better for a simple reason – a team that manages its time well is a team that is productive and successful. Everyone has done it. You’ve know that there is a big deadline approaching for weeks on end, and you kept telling yourself that have plenty of time. Then, suddenly, it is the day before the project is due, and you haven’t even begun it. You know you will have to pull an all-nighter, and even then you will be lucky to get everything done in time. Your heart is racing, your head is pounding, and you’re cursing your procrastination yet again, thinking about how much time you wasted surfing the next when you could have been doing a little work on the project every day, so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming. The end result of a project like this is predictable. You may get it in on time, or at least close to the deadline, but your work is likely to be sloppy. The rush job you did will be evident to everyone, and if your project involved making a pitch to a potential customer, your time management failure may end up costing your company big money (and costing you a job). As if you were not stressed enough already! If you contrast that performance with one in which you had effectively managed your time, the difference is clear. If you have worked on the project over the entire time span you had to finish it, a little bit at a time, then you would have had time to make sure your work was up to par. You wouldn’t have been scrambling for last minute information to include, and you could have made sure your work was free from little errors like typos or pages that printed incorrectly. Most importantly, you wouldn’t feel like you needed a week long vacation when the project was over, because your stress level never would have hit the roof. So, how do you become a happier and more effective employee by managing your time better? The first thing you can do to become an effective time manage is simple – write yourself a to-do list everyday. Not only does a to-do list help you think through exactly what you need to accomplish so you don’t forget anything in the rush, but it also helps you feel accountable for everything that needs to get done. If you write “spend 30 minutes on the big project” on your to-do list, it is a lot harder to come up with excuses why you can put it off for another day. Your conscience will make you want to get through everything on that list. If it seems like you never have enough time in the day, keep a journal of all of your activities. If you spend 20 minutes chatting by the coffee pot, write it down. After a week, look back over your activities. You may be surprised how much time you actually spend doing nothing. Now that you know, you can reinvest that time more wisely. The last thing is the hardest thing – getting over procrastination. This one is sheer willpower. When those voices in your head start arguing over whether to work on something now or put it off until later, listen to the work now voice. Give yourself manageable goals, like working on something for 15 minutes or 30 minutes, to get started. Once you experience the freedom from stress that time management brings, that procrastination voice will be a thing of the past.